KACHARAGADLA

As the CEO of a rapidly growing  fintech company  and a frequent contributor to Forbes, I get asked to do a lot of media interviews. The same questions seem to pop up time and time again, but during a recent interview, I was asked a question I had never encountered before. The interviewer asked, “What was the most important thing you ever learned in school?” I’ve grown so used to delivering the same soundbites that I was caught unprepared. I thought for a moment, and then the obvious answer came to mind. “Ingratiate yourself with people of great wealth,” I replied without hesitation. The interviewer was a bit taken aback because it’s somewhat of a blunt answer. However, the seemingly cynical response was, in fact, the most important thing I ever learned in school. I’m a proud Arizona State University Sun Devil, a graduate of the  W.P. Carey School of Business  with a degree in finance. During my senior year at ASU, I took an upper-level finance course taught by a famous

The iPhone 8 (some claim it will be called the ‘iPhone X’), is going to be the  most radical redesign  of  Apple   AAPL +0.59% ’s smartphone range to date. And now a major source has just revealed its biggest new feature and most painful drawback… Nikkei, the world’s largest financial newspaper, has  reported  that Apple will launch three configurations of iPhone in 2017. Two of these are expected to be incremental updates on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (with iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus branding), and an iPhone 8 with an all new OLED display measuring a massive 5.8-inches. This would mean the iPhone 8 has the largest display of any iPhone ever made and is significantly larger than any current mass market smartphones (though the  Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus will change that ). The good news for those worried the iPhone 8 will be too big is  corroborating reports  say Apple will shrink the top and bottom bezels to make it smaller than the iPhone 7 Plus. The pain poin

Three new Android smartphones unveiled at Mobile World Congress Joined by a colourful reimagining of the Nokia 3310 Globally available in Q2, 2017 Barcelona, Spain – 26 February 2017  – HMD Global, the home of Nokia phones, today unveiled a new generation of Nokia smartphones, setting a new standard in design, quality and user experience throughout the range. The highly anticipated global portfolio features three new smartphones – the new Nokia 6, delivering performance and immersive entertainment in a premium and extremely robust design; Nokia 5, an elegant smartphone that fits perfectly in your hand; and Nokia 3, which delivers an unprecedented quality at an affordable price point. The new range of Nokia smartphones all run Android™ Nougat and offer a pure, secure and up to date experience and will all feature Google Assistant. Today also sees the return of a modern classic – the iconic Nokia 3310, reborn with a modern twist on design. The family of products announced demo

IT Services company HCL Technologies is now looking forward to setting up one of its largest development centres in Andhra Pradesh . This move involves an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore. The company is on the verge of signing an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to build its development centre close to proposed Greenfield capital city Amaravati .  One of the officials confirmed that talks with  HCL  Technologies are at an advanced stage. "This will be the first large investment by an IT giant to help Chandrababu Naidu's dream to recreate Cyberabad in residual Andhra Pradesh," he said.  "Talks have been on for a while, but there is no official confirmation or sign-off yet," said a person aware of the discussions. The proposed development centre, one of the largest facilities of HCL Technologies globally, will come up on over 30 acres of land near Amaravati in two phases, where the first phase will take off in a year or so,"

The world tends toward continuums. We order everything from temperature (cold to hot, with tepid in the middle) to wealth (poor to comfortable to rich). Continuity along a linear line, like the inexorable laws of hydrodynamics, helps to capture and comprehend the complexities of science and society, and offers the promise of progress and growth. It’s tempting to think leadership also follows a continuum, one anchored by bad and great, with good somewhere in between. This deeply rooted belief reassures us that leadership follows a predictable pattern, and that through hard work and experience one can progress along the drawn line. That anyone can develop as a leader is not in question. What I dispute is the stubborn resolve that great and good are points along the same stream. That just isn’t so. Great leadership and good leadership have distinctly different characteristics and paths. Leadership is not one-dimensional. It can be great and good, or one but not the other, or neith

Companies in all industries eventually see their revenue growth slow. Retailers are no exception. Fickle consumers, intense competition, changing markets, and the rapid encroachment of online retailing all combine to exert pressure on the top line. The retail graveyard is filled with chains such as Circuit City, Austin Reed, Linens ’n Things, Loehmann’s, British Home Stores, RadioShack, and the Sports Authority—that expanded rapidly and then, faced with declining growth, couldn’t find ways to change course. What should a retailer do when growth slows? Is it doomed, or is there a way to prosper when its business matures? To answer these questions, we examined the financial data of 37 U.S. retailers with recent sales of at least $1 billion whose top-line annual growth rate had slowed to single digits. Some of these retailers had seen their bottom lines fall even faster than their top lines; others had achieved double-digit earnings growth and above-average stock market returns. Our