the rise and the fall....

"Satyameva Jayate" (Sanskrit: "Truth Alone Triumphs") is the national motto of India. It is inscribed in Devanagari script at the base of the national emblem, which is an adaptation of the Lion Capital of Asoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The origin of the motto is a well-known mantra from the mundaka Upanishad.


In context for the last few weeks the apparently senseless news channels are airing their views and presenting sensational (masaladar) takes on the whole event - the common man, the shareholders (well the smaller ones) and the employees are at their wit's end. So where is the truth? Are we actually surveying the real truth or have the so called perpetrators of truth and information decided that stirring up the fragmented pieces of information collected, in a melting pot with bad presentation and weird assumptions would lead to a better selling information piece and higher TRP ratings. And I thought that reporters and news houses were supposed to find and highlight the real truth – at least that’s what my uncle once told me a long time ago.


Well I will & refrain from commenting on the situation that one of the biggest IT vendors in India finds itself today, story but after careful scrutinizing and observing the proceedings I will but just present a spoiler in the making, drawing a hypothesis with the Enron story - one of the most tragic and sinister instances of corporate crime in American history. Well for starters the case of the above mentioned Indian player might be just up there in the Indian perspective.


I did not follow the story well when the news first broke in 2000-2001 but followed it closely in my fourth year of bachelors. By 2002 as far as I remember not only Enron but its accountancy firm Anderson Consulting went bankrupt and some investors of Merrill Lynch were indicted for fraudulent Enron-related business.

Well the story starts in 1985 with the foundation of Enron a traditional energy supply company, by the chairman Mr Lay (Can’t remember his first name !!!) – Enron grew into a "energy commodities” in the late 90’s under the then COO Jefferey Skilling. Under his famous but equally weird “hypothetical future value” policy, Enron started overlooking current losses and started booking non-existent future profits. For e.g. if you took a home loan of say 30 lakhs today in 2009 as a case of financial investment – normal balance statements should indicate today a debt of 30 lakhs. Suppose you sold this house in 2012 for 40 lakhs then Enron in this example would cite a profit of 10 lakhs and book it today i.e. in 2009 itself. (Any resemblance here to the Indian perspective).


One of Enron later CFO’s too played the cards well getting the top investment banks to invest big time in Enron citing false inflated balance sheets – and getting these huge sums to pay off Enron’s debts. Another way was to siphon off debts to sister concerns or subsidiaries or limited liability companies most of which were headed by the top management itself. So the game continued till 2001-02 when the govt. and the investors started taking the P&L sheets seriously and it was matter of time when the truth came out. The management went off with over 100 million USD in bonuses wheres the normal personal were left with 4000 USD as severance package and zero value 401k plans. It must be mentioned that within a short span of time most of top management who had huge shares in the company sold it off wheres the employee’s stock options plans were frozen. Yet another similarity here with the India story.


Well to put it in perspective the govt. put its weight behind Enron throughout – from the Bush presidency to higher circles within the Senate and California – huge projects, deregulation of the electric industry and manipulation of electricity charges – well this would not have been possible without the reality of red tape there. Cut to Hyderabad and Bangalore – huge projects including roadways, metro etc to a particular infrastructure company owned by the chairman could not have been possible without the govt. backing here. Well the apparent merger of the two companies could have fooled the people even more had it gone through smoothly– who knows.


So should we call this a blatant case of corporate “fraudalism” – or is it just a question of timing. Maybe, had the global markets not tanked the Indian corporate romantic story could have continued – this could have emerged even rosier with the kind of respect and market sentiment that the Indian player commanded both globally and in India. Another biggie in the petroleum and natural gas as well as telecommunications industry too commands equal respect though there have been innumerable instances of stories of frauds and corporate deceit surfacing every now and then but never enough to gain speed.


Well some will say that it was a case of actual deceit or simply bad luck. I am sure this is not the first nor will be the last to surface soon. (The news of Nortel tanking just came in….)


It’s said that we don't grow unless we take risks and that any successful company is riddled with failures. Well I hope and pray that that in the long run it does. Somehow my hope goes out to the 50000 odd people and their families that are/were associated in one way or the other with the company.


God bless.

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righteous marketing.....

Innovation of something useful = Priceless

Repetition of something inherent = 100$

Repetition of the something ineffectual = 1$

Delivering the same message through different viewpoints = sometimes totally worthless

Well I have come across some many colleagues of mine starting up a blog airing their views about some function related to business like finance, cash flows, sales, innovative rules in marketing, HR and so on. Barring a few exceptions I am seldom to come across a blog which effectively delivers truly a new message of sorts with respect to a particular subject in question. Some relate to effective marketing techniques while others to transformational human resources practices. Sound as they might on paper from a internal point of view rarely have they been used efficiently in practice.

So when a friend of mine suggested that why not come up with some interesting concepts in the art of marketing - I was (albeit sheepishly I must admit) considered some sort of guru in marketing when I was in B-school and though the first experience in a job situation changed my views for the better, still amongst a close circle of friends that concept lingered on. Coming back my only answer was – marketing is a whole lot crap these days, media blowing in out of proportion and the hapless common man (atleast in India) not knowing the difference between sales and marketing. Well not many would believe that marketing is an art which we try to deliver in concrete action after comprehending the theory in demand creation somewhat unsystematically in the mind.

Marketing is a matrix – we all have our own definitions; some delivering a sense and expected outcome while others biting the dust. Well what is marketing then – try defining that. Try defining the matrix. While our very dear guru Kotler gives the definition as “Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others”.

Try making sense out of that – while many of my friends got away with random A’s while quoting the definition the question yet remained in my mind whether they understood the true essence of this. I am sure though Kotler did but the interplay of words was something to my mind avoidable.

Anyway marketing is not always about a demand creation and meeting it successfully – as most of the common mortals might be led to believe; it might be even educating and providing changing benefits to the changing needs and demands of the target audience. SHREEEK………..read the line again.

Well if change is constant (which is debatable but mostly acceptable in the end), this definition holds ground. Another point is sensitivity and sensibility. It makes more sense in today’s “’CONNECTED” environment. Online social media has opened up new avenues of marketing – the new age gurus predict transformational strategies to deliver content and open up avenues thorough web2.0 and so on, while the purists bay for blood, I for once tend to side with them. While I would go to a facebook or a orkut to check out messages from long lost friends, post pictures etc, essentially I would not want to click or check out advertisements posted on the site. The success of marketing lies in delivering the key message sensibly, to the target masses without putting a shroud of glitterati on it – the message must deliver and set a tone in the customers mind, effectively and efficiently, not necessarily immediately. While the story of Mozilla Firefox, an Apple iPOD or a AOL winamp can be brought in to support this viewpoint – net net marketing must meet the changing needs of the environment to meet the changing needs of the customer. If that is understood the effective strategies to mastermind a effective marketing strategy in the next step. More on that later.

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the beauty of simplicity.....

"......the time has come to unleash the creative potential of our scientists and innovators at grassroots level. Only then we can make India truly self-reliant and a leader in sustainable technologies....propose a national foundation for helping innovators all over the country. This fund will build a national register of innovations, mobilize intellectual property protection, set up incubators for converting into viable business opportunities and help in dissemination across the country.''

This is what screams out loudly on the homepage of National Innovation Foundation. I was scouting through a pile of documents looking for a particular one when I suddenly came across a certificate that I had obtained from them during my MBA days at IIT Delhi – me and my team of 4 AV, KB & N reached the zonal finals of a b-school competition hosted by NIF & IIM Ahmedabad. How we reached & finals and that too managed to actually do the scouting in record time & submit the B-plan is a different story altogether.

I don’t remember the dates specifically but it was the second last day of entering the competition. That we registered – it was good till then. Then we sat on it for over 20 days thinking that one would finally take the initiative. Then with 6 days till deadline the panic bell rang. Two from the team decided to give it up and not submit the plans at all – while dutifully me and AV decided to go forward. The night we were supposed to leave for Rampur a remote town in UP, AV walked out citing some problems. Some insane force actually took over and in an hours time I was off with KB to the bus depot to somehow reach Rampur minus any concrete directions to it.

We managed to change a couple of buses & hitch a ride of a tempo and then take a hike for a couple of kilometers – reached our destination took the info of the ‘tile making machine’ and off we went. (It’s a different take that we took a detour to Nainital that afternoon and got back somehow to Delhi next morning – bouncing all night on the last seats of a dilapidated Volvo).

With 3 days till submission we were in a dilemma – the plan was on tile making machine.(figures are close approximations of what we obtained from the inventor)

Cost to setup = Rs 8000-12,000

Raw Materials = Rs 100 /day

No of tiles made = 50/day

Labour Charges = etc

Price of tile = 3 (approx including labour charges)

Cost of a similar tile in market = Rs 5-8

Cost advantage per tile = Rs 2-5

Now looking at the overall picture and the rural economic conditions we decided the best use would be for someone to set up a sort of small workshop with say 20-50 machines which then would not only provide steady employment to people in the locality (believe me the peoples’ economic condition in Rampur was deplorable), and our concept was supported by the inventor as well. Also although the cost advantage of Rs 2-5 per tile was huge one had to keep in mind logistics and sales costs. So individually selling tile making machines we found out was not a viable option at all.

Net-net we aired the same views in the competition and the entire crowd was appreciative of our logical conclusions (even the team that won gave us a standing ovation), but in the end we could not make it to the all-India finals because of the simple fact – we had gone out of scope. The B-plan was that of a “tile making machine”, and the judges contested that I should have prepared a plan that would have enabled them to sell these machines to individuals – how weak an argument when the per capita income is less than Rs 10,000. Just imagine that of uneducated simpletons in rural India. Take again in consideration sales & logistics costs – how would that be borne. These were questions they never addressed. Sigh………

Today I look back and the entire episode makes me smile – with due respect to the judges, I felt then and still feel that simplicity is often the key success factor in innovation. While in retrospect the business model would probably make sense with people with management degrees tweaking the business model every now & then making it complex at each stage to juice out efficiency, the end user who was the rural Indian would be completely at sea manufacturing the stuff, distributing it, and selling it subsequently. That to after spending a couple of years earnings for buying this machine.

Whoa!!! I never saw any sense in that then. Even now as I study various businesses and interact with various people both in and outside my company, this fact emerges every time that simple process planned & executed efficiently, was the indication of success in every organizational function.

“This single point of administration ultimately increases the simplicity of running complicated systems while reducing the cost of ownership a great deal. This is what enterprises are looking for and need”

- Don Becker

Maybe that’s why we are in business.

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natural conclusions......

Some people are just endowed with the ability to make the right decisions at the right time (or at least I believe they have). Look around at hundreds of successful investment bankers or industrialists or even an odd common man who has risen to great heights based of this fact alone.

However when it comes to making decisions in my own life, yours truly has often been swamped with trouble. Advice has not helped much either – people say listen to your heart, chose your gut instinct while management gurus preach us to visualize what we want. There are so many ways to make a decision - (yet all assume) that I know, deep down, what's best. The fact is, I don't know what's best, and really, I never will.

Also, I don't trust my "man" inside either; I'm a typical Indian and tend to be on the overly emotional side. Listening to my heart would cause me to fall in love too fast, make too many purchases (my credit card bills would shoot off the roof), eat and drink too much, basically moderation would be out the door (well it has not happened as of now but I live in the constant fear of this fact).

So what do I do? My past experiences in life generally has helped me develop an innovative yet insane (profoundly) methodology - I take the choices I have, and think which choice - having not been chosen, would I regret the most?

It's the polar opposite of what everyone normally suggests, but I've found it helpful because I also have a fear a failure (who doesn't, right?). That fear sometimes causes me to make the safe choice. What if down the road I look back and think about that choice that wasn't so clear? Will I regret not even trying?

My best friend gave me some similar advice, which was basically that you should choose the option with the most unknowns; it'll be a better learning experience.

Making a decision is difficult and whenever I'm feeling stressed out about it, I also try to remember to be thankful that I have the power to make the choice. Some aren't so lucky I guess

I end this post with one more line that existed on my signature in outlook earlier…….something this Indian follows even to this very day.

Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, what the results might be and will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead.

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its TATA all the way.....

Ever taken pride in something you have never contributed???

I did. Well I guess again then the whole nation should. We shouted in joy when India won the cricket world cup way back in 83, repeated the result in the 20-20 version of the game this year, but somehow I failed to see the kind of pride when L.N. Mittal took over Corus or recently when Tata’s took over the Jaguars & Land Rovers of the world – the excitement was somehow missing in the common man. Yes there was a furore in the media for the last 2 days but then again I feel the Indian media is so inconsistent and adolescent in its principles and functionality and work ethics it was just, “another hot news” for them.

“The man……the machine”, Mr Ratan Tata has somehow managed to transform this famous conglomerate into a global brand in the last 2 decades. One side by keeping the promise and delivering the 1 lakh people’s car, to the other of taking over these iconic brands – delivering something to fit the bills of every man in India.

On a personal note it would be a pleasure to see and breathe these iconic brands that will soon be available in India (Mr. Tata, are you hearing the common man) – I am sure that Tatas will go a long way in emerging amongst the top 10 global brand of the future. And we will all be there to see it happen. Viva India!!!

There is absolutely no point for me trying to write something on which almost every news channel and other sections of the media is rapidly churning out papers on…..so I will leave you all with excerpts from an website I came across…..……the last section brings out the way leaders actually visualize the future…..and act likewise.

The Tata Group has 98 firms and began emerging as a force in the world marketplace in 2000 when it bought Tetley Tea, Britain's top tea-bag brand.

By the time Ratan Tata retires in six years, analysts reckon that international revenues could make up at least 50 percent of group revenues.

The Tata Group, founded in 1868, is a colossus at home, with annual revenues of 29 billion dollars, the equivalent of 3.2 percent of India's GDP, and is the biggest private employer, with 289,500 people on its payroll.

On Thursday it was named the world's third most accountable and transparent company by Britain's One World Trust, an independent research group. General Electric and GlaxoSmithKline were rated numbers one and two.

The Tata Group's founder, Jamsetji Tata, was a strong philanthropist.

He accommodated his steel workers in a model company town in eastern India and his employees worked just eight-hour days -- unheard of in that era.

"He believed the primary purpose of an industrial organisation is to improve the quality of life of the community," declares the company website, a spirit company officials insist endures to this day.

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BIG fight......the entrepreneurial way

There are three sets of issues that one must consider when thinking about how to become an entrepreneur, particularly if you are born into a middle-class family of professionals like yours truly…….

The first (the most difficult part I must confess) involves getting started, leaving a safe job or career prospects and jumping into the entrepreneurial fray.

The second issue (an equally difficult part) has to do with maintaining and building a viable business, successfully scaling up so that one has not just managed to 'survive' but also to grow the business and create great value for investors.

Finally, there's the issue of knowing when to move on, either by selling the business or handing over to someone who can bring new energy, skills and ideas to bear. Let's take each of these issues in turn, and examine some of the things you can do to address them."

I was reading the latest edition of Outlook Business for Decision Makers. The magazine carried an interesting article on the 10 hottest emerging businesses in India. Here is the list:

-Education
-Private Equity
-Design Services
-Next Wave BPO
-Packaged Food
-Retail Services
-Localized Internet
-Micro-power
-Cold Chain and Warehousing
-TV Content

So anyone amongst you wanting to start your own business/startup - you know where to go.

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the great divide...

well taking classes on marketing in B-school apparently did not help many of my colleagues who are still plagued by the oddity of failing to differentiate between marketing & sales. Recently a friend of mine got into a conversation with me on this and I had to spend 30 minutes of valuable airtime trying to educate him on the nuances of the business world.

If I try to follow the idiom "Dummy's Guide to Sales & Marketing", then, net-net

Marketing is everything that you do to reach and persuade prospects.

Whereas

Sales is everything that you do to close the sale and get a signed agreement or contract.

Marketing consists of the measures you use to reach and persuade your prospects that you are the company for them. It's the message that prepares the prospect for the sales. It consists of advertising, public relations, brand marketing, viral marketing, and direct mail. To add a few lines for my friends interested in the IT services marketing area, a person handling a marketing area will be responsible for one or all of this for a particular service line or industry vertical.

The sales process on the other hand consists of interpersonal interaction. It is often done by a one-on-one meeting, cold calls, and networking. It's anything that engages you with the prospect or customer on a personal level rather than at a distance. The keyword here (for most of my friend interested in IT sales) is networking, networking and more networking.

It is interesting to note that without marketing an organization does not have prospects or leads to follow up with, but yet without a good sales technique and strategy the organization’s closing rate is usually depressing. Simply stated, marketing takes the long-term view of customer relationships, paving the way for sales to occur in the short-term. One feeds the other. At the end of the day, its about integration and collaboration of both expertise.

PS: This article is also influenced by the fact that apparently 90% on the people I came across & discussed my job profile earlier, had absolutely no clue what IT services marketing was.

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