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.

Happy New Year-2011

I am feeling like it’s been only couple of months back when I wrote similar kind of message last year. Time flies, real fast.

Personally, this year has been series of new learning for me; learnt so many new things; the list goes endless. Explored new things in life; started looking with new perspective; it is a welcome change. Kept my workout routine  Though there were ups and downs in life, but learnt from each one of them.

Professionally; there were so many changes and learning. But I guess I am satisfied with the journey so far. Learnt new things, learnt on how to build new relationships, new businesses and was involved in building the business unit. It was a wonderful experience.

Like last year, I have designed New Year resolution for myself, and I am quite confident that I will stick to follow these;

•Be regular in blogging and in workout. Maintain a good and healthy body.
•I want to be more regular in reading, my reading hours have come down drastically in the past year. I want to read more and more.
•Want to build much bigger business, focusing on profitability. Have more business friends.
•Learn few new things, which I have not done so far. (Cooking is on priority in the list, but wanted to try few new things this year)
•Try to be a better human being.

I know I have done mistakes in the outgoing year, I am hopeful that all of those who got hurt by me will excuse me. I also got hurt in few occasions, but I have long forgotten them already. I might have achieved few things, however I want to remind myself it was not me alone who was responsible for this, I might have failed in few attempts; but I want to motivate myself that this is not the end of the road.

New Year, new beginning, new dreams and new push. Let’s make most of from 2011.

Wish you all a happy and wonderful new year 2011.

Six Ways to Refuel Your Energy Every Day

I read this interesting article on Harvard Business Review; and thought of sharing this..

Make sufficient sleep your highest priority.
The research is clear: we require seven to eight hours of sleep in order to be fully rested, and for our brains to optimally embed new learning. Great performers, ranging from musicians to athletes, often get even more than 8 hours.

Two simple strategies can help. The first is to set a specific bedtime and to begin winding down at least 30-45 minutes earlier — avoiding stimulating activities like answering email, and opting instead for more relaxing ones like taking a warm bath, or reading.

The second is to spend a few minutes reviewing what's on your mind before you go to sleep, and then write down anything that's worrying you. What you're doing is effectively parking these concerns so that they don't end up keeping you from falling asleep, or back asleep in the middle of the night.

Take a renewal break at least every ninety minutes.
The first key is to intermittently quiet your physiology. You can dramatically lower your heart rate, your blood pressure and your muscle tension in as little as 30 to 60seconds with regular practice.

With your eyes closed, try breathing in through your nose to a count of three, and out through your mouth slowly to a count of six. In this way, you're extending you're recovery. As your body quiets down, your thinking mind will also get quieter and you'll feel more relaxed

Keep a running list of everything — literally everything — that you want or need to do.
The more fully and frequently you download what's on your mind, the less energy you'll squander in fruitless thinking about undone tasks, and the more energy you'll have to be fully present in whatever you're doing.

Run up your heart rate or take a nap in the early afternoon.
If your excuse for not exercising regularly is "I don't have time," consider working out during your lunch hour

There may be no better way to clear the mind, lower anxiety and jump start your energy than by intentionally raising your heart rate into the aerobic or anaerobic zones.

If taking a run or going to a gym is too time consuming, how about taking a brisk 15 to 30 minute walk outside? Or if you're in an office building, how about walking up and down the stairs?

Practice appreciation — and savoring.
One of the least recognized ways we squander energy is in negative emotions. We're far quicker to notice what's wrong in our lives than what's right.

Look for opportunities to appreciate someone in your life, and share what you're feeling — directly, or in a note. You'll be giving the other person a shot of positive energy, but sharing positive energy will also make you feel better.
Look too for opportunities to appreciate yourself. Take time to savor small victories, give yourself credit where you deserve it, and forgive yourself when you fall short.

Develop a transition ritual between work and home.
When we leave the office, many of us carry work with us. The result is that even when we get home, we're still not truly present. Consider establishing a very specific way to disengage from work so you can leave it behind.

Building the Next Layer

Just concluded India-New-Zealand one day series drew my attention for non-cricketing reasons. Though I didn’t follow the game as such, but one important factor about this series is that India fielded entirely new team and still won by clean sweep. Argument may be that opposition team was not up to the mark; but I can’t take out credibility from the winning team.

It seems, India has successfully built the next layer, meaning we have a strong backup plan ready. There are instances where a set of players retire and that team’s performance goes down. We have cases in Australia, earlier West Indies, Pakistan etc where when a set of star players retired the next layer was not in place and thus these teams struggled to attain the limelight again.

This means, Indian team has worked on a succession planning and has done really well.

Now, draw the similarities into business and there is a need to have this kind of strategic planning for every business or business lines. And more ever it has to be executed with lot of precession.

The reflection of a true leader is to build his own succession such that the operation should run even in his/her absence. And all true leaders have shown this ability and business has grown even after their exit.

Infosys, TCS and ICICI have shown this kind of succession planning where the CEO baton has been transferred to others, without impacting the business operations. Infosys is said to have been grooming next generation leaders with focus on building next executive team from within the company. Similar kind of effort has been in place for Tata Sons group where Ratan Tata’s succession is being currently worked out.

The learning here is, be at an organization or a business line; there has to be a succession planning, which helps you to elevate yourself in to new position, if your operation is taken by someone else. In this way, you can grow within the organization and also establishes you as a leader who plans strategically.

The Science of Merger and Acquisition

We are currently working through a major merger and acquisition, actually our parent company in Norway is currently involved in this. And my recent Norway trip made me to understand more on this topic.

EBD Business Partners (Number one IT Services Company in Norway) is merging with ErgoGroup (Number two services company in Norway and my parent company), to form a bigger and stronger IT services company, serving Nordic market. (For more details, www.edbergogroup.com)

What really amazed me is the merging process a consulting company is recommending. (Boston Consulting is involved in this process). The problem was, both the companies have similar portfolio in terms of services and infact they were competing in the market. This complicated the entire process.

The process suggested here was something very innovative. CEO, being at L0, picked up his management team as L1 or level 1. The picking happened based on the merit, purely on the experience and qualification. This helped to form a correct portfolio which was good for merged company. And L1 is allowed to choose their management, L2, so on.

The result is, the completely redefined company with clean focus on business segments and focused geographies. And since competitive ones got the job; its good for the business and customers. Also, customers got merged so seamlessly that there was no change in operation, business as usual was the mantra since beginning and it happened in that way.

Now, the challenge ahead is to merge the processes and policies and tools. I believe it would be simple task as most important part of putting together a working organization structure is in place.

I was just amazed to see who smooth the entire thing was put in place. Good learning!

Reflecting thoughts amidst white Sunday

I am in Oslo, its snowing. I could see a white city through my Radisson window. I dared to walk in the snow, explored a bit and came back thinking I might not take prolonged cold weather.

I caught up reading a book, currently I am reading a book titled ‘How to become CEO’, I am liking it because it is full of practical examples and many a times questions normal wisdom of B-School teachings. I am also reading ‘Build to Last’; where the articulation is about how visionary companies are built and how they sustain themselves even after their charismatic leaders move on.

Also, my last night dinner with Chairman of IONNOR was full of business talks, about building the business, importance of mentors in life and all about importance of strategic thinking.

Week full of learning!!

But, sitting in front of fire place this morning made me to reflect about the journey called life, its surprises and its twists and turns. When you think you understood the puzzle of life, there comes a new twist, which makes you feel, life can’t be understood as a whole (Don’t worry, I am fit, fine and there is no change in job and life as usual :) ) I reflected about my goals and ways to achieve them; what it takes to reach there.

Want to come back home, I am missing India!!

Managing customer relationships

American and Indian companies signed deals worth $10 bn on the first day of US President’s visit to India, underlining the increasing role economic ties will play in relations between the two countries.

I was wondering, why such deals get announced when a high profile visits like this? Actually, I was trying to draw a parallel, not comparing apple to apple; however trying to reason out a pattern. Why visiting customers result in to business?

In my experience so far, whenever there is a business trip to customer site, there tends to be some activities happening and I ended up closing some business. Lets understand, from all practical purpose, why this is so?

In my opinion, it’s more of a relationship building and providing a face to the voice you have been hearing. You are working with a customer over years and you tend to build a strong relationship. And then your trip comes to meet the customer, and customer’s confidence in you greatly increases and this results in business. It is not just as simple as this, its complex but this is more of a high level explanation.

There is few fundamental things one need to do. We need to talk what customer wants to hear, rather than pushing my agenda. If you get down to a level where you try to understand the issues your customer is facing on an operational level, mapping those to requirements become very easy. Actually!!

The companies who do it quite effectively have managed to get more business from same customer and have developed them in to multi-million accounts through cross and up-selling. TCS and Cognizant have proved that with sheer focus towards customer relationship will result in to more loyal customers.

On the contrary some companies think its waste of time and money to spend towards customers. I failed to understand the thinking behind this.

Business is all about building stronger relationships.

CEO's Suite

Latest issue of Forbes draw my attention to latest model of Audi A8.

Though I am not a great follower of automobiles and gadgets. But, this seems like a dream car!!!

http://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/audi/2010-audi-a8-l-review-1204.html

http://www.india-server.com/cars/features/audi-a8-115.html

The business model of Joint Venture

Sometime back I wrote about the Hero Honda and Honda competing in the Indian automobile market. Now, it’s been agreed that Honda will exit from the joint venture. Around ten years back Honda started its own Indian venture and started competing with scoters to begin with. And the business strategy worked so far. We have similar stories with Suzuki moving out of TVS JV and Yamaha from Escorts.

In my previous organization; I have seen a JV very closely; starting from scratch to become a full fledged company and I always believed that was a master stroke to form a JV there by getting a steady business and access to latest technologies. It was a product JV and building a services business around would have made sense and exactly it was built around this concept. And it was a great success.

Initially, it made sense to both the counterparts, for Indian counter parts; who wanted cash for expansion and access to latest technology; it was a great win situation. For foreign counterpart it was more of access to new market and knowhow of local market. But in license raj this knowledge of local market only meant the knowledge of how to get the required permission from government. Rest of R&D, product concept, marketing, launching was done by foreign counterpart. It worked well in this way for some time and there were so many success stories around this model.

I remember reading somewhere about GE-Wipro joint venture which was conceptualized to be a great story. Over the years both the parties realized the drawbacks and decided to pull out. If my memory serves me correct, somewhere Premaji said it was the best thing happened to look beyond GE.

An overseas partner is expected to bring three advantages to the table; money, technology and brand. The relevance of these three things to be evaluated in current context. Indian businessmen are no more strapped for money. Many of them have done big-ticket acquisitions in India and abroad. And in last few years democratization of technology happened and technology is available for acquisition. Thus, Indians can buy the required technology out of the shelf rather than a JV. Now days, Indian brands are making more sense, and Indian brands are truly global now a days.

Thus, Hero is not seems to be worried about this breakup. TVS survived this and running stronger without Suzuki. The size of multinational, which appears to be a great advantage for JV is no more a positive point of India Inc.

In a way, the playing field has been leveled between multinationals and India Inc.

The Web we use

Think about how the internet has changed and is changing over the years. When it started it was more using the browser and was used to share information through static web pages.

Then it started slowly changing and internet commerce came in to existence where bank transactions, share market dealing, purchasing started happening over the web. This is where the internet boom got created and overnight millions of companies mushroomed out and died quickly. The companies who are having strong fundamental business plan survived.

Offcourse, Google changed the internet habits and established the concept of availability of information through searching, thus making information more accessible.

But, now think about a typical day today. We use a Facebook or Twitter application to keep in touch with friends, read mails through a push mail application like Blackberry, iPhone etc, use news aggregator to keep yourself updated about happenings around the world, watch a video on Youtube on a special application, download a song of movie using Torrent, play a game of online scrabble on the iPad, make a skype call on WiFi phone, use Blackberry or other device to quick chat using instant messaging system.

All these used the Net but not once used the browser to do it. You are using closed application which might actually piggyback on the internet but don’t use the browser to do any of these. Actually, thus we are killing the web!! It is estimated that at one time, accessing the Net was a 90per cent web browser job. Today it is less than 40 per cent (This is as per an analysis)

Thus the web as we know is dying very fast only to be replaced by the web that may just keep evolving and probably might last longer.

The mind games people play

I was reading about heated arguments between an Indian player and an Australian player last week (BTW, I happened to see the entire teams of India and Australia in Taj-Chandigarh where I happened to be there on a business dinner).

This incident reminded me one incident happened in IIT campus when I was a student.
Me and my partner were participating in double wicket cricket tournament and we were most probably the top contender for winning. We had the best combination of bowling and batting. (I used to play good cricket by the way).

During the final, a second year B.Tech guy and his partner were playing against us. When we were bowling he started saying ‘this is going to be wide ball, this will be full-toss and hit him to six etc etc’. We both carried away by these comments so much that we started exactly bowling as what he was saying. Clearly, we allowed him to take over our minds.

And then, during batting, he will scream, ‘they don’t know batting, here you go, missed the ball’ etc etc. Needless to say, we again carried away and eventually lost the game from being very well positioned to win.

When I analyzed this whole incident; it appeared to me that I got so angry by his comments and decided to prove him wrong; in that tempo lost my natural game and thus was not up to the mark.

That day, I learnt a lesson, however angry you are; don’t let your analytical mind make any permanent decision at that point in time. I guess, I learnt how to deal with such situation and don’t over-react (This is only applicable to business life though, in my personal life I think I over-react)

This is working for me and Australian episode made me to think on the incident that happened in my college days.

Your TV is heating up!

The competition is picking up to capture audience on your small screen. The differentiation of big and small screen is reducing fast. And working in TV is no more considered as demotion for big stars.

Look at how the general entertainment section, business news, general news segments are competing with each other! Be it Colors, Sony, Zee, TimesNow, ET Times, or CNBC. If Colors comes up with ‘Big Boss’, Sony is replying back with KBC and so and so forth. All are trying to catch you during the primetime.

Interesting part of the entire strategy is they have a business plan as how to capture the audience through content for target audience concept. For example, MTV focuses on youth; ‘Khataronke ke khiladi’ focuses on youth as well. The prime time serials are having target audience of ladies.

So, the competition to grab your attention is catching up and TV channels are mixing their contents in such a way, which appeals to bigger market segment and there by trying to cash. Look at the stars who are performing for us, Amitabh, Shahrukh, Salman, Akshay, Priyanka, all big screen stars.

Is this a sign of consolidation?

Size Matters!! Possibility of Cognizant’s acquisition of Genpact.

There is a rumor in the industry circles for possible acquisition of Genpact by Cognizant.

Onwards to the possibility of a Cognizant-Genpact combination. Why might this be a very good combination? Lets look at the reasons:

The businesses are very complementary. Genpact is less than 15% IT Services. Cognizant is 5% BPO. The lack of overlap means a few things, all of them major factors:

• In one stroke Cognizant as the acquirer becomes one of the largest and most sophisticated BPO service providers. In addition to already being a large high-growth IT Service providers.
• One of the worries in Services acquisitions is that you will end up offering the same services at the same clients at different rates and then the client will move all services to the lower of the two rates. That overlap is going to be minimal in this case.
• The senior teams of both companies will find homes in the combined company. In the medium term they should not have to merge leadership of business units.

General thinking is that the BPO culture is quite different from the IT Services culture and that will not bode well for a merger. I can’t see why they would think this. Both companies have a dynamic, growth-oriented culture and have professional management.

Also, on a related matter, both Genpact and Cognizant are listed in the US with no float in India. This makes things easier. Acquiring a company 100% in India is a little messier, procedurally.

The fact that GE is 40% of Genpact’s revenue is known and will be priced in to the acquisition price, post due diligence.

The rumor may or may not be true and even if it is true, the deal may or may not happen. But on the face of it, it makes sense. The combined company will be on target to be the second largest in the Offshore industry after TCS within less than a year based upon projected growth rates.

And in this industry size matters.

Obama, Ohio and Outsourcing

Political pressure in the US spell tough times for India’s technology companies; primarily the Ohio ban on outsourcing and Obama’s tax rebate plan for companies who are creating jobs in US.

Question is; how this will impact the offshoring business in general?
Let’s look at some facts and figures. The India’s IT export in 2009-2010 stands at $64 billion, out of which 61% business comes from US geography. Overall IT business of India estimates to 51% of the total software business of the world. There are 2.3 million jobs created in IT and close to 900 multinationals have their captive centers in India. Sizable numbers in any sense.

The fundamental reason that drives offshoring business is the skill availability, quality deliverables and the costs (70% less costly compared to locations in developed countries)

Why US government projects are important in first place?
• Business from government is fastest growing segment for IT companies
• Governments across the world are expected to spend close to $175 billion
• The IT budget of US federal government is around $35 billion

Now, is this the end of IT offshoring? Not really. While political obstacles may rise, India continues to provide key cost advantages. And the major cost saved is pushed back to US companies, so US business is saving more money. In addition to this, Indian companies have already started moving up in the value chain and have started providing key differentiator through calibrating the business processes of the customers. This would drive more savings.

After this news, worried IT companies went back to the drawing boards to redraft the growth strategies and revenue projections, but experts suggests it makes more sense to set up ‘near shore’ centers to drive more business there by creating more jobs in US.

But, really speaking, do we really need to take this? I mean, we are living in free world trade era and multinationals are allowed to do business at the cost of India companies as well? How about giving tax benefit if you don’t buy from US companies? Does that sounds good for US Inc?

I can’t stop thinking about this question, then why we need to buy from US companies?

Singapore Airlines: Cost leadership coupled with Premium Service

Last few years have been real tough for airline industry across the globe; increased cost impacted the whole industry in common. But there are few airlines which have shown that innovation and operational efficiency can lead in to profitable business.

Singapore Airlines is one such example which demonstrated the growth even in this worst period. SIA never reported annual loss since its inception.

SIA has combined the supposedly incompatible strategies of differentiation- which it pursues through service excellence and continuous innovation- and cost leadership.

SIA manages its two main assets- planes and people- so that its service is better than rivals and its costs are lower. The airline invests heavily in the areas of business that touch the customer in order to enhance SIA’s premium positioning. Everything behind the scene is subjected to rigorous cost control.

SIA spends more than its rivals in key areas, it follows a 4-3-3 rule of spending, 40% on training, 30% on revising processes and procedures and 30% in creating new products and services.

• Buying new aircraft: SIA replaces its fleet more frequently there by reducing the maintenance budget and improve customer experience. New aircrafts are expected to be more fuel efficient as well.
• Training: The airline invests heavily in to training and retaining its employees.
• Labor Costs: SIA staffs more crew per flight compared to its competitors, this helps in improving the customer experience and enables to provide more customized and personalized services to customers.
• Innovation: It invests in both radical and incremental innovation.

On the same way, it spends less on following things which are not directly touching customers:-
• Price Per Aircraft: It places large orders and generally pays in cash, thus reducing the purchase price of the customer.
• Fuel, maintenance and repair: SIA’s operating costs are much lower because it has newer fleet and energy efficient.
• Salaries: SIA keeps salaries lower by offering bonus up to 50% depending on SIA’s profitability. And also employs much younger crew thus keeping salaries low.
• Sales and administration: SIA doesn’t have a fancy, mid-city head quarters!! And keeps cutting the cost where ever possible.
• Back office technologies: SIA chooses to lag behind rivals in areas that don’t affect the customer experience. They quickly stop the use of technologies that customers don’t like.

This is a clear example of how pure operational efficiency, coupled with great strategy can help companies reinvent themselves.

The Acceleration Trap: HBR Case Study

Harvard Business Review has an interesting research; which talks about how companies burn out and how to avoid this trap.

Faced with intense market pressure, corporations often take on more than what they can handle; they increase the number, and speed up the activities, raise performance and goals, shorten innovation cycles and introduce new management techniques or organization structures.

For a while they might succeed brilliantly; but too often the CEO tries to make this furious pace the new normal. What began as an exceptional burst of achievement becomes chronic overloading. Not only does the frenetic pace sap employee motivation but often companies strategic focus is scattered in various directions, which can confuse the customers and threaten the brand.

Leaders frequently try to fight the symptoms instead of the cause. Interpreting employees lack of motivation as laziness and or unjustified protest. Thus normally they increase the pressure there by worsening the situation, which results in to resignation and thus entire enterprise collapses.

This research has done study of around 92 companies over the period of time and it concludes that corporation can’t figure out when exactly it is hitting them. However, the good news is, there are some companies who have successfully countered this and came out much stronger brands.

There are two reasons why it caught my attentions;

One; I have seen a case study in order to show performance the entire organization was restructured in such a way, which was not making sense and the direction was to have a scalable delivery model in place. But the strategy never asked or answered about the growth as where it is coming from. On top of it, the strategic vision confused customers, employees and partners alike. I can co-relate this. Focus got distracted so much that the quality got suffered and top management had no clue as what is happening.

Second, more important, we are in the phase of growth and the learning for me as Business Head is to make sure we don’t get in to this trap. Though I don’t see any visible signs as of today, but concisely we need to avoid this trap.

We need to learn, if it is our mistake or someone else’s.

Head Over Heart: Forties deal with Parkway Hospitals

Beginning of this week saw a more matured decision from India Inc, where Singh brothers of Forties, booked the profit in Parkway and exited the race for controlling stake in Parkway hospitals in Singapore.

This decision is very significant. When Forties took 25% control in March, Malvinder Singh announced that he would relocate to Singapore to run Parkway, leaving Forties operation to younger brother Shivinder Singh. Forties even drafted the strategy of roping in the low cost offshore operations to reduce the cost of service.

This clearly shows how serious Singh brothers were with this deal and as per the press reports they were in advanced discussions with banks to raise the funds. To return back to India, in less than 5 months would be a huge face loss, if you have to consider business circles.

But, by agreeing to sell their stake to Khazanah, the Malaysian wealth fund, for profit of $116 million, the brothers have shown that they are practical businessmen, their head is their heart. There are no sentiments in the business!

Singh brothers have, in the past, have shown that they think ahead of time and think through head. When they decided to sell Ranbaxy, the family business, it was India’s largest, with interesting range of challenges on patent in the west. But, pharmaceuticals had become the business of big bucks and soon they started realizing this fact and opted for a partner for research and development. One thing led to another and the partner Daiichi Sankyo ultimately bought Ranbaxy.

Anyway, one question still needs answer is, why should a fund be interested in running hospital chains? It would have been better bet for Fortis to acquire it and run it, given Singh brother’s experience in India.

This is the mystery.

Signs of recovery or still in hospital?

The signs that the global economy is far from getting back to normal lies in the first quarter results of Indian software leaders, TCS and Infosys. It does not mean that the recession clouds are still there and we need to really worry about the direction of Industry as whole, but it is not easy sailing and sunny all around yet.

The good news is, the spending is back, but not in the scale of what it used to be earlier. But there is spending with new implementation and upgrades. Not so good news is that prices are either stable or under pressure. Bad news is in order to deliver the growth and volumes, recruitment has gone up and thus the attrition has gone up.

The consolidated figures for the two firms indicate that both have to fight hard to remain where they were, though year-on-year tend e show TCS in better shape. Both have recorded a sharp fall in margins by 2.9 percentage points on quarter-on-quarter basis. This is way below than what it used to be some quarters back.

In terms of top line growth, TCS was clearly ahead last year, but in first quarter both have recorded a clear growth of 14 percent on quarter-on-quarter basis. This is driven by strong demand across markets and industries, which is clearly a very good sign that growth is happening across all industries.

But overall it can be said that though things have improved significantly, it would take at least a quarter to get back to the growth terms. Industry needs to innovate in business processes and try to find ways to help customers to reduce the total cost of ownership of the software.

Period of relaxation and self reflection!

Last four weekends have been spent out of house and amidst nature and mountains. This was the time of relaxation and self reflection.

First, had been to Manali for a short vacation; it’s been a great experience and I was amused by the majesty and beauty of the Himalayan range of mountains. In fact it was a dream comes true for me as it has been a childhood dream to visit the Himalayas. The drive to Rohtang pass an experience by itself.

Next two weekends it was in Massurrie, it was an offsite trip from office, but the true beauty of the place, the experience of living out of tents, sheer beauty of mountains and clouds playing around; it was an awesome experience. The encounter with nature made me to think a lot.

In between this busy schedule, we had management and board meetings as well.

This time was really helped me to reflect myself and my life as whole perspective. I learnt so many new things during this time and it gave me a new set of direction in life. I am not sure if I become stronger, but I have for sure started being sensible to the things around me.

It also reflected me the work I am supposed to do in next one quarter and this is the time to act, perhaps act faster.

Employees First Customers Second:

This month’s Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on how Vineet Nayar, CEO of HCL changed the culture at HCL and thus maneuvered the company out of crisis.

Soon after he came on board in 2005, he started having serious of discussions with employees, managers and customers to get the perspective of the business and what each employee thinks about HCL and what changes they would like to see. To much of his surprise customers didn’t talk much about HCL’s products, services or technologies, but they spoke about HCL’s employees.

This led to a change process called ‘Employees First, Customers Second’

There are four keys for HCL’s transformation:

1) Mirror Mirror: Talk honestly, speak up the truth and enable people to see that a change has to be made.

2) Create trust through transparency: Find ways to build a culture of trust so that employees trust the requirement for the change. Share financial results, good or bad. Share sales pipeline, business updates. 360 feedback was implemented in the company and CEO himself started posting his 360 feedback on intranet. This prompted other managers to post their feedbacks and areas of improvements and their units performance on the intranet there by creating a transparent environment.

3) Invert the organizational pyramid: Make support functions and executives accountable to frontline workers, rather than other way around. This brings clarity and value.

4) Recast CEO’s role: Transfer the ownership of change from office of CEO to all employees. And encourage to ask questions to CEO.

Offcourse the result is for all of us to see, market capitalization has improved and share price is doing good. This has transformed HCL in to more robust player with sharp focus on the customers.

This is the change

IT Services Companies Should Empower Middle Management

By Basab Pradhan, via 6ampacific.com

http://6ampacific.com/2010/06/02/it-services-companies-should-empower-middle-management/

Business of Politics

Not much noticed news now a days is the Rajyasabha elections in India where Mr. Vijay Malya is competing and he is contesting with support of political parties.

If you look at the history, business men have been part of India politics, be it Mr. Bajaj, Mr. Anil Ambani. I do strongly support involvement of such business leaders in political debates where it is necessary.

During my stay in Singapore few years back one of the things I learnt about how Singapore government works. It is full of corporate leaders and government exactly works as a corporate office. I was told the Prime Minister himself owned a company as CEO and he bought in best practices to his government as well.

Though in India context I never heard about a business leader talks about any important national issue, however the parliament gives an opportunity and provides a medium to express such things.

I am not sure if things will change in near future with Indian politics, but we can hope that a corporate government style of functioning comes to India where everything becomes efficient.

Air India, Doordarshan and Other Public Sector Companies

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.

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!

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?

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!!

Building performance driven company

Since we are almost building our BU (business) from the scratch; one of the important things we are thinking about is to build a performance and data driven company. The idea is to encourage risk taking ability and true performance and discourage the false claims.

We have a real long long way to cover, but good part is that we have understood the need for building such organization.

In my opinion building such an organization is not simple job and it needs a lot of courage from the management to call spade as spade. The challenge is to ability to measure the performance and communicate the result to all involved, especially who are not performing. One of the fundamental things we are trying to do is to set up a data driven performance measurement system where each one’s performance will be measured quantitatively, thereby reducing the relative performance grading.

Incidentally, I was talking through some of my friends who have been discussing the recent changes in their organization which appears to be based on the performance and to reward recognition. My intention is not to debate on which is good or bad; but to highlight a corporate truth which is a bit hard to digest sometime.

The hard part of building this kind of company is to have the leadership team which is performing and pumping in the required energy to rest of the team. It’s important to underline the fact that being in management position will not take my neck out of the block. I need to walk the talk and start performing in order to build a team which is performing.

I happen to visit one of our customer’s offices recently while in Norway; it is a consulting company. What impressed me about them is the array of systems and processes which are aimed to improve the performance of the organization and ability to encourage performing. It was really amazing to see a company of little over 250 consultants having such an attention to details. I would call that as a performance driven company, where everyone is accountable for his/her part of the business. Everyone is measured by some or other results which are directly linked to performance on the organization as a whole.

However, this post being posted in the time of appraisal and salary revision cycle is just a coincidental.

The Volcano, the uncertainty, the feeling, the chaos and a friend I explored

I have come to Norway for a business trip; entire top management team is here and we are stuck because of Volcano. We don’t know when we are flying back; our CEO had some urgent meetings in North America, tried to get out of Europe, but got stuck in Munich airport. It is chaos everywhere.

But its fun, we could able to laugh on this situation and try to keep ourselves motivated.

I met someone during these days, like a friend whom I have been missing, a person whom I can talk openly and share my feelings. It’s like returning to my college days all of a sudden. A smart, emotional, energetic, simple person having lot of thoughts in mind; with whom I can laugh openly. I have mentors in life who guides me; have team members who work with me, but what I was missing is a friend who can stand beside me.

One question, can someone talk that non-stop? I thought I talk much!!!

Our discussions have been around the corporate life, business models and simple principles of life, may be ordinary topics from all the angels. But the energy my friend brings in to the discussion it truly amazing. I am feeling like why I didn’t meet this friend earlier?

I am not sure what my friend thinks about my involvement; but I guess we have quickly stuck the wavelength match and I was amazed to see another person who is so close to my thought process, in spite coming from totally different background. We could able to relate to each other very well. It’s just a great experience. Sure we have different thoughts on few topics, but we agreed to disagree which rarely happens in life.

But life is all about such green spots where you will feel ‘life is beautiful!!’

Leadership Lessons from India: A HBR Review Paper

This month’s Harvard Business Review runs a review on ‘Leadership Lessons from India’; how best Indian companies drive performance by investing in People.

This survey was conducted across all sectors like Relience, Wipro, TCS, Bharati Telecom, Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Aventis Pharma and many others. Interestingly none of the companies who are interviewed suggested that their companies had succeeded because of their own cleverness at strategy or even because of the efforts of the top team. They didn’t mention skills in financial markets, merger and acquisitions or deal making talents that western CEOs often claim as important points. They put entire success is because of employees.

The leaders of Indian’s biggest and fastest growing companies take an internally focused, long –term view and put motivating and developing employees higher on the priority list than short term shareholder interest. And it appears that this is a more Indian model and which seems to be working very well for all these companies.
It is interesting to note how Indian CEOs focus more on involving employees in building the strategy and involve themselves in motivating employees. Unlike western CEOs who leave the business unit heads or cost center owners to decide on the strategy and measure the heads based on the financial performance; Indian management seems to be involved in designing the strategy and periodically check if they need any help. Also, they act as mentors to all next generation leaders there by helping them to groom up to next level.

There are couple of other things which needs worth mentioning; ability to create a sense of mission through transparency and accountability and level of communication with-in the companies. It seems amazing everyone works towards a common goal. And Indian companies seem to engage all possible technologies to communicate to employees, be it formal open houses, social network sites etc.

It reminds me one story, which U.S president Lyndon Johnson loved to tell about asking a truck driver who worked at NASA in the 1960s what his job was.

The driver’s response “I am helping to put a man on the moon”. Such is the power of empowering the employees.

I learnt a lot from this article.

What I am up to?

It has been a real busy schedule for me these days. Last couple of weekends I have been traveling and weekend before that was busy with board meeting.

Last two weekends I have seen close to 2500 KMs of India and traveled through different parts of 7 states. (Chandigarh (UT), Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Uttarkhand, Himachal Pradesh). Had been to places like Delhi, Mathura, Agra, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Deharadoon). Planning to Amritsar and Wagha border next weekend.

This is incredible traveling and I am feeling charged up to see so much of India!
I will be traveling to Norway for a business trip on second week of April for a customer seminar. (BTW, the new business plan I submitted was approved and I am going for next level discussions, which is good)

In summary; it will be busy summary and planning to continue my Bharat Darshan!

Kahani Yek Company Ki

I have been thinking since quite some time; why companies fail? Few established companies, who appear to have solid track records, credibility, move in to the phase where everything becomes fragile.

Is it failure of leadership? Failure of strategy? Failure of execution? Failure of Understanding the customers? Or it is mix of all?

I would like to take a case study of Shri Balaji Telefilms, a company which produced popular TV serials like “Kyounki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi” and “Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki” etc. Ekta Kapoor whipped Shri Balaji Telefilms in to a production frenzy of TV soaps and made families adjust their evening schedules to her show timings. In those days, every TV channel wanted to work with Balaji and it appeared the success is eternal.

This appears to be the case with most of the companies, where everyone feels the success and start thinking the success story would continue with the same pace.

Balaji Telefilms started thinking that the show it has been producing has eternal appeal and failed to notice audience tastes were changing out of daughter-in-law and mother-in-law stories. This is the example of missing understanding of your customer needs and changing your game plan as per that.

On top of this, there was no brake on spending, which resulted in reducing the profit margins, which is the failure of execution. As if this was not sufficient; Balaji screwed Star TV; who owned stake in Balaji telefilms in that time and Star and Balaji used to work as captive vendors. This is clearly a failure of strategy and looking at the bigger picture.

Idea of having Shri Balaji Telefilms as case study is not to project it as a failed company. Good part is, they realized it and started taking steps which would eventually re-build it to a successful company. But the question is, why companies get in to this stage where they start falling apart?

My take is, failure of leadership!!

The Sweet Success!

One of the biggest industries in my part of the country is Sugar. In childhood I knew only two industries, sugar and milk industries. Co-operative sugar mills have been established and have been doing really well in producing the sugar there by creating wealth for thousands of farmers.

But recently, Sugar has been seen as a big corporate initiative and Renuka Sugars (www.renukasugars.com ) is making big inroads and recently made two big acquisitions in Brazil and thereby creating a big wave. It’s been seen as a global player now!

Mr. Narendra Murkumbi, an IIM Ahmadabad graduate has seen the vision of making it big in Sugar and he and his mother did wonderful things together in establishing the company. Narendra is the public face of the company and based out in Mumbai. And his mother has been a relationship person and keeps a very close association with farmers and she is based out in Belgum, Karnataka.

Narendra has been known for thinking outside the box and thinking big. (Narendra dissolved his earlier company which was having 50 crores of turn over saying that is small thinking) The kind of the culture they have built in the company is of innovation.

Sugar is predominantly non-predictable business where a lot depends on the external factors. Factors such as crop condition in countries like Brazil and Chili, condition of monsoon, India’s agriculture policies; all pay an important role in deciding the profit margins. But, what Renuka Sugar’s have proved that, innovative thinking, global presence and shear execution efficiency can change the rule of the game.

This is truly a rare picture of stability in a cyclical industry!

When Google Runs Your Life

Your day begins with a wake-up call with your Google Android phone. As you run to the shower, you hit Google News and check headlines, then Gmail. Your first appointment of the day is moved to a location, which you don’t know. No worries, Google Map would help you locate the exact place where you want to go. Quickly update your expense report- including the sales presentation, using Google Template. Your Boss wants to discuss the group’s contribution to a marketing idea being discussed; Google Groups would help you to consolidate the ideas.

Someone wants a documented to be updated; you will update the common document using Google Document. And in addition to this you can do many work related searches throughout the day, including checking the stock price, get some code, get some query answered, download games; all using Google’s search engine!

And a little creepy, perhaps. Google wants to own your every walking minute online- at home, while in transit, at your workplace, wherever you happen to be. It makes connectivity so easy, through desktop, laptop or mobile phone. How much easier the life would be using Google Application that allows us to instantly share Google calendar, spreadsheets, memos, reports, email, corporate blogs, presentations and much much more.

I happened to meet a senior executive at Microsoft, who shared what Google is trying to do with the information on the web and largely how it will shape up the way in which we are doing computing. Google is trying to a methodology where it will stream the entire operating system when we connect through cloud computing. A good connectivity would ensure you have a small universe of Google computing power downloaded to your Net Book.

With this, no longer would you get pestered with notices on your PC to download an operating system to upgrade or extend the subscription of your web security. You wouldn’t worry much if your computer get stolen or fell in the bathtub. These net books are just like office furniture, if you don’t like them anymore, throw them out and start using a new one.

How cool that would be?

Blue Ocean Strategy: Applied to IT Services in IONNOR

I tried to do a mapping of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ to IT Services Business Unit in IONNOR and presented to executive team during a weekend meeting.

Just to set the context;
• This is just an internal presentation, to do a SWOT analysis between the market leaders in Nordic region, TCS and Cap Gemini
• The comparison was focused on the strengths and weakness of each company.
• IONNOR has been clubbed with ErgoGroup in arriving at this strategy.

In and all, it helped us a lot in framing the strategy for this year and identifying the focus areas which we need to take care on urgent basis.

It is so powerful that, with-in few minutes the strategy shaped up and we were in discussion as how to create a new market place where we are playing on our strengths and mitigating the risks.

It gives a lot of confidence and feeling of big league.

The vision behind Apple’s i

I am writing this blog from Oslo, Norway. Reached here through Vienna, Austria. I am currently traveling to meet customers.

Seven years ago, the globally recognizable boss of a certain giant technology company spoke often of the touch-screen “tablet” computer whose development he championed. This pet project was going to change computing for millions of people.

The man was Bill Gates, and the product was the Tablet PC – a device that, while still on sale, has fallen into the limbo reserved for failed electronic gadgets. This week, when Steve Jobs of Apple ended months of feverish speculation by unveiling his own company’s tablet machine – branded the iPad – the echoes were hard to ignore.



Tablets (bigger than a smartphone, smaller than a laptop, and without a keyboard) have been the graveyard of personal computing. If Mr Jobs, 54, can succeed, it will open a new phase in a comeback career. Behind the simple lines of the iPad lie a technological mastery, aesthetic flair and marketing savvy that have long set the Apple chief executive apart.

That is exactly the vision behind Apple’s i

Creating Competitive Advantage in Business

As part of new year resolution of developing strategic mindset :-), I have been reading few books which would help me to develop the required mindset of thinking a bigger picture. Recently I completed one such book which helped me to understand how the strategy can be developed.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Marketspace and Make the Competition Irrelevant. The book, which debuted in 2005, is a must read for any corporation today. Resting upon four “formulation principles” and two “execution principles,” Blue Ocean Strategy teaches the reader to create uncontested market space and break away from bloody competition by strategically moving into the area the authors call the “Blue Ocean.”

The book is intricately designed to walk through the process of its six principles and teaches the reader how each principle is able to reduce risks inherent in any new strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy is not only a book to read but a strategy to adopt and implement for corporations that are determined to succeed in the long-run.

Based on in-depth study of number of leading industries, the authors remind us that in emerging business scenario there is no permanent great company or industry or market or business alliance , instead success comes from being proactive and anticipating cultural, socioeconomic ,environmental, technological advancement and adapting new frameworks and analytical business tools to develop Blue Ocean Strategy.

I was so much impressed by this book, I choose to present this during this month’s ‘Executive Management Meeting’. I have also decided to apply these principles to by Business Unit. Watch this space to hear how it has shaped up and how it is really helping me.

Yet another book which I picked up and which is running good is, ‘Creating Competitive Advantage: Give Customers a Reason to Choose you over your competition’. It is also impressive book, explaining how we can create competitive edge and grow the business.

What I found out from these books is; all the good companies do adopt new business models; change them and build new ones.

That is the difference between good companies and great companies!

Give me some sunshine, give me some rain, I want to grow all again!

Honestly, I am still in hangover of the movie, 3 Idiots.

It touched me, it made me to think, it made me to laugh, took me down the memory lane (10 years back to my IIT days), it made me to do a bit soul searching. It is hard to explain what exactly I felt, because so many things happened to me, all at same time.

The important message it gives about our grading system and one’s ability to question the current status. The actual implementation of education reforms might be far away from reality in current India, but it at least makes us to think about the need to think out-of-the-box.

The story telling has been powerful, through series of well thought characters. Most important question being asked is about human relationships and pursuing one’s dreams.

Throughout the movie I felt; only Chetan can raise such question and the plot of the movie and the subject is pretty much belongs to him. With due respect to the ability of Mr. Hirali’s story telling, but in my opinion, Chetan’s idea has been adopted to this movie completely and obviously some changes are made to add melodrama and emotions.

Anyways, it is a complete movie and certainly it has asked a very good question. But, personally for me, it opened my book of memories and time I had in IIT. First thing I did after watching the movie, is call my hostel mate, who was my close friend!

Give me some sunshine, give me some rain, I want to grow all again. Want to go back to 1998 and start all over again!

Expectations From the New Year

We are entering in to a new year now and I had a look at my New Year resolutions I made last year. Surprisingly, I have stick to the resolution I made. Still doing my fitness routine quite regularly. Had a good year in business and even in my new role started off good with new line of businesses and putting the puzzle pieces together for a profitable growth. I was quite regular with my blogs and self improvements.

This year, I would like to set aside some expectations/to-do-lists rather than setting the resolutions.

1)Build the profitable business: Need to work on this, need to think on new role I am in to and build a bigger portfolio.
2)Bigger Picture: I need to really work on this; I need to think big, really big. I need to see a bigger picture and act in a bigger way. I have the problem of thinking shallow and acting low.
3)Aggressive: I need to work on being more aggressive rather than taking things lying down. Be it business, customer, team or my financial goals.
4)Self Control: I need to learn how to be more patience and take things a bit relaxed way. Nothing happens by being impatient.
5)Time with family: I expect this year provides me a good opportunity to be with my family and have fun.
6)Do something crazy: Wanted to do some crazy stuff this year, hope this year gives me an opportunity. Some of the wish list were, seeing Himalayas, Taj Mahal, A Desert and experiencing Punjabi culture; are being fulfilled this year.
7)Financial Planning: Take control of money, understand the value of it. Plan it.

I hope this New Year brings a lot of changes in me and my career. I will be working on these points.

Off course, my favorite things; exercise, reading, writing and networking will be continued.

The year that has been!

In 4 days from now; we are bidding goodbye to year 2009 and to the decade.

The past year has been full of happenings; year started with Satyam scandal; where probably most big scandal of India Inc has reported. This followed by quick action by government and all ended good with TechMahindra taking over. But it has created bigger impact.

This year also saw series of steps from governments all over the world to arrest the recession impact. It is quite clear that, this kind of stimulus packages helped world economy to revive itself towards end of the year. The tax payer’s money was used to revive companies and at end it made a lot of sense. Though towards the year end, Dubai world scared with the recession danger, but it saw some quick action from government.

This year also means bankruptcy of GM, Chrysler, and few other crown jewels of the industries once upon a time. There was strict cost cutting measures all over across industries; which led to hiring freeze and cut on salary and bonus. I guess, there are some companies which quickly understood the sentiments associated with this kind of cost cutting and took action to prevent it turning in to negative impact, some fail to understand which saw sudden jump in attrition.

From political front; general elections in India gave a more stable government and there was a change in US political scenario as well. Which, I would believe should lead to better ties between two countries leading in to more streamlined business relationship.

From personal front, there has been a change as well. And this is an extremely good change for me and family. Looks like it was much needed change and happened at right time.

Wishing you all a happy new year!

Evolution of Social Networking Business

One of the recent trends; which is very popular and money earning, is social networking business. When the concept came in to action first, it was kind of rewriting the Internet business book where a whole new market was developed.

When the concept started, it was used among friends/college kids to just be in touch and share some pictures/videos and let others comment on that. But, soon the business side of this concept came out. Now all social networking sites have evolved as major business networking sites. This allowed social networking to evolve as a business model and soon all these networking companies started making money by building revenue models around it.

For example, if I have a business and wanted to sell something, now I need not to have a full fledged website; I can just create Facebook/Orkut/Some other social networking page, where by subscribing to different groups I can make my business really popular. I can come up with different promotions, webcasts, and whitepapers there by really diverting the traffic to my business/social site.

This is something new concept.

You can do much more than just getting connected using professional networking sites like LinkedIn. It allows you to subscribe to user groups of your interest and thus participate in the discussion, or you yourself can initiate the discussion and allow others to comment on this. Personally speaking I got a job offer from LinkedIn; which got materialized eventually. These networking sites give you such a powerful media to express yourself.

It is quite interesting as how the money is getting generated in this business; for example there are three revenue models for LinkedIn.
1)Subscription: There are few services; which are still needs subscription, like to find out who really accessed your site. Individuals like you & me doesn’t need this. But, it comes real handy for business to know who accessed their site as they might be their potential customers. Thus this subscription helps.
2)Advertisement: They sell ads to different business and thereby making money
3)Selling Services as SaaS (Software as a Services): LinkedIn sells the services as software to companies to allow them to create site and allow employees to be part of it. This gives companies to establish the platform for employees to share ideas and be connected. Sometimes companied will form Alumni sites which might help them to attract old employees back.

One thing for sure, these networking sites have changed how we spend time on Internet now days.

Change in habits and ‘Hamara Bajaj!”

I concisely made a decision when we shifted to Chandigarh that we will not go for landline phone, which was otherwise would have been first thing after shift. I settled with a cell phone connection. I started thinking about shift in mindset which is occurring in recent times.

For example, hardcover suite-cases have gone now, you don’t see them in airports and railway stations anymore. MTV is not craze now since there are iPods, Video Players, cell phone is a recent phenomenon. So is T-20 cricket. We used to have so many quiz shows in TV when we were kids, but now more of reality shows. It was only (Dancing, ‘Rukawat Ke liye Khed Hai’) Doordarshan and now we have set of cable channels to choose from.

But, the transformation of scooter space is something what captured me! And the news I read about Bajaj fueled it further.

Slowly, Scoters (Gear Scooters, which we used to find when we were kids, not the gearless ones) are disappearing from Indian roads. The largest scooter manufacturer, Bajaj Auto Ltd, has announced last week that they would stop manufacturing scooters completely and focus entirely to build bikes. This is, perhaps, end to a habit and culture of ‘Hamara Bajaj Pride’; where our parent’s generation used to display.

From business point of view, the transformation of Bajaj Auto is incredible; CEO Rajiv Bajaj understood the change in habits of Indian consumer and started doing the transformation 4-5 years back. And it really paid off for Bajaj. Now majority of the business comes from bikes and scoter business is very low. Their earlier competitors (Read LML) are no more in the picture; who failed to read this change. This needs a lot of vision and understanding of consumer market. This kind of business strategy was criticized when it was planned and Bajaj still went head with his plan and proved all his critics wrong.

But, this is what the business strategy is all about, thinking ahead of the competition and time!

Outsider, Marathi, Mumbai, Sachin Tendulkar, English and India

Last month we have seen some incidents and media action/reactions where the issue was raised outsider and Maharashtrian. Even Sachin Tendulkar was questioned about he putting India ahead of Maharashtra.

I would like to see this in a different way. I am not recommending this way or that, but my fundamental question is, can we have that narrow mind? I have relocated myself to different countries, different states, where I have been given a warm welcome. I never felt that I am an outsider anywhere. Given this kind of experience it is hard to believe for me that someone asks for out-of-state people to go back or start talking in local language. I remember reading an article where Amitabh Bachchan was asked to talk in Marathi, the language which he can’t talk.

Can you force someone to use one particular language? Or imagine a situation where Bangalore asks all outsiders to leave the state if you are not local?

I really admire Sachin for his cricketing abilities, now I have started respecting him even more. Because of the fact that he respects India more and he is not shy about putting this across. This is the true Indian spirit and it would be a great motivation for all of us to really think beyond these state boundaries and start thinking like one united country.

I not denying the fact that local languages are important and we need to respect it. But, can a local language bring me enormous amount of opportunity English can bring? We are in a global economy now where India’s advantage has been English talking abilities, given this can we afford our kids to miss the global opportunity English brings up? Why don’t we allow our kids to explore the world through English? It’s vastness, it’s ability to bring good literature, it’s ability to bring best knowledge, it’s ability to provide you the communication channel with rest of the world?

As Chetan Bhagat puts it, local language is your mother and other (read English) is like your wife and it is possible to love both of them at the same time.
Time for all our leaders to understand this global mindset, this helps creating more jobs, not by asking reservation based on state.

Why you don’t get that Promotion?

It has been a while since I hit this blog, life has been hectic lately and now I got a chance to get back. Now since things are on track, I started reading as well currently reading Chetan Bhagat and HBR, both simultaneously.

I read one interesting review on Harvard Business Review, ‘Why you don’t get that promotion’? Author talks about why some guys get promotion and why some gets sidelined, though it appears that the sidelined guy is worth for a promotion. It has very interesting analysis.

It has been explained in this review, with an example, as how things work at the top when comes to promotion. Lately India Inc has some examples where set of people groomed as CEOs and out of them one was picked as CEO, leading to resignation of other guys. It happened in TCS in the past and in ICICI recently.
Author lists out key factors in Executive career advancement;
Non-Negotiable (factors that are absolutely necessary for you to be a contender).
o Demonstrating constant performance
o Being self driven to lead and assume higher responsibility.

Deselection Factors (Characteristics that prevent you from being considered as serious contender)
o Having week interpersonal skills
o Treating others with insensitivity
o Putting self interest over team and business
o Holding a narrow vision on the business and corporation.

Core Selection Factors (Capabilities that breed other’s confidence in your ability to succeed at the senior executive level)
o Setting direction and thinking strategically; spotting market trends and prepare the group or organization towards that opportunity
o Building a strong and continuously improving team.
o Managing the implementation work of any strategy without being involved too low and deep
o Building innovative culture
o Getting things done across the team, departments, geographies.
o Growing as executive, constantly seek feedback and work on the weakness.

This is wonderful analysis I have recently read and it answers few of my questions I had about corporate life.

Change in game field. Analysis on BP deal

The five-year BP outsourcing deal for $1.5 billion is the best piece of news that the outsourcing industry has had since the global recession began. Outsourcing is a phenomenon now, where Business needs to outsource so that it can cut costs and raise efficiency levels. The associated good news for the Indian software and services industry is that it’s leading players — particularly the trio of TCS, Infosys and Wipro — are now truly ensconced in the big league when it comes to global outsourcing. No large multi-vendor deal can be finalized without them getting a piece of the action.

Analysts feel; for the smaller players, the next couple of years will be tough. Through the year-long process that BP undertook to finalize its order, it brought down the number of its vendors from 40 to five. During the boom years, when there were more orders than the large offshore vendors could service, the big clients also chose smaller players. Now, with less to go around and the big players having developed end-to-end capabilities, it is the smaller vendors which have lost out. To keep getting orders from large global clients, they have to make their niche offerings indispensable. The consolidation among offshore vendors in the commoditized space has been on for long, and shows no sign of abating. The Indian leaders are still getting orders because they have differentiated themselves by developing distinctive processes which have delivered better cost and quality.

Other part of the story is, IBM and Accenture, have got the juicier parts of the deal and the Indian players have secured the low-end work of application development and maintenance. So they are still some distance away from their long-term aim of going up the value chain by delivering to large client’s services like systems integration, enterprise solutions and infrastructure management. In comparison, the global incumbents have been able to beat the cost challenge by stabilizing their Indian operations. Simultaneously, the Indian leaders’ attempts to acquire consulting skills remain work in progress.

The second challenge facing the large Indian players is to deliver substantial savings in costs and gains in efficiencies. So while the new order will take care of volume and revenue, the same cannot be said about margins. The need to not just lower price but also deliver more for less means they will have to keep focusing on newer processes to raise productivity. That’s why all Indian majors are giving market guidance of margins under pressure.

It seems; the game field has changed and recession is to be attributed for this. At least, it has differentiated true players in the industry.