Travel, Technology and More…

Bolstered by a healthy economic outlook, the hospitality and tourism industry of Indonesia is booming. ‘I like the Jakarta traffic,’ says 41 year old Karan Berry with a broad smile, ‘as it means that guests have to stay for a minimum of two nights when they come for meetings.’

His mantra on hospitality is inspired by Gandhi: ‘A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.’

‘This is a great industry and has come a long way in Asia, with the growing economy and business travel,’ says Berry, who is very passionate about his work and is a senior hospitality professional, well versed with all operations and functions related to Hotel Management with over 17 years of managerial experience with top hotel brands in India and now here in Indonesia.

Family values are the building blocks of Berry’s management philosophy. ‘A good family life percolates to your work,’ he affirms. His father is his role model and has instilled values such as honesty, mutual respect and empathy, as well as, the importance of balancing family and work. ‘The philosophy that I follow is very simple to be fair, truthful and transparent in my personal and professional relationships,’ add Berry.

For Berry, management is more of an art than a science, and it is essential to have clearly articulated goals. ‘Start with the overall goal and then break it down into what each employee/leader’s responsibilities and roles are. Daily, weekly and monthly actions take time, but when it’s done, all will gain productivity, innovation and engagement,’ he says. ‘It is important to be open to feedback from the team in one-on-one meetings and better understand what motivates each employee/ leader.’ ‘Communication is the key to staff engagement and participation. A continual feedback loop and coaching is implemented to enable associates to reach their full potential. The shared experiences and learning are very impactful and create a sense of pride and satisfaction. Recognition and a rewards system instill in each individual the drive to excel,’ he adds.

 Berry’s keen interest and experience with playing cricket ‘taught me the importance of team work and achieving our potential goals.’ The Marriott ethos ‘if you take great care of your employees, they’ll take good care of the guests and the guests will return again and again’ is in sync with his thinking of leading by example. ‘I have also done baggage service,’ he shares, ‘people respect you if you are knowledgeable and apply your skills effectively.’

Berry manages his time through careful task management and prioritization. ‘Planning is a priority. I schedule daily, weekly and monthly meetings to review the activities, so I can plan, prepare and review accordingly. Learn and trust the tools, like Outlook and Blackberry. I keep one good notebook at a time for all my notes so those important freehand notes can be easily located when they are needed.’

What do the world’s top intimate brands like Victoria’s secret, DKNY, Spanx and others have in common? Many of these are manufactured in Indonesia at Shyam Lal Uttam’s PT Busana Remaja Agracipta (BRA) a top 10 fused garments manufacturer worldwide.

PT Busana Remaja Agracipta was established in 1993 by Uttam in a partnership, specialising in the production of a wide range of underwear and body garments for export markets worldwide such as the USA, Europe and Australia. ‘After 1999 I began directly managing the company on a day to day basis following the economic crisis in Indonesia’ says Uttam.

‘We have grown from US$ 3 million to an over US$ 75 million company with 5000 strong staff and 3000 machines exporting to 16 countries’ says Uttam with a broad smile, an incredible growth by any standards. From his original factory in Tangerang, which is still in production and also his head office, Uttam also has two manufacturing plants in Yogyakarta in Indonesia and has now diversified to a factory in Bangladesh which is managed by his son, Vijay Uttam, a graduate from Wharton.

The company was also a recipient of the prestigious Primaniyarta export award 2013 by the government of Indonesia, and recognizes the constant and ongoing quality consciousness of successful Indonesian exporters who are then role models for other Indonesian exporters. ‘The jury was very impressed by the company’s performance’ narrates Uttam.

‘We successfully compete with China and our success is on account of three key dimensions: Full compliance to buyer needs and all the rules and regulations. Secondly, we have diversified our product range – from intimate wear to sportswear, and finally we are constantly upgrading our technology to foam cup development and bonded garment manufacturing.’ The high quality standards are maintained by the in-house research and design unit at PT BRA.

Uttam believes in honest business practices with adherence to guidelines. He says ‘there are 2 types of people – workers and managers. The managers are empowered to identify issues and find appropriate solutions, whereas workers merely follow directions. It is all about adding value.’

He leads by example with a personal approach and through motivating his staff. He encourages them to be in constant pursuit of excellence with integrity. While he has setup stringent systems and standard operating procedures, Uttam believes in being open minded, pragmatic and being supportive of the his mostly young employees. ‘Success is meeting self made challenges and to excel. I have always dreamed of an organization where the people are self motivated and dedicated and this is what I have created.’

For all young entrepreneurs Uttam’s message is brief ‘Believe in yourself. Do it honestly with no shortcuts.’

The Volunteer Artists Group with the school Principal

The ‘Volunteer Artists Group’ is an informal group of women that got together with an idea to give back. It all started with Pavan Kapoor, a long time resident of Jakarta volunteering at High Desert International Foundation that had headquarters in Jl. Pintu Air. ‘I chose this charity organization as it was close to my home. It was wonderful to teach the children how to do magic with just a piece of yarn with crochet at a school Pulo Gadung area of East Jakarta,’ says Pavan

The school is a dismal structure which stands in the middle of ‘Kampung Sawah.’ This ‘kampung sawah’ is incidentally a small forgotten piece of land by the river, surrounded by gigantic factories Pulo Gadung.

‘During the heavy rains last rainy season reports of how high the flood waters reached inside the school constantly sent shivers down my spine. Every time the thunder rolled, my thoughts went to the school that existed just a hundred meters from the clogged river’ Pavan narrates.

She took up the cause with a few like minded artists and a lot of good hearts to come forward to paint murals on the walls of the Kampung Sawah classrooms. Some of the volunteers had never painted before and just came along to help with whatever they could. They too landed up painting and getting in touch with their artistic inner self. ‘I was initially scared as I had never painted on walls before, but once we got started it was so much fun and we did some good work,’ shared Vijaya Birla

The Happy Schoolkids Wall

‘The children would peek through the doors while we worked and many a time I wanted to interact with them,’ says Sunita. They now plan to volunteer some teaching sessions at the same school and interact with the students.

Tanya Alhuwalia at 22years is the youngest member of the group and is proud to be associated with it, ‘It was so much fun and I actually used my talents to give back.’

‘Most of the members were artists from the existing Indian artists group called ‘Different Strokes of India’’ says Meera Joseph. ‘We planning another exhibition of our works and the proceeds will be used for more charitable causes’, she added.

Once the rains subsided the work started in full swing and the artists could go in with their paints and brushes and let their creative juices finally splat themselves in vibrant hues.As the idea took root the HDI foundation also volunteered to fix the roof, scrape the paint and fix the broken walls.

Jungle Themed Wall

The five classroom walls painted were outstanding and not only did the artists do something meaningful with their talents but also whet their appetite for more giving.

Rishi Vidhyadhar

‘Existence is a fact but living is an art,’ said Rishi Vidhyadhar when I met him at the The Art of Living Center, Jakarta, last week. With his flowing salt and pepper beard, twinkling eyes and smiling face, dressed all in white, he is the epitome of a spiritual guru.
Rishi Vidhyadhar in the universal quest for wealth, health and happiness, has been a successful businessman, aerobics instructor, interior designer and Ayurveda. The first breath he took with awareness at the Art of Living course in 1998, gave him his life’s mission. As he puts it, ‘The feeling of Emptiness gave way to a sense of completeness and fullness the moment I experienced the Sudarshan Kriya‘, the profound breathing technique gifted to the world by Sri Sri RaviShankar. He found ‘the fountain of inner pace and joy. A sense of fulfillment 24×7 – sense of –  and is it and I don’t want anything further’ says Rishi ‘Wealth is essential but is useless without health and happiness.’

The Power of Now with Rishi Vidhyadhar

He found the practice of Sudarshan Kriya transformative and ‘When you find something wonderful, we want to share.’ So began Rishi Vidhyadhar’s journey to teach this amazing technique to bring the fountain of happiness within reach to thousands of people, as a faculty member at Art Of Living organization, founded by Sri Sri with centers in 155 countries around the world.

The mind like a kite flying with our breath

The Sudarshan Kriya is a breathing exercise based on rhythmic breathing that anybody can learn through a course at AOL. As Rishi Vidhyadahar said ‘You only value something if you contribute something to attain it. In this modern day, the most precious thing is time.  It only takes 3 hours a day, for 3 days to learn this technique. In just 9 hours, we learn something so natural and easy, which brings you the profound knowledge of being in the present.’
Every emotion is defined through a different breathing pattern. Anger and fear leads to rapid and shallow breathing, whereas calm and peace leads to deep and long breathing. He used the beautiful and visual analogy of a kite and its string to describe the relationship between the mind and the breath. So when the string is short, the kite falters and is unstable, whereas when the string is long the kite can soar high ‘just like the mind – composed, centered and creative. The world is a beautiful place.’
This breathing practice allows us to be in ‘total awareness’ or being in the present and thereby plugging into the power of now. He explained that most of us are always living in the past, which is ‘dead’ and worrying about the future which merely ‘an imagination of the future in the past,’ and leads to stress.
Rishi Vidhyadhar defined stress ‘as the difference between imagination and reality.’ And further explained that stress needs to be eliminated, not managed. The only way to eliminate this difference between imagination and reality is to be present and accept reality as it is. ‘The self inside us has the power to accept anything and everything if you can get into touch with it. It requires courage to accept reality.’

In Conversation with Rishi Vidhyadhar