The Beauty of a blank mind

This compilation is an output of a few days of mine where I have been blank from the top without letting my brain work the normal way. Wanted to just experience it. Also, given the fact that it has been made to stretch for quite sometime now, wanted to give it a little break as well ;) (Just hope it is not too long though). So, here goes the experiences and a few observations in this one month where my brain has literally not thought in its usual way.

Discovery of the defaults:

There are a few default activities which the neurons will be pre-programmed for. These activities are the ones essential for you in life. For a normal social living with a commonly agreed behavior. They are the ones without which you might not be identified as a normal human being by the external society. On a normal day, this whole process of facts would have lead me to a lot of queries from within questioning the existence of such external influences. But since I had switched my mind off, it was at peace; just accepting the facts and moving on to the next.

These pre-programmed activities actually allow you to re-discover yourself and it lets you at times to discover what you actually have been doing since quite sometime now. The derivation out of this is something which took me by surprise. (It was more of a logical derivation which stuck me while writing this up :P). The point is, if this act of yours which you would have done sometime back and hence registered in your 100+TB of memory allows you to feel happy and satisfied, you have actually discovered your passion! It might not be true always though.

A few built-ins:

In the due course of you playing various roles in your life in order to take it forward, there are a few more characteristics which you would be embedded with. These also to a great extent qualify for being default. But the reason why I have not categorized them as defaults is the fact that these characteristics gets associated with you by choice and not by force. Though you might be pushed into doing a few things by force, at the end of it, they will eventually turn-out to be a choice (because if you had a better choice, you would have gone ahead and done that instead). Even these gets executed without any hassles without much input signals reaching the brain which demands it to work.

A few forced actions:

This was the most difficult part to deal with in the due course of the transition. These are the actions which you would have to perform since you have committed your presence else where. It may work or any other personal commitments which you might not have intense interest in. But, due to the fact that you have committed your contribution, you will be forced to stretch your brain there. Now, this is the case if the brain is not left blank as well. But, there will be a difference in execution of the act when it comes the brain being left blank. This was one observation I had when I introspected and thought back as to if there was a better way of handling things. Well, there actually was a difference. Most of the acts performed were based on the built-in capabilities which I had and the outcome of a solution for a problem was something which I would have obviously done (logically going by the historic record etc). This lead me to a thought process which said "It might be the case where the history speaks and the experiences of history provides a solution". Well, I couldn't arrive at any conclusion though.

Creative actions:

It did not come to my surprise that there were not many creative actions performed in this period of time. There were no actions which spoke of me being different from what I would have done with a 1-2 months of lesser experience in life (It might not have been humongous different though...). Even the interest levels for me towards the acts performed were at a lower end. I was not the same old enthusiastic person and to my surprise it was very evident!

I am not planning to bug you guys any more now! At the end of it, the only moral which I could practically prove out of this exercise is "Thinking is the source of Innovation. Historic events provide solutions to any problem in an expected manner which the world might accept as it is supposed to be proven; but this will not be the ultimate solution to the problem which would have been better dealt if there was some innovation attached. Be foolish; be hungry!"

Shreyas

The Urge Within...

There is always a trigger for me in life to go ahead with something! This time it was this movie “3 Idiots”. Don’t worry, I am not going to describe the story here and reveal it to the world even before they watch it!

I always believed in this concept of “Listening to the heart” (though I did not do it). The urge within you to achieve something makes you really love it!! I should admit the fact that the last one and a half years have been really a paradigm shift for me in life where I have gone running behind my dreams. Though I have stopped temporarily, the urge within me still exists. The fire still burns. I still get goose bums!!

Let me get into the market realities. How many entrepreneurs had we seen when we were children? You could count them on your fingers (I am considering entrepreneurs to be as people who start companies here though I am wrong in assuming this note). And how many do we see today? Any thoughts of why this transition has happened? Any idea where were all these bloody brilliant ideals and bloody nerve before? They were all inside you! Inside your own mind and inside your own self!! Here are my few thoughts on this… They are pretty straight forward infact!

India has always been a land of opportunities. This is the case with most of the developing nations (not that developed nations are not!). Due to the onshore-offshore model which was introduced by the software industry, people in this developing nation started to become financially independent. Since it has been quite an amount of time since the advent of this industry and considering the fact that the competition is building, the growth at the top started to stagnate. So, the only choice left was to quit and start! This is the case with a selected few though!

Then came a set of highly motivated young professionals who wanted to prove to the world that they are different (please not to mistake this as their ego quotient). They were young, did not bloody care for money! Had confidence of winning this world! Had the motivation to slog their ass out in the market. Had the perseverance to sustain in the market even after getting royally raped in it! They also had the ideas with them and the courage to innovate! Now, does this sound like a perfect combination to you all? Well… if you ask me its not! Out of all these bunch of guys, only those went ahead who actually had the urge in them! Who had the passion for whatever they were trying to do! For doing what ever they found was good and not the world! This is what is required guys… Even if you don’t have the best of the degrees, even if you are not having the best of the ideas, even if you are not out of a tier 1 college, it doesn’t bloody matter!! Only thing that matters is the nerve that drives you crazy about one small thing! Go for it guys!! Just go for it!! (Yes, you would need patience for people to accept it as at the end of it, they are going to pay for it!)

Thanks to Aamir for this one more breath taking movie!!

Importance of transportation for an economy

Was on my way to visit the economic model which India copied from (initially ofcourse...). Yes, you guessed it right; in UK for a short assignment. Had heard a lot about it having one of the best plans with respect to the city transport and one of the very well marketed tourism department. Got an oppurtunity to see it first hand now. So, here going my thought process on it...

My flight to London was boring initially. But later discovered that the person next to me was the owner of a company. So talks began about discussions on a few business models. Since I was involved in a few startups since more than an year, I was more curious about things; the "do's and dont's" etc... Our discussions entered into one of my areas on interest; "The tourism department". Well... its a known fact that the Indian tourism department is not basically well marketed. Also, there is not enough support from the transport department to fill the gaps of the tourism department. Though this is majorly controlled politically, there is still a lot of scope where there can be a lot of improvement which can brought in by the private players. "Guys like you should plunge into it and not just talk about it." Those were the exact words the other guy said in the due course of the discussion. The discussions carried on with a few other things... But this thought of tourism stayed back with me and I wanted to observe a bit more closely while in UK (also considering travel is more close to my heart...)

Then came the day when I landed in London. Right after I landed, I knew where to go (well managed directions...). Went right into the counter of National Express to get tickets to Bristol (This is where I am staying now... till Jan'10). I could see boards all through the travel. Every small town; every small station had directions well before we actually reached there. I am not saying that this isn't there in India. This is very well there especially if you travel via NHs or SHs. Even in Bristol station, I exactly knew where to get down. This is one thing which is backed up very well by technology. There are automated announcements (not sure if its completely automated and linked to the navigator in the bus or it is driver controlled though...) which makes the life easy even for a person who has not travelled before.

Days went by and I was travelling down to Slough... I had to take a train (rather 2 trains) to reach Slough. This was again a first time experience for me as I did not know where to go in a station. Again, there were no hastles. Everything was well directed. Just that you as a traveller needed to have a little bit of common sense :). While at the parway station at Bristol (where I reached an hour early), I again did not have any problems. The customers are informed almost 45 mins prior to the travel with ample amount of information with enough time-time updates. Even if there is a last minute rescheduling, it is very well taken care and every system is interconnected so that there isn't any wrong information and the customers are not taken by any surprise. Even the train collision etc is managed well through proper information sharing... This took me back to MIS classes though. This is where the discussion with the CEO in the flight became more practical. Things were more clear... But this will require a lot of financial backing as well.

Going back to the parkway station... unlike the Indian booking system, UK has a concept of a lesser pay in the booking if the booking is early. Now this is pure ECONOMICS and an intelligent way to implement it as well. Not really sure if the money which is paid earlier is used for getting returns out of it... but its a really amazing concept and a win-win situation as well... Also, there was a lot of marketing in the train stations as well... all the offers for the new year with a guide book... travel book... reach etc etc... We (Indians) should seriously learn from their marketing methodologies now. Now that we have copied their Law, a bit of tourism and administration... its not a bad idea to copy this as well if it results in earning a few bucks :)...

Well... though it might not have been something different if I had written it if I hadn't come here; just that it is more authentic now as I am having the first hand information... Signinging off as of now... Until next time... Keep inventing... discovering... innovating... digging!!

Distribution Management – Decline of an Industry

Background:

XML Pvt. Ltd (name changed as the company still exists in a different sector) entered the market with a vision of being the market leaders in home appliances. They entered the market with Television as their only product in the market. When they entered the market, there were not many major players in that segment in India. Soon they became very famous and every household had its name associated with the company. The company had a wide network of local dealers and supplies. XML had very powerful sales forces who were locals from the various states in India and the market penetration was easy for XML. Slowly, XML expanded its product line from beyond TV and started manufacturing Washing machines, refrigerators and other electronic home appliances.

XML was an innovative organization with the R&D department consisting of engineers from the top engineering colleges of India who were working with the future technologies. Hence it always took its customers by surprise and quality was never a problem for XML as its products usually persisted for more than 10 years without a single complaint.

Supplier problem:

The main supplies XML had was of ICs, the manufacturing parts and cartons. It had tied up with various local vendors for supply of manufacturing parts and cartons. For sophisticated parts like high-end LCD and other ICs, it had tie-ups with international vendors.

The initial problems with the suppliers started when after monopolizing the television market, XML started demanding from the suppliers. The suppliers were given a credit period as high as 6 months. The suppliers also did not have much of a choice because XML being the major market player, if they are associated with XML, their value proposition increased at that point of time. Hence, XML exploited this situation even more. Even if the credit period was 6 months, the suppliers were being paid after a year or two. This lead to the descend of many local suppliers since they were not able to sustain the pressure of money.

On the other hand, the international suppliers were paid on-time. This increased the grudge in the local suppliers. They started meeting among each other without the knowledge of the company and started forming unions. Since the employees were also local people, the suppliers started encouraging for the employee unions. Finally after a lot of strikes, XML had to move its production unit to its headquarters.

In the new headquarters, XML decided to tie-up with more suppliers and spread its suppliers from over the entire country. This led them to take command over the few local suppliers they had. But this also put them into a lot of problems as the other suppliers were a lot more demanding with respect to the credit period. But XML did not change its strategy for the credit period. The suppliers now wanted to teach XML a lesson. Hence they now started to push all the rejected pieces into the manufacturing units by bribing the employees. This affected the quality of the products to a larger extent and the customer complaints started to increase. Since XML had never faced such a situation, it was not quick enough in responding to the customer queries and the service earned a very bad name.

Due to this, the international suppliers also did not see XML as the vendor they wanted to be associated with. Hence they also started to disassociate themselves with XML. This was a major hit-back for XML as it lost most of its suppliers. At the same time, competition had become fiercer in the market. Smoothening of the government norms had led to international brands enter the market. Hence the suppliers started to concentrate on tie-ups with the international brands. This lead XML to loose most of its quality suppliers.

Dealer problem:

Even though the government norms were eased and the foreign brands were allowed to enter India, these new brands had a very tough time initially. They had the main challenge of replacing the existing local players, setting up a distribution network and many other challenges.

With all the proceedings as depicted in the ‘Supplier problem’ section, the competitor took advantage of the situation. They paid a higher dealership price than what XML was paying. This made the dealers to concentrate more on the products of the competitors. The shelf space for XML kept reducing month-month. Many dealers discontinued their relationship with XML. The competitors need not have to think about penetration either. It was already present readymade in the market. This gave the competitors a cost advantage as the market was already open. Hence the competitors could manage a higher compensation to its dealers and suppliers.

Apart from the competition, dealer and the supplier problems, XML was also attacked by a family issue since it was a family run business. All this finally contributed to the collapse of the electronic home appliances section of XML.

Learning:

• For you to operate in a value chain created by your company, all the stakeholders in the supply chain have to be treated at par.
• Do not neglect competitors and update yourself on a regular basis. Though XML had a full fledged R&D team, they were not in par with the technology offered in the market by the competitors.
• Monopoly does not exist for long in an open market environment. Hence try to build brand values as long as you have the monopoly. These values will come handy during the time of immense competition. This will also help in arresting the competition from penetrating the market easily.
• Consider the business model of having exclusive dealers.
• Innovate the marketing strategies to be in sync with the changing business needs.

Sales ... A case study

Note: The discussions below are a true case study of a private company. Hence the name of the company, its clients and competitors are kept confidential for ethical purposes. Regret the inconvenience caused.

It was May 2008 and the top management of the entire organization was involved in a proposal to one of its most prospective clients. It was one of the highest revenue generating projects in the recent past for the organization. The company, XYZ Pvt. Ltd, is a niche telecom service provider in the market space of Europe. XYZ has been in a good relationship with its client organization CLT since more than half a decade providing constant innovative solutions to CLT and thus collaboratively helping them to growth in the highly competitive market. Due to the ever increasing demand of its customers, CLT decided to capture a place in the cloud to enable its systems to provide a cheap solution to its ever increasing client base. Hence CLT decided to change all the systems involved in providing the service so that the technical disability is avoided across the entire set of services.

XYZ was the most preferred vendor of CLT due to its constant innovative solutions provided. Hence they were asked to draft a proposal for this initiative. Over the period of more than seven years, many competitors had developed in the European market. Hence, along with XYZ, CLT also asked Comp A, Comp B and Comp C to bid for the proposal. Since the other three organizations were involved in supporting the other systems of CLT, this move of CLT did not surprise XYZ.

After a month’s long hard work, the final proposal was ready and a few top executives of XYZ headed to Europe for selling the services offered by XYZ. The major parameters considered for measurement of the proposal by CLT were as below:
• Quality of service provided (QOS)
• Cost incurred by CLT (ROI)
• Overall service package offered

For the ease of maintenance, CLT had divided the systems into eight logical domains ranging from customer registration to billing.

Among the above four expected parameters, XYZ had an edge in the quality of the service provided since it had a very good track record over a period of seven years and also due to the fact that XYZ was the most preferred vendor of CLT. The other vendors were also very reputed for their deliverables in the industry. But the fact that XYZ was in a long running relationship with CLT gave it a clear cut advantage.

Considering the second parameter under consideration, the variation in the bidding amount proposed by all the four vendors is depicted by the graph below:

From the above graph it can be incurred that the amount proposed by XYZ was comparatively the highest. It was around 50 million € greater than the lowest bidder. This is when CLT started to bend towards the other clients and the interest of CLT towards XYZ started reducing. Hence the chances of XYZ winning the bid were really less after the cost related statistics was portrayed.

Now XYZ had only one opportunity left to showcase that they are different from the other vendors in the room. They had to do a proper service mix to make sure that the contract is not lost. Instead of concentrating on what went wrong, the top management at XYZ decided to take advantage of the fact that they were the most preferred vendors of CLT. They concentrated on the quality of service they provide. Instead of just offering the solutions to the existing problem at CLT, XYZ also offered value additions to the systems at CLT. This meant that, along with the normal expected services, XYZ offered a free value addition to the domain under operation. They also went a step ahead to align themselves with the customer to identify their existing problems and providing a permanent solution for the same (thus removing the recurrence of the issue). This was a perfect mix of services which XYZ offered and CLT (who trusted the quality of deliverables of XYZ) had no other choice but to choose XYZ for the contract. At the end of the meeting, XYZ had won 50% stake of the entire bid and the remaining 50% was split among the other three vendors.

It was a win-win situation created by XYZ which led to it bagging 50% of the stake. Due to the non-reduction in the cost factor, XYZ was even more thrilled to provide a better QOS. CLT was happy that XYZ was closely working towards their business goals and were ready to improve their customer experience free of cost in the form of value addition to the domains under consideration.

A few points derived out of the above case study are as below:
• Cost or ROI is not the only factor on which businesses work in this highly competitive environment. You should always have a competitive edge so that you can make a difference.
• Proper pricing strategy has to be considered while selling. In the above case even if XYZ had lowered down the price by 50 million €, they might not have won 100% of the bid. Purely because of the fact that the perception of client to spread the domains was not because of the cost factor. It was because he had to increase the pressure of QOS due to cut throat competition.
• At times, a perfect product/service mix appeals to the clients. It might create a win-win situation.
• A sales force has to be flexible enough to cater to the customer demands. If the customer requires technical solutions or projections, the sales force should deploy technical people. If high level decisions have to be taken, the proper DMU (Decision Making Unit) has to be deployed.
• Customer perceptions play a very important role.

A business called Education...

It was a gloomy evening at the Gandhibazar CCD in Bangalore. I was hanging out with my friends as one of them was travelling to Germany for his higher studies. Pissed off with his job at one of the software majors, my friend decided to go behind his dreams; joined IISc for a project in Electrical engineering. After an year and a half, he got an admit in one of the technical Universities in Germany. Over the small talk we had, I got to know that the fee he paid for the education which was spanned for a period of 2.5 years was just 16,000 INR! It took all of us with a shock! He later revealed the fact about the universities in Europe being completely funded, do not take much money from the students who come to study at the universities... This lead me to a completely different thought process altogether.

If you imagine a similar quality of education in India, it would have not cost you lesser than a few lakh INRs. Even for that matter, the US universities also take a hell lot of money for their MS programs. In the due of learning, the people who cannot afford the education will loose the inclination towards the main intent of their visit and try to work out a deal in their lives where the main motive shifts from education to earning money to get over the heavy loans that was made in the due coarse of getting quality education. Even in India if you see, institutions like IIMs and IITs have a respectable amount of funding a real good Alumni who can work out to get more funding into the institutions. I do agree that there is a lot of government interventions in these institutes; but the whole point here is about quality and cheaper education. If you see the industry I am associated with (the service industry), I can atleast comment that the world is moving towards a mode where quality products are expected to be delivered with a highly reduced costs.

Coming back to the institutions in India, no doubt that they have a real good set of individuals who contribute to the technical innovations of the world. They have to be backed with a good funding from either private organizations or the government should work towards it so that atleast the quality is not lost. They are not here to make money by venturing into education considering it as a business and an evergreen market. (Of course, I do agree that money has to be associated but not to an extent at a which it is now) This is when even the poorest kid in the society can afford to get an access into the education offered in these institutes. This is when bright ideas won't die due to lack of money. This is when there will be an economic balance created between the poor and the rich. This is when India can grow as a super power!

Signing off as of now ... Good luck to my friend!

The new age entrepreneur

I was just collecting all my thoughts today which used to ponder around my head for more than an year now! It was more than an year back that I had set out with loads of dreams in my eyes! I joined MBA with an intension of meeting like minded people there with whom I can hopefully end up being an entrepreneur. Not because it was in the air, but I had a dream and my parents supported it. So I decided to give up my personal time to discover my dream. Went in search of people... the right idea... the right moment... In the due course, many new ideas came in... this made me shift my thought process of just a software engineer to that of a person who can actually make a difference in the top management! I became more and more creative... everyday was a new discovery for me... every night was tiring... We used to slog our nights out for just one small hope of making the real difference! We used to meet a lot of young / old guys who were there making a difference. A lot of marketing ideas came out of our brains. We began to observe each and every small thing around us like never before. Hope was at its highest level. We had gathered all courage to go ahead and take the ultimate step. Then came the great American recession! It just shattered our business plans, all the courage was washed out in just a very short span of time :'( ... The markets were hit!! The forecasts were bad!! Hence we had to do the thing we were never prepared for... We dropped the whole idea for the time being...

I didn't want my creativity to die ... I had started photography in the meanwhile and had picked up quite well in a short span of time. Hence decided to play in the market with it being a tool... setup a supply chain of my own with tie ups with 2 local vendors and a retail store. It was a real learning for me! I learnt to make business there... Though I came into the limelight, the recession had hit the art market also. I learnt a lot from the retail store manager (a Punjabi). This gave me the real essence of running a local retail business. It was an amazing experience nevertheless. Later on the ideas kept on coming in making some online business, thus making money etc... finally I tied up with an art market startup to sell my photographs. But it again failed!

Then came a dry period where I just had my normal job and MBA had become screwing now demanding a lot of my time and attention. But my dream was still ON! Then came a time where I got an opportunity to actually join an already running startup to build the sales and plan for the future marketing prospects. Looked like a deal for me! But somewhere inside I did not have a great feeling towards it (probably because it was not my original idea). Nevertheless I agreed for a few things with them. Went ahead and put in a lot of ideas and the real work of a sales and marketing fellow was done. This is when I met a few clients as well trying to convince them about the offerings and stuff. But this feeling which had initially developed in me made me feel more and more tired. I used to go back home everyday in the night with an amazing amount of headache! This is when I realized a few other things and decided to concentrate more on my health.

This was an amazing breathtaking, mind boggling journey for me. Though there was absolutely no monetary benefits for me, it changed me as a person and made me thick skinned! Today I have no fear to failure! I have got over all that. In the due course I discovered quite a few real good people who will be associated with me for lifetime! Even if not physically in contact, at least I would never forget the difference they made in my life!

There was a lot of learning that I take back from this experience of mine! Here it goes...

• Never compensate for your health! You just will loose the interest and the potential if you loose your health!
• Identify who is what and exploit the goodness in them rather than cribbing that they should have had this etc.
• You should have a core team of people with REAL stuff. The idea cannot be implemented otherwise.
• Go behind your dreams and not compensate for anything at least in this. If you are in a mode of compensation, get out of it. It is better to have a job and work for someone else.
• There is a lot of difference between what happens in the real world and what is being portrayed.
• Always have a parallel source of income which serves your bread n butter. This is required if you are not filthy rich or have a family who is dependent on you.
• Have a vision beyond 10-15 yrs. Things will not work out overnight. You cannot expect a sale to be done in 3-4 months, esp if you are a startup!
• Create a buzz in the market, even if your product is virtual!
• Customer is really the emperor!
• Learn from your mistakes; but don't repeat them. You will burn your fingers otherwise!
• Do not neglect even the smallest of the market triggers. The bull whip effect actually exists in the normal business scenarios as well!

These were the few learnings which I would always want to have in mind! This has not been a phase of failure but a learning phase for me! As of now, taking a good break and concentrating more on my health... But will definitely return to it one day with a new idea; a new initiative! The energy is still ON! Also looking at how to change the way India is working now... Any bright sparks out there ...??