R. Chandrasekaran

CHENNAI: In this technology-driven era, will ancient practices hold the key to success? Will Vedas offer cure to the stress that most of mankind undergo today? And will the Vedas provide clues to entrepreneurs and offer them ways and means to move forward in the right direction? Can the Vedas offer growth in business and one’s career?

J. Navnit Krishna

The answer to all these is a firm Yes, if you meet FOLKSCO Technologies Private Limited’s founder entrepreneur J. Navnit Krishna, who started the website Vedic Folks (www.vedicfolks.com).

Krishna, who is yet to turn 35, is not a Vedic scholar, but has astute management skills, earning an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, which has produced prominent personalities like former ICICI Bank CEO and Infosys chairman K.V. Kamath, National Association of Software Services Companies (NASSCOM) president Som Mittal, and the chief economic advisor for Government of India and the IMF’s former chief economist Raghuram Rajan.

Krishna was a Strategy Leader (Deputy General Manager) in IBM’s Global business services section in India. Having worked in one of the top companies in the world, he strongly believes that Vedic integration with management consultancy will yield good results whether it is for individuals or corporate. He strongly thinks that the tools offered by the Vedas are still relevant in modern era and that people should take advantage of it. While some individuals are ready to accept the benefits of ancient scriptures, the corporate world is shy in admitting the benefits as it undermines their management skills, he says.

Krishna started his FOLKSCO  – Friends of Lord Krishna in Service and Consultancy Technologies Private Limited — seven months ago, last August. His motive is to rekindle interest in the age-old, tested and proven Vedas for the benefit of mankind even as the usage of such tools are waning in the technology-dominated world.

In an exclusive interview to The American Bazaar, Krishna talked about Vedic integration with management consultancy, the first of its kind globally. Excerpts from the interview:

What made you start a venture like this?

I have fair knowledge about jyothisha and the importance of Vedas. Having done management course from a renowned B-School and worked in a global company, I thought the relevance of Vedas can be integrated with management consultancy for more benefits to individuals as well as corporate. Working from a global company, I can’t do all these things. Therefore, I have started my own venture with a clear-cut focus on Vedic-related schemes to offer to different sections of the people. The importance of Vedas is slowly losing its importance and that also makes me to revive the interest.

Have you started this as a business venture or social responsibility?

I don’t want to call this as a business venture to make money, though this is a private limited company. In a technology world, people want everything online. Therefore, I am using the technology to reach out to the people and offer them solutions to their problems. That said, I have to keep the technology updated, pay my staff and Vedic scholars. Nothing comes free of cost to us. Therefore, charges are involved in every service we offer. Also, unless the user pays for a service, he or she will not benefit from the solutions we offer. This is also a part of Vedic dharma.

Could you explain more about this?

An individual can approach us with his or her problems for a solution. The issues that are haunting the people are varied. It can be jobless, marriage, growth, protection from enemies and so on. We have our own experts on Vedanga Jyothish based on Vedas. We interpret based on the charts and offer them solutions, which ranges from chanting mantras to doing yagnas.

Apart from this, we also offer Strategy consulting solutions to companies, whether it is HR Strategies, cultural transformation, business strategy or operation strategy. We integrate Vedic tools along with strategy execution. Big issues companies are facing now are failure of strategies and plans. Vedic folks have a solution to make rapid growth and success to the corporate world too.

Who will do the yagnas?

We offer to do the yagnas to our clients, be it individuals or corporate. The clients can be anywhere in the world. For various reasons, individuals are finding it difficult to do yagnas in their homes. So, we have our own temple premises where the yagnas are performed by Vedic scholars. The individuals can see theyagnas through a live broadcast. We also make them to do Sangalpam or pledging, which forms part ofyagnas. This is done through Skype and the individual is free to ask any doubts during the pledging process or before. The pledge forms part of the name and the stars of the individuals, spouse and parents with a prayer for the purpose for which it is done.

The uniqueness in our doing yagna is that the client can choose the day and timing to accommodate the official commitments. Also, we take care of the entire organizing process. They just need to tell us the date, timing and the purposes.

What are the yagnas you are doing?

All the yagnas are performed, be it Ganesa or Navagraha (Nine Planets) or Danvanthri (for curing ailments) or Swayamvara Parvathy (for marriage) or Santhana Gopalan (for pregnancy and child birth) or Sudarsanan (for job promotion) and many more.

Even we can perform powerful yagnas, which was done in Vedic times like Soma yagna, Vajpayee yagnaand much more for corporate and governments to achieve rapid success or getting leadership positions. The period of this bigger yagnas will range between 1 month and 6 months and there are yagnas, which will go for one year too. But this powerful yagnas can be sponsored by big corporate or government for the welfare of the society or for themselves to achieve any bigger goals.

What is the process involved and who can do this?

We split into two categories. One is those who wants us to perform a particular yagna and the other is we suggest to some people to perform particular yagnas. They can be from anywhere in the world and we fix the mutually agreeable timing and date. We also insist that our clients watch the process through our live broadcast.

If the cost of such yagna is more for an individual, do you offer any other options?

Yes. We do understand the financial aspect of the individuals and this service is not restricted to any particular section of the society. We want more people to benefit from the Vedic tools. Therefore, we are offering shared yagnas, where a group of persons can join in our program and benefit. However, the timing schedule is fixed for such a shared program and individuals lose the right to have it to their convenient timing.

What is the success rate of your predictions?

About 90 percent of our predictions are correct. Our clients feel happy and they come back to us with their feedback. They are also referring their friends and relatives to benefit from our services.

How do you plan to integrate Vedic with management consultancy in corporate?

Since I myself is a management person, I am well versed with the requirements of the management. I am also not undermining the management personnel’s capabilities. However, if Vedic tools are used coupled with management intelligence, the results will be much better. For instance, if a company launches a product or service, it can use the tools of Vedic for a greater success. In short, corporate Vedic management consultancy is a value proposition. This involves two different things, one is getting blessing and the other is getting success.

The timing and prakriti (Nature or Surrounding) is a very important factor to bring hundred percent success. The biggest failure of management consulting is failure of strategies and its execution. Vedic folks made it possible to bring success to corporate by making strategy execution and management consulting a hundred percent success with a new offering – Vedic Management Consulting.

Is there any feedback from the corporate?

Though our ultimate focus is corporate, we are concentrating on individuals currently since their success will be transformed into corporate if not today but in the near future. Also, it is premature to comment about corporate feedback since ours is only a 7-month old one. I am ready with offerings and management framework for different offerings in business strategy, operations strategy and HR strategy space. I have tested these frameworks with a medical equipment firm and made them have rapid growth two years before. I can share my experience and presentations if corporate come forward to execute strategies through our business model.

What are the areas that you are targeting in corporate?

We are targeting the overall success of a company. This includes business, marketing, product, HRD, operations and investment strategies, and merger and acquisitions. We will integrate Vedas to the management consulting for greater success. We are confident that this will work, though many of the renowned bodies or agencies follow certain criteria including the jyotisha based decision making process such as auspicious days, they don’t reveal it as it could undermine their efforts. But the reality is that after everything is formalized, everyone looks for a lucky day or timing to make their ambitious projects see the light of the day.

In the technology dominated world, how do you find the relevance of Vedic tools in management consultancy?

Technology is dominating only now. What about our ancient periods? Did they not have success? How did they get success? My opinion is very simple. Even when there was no technology evolution, there was success and one of the primary reasons for the success was the usage of Vedic tools. Technology is an additional or latest tool available to mankind. If the management integrates the technology and the Vedic tools, then the combination is bound to be heady. This is what we are trying to promote to the corporate world. Even the governance of the state or a country can be more effective if the rulers make use of Vedic tools. We have plans for smarter governance implementations to attract goodness and prosperity to the state and for a country.

Can you elaborate further?

For instance, in the olden days, rulers used to get information that its enemy is preparing a war against them. There was not many soldiers to protect a region from every corner. Therefore, the ruler was not in a position to find out from which parts the enemy will strike. One of the tools used by the erstwhile rulers was the usage of Vedic tools, which helped the ruler to know from which side the enemy will strike and they were all prepared to face the challenge. There are many more. Vedic tools are meant for mankind only. Therefore, let’s use them continuously and benefit from the available tools.

Is your client-base from India only or abroad also?

We have clients from abroad too. People from the U.K., U.S., Singapore and Middle East contact us and we provide our solutions.

Is it restricted to any particular religion?

We are not concentrating on religion-centric. Moreover, if you see closely, Vedas are becoming popular outside India. You can recall that Vedic Scholars from India have gone to the U.S. to chant Vedas in the inaugural session of the Congress sometime back. My clients are coming from different religion. We offer our predictions and solutions and the clients feel happy. That’s it. We don’t add the color of religion into what we do.

What is your expansion plan?

We are currently concentrating on Veda and Vedanga integration to individuals and corporate like Jyotisha, yagnas, mantras and related services to yield one hundred percent success. We will soon be launching corporate and government services with offerings using integrations from Upanga, ayurveda, brahmana and Pratishakhya. This apart, we are planning to start a school for Vedas in future. We shall also be having a boutique, handling the items required for Vedas or Vedic management.

Our initiative will be focused only around promoting Vedic scriptures to empower individuals to build a strong Vedic culture to make this world a better place to live in. We believe all the problems in the world will come to an end when this vision of Vedicfolks is envisioned and executed.

Apart from Vedic folks, we will launch vedantastore.com — an online collection of indological, spiritual, self-help and philosophical books; mythable.com — a publishing, gaming and cinematics company, which will focus on creating historical characters and storylines to inspire children and youths to know about our Vedic way of life.

What are you doing for promoting this social initiative?

I am delivering free lectures on different Vedic management topics like stress management, ethical and governance, cultural transformation etc…I am making my visits to colleges free of cost to make sure we build our next generations with solid Vedic background to achieve success and take this legacy to generations to come. All institutions who are interested to organize such a session are free to contact me.