The monk who got his bike!

First of all, I am not a monk, but I guess I am heavily influenced by Robin Sharma!!

Second, I got a bike as gift and have started riding it (like pro???). I got this dream of biking after I read Lance Armstrong’s biography and got the required push/motivation in time.

Let me tell you, it’s a great oxygen pusher, which pumps in lot of O2 in to your system and riding that little machine in the morning is a divine experience.

It’s little different than brisk walking, which I am used to. It’s much tiring comparatively and needs constant focus on the road in order to mitigate the risk of rash driving of others.

But, it brings in lot of energy and cheerfulness due to high oxygen intake.

And I am liking it…

Business trips and the time spent in reading.

Busines trips and the solitude time on the plane and airports gives lot of time to catch up on reading.

During my last business trip, i finished reading three books, in planes; between sleeps, on trams, on buses, cabs and in airports.

“The Secret Letters of the Monk who sold his Ferrari”

Jonathan Landry is a man in trouble. After a bizarre encounter with his lost cousin Julian Mantle'a former high-powered courtroom lawyer who suddenly vanished into the Himalayas.Jonathan is compelled to travel across the planet to collect the life-saving letters that carry the extraordinary secrets that Julian discovered.

On a remarkable journey that includes visits to the sensual tango halls of Buenos Aires, the haunting catacombs of Paris, the gleaming towers of Shanghai and the breathtakingly beautiful Taj Mahal in India, The Secret Letters of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari reveals astounding insights on reclaiming your personal power, being true to yourself and fearlessly living your dreams."

“The Leadership Code”

What is the leadership?

It's a question that has been tackled by thousands. In fact there are literally tens of thousands of leadership studies, theories, frameworks, models, and recommended best practices. But where are the clear, simple answers we need for our daily work lives? Are there any?

Dave Ulrich, Norm Smallwood, and Kate Sweetman set out to answer these questions--to crack the code of leadership. Drawing on decades of research experience, the authors conducted extensive interviews with a variety of respected CEOs, academics, experienced executives, and seasoned consultants -- and heard the same five essentials repeated again and again. These five rules became The Leadership Code.

In The Leadership Code, the authors break down great leadership into day-to-day actions, so that you know what to do Monday morning. Crack the leadership code--and take your leadership to the next level

“Unusual People Do Things Differently”

Unusual people are ordinary people who strive hard to do extraordinary things. They are sensitive to nuances, look to provide lateral solutions, dare to think out of the box, and often end up changing the rules of the game.

T.G.C. Prasad presents the views and experiences of sixty-five individuals, from well-known names like Mike Lawrie, Azim Premji and Mother Teresa to a chef, a masseuse and a service boy, with whom he has had meaningful interactions and who have inspired him. He includes people from a broad professional spectrum; CEOs, doctors, the director general of police, realtors, an attorney, a chartered accountant, a consultant and a sports coach are among those who make his list. Singling out a dominant factor from each person’s story, he outlines the journeys these people undertook and the behaviours they exhibited, and shows how these link up to the results they achieved.

Differentiate in the market place

Differentiation is the essence of strategy, the prime source of competitive advantage. You earn money not just by performing a valuable task but by being different from your competitors in a manner that lets you serve your core customers better and more profitably

The sharper your differentiation, the greater your advantage. Consider Tetra Pak, a company that in 2010 sold more than 150 billion packages in 170 markets around the world. Tetra Pak’s carton packages extend the shelf life of products and eliminate the need for refrigeration. The shapes they take—squares and pyramids, for example—stack more efficiently in trucks and on shelves than most cans or bottles. The packaging machines that use the company’s unique laminated material lend themselves to high-volume dairy operations. These three features set Tetra Pak well apart from its competitors and allow it to produce a package that more than compensates for its cost.

All successful companies have this kind of well-defined and easily understood differentiation at the center of their strategy. Nike’s differentiation resides in the power of its brand, the company’s relationships with top athletes, and its signature performance-focused product design. Singapore Air’s differentiation comes from its unique ways of providing premium service at a reasonable cost on long-haul business flights. Apple’s differentiation consists of deep capabilities in writing easy-to-use software, the integrated iTunes system, and a simplicity of design and product lines.

You can find high performers like these in most industries. The cold truth about hot markets is this: Over the long run, a company’s strategic differentiation and execution matter far more to its performance.

But differentiation tends to wear with age, and not just because competitors try hard to undermine or replicate it. Often the real problem is internal: The growth generated by successful differentiation begets complexity, and a complex company tends to forget what it’s good at. Products proliferate. Acquisitions take it far from its core. Frontline employees, more and more distant from the CEO’s office, lose their sense of the company’s strategic priorities. A lack of consistency kills economies of scale and retards the company’s ability to learn.

The entire last week was spent in sales reviews, forecast meetings and building a new business model for a new market, where the thought process was to differentiate in the market place.

The outcome of that thought process is this article...

The TCS Story ... and Beyond : Review

When a man who has headed an organisation – and it happens to be India’s largest IT services provider – for 13 years writes a book, you feel compelled to read it to gain a better understanding of leadership and management strategies. The TCS Story ... and Beyond by S Ramadorai does not disappoint in this regard. Ramadorai, who was with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for 40 years, has not only given an account of his personal journey and the strategy that TCS adopted but also provided a deep insight into the Indian IT industry, and the beginnings of the offshoring model that has made India’s software exports an over $60-billion industry, and TCS an over $8-billion company.

The TCS story is one of modern India’s great success stories. In this fascinating book, S. Ramadorai, one of the country’s most respected business leaders, recounts the steps to that extraordinary success. The inside story of one of India’s premier corporate institutions, this is also in part a history of the rapidly developing IT software and services industry in India, told from the perspective of an industry leader.

Ramadorai highlights how the Y2K problem created an enormous opportunity for the entire Indian IT industry to expand its client base. He explains how the company went about its vision of becoming a multi-billion dollar firm. In 2003, for instance, around 90 per cent of TCS’ revenues came from IT services. So the TCS core team drew a single bubble and added the text “IT Solutions and Services” on a PowerPoint slide. Five more bubbles followed on the PowerPoint slide: Global Consulting, Engineering and Industrial Services, Asset-based Offerings, Infrastructure Services and IT-enabled Services (or BPO). There we were with six neat bubbles on a PowerPoint slide. “We declared we would grow each of these into a $1 billion plus business,” Ramadorai writes.

Ramadorai also gives an interesting insight into the manpower angle, which is now the strength of the Indian IT industry. Today, TCS has over 200,000 employees (including subsidiaries). And in recent years, excluding the 2008-10 downturn, TCS has recruited about 30,000 people each year. “I am often asked how the induction and training of such a large number of new recruits happens. This is a skill that TCS has mastered, developing a very well-oiled system that transforms young adults into confident and competent professionals ready for a global career,” he writes.

Towards the end of the book Ramadorai has put in his thoughts on education in India and how vocational training has to be brought in and strengthened as that would open up more avenues of employment for the students passing out of the numerous schools and colleges. It would give a different means to livelihood to the millions who today strive to find a job and then try to find satisfaction with whatever job comes their way rather than being able to select a job as per their abilities and likes.

Behind the phenomenon called TCS lies a quest for excellence and an attention to detail—captured in the company’s motto ‘Experience Certainty’—that can benefit any organization. There is a great deal to be learnt from the TCS example, and Ramadorai outlines a vision for the future where the quality initiatives he undertook can be applied to a larger national framework. This is a book that every Indian who is committed to building a better and more productive future must read.

It's Not about the Bike

It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life is an inspiring story of Lance Armstrong, great US athlete, who won Tour De France seven times in a row and more importantly came back from cancer to compete.

I just finished reading this book.

'I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at seventy-five miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my wife and ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire: the perfect contradiction to my once anticipated poignant early demise. A slow death is not for me. I don't do anything slow, not even breathe.'

This talks about mettle of a winning professional, individual and character of a person who can think about winning from his cancer bed, think about winning Tour even when there were no sponsor to take him.

In 1996 twenty-four-year-old Lance Armstrong was ranked the number one cyclist in the world. But that October the Golden Boy of American cycling was sidelined by advanced testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. His chance for recovery was as low as twenty per cent. Armstrong embarked on the most aggressive form of chemotherapy available and underwent surgery - including brain surgery - to remove cancer that the treatments could not reach.

Five months after his diagnosis he resumed training under a cloud of uncertainty. Armstrong returned to competitive cycle racing in 1998 when the United States Postal Service team invited him to join them, and from there he trained himself to victory in the 86th Tour de France in 1999.

Although scarred physically and emotionally, Lance Armstrong considered his cancer a 'wake-up call', one that crystallized for him the blessings of good health, family, friends and marriage

This is the story of a journey, from inauspicious beginnings through triumph, tragedy, transformation and transcendence. Filled with the physical, emotional and spiritual details of his recovery, It's Not About the Bike traces the remarkable journey of this great athlete to a singularly inspiring appreciation of life lived to the fullest.

This booked taught me one thing, never never give up. You can overcome obstacles in life though dedication, determination and hard work.

Salute to Lance, for fighting against all odds and showing a path !

Habit of winning

The habit of winning makes a difference and with which most of the business or the teams go for a kill!

When you take a hard look at India’s debacle in England you find that there are echoes of it in the world of business. Three companies in the last month — Yahoo, Apple and Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry) — considered giants at one point, are in the news because there are questions if they can continue to be major players in their businesses. Yahoo, because in spite of multiple CEO changes it hasn’t been able to break out of its rut for the past five years; Apple, because Steve Jobs has stepped down as CEO and Research in Motion because it’s fallen way behind Apple and Samsung in the Smartphone race.

Great teams do not surrender meekly. Look at Sony. The Japanese electronics giant had suffered a series of failures in the first half of the decade before it entered the high definition optical disc format war where its Blu-ray disc went up against HD DVD from Toshiba. The war could have been the death knell for Sony but the company triumphed. It came back from the brink when Toshiba admitted defeat and launched its own version of Blu-ray in 2008.

Some teams seem to get in to constant winning, for longer time. So does the business. There is lot of similarity how a sports team or business team work. It’s extremely important to have the momentum of winning going. Because, as winning is habit, so does loosing.

There are several factors that make a high performance team. If you change any one of them, the equilibrium of the team will change and it might take a shift in team dynamics to make it work again. The role of coach is to give the vision to the team, to give the direction to win, to build the habit of winning. Like a coach, a CEO or a head of function need to build this culture of winning.

Technically speaking, coach or CEO, are not part of the playing team (operational team); but their contribution is in building high performance teams, building the team which continue performing and producing results for long haul. A coach or CEO can’t be man of the match, but they produce match winners.

They stand at background and build the culture. That is what a great leadership is all about.

Someone asked me about role of change in coach of India cricket team in team’s debacle in England.

Time to think how Gary Kirsten managed to build that habit of winning?

The Spirit of Marathon

While returning back from Oslo this weekend, I watched a movie, ’The Spirit of Marathon’; it’s a documentary on marathon and runners.

It was very inspiring and motivating.

It’s a feel-good documentary that follows the lives and training plans of 6 runners and ultimately culminates with their running of the Chicago Marathon. It includes elite runners Daniel Njenga and Deena Kastor along with 4 other runners of varying backgrounds and performance levels.

I really enjoyed the insight to the various training philosophies and motivating factors of each of these runners. Getting that open and honest glimpse of what it takes to train for and run 26.2 miles from a diverse group was awe-inspiring. The movie allowed you to get to know the runners as they shared their lives and 4 months of training. From a single-parent trying to get her life back on track to a 70-year-old marathon veteran…this movie inspires everyone as we all can relate to some of their hurdles, feelings, and challenges as they prepare for and run the marathon.

This movie is more than a documentary about distance running, it’s a well-woven tapestry of inspiring stories with motivational music and athlete background clips that has you literally cheering for the athletes in their ultimate marathon race. Despite not knowing the outcome of the race (2005 Chicago Marathon), I still found myself on the edge of my plane seat cheering for Deena & Daniel as they kicked in that last 0.2!

For anyone that’s run a marathon, considering a marathon, or wants to understand the marathoner in their life…watch Spirit of the Marathon. Watching the training, injuries, personal triumph, and successes of these runners will have runners and non-runners, alike, thinking about signing up for the next marathon.

For those who don’t want to run marathon, still good see, you will for sure start running!

Happy Running!!

Never, Never, Never give up!

Founder CEO or Professional CEO?

The founder CEO of my last organization, Manu Parpia, when he decided to pass the operational control to a professionally hired CEO; mentioned to his close circle that after a certain time founders need to step back and give control to a professional CEO and see he/she builds it to a great height.

Manu is back as CEO of Geometric after gap of four years, this is different story.

But, the point we need to draw is founder CEO or professional CEO.
It’s very difficult to take one side in this argument. We have seen cases, like Infosys where the founder team continue taking the charge, Wipro saw Pramji back in to helm after short time of non-founder CEO. At global level Google saw this kind of transition.

But, there are several example in medium enterprise segment, where professionally hired CEOs made it big and taken the organization in to a newer height.

As I wrote earlier, it’s very difficult to assume one way is best or the other. Founder CEO Model seems to work as one person or group of people seems to have control on the course of the strategy of the company, the direction it needs to take. (Though board decides it finally). It has disadvantages as well in not able to get out of the mold and scale to new heights. It will lack bigger ideas or broader market experience to position the company.

On the other hand, professional CEO would need lot of time to understand the organization culture and its strengths/weakness. Understanding the current problems and then creating a strategy to provide value to customers will be a huge task to manage.

Building the organization and managing the business and stakeholder’s expectation should be primary focus of the company.

If customer/business growth becomes the center of any company, it will have bright future.

Currently we are going through some organization changes in my company and these are the thoughts came to my mind looking at current state of merger and takeover.

Stockholm thoughts….

In Stockholm today; after too much of waiting at airports, first in Delhi and then in Frankfurt. Tired!

I have been thinking ever since I started from India, why I am traveling? :)

Why this feeling? Is it because of emotional rollercoaster? Or just, plain physically tired? Or it is really there is no business involved?

No, third can’t be true, I have about three and half dozen meetings lined up in next two weeks and very important decisions to be made; so there is a need for this travel.

So, it’s either one of the two remaining.

I was watching a demo robot in Frankfurt airport; sometimes it’s better to be a robot, emotionless!! But, reality is you are not a robot.

And you can’t be one either….

The light of life….Deepavu ninnade

One of my favorite all time kannada song, which captures the complexity of life is from Mysore Mallige album. It made me to think that poet has captured the essence of life so nicely;

Whenever I listen to this song-am mesmerized- it’s so thought provoking, takes me into another world – forget myself and the surrounding. Life is so uncertain, everything is the divine play of the supreme lord….the song says the same:

Deepavu Ninnade gaLiyu ninnade, aaradirali beLaku
kaDalu ninnade, haDagu ninnade muNugadirali badaku……..

‘Everything is yours- the light, air, water……do not put off the light of life- the shore/bank (as in river)belong to You oh god, so does the boat in which we sail-do not let the life drown/get washed away’

BeTTavu ninnade, bayalu ninnade, habbi nagali preeti
neLalu bisilu yellavu ninnave irali ekareeti

The mountains and the plains are yours; let love blossom(the poet means to say let there be vegetation/there ought not be a draught)
The sunny days and rainy are yours -measure them on a same scale

Alle ondu siDilu iigondu mugilu,ninage alankara
alle ondu hakki, ille ondu muguLu ninage namaskara
kaDalu ninnade,haDagu ninnade muLugadirali baduku….

The roaring thunder and the rain clouds adorn you like jewels; the birds and smiling faces sing thy praise…..don’t let the boat of life to be drowned

Alli raNa dundubhi illi ondu veeNe ninna pratidwani,
aa mahakavya, ii bhavageete ninna padadhwani
deepavu ninnade, gaLiyu ninnade aaradirali beLaku
kaDalu ninnade, haDagu ninnade muNugadirali badaku……..

Amidst the war cries, I string the melodious Veena which is your very voice; Epics have been written in your praise, I’m singing a song for you which I regard it as a foot-step to realize you……you are the light and wind too ; let not the light of my life extinguish, let the shore of my life along with the boat in which I sail by your support; not wash away/drown.

These are reflections of a thoughtful Sunday morning…

’Main Khelega’

December 1989, Sialkot, Pakistan. It was fourth test match between India and Pakistan. And it happens to be fourth test of Sachin Tendulkar’s career.

Making debut at Sixteen, Sachin was seen as a precocious talent. However, several young stars had sparkled briefly in India’s cricketing sky and almost suddenly faded away as fast as they appeared.

The series was tied 0-0 after three tests. Despite conceding lead of 65 runs in first innings, Pakistan hit back through blistering spells from Wasim Akram and Waqar Yonus reducing India to 38 for 4 wickets. Experienced pros like Shrikanth, Manjrekar, Shastri and Azarauddin were back to pavilion. In walked Sachin, to join Sidhu.

Waqar bowled a nasty bouncer that went smack on Sachin’s nose. The poor sixteen year old was badly hit and his nose was bleeding so profusely that every one watching the match started feeling bad about this brutality.

As Indian team physiotherapist rushed to offer first-aid and Pakistan gathered to check out the bloody sight, where Sachin was shaken and was still bleeding. As the physio tried to stop the bleeding Sidhu suggested Sachin that he should retire hurt and come out later. That would give him some time to get his nose fixed. Even physio suggested him to get back to pavilion.

‘Main Khelega’ said Sachin, I will play!

A star was born. Those two words verbalized the fierce determination of a young man who was not going to quit.

Sachin could have gone into the relative comfort of the dressing room but he didn’t. The heat was on, India was in trouble. The pace attack had its tail up, the blood was staining his gloves, his shirt, his face, his spirit. But the kid would have none of it, Main Khelega, that’s it.

Sachin went on to score 57 runs and shared in a match-saving 101 run partnership with Sidhu. With two words- main khelega- talent transformed in to genius in Sialkot.

It’s always like that, what separates champions from mere mortals is not just talent, its attitude. Its mental strength, its willingness to fight when chips are down, its Main Khelega spirit. The spirit which keeps team’s need ahead of one’s own interest.

There are many times in our lives when the pressure mounts and we feel like throwing in the towel and calling it quits. That is just the time when we need to raise our hands and be counted. Time to say Main khelega…

Some years down, long after the little master blaster has retired, when we tell our grandchildren about the batting legend, we should remember to tell them and teach them, those two magical words that defined the spirit of the champion and which translates talent in to performance.

Time to say, Main Khelega…

Training ground of global bosses

Recent addition to Time magazine has an interesting article on what factors account for the rise and rise of India-trained business minds, be it Vikram Pandit of CitiGroup, Ajay Banga or MasterCard, Indira Nooyi of PepsiCo, Nikesh Arora of Google or Ajit Jain of Berkshire Hathway.

Competitive and complex, India has evolved from a poorly run, centrally controlled economy into the perfect playground in which to grow a 21st century CEO. Indians think in English and we are used to multinational in our country. Indians are very adaptive and are supremely confident. The subcontinent has been global from centuries, having endured and absorbed waves of foreign colonizers, from the Mughals to Britishers. So, an Indian executive is raised in a multiethnic, multifaith and multilingual society, one nearly as diverse as the modern global market place. This kind of upbringing plays a huge role in shaping a global mindset.

India’s economic liberalization which began in 1991 was another blessing for this generation of executives. It gave them exposure to a young and fast-growing consumer market. The global competition due to globalization unleashed greater level of competition not only with international players but also with very competitive home grown players. This prepared the young executives to face the global competition and come out with the winning combination.

One of Indian manager’s great advantage is their native disadvantage: they have learned their skills in a country with huge aspirations but often faulty infrastructure. This Indian managers suit tough times, accustomed as they are to making complex systems work, even with finite resources. For Indians navigating uncertainties is an art, not a source of complaint. We have the training to deal with complexities. Growing up in a country where resources are often tight forces you to blow through the constraints and find the answer.

Indian executives tend to pay more attention to the bottom of the pyramid, or the lower-middle class as most part of the country lives around that income bracket. For any emerging market this market segment adds lot of value to the business. And understanding of that business area prepares the Indian executive for a global job really well.

Overall, the current competitive business environment in India is preparing young executives to take up more challenging top management jobs across the globe. This is a very good trend.

Workplace Social Networking

As social networking is catching up being essential part of our day-to-day lives, it’s apparent as how corporate sector is trying to make use of social networking to keep in touch with customers, employees and prospects.

Jive software, though hardly a household name, it is catching up on its social-flavored web collaboration as what Facebook has done to our social networking.

Jive has about 3000 customers, including Nike, HP, Cisco and SAP. Its software is in use by 15 million employees to sync on projects with co-workers, vendors and customers. It offers blogs, user profiles, Twitter like status updates, Wiki-like document sharing and a ‘what matters’ news feed of all the people and projects you are following. People can also share and tag pictures, video and other contents.

So, how Jive is different than Facebook?

Its ability to work like an Enterprise Social Network software is what makes Jive more standout when comes to cluttered social networking area. It does much more than Linkedin (Linkedin’s revenue model is different and it aims at targeting recruitment process and provides leads for hiring process) and provides enterprise look to Facebook/Twitter.

Jive is not without competition, Microsoft and IBM have software collaboration tools which have more or less with same features.

But for now Jive has first mover advantage and is doing well.

A day spent in thoughts!!

I took couple of training sessions last week; it took me out of present tense and one day of weekend spent in the thought process and old memories.

By and large, ours is a teacher’s family, most of my relatives/cousins are teachers, lecturers or in education department.

I myself was taking tuition classes during my graduation to support myself and my engineering expenses. I like this profession a lot and have a normal tendency to be associated with students.

I kept on thinking, what I would have been if I were not in to this software industry. I bet you, I would have been a teacher or lecturer. I can’t think of any other profession!

But, life is a trajectory which always surprises you and takes turn when you think I took control of it. Sum of all the consequences is what we finally end up being.

Everything is a predestined in life, whatever supposed to happen will happen, and only that happens which is supposed to happen!

What is life?

What is life after all?

It’s about 100 grams of toddler, 300 grams of childhood, another 300 grams of youth, 200 grams of maturity, 150 grams of old age?

It is about very few liters of happiness, few liters of sadness, few liters of disappointment, half liter achievement, few milliliters of success, and few liters of fight to achieve few milliliters of success?

Krishna says in Bhagavad-Gita: it is not possible to understand life as whole; we can only understand a part of it.

So, why try understanding it? Let it be complex!!

Agriculture Growth of India: Do it like Gujarat

In the 60 years since independence Indian agriculture has recorded an average growth rate of 2.7 percent. In last 30 years the rate has been slightly more than 3 percent, well below the target of 4 percent.

It is striking that the agriculture in seven sizable states (Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa) grew faster than four percent between 2000-01 and 2007-08. The star performer is Gujarat clocking eight percent, nearly triple the national average.

IIM Ahmadabad professor Ravindra Dholakia studied the trajectory of this growth. Broadly speaking Prof Dholakia lists six factors which helped Gujarat to grow faster:
• A sustained program of water conservation and management.
• A massive and well-coordinated extension effort
• A successful overhaul of rural electricity distribution
• A strong emphasis non-food crops like horticulture
• Sustained and comprehensive support to livestock development
• Major revamping of agriculture supporting infrastructure, including roads, electricity and ports.

This case study talks in detail about each and every initiative Gujarat government took in order to improve the agriculture output.

What is really striking is, a semi-irrigated state, where major part land is desert and land is not real fertile compared to few other states; it is really exceptional that the state government has done a complete overhaul of the situation.

It’s also important to note, Gujarat is also ahead in industry development, export business and it has developed itself as a transportation hub. It should be a good case study to other states; a sheer determination of the leadership can really change a state.

I see a big lesson of leadership and vision in this case.

Google+

The battle for the eyeballs of social media network users is intensifying, with Google launching a demo version of 'Google+' (called Google Plus), the search engine giant's renewed attempt to take on Facebook in the social networking arena.

While designing the new service, Google has kept in mind social circles, called plus circles, and a Twitter-inspired feature that resembles real-life social interactions. It allows users to selectively share information with specific groups within defined circles, rather than sharing it with all their social connections at once. One can create as many circles as one wishes to, for whatever categories one wants, adding friends and contacts simply by clicking and dragging names onto various circles.

Google is also featuring a web conferencing option, in which up to 10 people can join in simultaneously. A feature called Sparks would provide users with web content on various topics like sports or fashion, allowing the user to subscribe to categories of interest, create custom categories, and share content with friends. Google would also release Google Plus mobile apps for Android smartphones and iPhones. This would include special features like cloud-based photo storage and group messaging. With its instant upload feature, one's photos and videos automatically upload themselves to a private album on Google+. Its 'Huddle' feature turns different conversations into a group chat.

When Google launched Gmail seven years ago, people went crazy to get an invitation from peers. Though, at that time web based email service was common. In every blog and every forum, people were requesting an invitation. Now, the same is happening with Google+. It’s natural for people to get attracted to it, as it’s open only to a select few. It’s becoming like status: Hey, I have a G+ account. Some are even selling G+ invites on eBay for $0.99,

Google+ offers a huge benefit over Facebook, where everything you say is to everybody. On Google+, it’s easier to build groups or circles of different people, say family, colleagues, alumni and such, and only share content with the group you want to share it with. Google+ is a loosely stitched-together-version of existing Google services like Picasa, blogger and some influenced by Facebook. For instance, Google+’s Stream is Facebook’s News Feed, and the +1 button is an open imitation of the Facebook Like button. And + has a great usability and much more user friendly compared to any social networking site.

I am only few hours on to it, but already started liking Google+ !

CEO Material

Just finished reading a book titled ’The Corner Office: How TOP CEOs made it and how you can too’. What this books emphasis is on fixed traits all successful CEOs possesses.

The author, Adam Bryant, reveals the keys to success in the business world, including the five essential personal traits that all high performers exhibit, qualities that the CEOs themselves value most and that separate the rising stars from their colleagues. He also demystifies the art of leadership and shows how executives at the top of their game get the most out of others.

What really surprises me is about all CEOs having some listed (Pre-defined?) qualities: is this what we call ‘CEO Material’? Some are natural qualities and some can be attained through mentoring, but the list is more or less similar for all CEOs, no matter which part of the globe they are from.

This book is an effort of author, where he sat down with more than 70 global CEOs and asking them how they do their jobs and the most important lessons they had learned as they rose through the ranks. Over the course of this book, they all shared memorable stories and eye-opening insights.

It’s a good book, which tells you so many details about leadership and how to build the most important personal qualities.

Ironically, the next book I put my hands on to is ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari (Second read now!). One book talks about attaining the name and fame, the other one talk about giving up everything and walk towards eternal bliss. Both are contradictory subjects!

But, life is all about having such contrasts…

My Autograph!

Nopes, I am not writing my autograph as yet; this is the name of a Kannada movie I watched on TV today.

It’s about a guy, looking back at his life and picking up few instances since his childhood. He takes his marriage as an instance to invite all his old friends.

The beauty of this movie is about how he picks up so obvious things like village primary school incidents, how he transforms in to a town high-school kid and then to collage and his job and colleagues. The pains, the obvious confusions one goes through, ability to sustain failures; it has been built up very nicely.

I will be dishonest if I say I was not nostalgic for few hours after watching this movie!

Business of Collaboration

The coming together of arch rivals Subhash Chandra’s Zee entertainment and Rupert Murdoch’s STAR India to create a distribution company will have lasting impact on the TV distribution landscape. The joint venture called Media Pro Enterprises, (Media Pro, a 50:50 joint venture between STAR DEN Media Services and Zee Turner) will distribute 68 channels, including both firms flagship channels and plus the regional channels.

This is very interesting move from media and television industry perspective. Another example of such collaboration is ESPN STAR SPORTS, a joint venture in south Asia; between ESPN and STAR Sports, who compete in all other geographies. For any media company, content generation is most important thing and which takes a lot of attention. Media companies need to have their act together in content creation. Distribution is important arm, but it can be collaborated.

Similar consolidation happened in telecom industry, where the tower and infrastructure was handled through collaboration among different companies, who compete in the general market. A JV was formed to handle all the tower business. It makes lot of sense for the companies which will help to improve the margins and thus gives lot of competitive advantages when comes to the pricing model.

Such kind of collaboration is common in services industries as well. Infosys and Wipro, who compete in outside market in almost all the accounts, do collaborate when comes to certain technologies or certain customers. It is important to have a clear line of division between two companies when comes to such kind of collaboration.

What is important here is the customer or consumer. This is very healthy sign and trend that in order to serve customers, companies are coming together and forming Joint Ventures. This helps to improve margins and the quality of services will also improve (The media distribution for example, will help in digitizing the content across both the companies, and this makes the HD content possible) the service quality.

In order to improve the margins, such business models are being generated, which would eventually redefine how the business is operated.

For me, customer gets benefited and being consumer of such services/products I am happy by end of the day.

Organic Growth of Business

Question is, being a business leader how you grow the business?

Simple answer would be to acquire new customers and there by driving your topline. More customers means, more reveue.

One of the strategies which we have adopted in our BU recently is to expand our business with carefully crafted strategy of having focus on multiple factors and reducing the risk of business continuity. We started working towards new customers, but there were certain steps taken in addition to conventional selling in order to build a stronger growth engine.

When your existing service model/business model is not resulting in to new business; the following approach should be taken to keep the growth intact.

1)Expand in to new Service Offerings/business verticals: The logical expansion in to new service lines or building new service offerings or altering existing offerings will help to fuel more growth as these new offerings will drive more business.

2)Expand in to new Geography: Taking a matured set of offerings in to a new geography and start building that business. But, challenge there would be to start it from scratch and build the business step by step. Start-with-small is the key here.

3)Redefining the business model/service model in existing market; bringing in more value to customers will result in generating more business as it obviously catches the attention.

Offcourse, its very important to understand when the existing market is getting flat and the correct time to execute this plan.

I am extremely satisfied with the execution of this strategy as it has started resulting in to more business.

Embracing Tough Times

We seem to have become afraid of sadness. There’s been so much emphasis on positive thinking and being happy, we are in danger of forgetting that an important part of being a complete person is learning to handle the tough stuff as well.

The things happening around us easily make us sad and the impact becomes noticeable.

Obviously, the positive emotions are more enjoyable and easier to live with, but it is perfectly normal to occasionally get sad because of disappointments in life. Being sad about things is one of the basic emotions as per human psychology and learning how to deal with it will teach us better lessons.

If we look back our lives, we learned biggest lessons when we faced problems or sadness. The lesson learnt in hard way or when things are going tough; is not very easy to forget. More ever a patch of sadness gives us a new layer of energy to go about new things, new definition of happiness or new height to scale.

In addition to this, a sad patch will make us understand the importance of happiness. Even our vedic scriptures said, life is all about having correct mixture of happiness and sadness & how important to face them with balanced mindset.

So, it’s ok to be sad. I feel, rather than trying to cheer up ourselves forcefully, I would rather give myself a little time, a little space and room to come out of it.

I think, life is all about continues learning, no matter which phase of life you are!

'Skyped'---Microsoft-Skype Deal: An Analysis

Skeptics are panning Microsoft's decision to acquire Skype, arguing that the price of $8.5 billion (more than 30 times earnings) is too expensive. But with Skype, Microsoft vaults itself into the world of "free products" in a significant way. How Microsoft leverages those product users going forward — and whether it can retain and grow them — will be the true test of success for the acquisition.

The potential here is significant. Cloud services are considered to be the future of computing. For 170 million product users, Skype provides an on-ramp to Microsoft cloud offerings and other products. It gives to Microsoft a brand-aware user base keen to communicate, in the cloud, across a richly connected social network. It provides significant opportunities to up-sell, cross-sell, advertise, or bundle paid offerings. And by integrating Skype with its free cloud offerings — such as its free version of Office software — Microsoft multiplies the linkages and the revenue potential.

At the same time, Microsoft envisions deep integration with existing pay products, such as Office and its corporate communications offering, Microsoft Lync. Clearly, the company aspires to move into the stream of demand flow toward increasingly ubiquitous face-to-face communications across all devices.

But the acquisition also presents a significant conundrum: How will Microsoft integrate and leverage Skype without destroying what has been successful thus far — the free business model and the potential of the user base? Can the company simultaneously manage a world of free users supported by advertising and premium service offerings — and a world of paying customers looking for best-in-class communications applications?

The challenge is not an easy one, as Microsoft's own experience makes clear. While it has launched free versions of its Office software to the cloud, the dependencies of these offerings on the pay product remain strong and the pay product seems to get all of the support. Meanwhile, both cloud and pay Office are under heavy assault from free product threats such as Google Docs.

Fortunately, in Skype, Microsoft is buying a company that has figured out how to make money off of free products. That's why appending Skype onto the Microsoft organization structure as a separate, autonomous division makes a lot of sense. However, while this approach promotes the free products business model, it makes tight integration with other products more difficult

Some may argue that integrating Skype with Microsoft pay products has the potential to deliver greater incremental revenue than does supporting the free business model, so Microsoft should just let that model die. But the Skype unit is approaching $1 billion in revenue with free products already and much more may be on the way. With competitors using free products to rapidly stake claim to territory in the cloud, this may be Microsoft's best chance to leap forward with a serious presence in that space.

My Impression of Singapore

Last week, I was on a business trip to Singapore and though it was not my first visit, it did impress me. Each time I visit that country (This was my Forth Visit in total) it amazes me as is it possible to build a country, so systematically within such a short period of time.

Practically speaking, Singapore doesn’t have any natural resources, doesn’t have much history, doesn’t have population nor the land to support/feed, but the country transformed itself ever since it got freedom from Britain and then from Japan.

Lee Kuan Yew, former Prime Minster is a visionary leader who is the architect of modern Singapore. The whole country/city was built on modern thoughts and people are said to be the main resource for them. The way in which it got transformed in to a financial hub for Asia, in to most prominent hub of transportation between East and West, in to most attractive tourist destination, in to shopping destination; is really an amazing story. This whole country was built with sheer determination and with precise planning.

Most part of the time I was in International Business Park, which is a true example of vision. The whole IBP is divided in to different clusters, like Nordic Business Centers, German Center etc, where the focus is to attract business from these areas, provide basic facilities to setup and run the business and help them grow. This was truly an amazing way of helping to create more jobs locally plus improving the business. These kinds of innovative thinkers really made what Singapore is today.

The finance and service industries, two major revenue generators of current generation, have been carefully developed. I could see a whole different Singapore after gap of around 8 years, with lot of added attractions as tourist spot. This clearly tells me that there is a constant thought process on what all is happening.

Last time in Singapore, I spent close to one year working there and got a chance to interact more with local friends and I understood then that visionary leadership was the main reason behind the success of this country. And I can only agree to that.

After all this praise and positive feelings, I couldn’t resist but wanted to contribute to Singapore GDP, so decided to shop and bought few things there-by increasing the total revenue of Singapore as country 

It’s all about profitable growth!

There is a dissonance between the quarterly results of India’s top two software companies, TCS and Infosys Technologies, and the response it evoked in stock markets. While Infosys was faulted for not living up to the expectations of the analysts and suffered a greater fall, TCS produced very good numbers but still saw its stock decline.

But the stock market’s contrariness needs to be underlined to make the point that the outlook for Indian software is positive, Indian leaders are well poised to take advantage of it and the absence of any feel-good sentiment over the sector right now and not necessarily does not appear to be based on fundamentals. In particular, while analysts have pilloried the Infosys results, its numbers over the last few quarters have consistently met guidelines.

However, the recent trends in the results of the two major players tell two different stories. For several quarters now, TCS has been catching up on what has traditionally been the biggest feather in Infosys’ cap: high margins resulting from a pricing premium that none else could command.

TCS’ recent improved performance can be attributed to its boldness in accessing inorganic growth, charting out new geographies and being able to digest all this. On the other hand, Infosys has remained its usual conservative self and produced solidly commendable results. Both the companies are world beaters in being able to command 25 per cent net margins.

Being able to keep growing fast for well over a decade now indicates that they are not continuing to rely solely on their earlier cost advantage. They have been going up the value chain, acquiring domain knowledge (industry-specific skills) and increasingly assisting clients in reshaping their entire operations to gain newer efficiencies, which are imperative for survival in the financial crisis-induced downturn. What is important is that these firms have picked up the slack that they had developed in 2009-10 even as recovery in mature markets, where their main customers reside, has been uncertain.

Undoubtedly, the Indian leaders face a major challenge in maintaining their scorching pace of growth and high margins, and they are aware of it. Hence the generational changes that have taken place at the top. Thus, right now they seem to be measuring up to the challenges before them.

Kuch Meetha Hoo Jaaye....

Let’s explore a simple question, how any company will expand its business; answer could be like expanding in to new geographies, add new offerings/products/services. But given the global competition it looks difficult to attain the growth if you try only these.

But there are few visionary companies who create new markets and thus expand. Apple, for example created new market with MP3 player, even though there was an existing competition, iPod created a new market by itself. Similarly, Apple products like iPhone, iPad created new market segments and thus boosted the business growth.

There are other examples as well, like 3M’s Duct tape, J&J’s Bandaid, Tata Motors Nano are few such examples where a new market segment was created through innovative products.

But there is some interested phenomenon happening with Cadbury Dairy milk chocolate. Cadbury is growing business by expanding in to new target audience and thus reaching new set of consumers.

Let’s look at traditional chocolate industry market reach, its generally kids or the collage going young generation. But Cadbury is slowly changing this.

First it reached to the festival celebration time, and marketed Dairy milk as a sweet which can be exchanged during the festival like Diwali or can be gifted to brothers/sisters during Rakhi. Secondly, it started marketing dairy milk as a substitute to a sweet you can take home when you are really happy and wanted to celebrate, like salary day or when you get a job or when marriage gets settled.

Now, Cadbury has reached to your dinner table literally. It is now marketing Dairy milk as a substitute to the sweet we use on day-to-day life. It’s been projected as a normal sweet we use after dinner as dessert.

Let’s look as how it expanded the target market. When they expanded in to festival celebration, they expanded out of traditional young market in to a household mass, but still limited to some part of the year, like Diwali, Rakhi, New Year etc. When they expanded the reach to happy moments, they reached our happy moments and became part of our lives. Now, in the process of reaching our dinner table, the target market has even expanded in to possibly each and every house!

This is very smart positioning of a product, expanding the business through innovative approach. In this process, the same product is being expanded in to different market segments, creating new consumers. Compared to traditional way of creating new products, this is clearly a different way of expanding.

What’s the sweet at dinner in your house today?

Papularity and Leadership

Question is what is the probability of all successful business leaders having high score on popularity barometer?

In tough business environments like one we are in to, all the times leaders are tested against the ability to make tough decisions in the better interest of the business. Be it asking a unit head to leave or asking management to take pay cut, or it could be deciding to walkout of a deal (Remember Infosys deciding to walk out of GE business when Mr. Murthy was CEO and when it accounted for 40% of its business) leaders are being constantly under situations where they need to make tough calls.

Given kind of media attention, impact on the morality of the employees and the stock market beating for any wrong information; one has to be extra careful on the decisions taken or the communication aspect of the decision (It is told, that Infosys informed stockholders about GE deal upfront and the steps being taken, when the deal with GE episode happened)

Now having understood that the business leaders have to make tough calls, how successful business leaders are still high on popularity chart? Mr. Murthy made so many tough decisions; still we treat him as icon of software industry, Mr. JRD took some tough calls in his lifetime, he is regarded as one of business icons of modern India. There are countless such examples around us, in the past and present.

First, we all appreciate the fact that why this tough decision was made. They all were made in better interest of the business. Secondly what makes a big difference is the approach as how a tough call was executed (I have seen several wrongly executed decisions in the past, which impacted more negatively). Third is all successful leaders handled the person in question or situation with so much of delicacy that the impact was minimized. Empathy makes a big difference.

As it is rightly said, CEOs don’t run the popularity show but make tough calls all the times. But what appears to make a big difference between a successful leader and ordinary is the approach to the situation or person in question.

That’s about leadership!

Two different nations and different people

This weekend I drove to Wagha border and the whole experience of driving to Indian border was thrilling. The site of other side of the border prompted many questions.

Every common Indians, to large extent, don’t like Pakistan as country. And I know through couple of my Pakistani friend’s that Pakistani media and Pakistani people hate India and Indians. Quite strange but true! While I was in US, I had long chat sessions with my Pakistani friend and had understood many perspectives about India.
Seems Bolloywood is a great hit though.

We might say, we were same country about 60 odd years back and we had similar culture before that. But so many changes have happened in the last half-century. I was actually told that unlike in the past, today’s generation in Pakistan is growing up without having Hindu neighborhood.

These are the thoughts that came to my mind when I was cheering for India and looking across the border and trying to think what might be going through a common Pakistani’s mind standing across the border.

I concluded, we are two different people, belonging to two different nations!!

World Cup Cricket, Indian Team, India and Business Lessons...

First of all, congratulations to all of us, to every proud Indian to be part of this dream achievement of winning the world cup. It was a great emotion. After all, Cricket is our national passion and we all take very pride and emotional when comes to Cricket. And after all its world cup!

However, though I didn’t follow the entire set of matches, I thought there are set of business lessons.

1) Having a Dream, a Vision: Indian team had a vision or a dream to win a world cup. And team started preparing towards that. Look at the recent records of India before world cup, they have been constantly raising the bar of performance.

2) Having a bigger picture: No doubt, Indian team did face some setbacks during the journey, they lost to SA, almost managed a tie with England, didn’t win with comfort while playing with minor teams, however, team had a bigger vision, they could let these things to and regroup to accomplish a bigger task. And peak when it is required.

3) Leading from the front: Dhoni led it from the front, be it promoting himself in batting order or marshaling his forces and keeping his cool during tension times. It’s a great leadership lesson, keeping a cool head when things start going wrong and focus on end result. I personally picked few things from Dhoni’s leadership skills. It is pretty impressive.

4) Having Strategy in Place: It appeared that Indian team had a strategy in place, for every team and for every opponent. Every business leader should have a strategy in place to execute.

5) Admit Mistakes Openly. Dhoni few times admitted the mistakes he or team made. This is a leadership lesson, if things are going wrong, leader should accept the mistake and make sure it is not repeated again.

6) Celebrate Victory: Celebrate every win and success!!

7) Have Mentor: Its important to have mentor in life, as Indian team had Garry as coach, who can tell you when to change the gears and can analyze you.

8) Mental Stability: Indian team seems to have lot of mental strength, which builds the confidence and to say never die when things are going bad. Leader should have this mental stability to face the worst and take action.

It might appear that since India won world cup all of a sudden all looks very positive. But again, this is what corporate life is all about, keep wining….

The Social Network: The Movie

Good to back, yes I am back from business trip. It feels great when you come back to India.

While returning back I saw the movie, The Social Network on the plane, the story of Face Book and Mark Zuckerberg. Though its an old movie, I got a chance to see it now.
What I liked is the energy of the character and the reflection of the fact that how true business minded Mark is. Heard so many stories about his business focus. Movie has successfully captures the birth and evolution of Facebook and how differently Mark wanted to build it.

It also captures the struggle of Facebook founders to differentiate it amidst cluttered social networking market place. This is I really like. Any business needs to have a differentiated offerings and clearly articulated value proposition to the customers. And I think most part of the movie is based on this struggle as how they wanted to build this value prop.

Facebook’s success is double edged sword, having its own controversies, but we need to look at this as a great business success of our times. Bringing the social life to internet was some path breaking idea and Facebook makes brings up successfully.

BTW, I am merely 3 weeks old with Facebook, but I have already started liking it and is very active!!

Time, Life & philosophical weekend

It will be perhaps a philosophical flavored post!

There is an incident in Mahabharata, when Pandavas escaped from the fire incident, they went underground and has to go home-after-home in search of food. It is termed as even kings have to bow down to the power of time and follow what comes on the way.

How true!!

Many times we start thinking that we are in full control of life and start assuming everything in our way. We tend to forget the fact that there is a super control which is governing everything, our way of living and things happening in our life. That is what is called as ‘state-of-ignorance’, being ignorant of everything.

Then life starts teaching you, it gives every lesson with such a shock that we can’t forget the lesson associated with that. This is life. When you start thinking you are in full control of your life, there comes a big turn, a shock, a lesson, an incident, which ultimately shapes the future.

But, funny part is, the same life which gives you a shock, gives you a strong mind to face it, love and support from near and dear ones, which ultimately helps you to come out of woods and start feeling ‘life is all about those green shots where you say life is beautiful’

Life is full of such bright and dark shades, which makes it an interesting journey. Otherwise probably we don’t understand the importance of what all we have got in life.

Best suggestion, in such cases I got was, have patience and move on!

Social Networking and You!

Couples of interesting things happened with me last couple of week’s related to social networking.

First, I gave a presentation in our LUTT (Lets Talk Technology) session [This is the forum across the company where the technical presentations will be made regarding emerging trends]. It was quite an interesting one in terms of talking about social networking media without talking about any application in particular.

The broad agenda of the session was to introduce social media, concept of web 2.0, how it is transforming the work we do. How it is transforming our day-to-day browsing habits. The important factor is as how social media is changing the game of marketing.

Second thing was, I actually created my Facebook account, I am active on Orkut and Linkedin, but wanted to follow the leader and get started on Facebook. Surprisingly, it seems everyone is already in there and been effectively using to express themselves!!

I have intention of using this account as a marketing tool. But, I do understand it takes a bit of effort and time to make it more professional. But, I am amazed to understand the potential social media has in bringing up a change in our lives.

Social Networking and you and you can’t miss this!!

Faulty model or part of strategy or just a stick on bad performance?

Couple of week’s back, Wipro scrapped the joint CEO model for it’s IT business and appointed a new CEO to run the business. There are several stories fly around as why this was done now.

Many analysts say the management structure was faulty, as the model can work at best as a stop-gap arrangement. Industry watchers believe it was Wipro’s performance over the last four to five quarters that prompted the rejig at the top, after a three-year experiment with the dual CEO structure. Its believed that Wipro did not take an aggressive enough market-facing approach during the downturn, there in the growth after the downturn was not as big as other Indian companies. It failed to encash the growth in Financial segment.

While Premji mentioned the company’s performance vis-à-vis some of its peers, the real threat to Wipro comes from Nasdaq-listed Cognizant, which is a few steps behind. While a section of analysts feels that Cognizant will overtake Wipro in terms of revenue growth in the fourth quarter of this fiscal, there are indications that it would have already done so in the October-December quarter.

Many also point out that Wipro’s business model just did not allow it to make the best of the recovery. The banking, financial & insurance sector accounted for 50-55 per cent of Cognizant’s revenues and in excess of 35 per cent at Infosys and TCS. “So, they have got the advantage of extremely high turbocharged growth, which has happened in the financial services sector — an advantage we did not get,” Premji has noted.

The failure of the dual CEO model, if you want to call this as failure at all, is not attributed to individual capability. It’s more about lack of communication. You have two people and will work in different ways. Dual CEO also means a lengthy decision-making process and contradictory viewpoints. It also means a lack of nimbleness in an organization.

In the case of Wipro, many feel perhaps this was a stop-gap arrangement for Rishad Premji to make his mark on the business. He is very involved in all the important decisions, but Wipro denies this and says there is nothing like it and board made the decision about this shift.

Whatever is the reason behind the change, it has surprised many people, both internal to Wipro and at outside industry.

(data was taken by different souces….)

Need of Domain Experts

Indian IT industry in general is more technology driven and we don’t find more domain or technology experts. Recently we were trying to build domain competency in logistics field, but finding one domain expert was almost impossible.

There is a social and monitory pressure at the junior and middle levels to take up more people management roles as they are attractive in monitory and designation roles. Also, people manager is perceived as more powerful role.

However, leadership is not just about leading people, business and organizations. More and more companies, especially in technology space, are creating positions for domain experts. I have seen few of my friends choose to be domain experts over people managers and are doing good.

So, we are fast getting in to a situation where both technical and people management is considered equally important for running an operation of an IT company. In the recent past, Indian IT industry has really moved up in the value chain and created space for providing domain/technical expertise as business offering. This provides opportunities for domain and technology experts.

So, its ok to say I don’t want to manage people!

An air of confidence: How Indigo’s ambition is soaring

Couple of weeks back IndiGo airlines, which is a budget carrier in Indian skies, moved to European stock market when it announced the biggest deal in aviation history. Topping up an earlier plan to buy 100 planes with another 180 in a decade from 2015, IndiGo has demonstrated a shopping bag of $15.6 billion to buy Airbus aircrafts that would power its ambition to become an international player.

Barely five years after it started off as a humble budget carrier that people hardly noticed, IndiGo has emerged as a serious challenger to deep pocketed Kingfisher and Jet airlines. Indigo reported a profit of RS 550 crore last year, while most of the Indian airlines reported losses.

IndiGo’s success story starts from the concrete business plan its founders, Rahul Bhatia and Rakesh Gangwal, had and they built a very good initial team. Their first CEO, Bruce Ashby built the right systems, processes and competitive cost structure. They have been concentrating on what the customer wants, on-time departures, clean aircraft and good and clean flying experience, they stick to this plan and didn’t try anything else. The airline has impressive 80.6% ontime performance.

IndiGo’s 180 aircraft deal with Airbus has shifted the word’s focus on India. The historic order is a very strong comment on India’s overall economic growth, the growth potential of countries aviation sector and confidence of IndiGo’s business plan, its ability to execute such a large order and to raise the funds for it. This order for industry leading fuel efficient aircraft will allow IndiGo to continue to offer low fares.

Airlines have come and gone ever since the skies were opened up nearly two decades ago. While East West Airlines and ModiLuft had glamorous starts; Jet seemed to be only one going steadily forward until Kingfisher arrived. As it happened, the budget airline that fired the country’s imagination, Air Deccan has bitten off more than it could chew and ended up with Kingfisher Airlines, while Jet gobbled Sahara.

IndiGo, on the contrast, has behaved more like the tortoise in the race with hare. From day one, it has behaved as nothing but a no-frills airline and focused more on making the roads in the industry.

It appears that, IndiGo has clear business plan and strategy to expand itself as International carrier as it is completing 5 years of flying, which is required to get international flaying license. Clear message is, if you have a differentiator, you can win even though you are late entry in to the game.

Auction of IPL Players

Last week’s auction of IPL players reminds me of the fact that, if you have money you can walk out with any player you want. And infact there were some players which were not taken by anyone, which talks about the uncertainty.

This reminded me the NFL draft pick of American Football League (Its true with NBA or MLB to that matter) The difference there is, the week team gets to choose the first draft, in turn the strongest college player. When that auction happens, only the data about players statistics related to games are being displayed and his footage is shown so that teams can made decisions.

Salary will not be discussed there and that is up to the player and team management to sit down and decide on the salary, keeping the salary cap in mind. This allows the team to define the bonus structure and in turn keeps player on the toes to perform.

In my opinion, that is a correct way of putting the college players in to professional world. Imagine if we have similar thing where we induct Ranaji players in to mainstream?

That’s why I like American sports and I feel it is more professional!

Python-swallows-an-elephant: iGate and Patni Deal

iGate with Apax Partners, will acquire 63% of the company for the final price of Rs. 503.50 effectively valuing Patni, the company at $1.5 Billion. By Indian law, iGate will have to make an open offer to acquire an additional 21% of the company.

With that, a company with revenues of about $200 million in 2009 acquires control of a company with revenues of about $650 million. Even by market cap, iGate is a third smaller than Patni

This really shows the risk taking ability of a company and it’s management. Phaneesh Murthy is known for his risk taking ability and he has been a go getter. He has built Infosys from a mere $2 million to over $700 million when he was head of sales and marketing at Infosys.

Acquiring Patni was Murthy’s biggest challenge so far, but it is in line with his commitment to make iGate a $ 1 Billion firm by 2012, a tough job for a $200 million company. Never the less, this deal gives Murthy the size he was looking for.

But, he is still a long way from playing with big league players like TCS, Infosys and Wipro. As Murthy himself admitted, “The Challenge is to take a company, which is moving like a auto rickshaw and convert it’s pace to that of a speeding car” He already said, building the combined go-together market strategy, building strong account management principles so that top accounts grow at much stronger pace and creating integrated leadership team would be the priority.

I have seen an acquisition of around $20 mil, which was miserably failed, though there was lot of synergy. Currently I am experiencing a bigger merger, which is being done in much more systematic way. But one thing I am sure about, if there is one person who can make this deal or integration work is Phaneesh Murthy and given the way in which he transformed iGate; he will pull this quite successfully.

Its all about leadership.