Managing talent is high priority in corporations across sectors. Unfortunately, many of them end up burying talent under layers of complex HR manuals, says Marc Effron, author of One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value, and CEO, The Talent Strategy Group. Effron has a no-frills approach to executing talent management solutions: Keep it simple and transparent. During a whirlwind visit to India recently Effron fielded questions from Alokananda Chakraborty and Arunima Mishra on how a company can manage performance effectively and create a talent pipeline. Edited excerpts.

Q&A: Marc Effron, CEO, The Talent Strategy Group

Business Standard

Online retailer Flipkart addresses common consumer concerns through its new television campaign.

No kid stuff

Kerala has been a favourite tourist destination for many in India and abroad, thanks to its beaches, the lush greens, the backwaters, ayurveda... Now add one more offering to the list: shopping, courtesy the Grand Kerala Shopping Festival (GKSF), a government of Kerala initiative.

Kerala tourism: A complete package

The world&rsquo;s 12-th largest handset manufacturer has set a scorching pace in localisation.

Micromax grows up fast

The chocolate market in India is pegged at Rs 2,000 crore and is growing at a rate of 18-20 per cent per annum. The global chocolate market is estimated around $83.2 bn. The industry is extremely fragmented in terms of range of products.

KIT: Chocolate market in India

    This person was a gadgeteer whose biggest break came in the early 1900s when he invented a system to make digging through index cards easier. One of his contributions is vital for all central banks in the world. He also founded a company which is now called Remington Rand. Name him and his invention.

The Strategist Quiz (#220)

Brands go hoarse advertising their &ldquo;cutting-edge&rdquo; technology products, but it does not get us rushing to the stores. Hopeful that the device would get cheaper by the months or the company would release newer versions, models or colours, most buyers opt to wait and watch. Besides a handful of enthusiasts who like to own the gadget as soon as it hits the shelves, most consumers prefer to buy only when they see a value in the device.

Smartest of them all

After the brand war in packaged cereals such as wheat, rice and maize, it&rsquo;s the turn of pulses. While players like Future Group, Reliance Retail and ITC are already in the fray with their branded pulses products, late entrants like the Tata Group are making the competition fiercer.

Branded pulses in bid to make presence felt

    This idea first surfaced in the work of US leadership theorist Warren G Bennis.

Answers to last week&#39s quiz (#219)

Last month was decidedly hectic for N Chandrasekaran, CEO &amp; MD of India&rsquo;s largest IT services provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), who typically spends 20-23 days on the road primarily to meet clients. He was criss-crossing India, trying to meet up with as many of the company&rsquo;s over 200,000 global employees as possible. &ldquo;I spend around 90 minutes in each location. I first show them a 30-minute video about the goings-on in the company, after which I welcome questions.

The human factor

Cloud has the potential to transform the way IT services are delivered.

The silver lining in the Cloud

Users irked with new features, design updates every week.

Facebook facelift faces tough fight 

Indian consumers want the best of both worlds. So focusing only on health may backfire.

Health bhi, taste bhi

For the quick-service chain, growth is not just about adding stores; it&rsquo;s also about optimising existing ones by adding business channels.

McDonald's new growth drivers

Bisleri seems to have had enough of clich&eacute;d images of mountains and springs. In its latest television commercial, the mineral water brand has used humour (&ldquo;save yourself from a monster by offering him Bisleri&rdquo;) to drive home the brand message: stay protected with Bisleri water.

Bisleri's growing thirst for volumes

LG Electronics is hoping it will be second time lucky as far as laptops are concerned. Two years after withdrawing its laptop models from the Indian market, LG is back &ndash; but with a key change in its game plan.

LG plays pricing card for laptops

Sticky wicket

Titan&rsquo;s jewellery brand is scaling up fast to maintain its leadership in the organised segment.

Tanishq spreads the glitter

As Johnny Depp puffs away a cigarette during a long train ride in the 2010 movie &lsquo;The Tourist&rsquo;, he asks Angelina Jolie, &ldquo;Does this bother you? It&rsquo;s electronic. LED.&rdquo; He continues to puff and even pushes the cigarette against his wrist to prove that there is no burn...

Smoke without fire

There are some movies that have been so thoroughly analysed &mdash; in books, academic literature and mainstream media &mdash; that you feel almost silly writing about them. What more can a cineaste of my generation possibly say about Sholay, for example? As the clich&eacute; has it, any true movie-lover has seen it at least 30 times. Most fans know every line by heart. (One of the first audio-cassettes I owned was the two-tape set of the dialogues.) We&rsquo;ve deified the film and in some cases, as our cinematic horizons have broadened, we&rsquo;ve deconstructed and undervalued it. Responses run across a continuum ranging from blind adoration to &ldquo;Huh! Seven Samurai was better.

Sholay: The beginning

The hard work, the glamour and the controversies &mdash; no Everest expedition is without these.

Race to the top

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