Killing the Wave- What entrepreneurs can learn from it?

Killing the Wave- What entrepreneurs can learn from it?.

(Wiki) Leaking the Secrets

 

People around the world have varied opinions about the WikiLeaks spilling the beans. Some believe, even though illegal, it is a new level of transparency while others believe it is forbidden-type of illegal and puts thousands of lives in danger.

I am not sure whether it is illegal or not. That’s because anything on the other side of the law is bound to be illegal. Now, it’s a matter of choice, albeit for the chosen few, where to erect the wall of law. In this particular case of WikiLeaks, first of all I am amazed at the cracks in the armor of the high and mighty US Army and defense departments which have let a handful of individuals have access to the “top secret” documents and wires. Second, I am shocked at the contents of the documents. The parcels and parleys that go around in background have scant respect for human life. All the politicians are concerned about is their own and their countries’ political ambitions.

I don’t think the latest WikiLeaks will affect the relations between nations. At the most they are embarrassing and at the least entertaining.  They sure will cause a lot of red faces around. The aftereffects of the red-face-situation have already begun with Mrs Clinton condemning the leaks and “deeply regretting” the same.

The leaks might not help the common man in any way, but, yes having a disease and knowing about it is always better than having it and not knowing about it. Now, at least we know what is going on.

 

National Pride? Bull Shit. We play for money.

 

I sometimes feel pity on the people who equate the Indian cricketers as gods, sultans and walls. It’s all about money, honey!

G.B. Shaw rightly said once “Cricket is a game played by eleven fools and watched by eleven thousand others”. The first figure still remains the same while the second has changed to may be eleven million.

Indian Olympic Association checked with BCCI on the “Indian” team’s participation in Asian Games. The answer was ” we can not participate due to prior engagements”. Try reading it again and you’ll infer “Play for National Pride? Bull Shit! We play for money”.

Thats the truth. Remember the time when the Election Commission of India requested the IPL body to change the IPL schedule on account of the Lok Sabha elections. The IPL bosses found it better to shift the venue of the circus outside India than comply with the request. Arrogance.

Also remember the time when Sharad Pawar requested the PM. Manmohan Singh to “reduce” his ministerial workload as now his Cricket responsibilities have increased. Cummon’ man! If you are so interested in performing your Cricket responsibilities, resign from LS and devote your life to cricket.

I feel sad when the likes of Sachin and Dravid talk of playing for the nation and national pride. Had they any sense of national pride, they should have at least raised their voice for participation in the Asiad. Going by the consistency (rather inconsistency) of the Indian Cricket team, I am not sure if they could have won a medal, but, it could have been worth a try.

 

Asian Games: Flying Fairies and Bad Ass Boxers.

 

The flying fairies have done it again. So did the boxers. And Rowers. And Swimmers. And Wrestlers. And Shooters.

Indian sports men did a commendable job at Asiad with a total of 64 medals including 14 golds (till the time this post was written). The best thing in this show was that the Indian teams have shown consistency. In the past there have been sparkles here and there in various sports arenas but to make our mark on the sports scene, we need consistency.

The 4 x 400 girls team which set the nation on fire during their performance in the Common Wealth Games, gave a repeat treat at the Asian Games too. The Kabaddi team won a record sixth Gold to remind the world of their dominance. So did the women kabaddi team.

The icing on the cake was track events where till now, since my birth, besides Milkha Singh and PT Usha, I have not heard another name. The trail blazing act by Joseph Abrahem and Ashwini left me spell bound.

These girls and boys have shown that our oft-repeated excuse of “Indians don’t have strength and stamina” is a mere excuse. Give them facilities, they will definitely win for us. That these athletes are winning even the absence of facilities is even a bigged feat. Bajrang, the gold medalist in rowing told in an interview after winning the medal how the rowers were put in cramped sheds and had to bear with not-so-good food during their training camp in Hyderabad.

Now, its the onus of our politicians (most sports bodies are controlled by politicians, that too for decades), that they spend less time in devising ways of creating scams and scandals and provide proper facilities to sports persons so that we put up a face-saving show in Olympics.

Barkha Dutt, you let me down!

There was a time, when I would wait for the TV program “We the People” . I became a fan of Barkha Dutt and recognized her as the much needed voice of the common man. I revered he daring efforts when she went battleground Afghanistan to keep us up to date when the Afghan war broke out. I used to quote her in discussions and talks.

I feel let down.

So do others. She has not only lost my trust, but has created skepticism in my mind for anything that I hear, see or read in the media. every journalist looks as if doling out manufactured reality.

I could not believe my ears when I first heard the Niira Radia tapes. As mentioned, I felt let down. But did I feel offended? Yes and No.

On the second thought, what Barkha and other senior journalists did was not a criminal act in the eyes of the law. It was for sure a foolish act. What made it criminal was the broken trust of the people. We the People, who thought these journalists to be our voice, felt the stabs in our back.  Someone whom we thought was fighting on our side was suddenly seen conspiring with and facilitating the opposition camp.

I am not sure if  Barkha and Vir can be brought to book, but they do owe me an apology. I know, the apology will not bring back the broken trust, but thats the least they can do.

 

Kids are back home.

Everyone acknowledges that the current downturn in economy has taken its toll on many geographies across the globe. The US economy has also suffered a lot, if not the most, in recent years.  The struggle that businesses in the US are facing these days is published across the globe in almost all the available channels of broadcast. The news is all about dollars and cents, markets and indices and gold and crude. Not many newspapers (or the electronic and the internet media) talk about the effects on the society. Here is an attempt to bring a few important changes that have taken (are taking) place in the American society.

(Un)eligible singles:

The society in general shows an increase in marriages when the economic times are good. In the recent years, the American people are putting off their marriage plans due to the economic constraints. The share of the unmarried population in the age group 25 to 34 yrs. jumped from 34.5 percent in 2000 to 46.3 percent in 2009. This is a major social trend to take notice of.

Kids are back home:

There is a trend of young people (mostly recent graduates) moving back in with their parents. In 2000, 17 percent of Americans in the age group 20 to 29 yrs. lived with their parents. Today, the figure is pinned at 34 percent. Now, compare this to the beginning of the “original” boom years- 1960, when only 9 percent of people in this age group lived with their parents.

Changing face of labor force:

The labor-force participation among American youth in the age group of 16 to 24 yrs. continues to fall. Most recently, it fell to 60.5 percent in July 2010, which is the lowest July ever recorded. Before 20 years ago, the typical labor force participation rate ranged between 81 and 86 percent.

These are some of the major effects that the economic hardship of the times has had on the society. This is just the US Society. In coming years, many countries will see some major trends in the social setup. In a light hearted chat with an American colleague, she pointed out that people are not only putting off marriages and moving back home with parents, but are putting off divorces too. Is that a good or a bad news? I don’t know.

The Spatial Grid and the “Cloud Book”

Kevin Kelly in his talk on TED.com talks about the future of web (Next 5000 days of the web) as a web-mesh that will integrate everything on the planet earth. He also gives a passing reference to the “cloud book”. I personally have been interested in the concept of “The Cloud”.

Laptops and PCs of the future will not need to have a memory storage capability. The concept of “Cloud Book” revolves around the hand held device that will be required to fetch and display the required information from the “cloud”.

To work for this cloud, there needs to be a continuous cloud in which the information flows. The cloud is supported by the Grid. The billions of terabytes of the information will be stored on different servers in the Grid, the processing power will be a sum total of all the processors connected to the grid and the flow will be seamless.

This idea might look very farfetched today, but in some years to come, it will be reality. Many companies have going in this direction Flicker, e-snips, Blogs, Wikis; Social CRM etc. have already started taking the first steps in this direction. All these applications work on the principle of “Storing and Sharing”. On similar lines, the vast sea of knowledge will be stored and shared with the millions of users connected to the grid. All one needs is a device to connect to the cloud and fetch the information required.

Now, this Cloud Book will have to be a standard platform, which has some processing capability. Once it’s up and running, the Book will make use of the Cloud and select the best Operating System required for doing the task at that moment. If more processing capability is required to achieve the task, it will make use of the spare processing capability of other machines connected to the Grid.

Thus, the information in this world just becomes a sea where one just needs a bucket to take whatever he wants. The best part is, whatever information the person takes, is not depleted from the sea. On the other hand, when the user converts this information into knowledge, it is added to the Cloud so that others can also use the same.

I am eagerly waiting for this concept to get up and running. May be this is the Next Big Thing on the net.

 

Sacrificing Good for the sake of Best.

Imagine a house owner who hires a servant whose only job is to keep the house clean. Also there is a sweeper employed by the government to sweep and keep the road clean.

Now, the servant in the house has a job of keeping the house clean. Every morning, he sweeps the house and throws the garbage onto the road. The sweeper, whose job is to keep the road clean, throws the same garbage back into the house.  The servant and the sweeper are doing their jobs to perfection. No one can raise a concern on the jobs performed by them. But, the net result of the job is null. And, on the extreme, both the sweeper and the servant might get rewarded for their performance. It is the job of the house owner to make sure that both the road and the house is clean. The best would be to make the servant and the sweeper understand this. Once, they understand their jobs, in relation to each other, they create an “ecosystem”, a clean environment, in and around the house.

That’s the scenario where a manager has to take care of the different members working for his team, or different teams working in the project or different projects working to achieve the organization strategy.

The manager today needs to create an ecosystem around the jobs of the people where the resources do not just complete their jobs; they complement each other in the ecosystem. This is the ecosystem of business. Because now a day’s no one does a job, he conducts business. And the fact is compounded by the advent of Globalization. No one can sit cosy and see his products/ services selling without facing any competition from others. These “others” can be in any part of the world.

Not only competition, cooperation in conducting a business can come from any part of the world. Cooperation or collaboration in business has to be running at clockwork precision to manage the constraints of time zones, language and even work culture.

The readers should not misunderstand me when I suggest not sacrificing Good for the sake of the best. I suggest, first the business leaders should make sure the Good is achieved and then aim for the best.

Why only 2 companies bid for MTNL’s 3G Franchisee Tender?

When MTNL invited bids for outsourcing its 3G services in the two metros of New Delhi and Mumbai (In-Fact MTNL only operates in these two cities.), none would have thought that only two bidders will came forward to stake a claim.

MTNL, being the State’s own company, was allowed to have the privilege of operating the 3G services six months before the other private players could start their services. Given the first mover advantage and all the government gods on its side, the market watchers expected MTNL to become the market leader. But, even after six months, MTNL has only (ONLY) 1000 subscribers for 3 G services.

And, now when MTNL tried to outsource its 3G services, only two bidders have come forward to bid. That’s a disastrous icing on the disaster cake!

Why? What happened?

I have worked as a Process Consultant to MTNL for implementing PeopleSoft CRM and know a lot about the infrastructure and the working on MTNL.

The biggest problem is the customer base. The segment who would use the 3G services are not the customers of MTNL. This segment would be the “moving forward” type customers expecting high performing networks, strict adherence to SLAs and backup. To list a few: High Net Worth Individuals, young and rich professionals, niche SMEs and big corporates.

Given the standard of MTNL customer service and the pathetic supporting infrastructure, none of these customers will be willing to go for MTNL services.

Now, when MTNL does not even have the segment of customers to whom will the Franchisee cater the 3 G services?

In my point of view, this is the problem (or fact) that kept away a majority of the private players from bidding for the 3 G outsourcing deal of MTNL.

And, I wonder: For how long the Government will keep supporting such white elephants? The day is not far when BSNL and MTNL will got the Air India way!

Is the Bottom of Pyramid strong enough to support the “Capitalist Aspirations”?

The Harvard Paper titled “Fortune at the bottom of the Pyramid” (Published by Booze Allen Hamilton in Stategy + Business issue 26.) made famous the radical thought of expoiting the “Bottom of Pyramid” for further expansion by the multi national companies. Prof C.K. Prahlad argued that the vast expanse of population in the world belonging to the Tier-4 category of the economic ranking of the world populace, is the next big thing for the MNCs to target for further expansion. Though the argument looks valid at first glance, it is not without some pitfalls. I have a strong dbout whether the Bottom of the Pyramid is strong enough to support the capitalist aspirations. In this article I have tried to explore some of these pitfalls. 

Creating buying power and the “affordable credit”: 

The buying power of the rural people (and other constituents of the bottom of the Pyramid) can be created by two ways. One, by increasing their income levels. Two, by making the access to credit easier. I find the first case more viable option for increasing the buying power because as the income increases, the people tend to buy more as they have mre disposable income.

But, I find a problem with the idea of making easier access to credit for these people. This is because unless the person has the paying capacity, he can not return the borrowed money. As we have seen in the present economic crisis, easy availability of credit can have some undesired consequences. 

Thus, some how one should make sure that the credit is not be available for “buying” but “creating” buying power. In the villages in Punjab its common trend to borrow a lot of money for weddings, family functions, buying motorcycles etc. Though this kind of borrowing increases the spending of the Tier 4 people, it does not “create” buying power. It pushes the people deeper in debt. Also, its been seen that banks are willing to extend credit to only tose people who have the capacity to pay back. If, along with the wealth generation capabilities, “affordable” credit is made available, the population can become self sufficient. Thus, one needs to create an environment for the Tier 4 people so that they have the facility to borrow and capability for pay back. 

Creating aspirations: 

Creating aspirations in the Tier 4 population is a very tricky subject. Take the case of India, its been observed most of the underworld gangsters and mobsters come from the lower economic strata f the society. Many of there youngeters were lured into the crime world because they had very high aspirations and no means to achieve the same. Thus, many took the road to criminal activities. Thus, creation of aspirations in the Tier 4 population is not enough to expand the markets for the products specially designed fo them. There have to be concious efforts to make sure, they have the means and ends to satiate these arpirations. 

Survival of initiatives: 

There have been efforts by individuals and organizations to make the Bottom-of-Pyramid self sufficient to fund their needs and aspirations (wants). Notable among these have been the microfinance revolution brought about by Dr. Yusuf in Bangladesh and the self sufficiency in irrigation by Anna Hazare in India. But for every such succes story there are thousands which have failed. There are hundreds of schemes started by the Govt. which could never go beyond infancy. The MNCs should come forward to support the government initiatives to make sure that the various “empowerment shcemes” started by the governments see the light of the day, pass the stage of infancy and have enough strangth to survive and serve their cause. 

Value for money: 

Money is very valuable to any segment of the population. It’s the “value” of the money that the consumers get that makes them part with the hard earned money. For the tier 4 population, even a small amount of money spent on goods forms a large percentage of their total income. So, the companies planning to exploit this small sum and “huge percentage” have to be very careful in developing the products which offer the “value” of money to the consumers. 

Thus, if the businesses wish to exploit the bottom of the pyramid for fuelling the next big wave of their capitalist aspirations, first initiatives have to be taken to make the pyramid strong enough. Else, there is a chance of this layer cracking and creating another shock wave up the pyramid. There is wealth at the base, but this wealth has to be nurtured and then harvested. There is not feasible or possible alternate way to harvest this wealth without nurturing it.