The recent Air India accident in Mangalore and subsequent strike of Air India Unions asks one question. Do any employee unions can call for a strike when a company is going through bad phase of recovering from the worst accident after two decades? I am not asking the legality of this strike, but asking this question from morality point of view.
All public sectors companies run or take help from tax payer’s money. And over the decades this tax money has been spent in most irresponsible way. When the concept of public sector was conceptualized; it was meant for providing better service to the consumers.
Slowly; after realizing the service level of India Airlines and the uncertainty of its operations; we have started giving up on it and have started joking around. And once Air India used to be national pride and I guess we started looking at more service providing public sector airlines rather than sticking to national pride and it makes sense.
More fundamentally, pubic sector is unable to cope with private sector competition. Air India is now irrelevance as it’s share in passenger traffic keeps dropping over the years. India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) runs second rate gift shop and hotel booking services. Doordarshan is massive embarrassment, which is not even taken seriously by rest of the broadcasting sector. Nobody thinks Doordarshan will ever beat Zee, Colours, or Star Plus, that’s not even an option. We never think of Air India being in the top league of airlines.
In every case, it is massive waste of tax payer’s money which is justified in the name of national pride and social obligations. But is that worth of it?
It appears that there are more politicians involved in this, who have no professional experience in running such businesses. And more ever, such public sector companies appear to run for politicians; who gets benefited in all deals these public sector companies make.
This is shear example of lack of accountability for tax payer’s money.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Emerging and Changing India
Last weekend I had been to Bangalore and Chennai for business trip. Incidentally I had been to these two places exactly nine years back. I went through memory lane after visiting few places; which I used to visit, like Marina beach in Chennai, old office, MG road in Bangalore etc.
In a ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’ style, went to a much happening sports bar in Bangalore and did clubbing. Oh yes, it was a great fun to be there, off course without drinks.
But; I could observe the changes happening in these two cities and that is quite noticeable.
First is the infrastructure: this has dramatically improved compared to my last visit. Roads, plans for metros, office and residential spaces; all seems to have changed. Though traffic has increased in exponential proportionate. Quality of transport has improved; you will get far better connectivity now days. I guess this is true with any city in India now.
Second difference I could see is Hindi. We could communicate with all local people in Bangalore and Chennai, which was a near impossible some time back. Clubbing was full of Hindi songs in Bangalore and never ever faced issues in communicating. I am not making a generalized statement like Hindi is now being accepted; but the point is ability to communicate at least. This might be because faster changing mix of north/south where people are migrating for jobs and education. It’s true with north part as well; we have best south Indian hotels in Chandigarh now who serve authentic south Indian food.
I liked this fact where India is seems to be changing and I am really happy about how economical growth has bought changes to all parts of India. There could be sections of society where this has not reached yet, but this change would reach that section as well. Off course I am not making the statement India is changing only looking at Bangalore and Chennai, I am aware of changes happening in rural India as well.
By end of the day; if a country progresses the individuals progress as well!
In a ‘Karthik Calling Karthik’ style, went to a much happening sports bar in Bangalore and did clubbing. Oh yes, it was a great fun to be there, off course without drinks.
But; I could observe the changes happening in these two cities and that is quite noticeable.
First is the infrastructure: this has dramatically improved compared to my last visit. Roads, plans for metros, office and residential spaces; all seems to have changed. Though traffic has increased in exponential proportionate. Quality of transport has improved; you will get far better connectivity now days. I guess this is true with any city in India now.
Second difference I could see is Hindi. We could communicate with all local people in Bangalore and Chennai, which was a near impossible some time back. Clubbing was full of Hindi songs in Bangalore and never ever faced issues in communicating. I am not making a generalized statement like Hindi is now being accepted; but the point is ability to communicate at least. This might be because faster changing mix of north/south where people are migrating for jobs and education. It’s true with north part as well; we have best south Indian hotels in Chandigarh now who serve authentic south Indian food.
I liked this fact where India is seems to be changing and I am really happy about how economical growth has bought changes to all parts of India. There could be sections of society where this has not reached yet, but this change would reach that section as well. Off course I am not making the statement India is changing only looking at Bangalore and Chennai, I am aware of changes happening in rural India as well.
By end of the day; if a country progresses the individuals progress as well!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Restructuring Indian Post
One of the oldest organizations in India is Indian Post; which is operating since post independent era. The biggest advantage Indian Post has is its reach. Every small village in India has a post office situated at the center place. Over these years, Post has been working in more traditional way of delivering the mails and register posts.
If we try to think beyond the traditional way of delivering the mails and think towards building it as a financial institute which delivers the banking and financial services to the rural Indians through its sheer reach. The economics of Microeconomics can be better accomplished through Indian post. Why can’t we convert post in to Indian Postal Bank?
Post can be converted in to financial services arm where the investment, insurance, debt funds and other financial products can be sold. But it is extremely important to note that these products are being sold to rural India and caution should be exercised while selling them. It’s not easy to sell mutual funds to a farmer!
Indian government releases so many products to rural and semi-urban citizens; why can’t we route them through post? This will ensure that there will be crowd getting pulled in to a post office and build set of products/services to be sold in post. It could be stationary, or greeting card or some on the counter medicine. Just sell what sells!
It needs a drastic change, I know this fact. But, it has to work like a corporate and come up with more diversified offerings according to geography and local conditions.
A drastic thinking is required?
If we try to think beyond the traditional way of delivering the mails and think towards building it as a financial institute which delivers the banking and financial services to the rural Indians through its sheer reach. The economics of Microeconomics can be better accomplished through Indian post. Why can’t we convert post in to Indian Postal Bank?
Post can be converted in to financial services arm where the investment, insurance, debt funds and other financial products can be sold. But it is extremely important to note that these products are being sold to rural India and caution should be exercised while selling them. It’s not easy to sell mutual funds to a farmer!
Indian government releases so many products to rural and semi-urban citizens; why can’t we route them through post? This will ensure that there will be crowd getting pulled in to a post office and build set of products/services to be sold in post. It could be stationary, or greeting card or some on the counter medicine. Just sell what sells!
It needs a drastic change, I know this fact. But, it has to work like a corporate and come up with more diversified offerings according to geography and local conditions.
A drastic thinking is required?
Sunday, May 09, 2010
The HP Way!
One of the turnaround stories I like is of HP. In last 5 years that company has transformed itself in to more profitable company and poised to hit big growth considering the recent acquisition in network and mobile computing space.
Net income during last five years has been up an average 18 percent per annum and raced ahead 25 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
All this is thanks to dramatic cost-cutting, the standardization of large-scale purchases like semiconductors and brutalizing culture of accountability for every penny in and out. This is the culture CEO Mark Hurd has bought in.
HP’s chief has also imposed a ruthless efficiency at the highest level. By packing board and top management with more business type executives than engineers and inventors. He has remade HP more in its own image of people who thrive on dissatisfaction and thirst for expansion. You see it reflected in Aug 2008 $13.9 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems and recent $2.7 billion grab of 3Com, the Chinese networking company.
Size matters in this business. With expansion of computer networks and data customers need a vendor that can manage many aspects of many businesses and help them to run efficient operations. Clients don’t want to deal with dozens of companies anymore. The new titans of the one-stop world include Oracle, which recently added to its database empire, Sun Microsystems maker of computer servers. IBM, the longtime consulting, software and mainframe power house; Cisco systems, now with servers built in to network and alliances with data storage giant EMC and virtualization software maker VMWare.
HP quickly saw the need to get in to services and the EDS deal boosted the much required image change and helped HP to offer software services along with servers. With recent purchase of 3Com, HP will be in to networking and handset business, thus providing complete range of services.
What really motivate me about this is the vision HP had towards making a success out and the way in which they went to implement it. It has been case study to many research papers.
Result of visionary leadership!!
Net income during last five years has been up an average 18 percent per annum and raced ahead 25 percent in the first quarter of 2010.
All this is thanks to dramatic cost-cutting, the standardization of large-scale purchases like semiconductors and brutalizing culture of accountability for every penny in and out. This is the culture CEO Mark Hurd has bought in.
HP’s chief has also imposed a ruthless efficiency at the highest level. By packing board and top management with more business type executives than engineers and inventors. He has remade HP more in its own image of people who thrive on dissatisfaction and thirst for expansion. You see it reflected in Aug 2008 $13.9 billion acquisition of Electronic Data Systems and recent $2.7 billion grab of 3Com, the Chinese networking company.
Size matters in this business. With expansion of computer networks and data customers need a vendor that can manage many aspects of many businesses and help them to run efficient operations. Clients don’t want to deal with dozens of companies anymore. The new titans of the one-stop world include Oracle, which recently added to its database empire, Sun Microsystems maker of computer servers. IBM, the longtime consulting, software and mainframe power house; Cisco systems, now with servers built in to network and alliances with data storage giant EMC and virtualization software maker VMWare.
HP quickly saw the need to get in to services and the EDS deal boosted the much required image change and helped HP to offer software services along with servers. With recent purchase of 3Com, HP will be in to networking and handset business, thus providing complete range of services.
What really motivate me about this is the vision HP had towards making a success out and the way in which they went to implement it. It has been case study to many research papers.
Result of visionary leadership!!
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