KV Rangaswami during the session at the institute on Tuesday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, April 12: Students of Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna today picked up useful tips on management at a lecture session on campus.

K.V. Rangaswami, the president of the construction wing of Larsen & Toubro, and one of the board members, delivered the lecture. Welcoming Rangaswami to the lecture, V. Mukunda Das, the director of Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna said: “It is Rangaswami’s hard work and efforts that has made him successful. Students can benefit from his experiences to a great extent.”

Rangaswami said: “Project management has become very important these days. The 5 Ms — men, money, machines, material and management — are needed to fulfil goals and task. Men are the human resource, while money is the budget that is required to complete a project. The different types of machinery also means a lot in the completion of a project. Management is basically managing all the other four elements.

“In the initial 10 years of entering the corporate world, one should acquire the necessary expertise in technical skills. The next decade should be invested in acquiring managerial skills. The next phase is for acquiring leadership skills where the onus is to develop successors and arrange talks. We need to motivate our successors so that they get maximum opportunities and do not find difficulties in their career,” he added.

Extolling students, Rangaswami said: “Students have a lot of spark in them to form a better society.”

He emphasised that the construction business has a lot of gaps between the optimum and the existing level. He added India and China are two exceptional countries where things are peaking — the gross domestic product is seven to eight per cent — and there are several projects. He stressed that though the economic slowdown in the recent past affected the two countries, the rate did not plunge.

Once Rangaswami concluded his lecture, the students of Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna raised questions on placement, challenges in the corporate sector and other issues.

Students asked about the challenges they would have to face when they enter the corporate sector. One student even asked if Larsen & Toubro would come to the institute for placement. Rangaswami replied in the affirmative.

Garima, one of the students, said: “It was enlightening to hear from a personality like Rangaswami.” Asked what motivated her, Garima quoted Rangaswami and said: “Planning without action is infectious but action without planning is dangerous.”

Manish Verma, another student, said: “Rangaswami emphasised on the importance of time and quality. He said while quality is important, time is more important.” Manish found it motivating when Rangaswami said excellence was a habit and not a compulsion or a routine way of doing things.