Introduction                                                                                                         (top) 

The BbyB Beacon is an electronic publication to keep the members of Bit by Bit informed about the current affairs of the company. It contains announcements of important events like training programmes, Management Review Meetings, etc.

From this month onwards, we are going to have a column for the "Programmer of the Month".

Contact Information
Any contribution to the newsletter in the form of technical articles, or items of general interest, are welcome. Please send them to pratima@bbyb.com or sreedhar@bbyb.com

From The Editor

Harnessing Talent

Human Resources Management (HRM) which encompassed recruitment, staffing and compensation functions, has over the years permeated to other areas today.

Not only has the role of a HR professional seen a paradigm shift but even the traditional textbook tenets of attracting, retaining and compensating 'talent' are no longer valid since they have undergone an equally dramatic transformation.

Today, HR is no longer driven from the apex downward, but has evolved into a distributed decision-making process and with it spanning all spheres of organisational structure; HR has become that much more seamless in its implementation.

The HR professional's role has changed from a purely transactional one to that of thought leadership wherein the manager creates conditions conducive for not only organisational growth but also individual productivity.

Today, a HR manager has to see how best he can address the stress that these new-age recruits are subjected to as they strive to meet their personal and professional aspirations. A HR manager has to develop necessary mental strength and stability to deal with all the uncertainties he may come across while dealing with new age employees.

A HR manager needs to be empathetic, caring and sensitive to staff's needs. The challenge is in building and deploying available resources. A HR manager has to be an able communicator and be able influence people.

With MNCs coming into the picture, HR managers have become change managers whose area of influence has gone beyond that of local unit. Today's HR managers need to understand the technology, global rules of the game, upscale and integrate themselves while improving quality of people who come aboard. Besides building true business partnership relationships amongst people, today's HR managers must strive to build global HR leaders.

HR has turned into peer to peer relationship where mistakes are forgiven and one learns from others' mistakes.

One cannot expect to anchor 'talent' which has multiple choices before it. Just like water, talent finds its own level where compensation is better. Organisations must not only spot, engage, connect to these talents but provide enough excitement and challenges in order to retain it. Given the global race to woo talent, the differential cost issue is bound to play a pivotal part in retaining 'talent.'

The key challenge is how best to attract, retain and manage talent, offering unique value proposition, enabling, empowering, energising, them to be inventive, imaginative and enterprising. HR is all about identifying the best, investing in them and taking that risk.

Since we are living in an era of uncertainty, enterprises must quickly adopt and change to operate in the new economy. The challenge before HR managers, in this situation, is to enhance competitiveness, change mindsets and paradigms, to grow and perform better. The strategic priority for HR should be to attract, retain and manage talent. In this regard, Talent Managers have a really good market, building leaders and capabilities.

HR managers need to ignite that spark within individuals, identify the potential for leadership, address core issues like a collective, creative entrepreneurial environment within the organisation, cultivate competencies and traits, try to relate, and transform oneself according to the day's demands in order to create business value for the clients.

Other News                                                                                                           (top) 

Best Wishes...

All the members of Bit by Bit Wish Raghu Shenoy and Usha a Very Long and a Happy Married Life

Party on 30th January 2004

A party was hosted by Raghu and Usha on 30th January 2004 at 8 pm to formally invite all at BbyB to their marriage.

Dinner Party on 26th February 2004

Since it is the first time that we had all the three partners of BHP in Bangalore at the same time, we had a dinner party in their honour on the 26th of February at 8.30 pm on the terrace.

Farewell to Santosh Patil

Santosh Patil is joining Kshema Technologies from the first of March 2004. Let's wish him all the success in his new endeavour.

BEST OF LUCK SANTOSH!!

Programmer of the Month                                                                                    (top) 

The 'Programmer of the Month' for February 2004 is Vinod for his work on setting up a secure HTTPS site.

Implementing a Secure SSL/HTTPS on Windows 2000 IIS 5.0

Introduction

The Internet has opened up new ways for organizations to communicate, both internally and externally. Better communication between employees, vendors, and customers enables an organization to cut costs, bring products to market faster, and build stronger customer relationships. This improved communication requires-at times-transmitting sensitive information over the Internet and intranets. It thus becomes imperative to be able to conduct private, tamper-proof communication with known parties. To bring this about, organizations can build a secure infrastructure based on public-key cryptography by using digital certificates with technologies such as Secure Sockets Layers (SSL). This step-by-step guide discusses how to set up SSL on an Information Services (IIS) version 5.0 computer.

Implementing SSL on a Windows 2000 IIS 5.0 Computer.

To activate your Web server's SSL 3.0 security features, you must obtain and install a valid server certificate. Server certificates are digital identifications containing information about your Web server and the organization sponsoring the server's Web content. A server certificate enables users to authenticate your server, check the validity of Web content, and establish a secure connection. The server certificate also contains a public key, which is used in creating a secure connection between the client and server.

The success of a server certificate as a means of identification depends on whether the user trusts the validity of information contained in the certificate. For example, a user logging on to your company's Web site might be hesitant to provide credit card information, despite having viewed the contents of your company's server certificate. This may be especially true if your company is new and not well known.

For this reason, certificates are sometimes issued and endorsed by a mutually trusted, third-party organization, called a certification authority (CA). The certification authority's primary responsibility is confirming the identity of those seeking a certificate, thus ensuring the validity of the identification information contained in the certificate.

Alternatively, depending on your organization's relationship with its Web site users, you can issue your own server certificates. For example, in the case of a large corporate intranet handling employee payroll and benefits information, corporate management may decide to maintain a certificate server, and assume responsibility for validating identification information and issuing server certificates

New Recruits                                                                                                        (top) 

Arun Kumar, holds a diploma in Information Technology from NTTF. He completed his course in 2003. He has been appointed as a Domain Member for ASP.
Alok Narayan, an engineer in Computer Science, completed his course in 1999 from Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering - Bangalore University. He has been appointed as a Domain Member for ASP.

Upcoming Birthday                                                                                                (top)

Shubha and Arun Kumar celebrate their birthdays on 20th February.