An Appeal to Indian Cricketing Community

The whole drama about the Sourav Ganguly controversy should come to a amicable end. Amicable to Indian cricket to end to Ganguly. While it is interesting to brainstorm about who was right in this episode and to what extent, let's look at some fundamental problems, that began and would continue to exist much beyond Gangulys and Sachins of India. The underlying reason for the kind of situation that we are in today is because, at some point of time, the individual players became larger than the team, larger cricket and the nation's interest itself.

Win or lose, it was a treat to watch sachin's century, is a familiar statement that many of us have heard or sometimes uttered or felt ourselves! Successful teams across the world seem to have one common resounding attribute. There is no player who is bigger than the team. Australias and Englands of the world have practiced this and have been successful.

Now, the good news! The current larger than life stars of Indian Cricket are in the better part of their careers. Post WC 2007, Indian cricket could well be handed over to the next generation. It is sufficient if enough care is taken to make sure that no new 'larger than life' star emerges from Indian Cricket. The only way to keep the players focus on the team's interest would be to marry individual interests extremeley tightly into team interests.

This is an appeal made to all the decision makers and string pullers of the cricketing world. In the best interest of the survival and flourishing of the game, lets put the team ahead of everything else. Howzzzaaat?????

Wake up, India Cricket Inc.

Folks, our Indian Cricket team seems to have caught up with some sort of mediocrity for quite sometime now. It is disappointing to see them losing time and again. Current ICC ODI ratings ranks India as No.7, jus ahead of the Windies, Zimbawe & Bangladesh.My disappointment, similar to most of yours,out of the love for the game and for our team. However, there is another aspect to this that needs serious notice from the team, BCCI and the entire cricket inc. in India. The warning is 'Times are changing'.

There is more penetration of other sports in India. Formula 1. Thanks to Narain! the first ever Indian formula 1 driver is showing a lot of promise. Take tennis. Taking the game to the next level from Paes and Bhupathi is the teen sensation, Sania Mirza. Shez got game and style. A recent youth icon survey in The Week ranks her as No.1, Rahul Dravid is the cricketer two ranks below...!?!? Talking about ManUs and Arsenals are commonplace amongst today's youth.

What are the implications of this!? Some of us might be aware that Hockey is actually the national game of India, but most of us would bet Cricket is the national game. Our cricketers seem to be spending more time before the camera than in the middle. Cricket is what it is because it was marketed heavily and there are a host of products that are brands to reckon with, because of cricketers... The more consistently our cricket team puts up a poor show, the farther away they are moving from the fans! Brands only get endorsed with people with whom the customers would be able to relate to quality, performance, heroism... BCCI may not be able to enjoy the amount of reserves that are used to right now.

Consistent performance and fancy stars are a MUST to survive in the market place. Wake up boys!

Strategy.... most (mis)used word in management!?

I was jus browsing through my school's library.. which I love to do.. and noticed an interesting pattern.. there were books on strategic brand management, strategic human resources management, strategic marketing management and the list goes on... started wondering if we have started to over use the word.. strategy!

So, here is my thought... I wanna write a series of books myself along with a friend.. the series is gonna be

Strategic XXX Management

for

Competitive Advantage

XXX can be anything.. u name it! watch out your bookstores for the releases!!!!

Yeh Dil Maange More!

Folks, for those of you who do not know me personally, I am a MBA student.

One thing that gets stressed time and again n again n again in Bschools is 'the main purpose of running a business is to Maximize Shareholder value and this could be achieved by increasing sales and profits and by reducing costs' After listening to this philosphy for quite sometime, suddenly I started the feeling, what the heck is going on... whats the point in working towards maximising shareholder value. Is that all we exist for??? Well... all I am carrying now are questions. I dont have clear cut answers in my mind so far.. am still exploring!

There is more to life than maximising shareholder value. Think about it!

On Technology Entrepreneurship - K B Chandrasekhar

In the series of great guest lectures at Great Lakes , lets meet Mr. K B Chandrasekhar , a great technology entrepreneur, in this writeup. Chandra is the co-founder, CEO, and chairman of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Jamcracker Inc., a provider of on-demand delivery and management software. He is also the co-founder and chairman of e4e Inc., a global technology holding company, and chairman of Aztec Software and Technology Services Ltd., This is a guy who started his company with a mere $4500 and is today, one of the most admired techies of the Silicon Valley.

To describe in one line, he sets the place electrifying, wherever he goes. His energy and enthusiasm are extremely contagious.

Chandra gave us a motivating talk about his journey as an entrepreneur, his ups and down and shared with us the mistakes that he committed and the learnings and his comeback.

Lessons Learnt

Straddling two worlds - irrational exuberance and nuclear winters
Startup companies typically undergo two extremes, one is an irrational exuberance that makes them think that growth is permanent and the other extreme the nuclear winters, when the entire world seem to be falling apart around you. Resilience is the way to survival!

Adapting to market realities - The thought that we are not always right has to learnt and one has to necessarily adapt to the realities of the market. This is all the more important in a very dynamic industry like the Hi-tec.

Make swift decisions
Decision made on time is as much important as making the right decisions. This is one of the important reasons for the series of startups that Chandra could do.

Doomed if you do, domed if you don't
Its all about guts. When you know that, either way your are doomed, better try what you want to try before getting doomed. In Chandra's words, sometimes, when you are almost drowned, there could jus one strand of hair that's floating in the water and suddenly someone might lift you up by pulling that one hair of yours.

Tourists come and go but entrepreneurs stay for passion
Fire in the belly! Anyone who gets to listen to his lecture would recall his name with energy and passion. The belief that we are here to stay makes one keep going...

Luck matters and you need lots of its succeed
Finally, thou' luck has different names and perceptions, that concept of lots of external factors coming together in favour of your business idea is a must!

Chandra is known to be extremely interested in the India and the youth. He has sponsored the setting up of an research center at his almamater MIT, Chennai.

Vibrant Vivek Paul's Motivating Speech!

It was July 26, 2005 and it was yet again the ICSR auditorium in IIT Madras. By now, every Great Laker would be able to reach this place, blind folded, after back to back VVIP visits. Everyone was there well before time, a rarity in India and it was 5:55 PM and the storm arrived. It was the only and only Vivek Paul. To everyone’s surprise, we saw a man in khakis and a checked shirt walking with all humility. After the introductions and praises, the man took the centre stage. The discussion started with a compact presentation on the things that he did to bring Wipro to where it is today.

A brief note on the presentation:
Vivek joined Wipro in July 1999 and until mid of 2000, he did not formulate a vision or a mission for Wipro. He wanted to make the company to come back to normal operations, in his words, bring the heart rate back to normal. Once this was reached, which took one year, they charted out a vision and mission for Wipro. It was code named 4X4, which included reaching a target of 4 billion USD revenue, an employee count of 40,000 and becoming one among the top 10 IT services company in the world. All these in a span of just four years and they achieved almost every target except the revenue target.

He explained two key initiatives that they set for themselves
Scalability
Worlds Best in what you do

These involved doing the following
Quality
Service line expansion
Increasing the head count from 2500 to 40000
Talent management
Knowledge Management
Culture protection

The company focussed on high standards of quality including CMM, PCMM and Six Sigma. The company was converted into a metrics driven organization and quality was used a key differentiator along with delivery excellence.

Consulting practice was kick started and was used as part of the service offering and not as a separate service itself. There were also offerings such as automated testing practice which was though low margin but helped getting more business.

Now the floor was open to questions…

The questions ranged from IT’s future to leadership to advice for the future leaders.

1. Indian IT companies future
The immediate future, there is no big threat for Indian companies from China or Vietnam, however, in around five years, they will be forces to reckon with. Secondly, in India itself, there could increasing amounts of FDIs in IT, which is likely to become larger than the Indian IT companies.

2. Sales definition in IT
Sales has one area of concern for a lot of CEOs that I have met. At Wipro, this was our strategy. Assume that, our offerings are going to be taken to the market by brain dead monkeys and devise the content of the offering in such a way that, in spite of the pathetic sales force you win businesses. If you do that, even mediocre salesmen would be able to bring in great results.

3. About effectiveness of JVs
Vivek himself being rated as the best CEO to have handled a JV successfully, the one between Wipro and GE Medical Systems, said that, JV are never gonna work! The simple reason being, you have two guys sitting in the board with absolutely different interests and goals. In the long run, it never works!

4. Smaller players future in IT Services
Smaller player to lure the customer can either say that they are cheaper than the bigger ones, but if you do that, its just a slow march to death or you can say that in a particular line of business, I know better than a bigger generic player. The latter might work.

5. Why has India not seen a great deal of Product development, in spite of being the IT hub of the world.
India is a major IT services player. IT services involve people management, project management and technology management, essentially in that order, as opposed to a product company where the focus is primarily on technology and everything else comes later. Indian IT companies are of the former category and hence, its not our line of business.
Secondly, the nature of these two businesses are quite different. A product company has a greater incubation period followed by higher sales volume. It has sunny days and rainy days. Its more of a cyclical business. However, a services business is a relatively steady and less risky business. Hence, these two companies, interest different kind of investors; a more predictable performance expectants and a high risk/return expectants. Now, if one tries to do both, (services and product), the behaviour of the company becomes a mix of both. Investors of both categories may lose interest on that company.

6. How does career shifts across Industries help one become a global leader?
Well, it is more like driving in Chennai traffic. You have two options. Either drive in your own lane and weight to reach when you are able to reach or weave through traffic zigzag and reach where you want to reach. Sometimes, driving straight is faster and sometimes zigzag. This also depends on the individual who is doing this. If you are good at driving straight and try zigzag for the sake of it, it may not work for you and the vice versa. There is no one right way to do it in this case.

7. Your innate qualities that have taken you this far?
Honestly, I have goofed up so many times (and the auditorium roared with laughter). Well, a few things that I can think of, that have helped me are,
1. Discipline to do what it takes to achieve the set goal
2. A clear understanding that no one can be always right and hence it is important to listen to people around you.
3. Attention to detail. Incremental changes is the way for sustain competitive advantage and not a magical vision or a statement.

8. You spoke about scalability challenge of Wipro. What are the conditions under which you would consider a firm to be non-scalable?
There are no such firms or situations, honestly. Most of the impossible situations are self-imposed mental blocks. You either think that it is difficult to do this or it needs a lot of effort to buy a big company or to shed more sweat and so forth. What if your client says, I will pay you 50 million dollars for this work but I want this to be completed in 3 months. Work backwards, what do we need to be able to achieve this goal? In this approach there is never a non-scalable situation.


9. ITES industry
ITES Industry is similar to the IT industry in India, they ride the same wave. However, India has to look at getting into more of solutions rather than simple transactions and voice service which are easily replaceable by competitors from Vietnam or Hungary. The BPO industry is not fully explored by India. There is a lot more to come.

10. Elephant Story
This is the elephant story. Once, I had gone to a wild life sanctuary near Bangalore, run by my friend, where in I saw an elephant being tied to a small pole and it never tried to uproot the pole and run away. Curious as I got, I asked the guy there, as to what is the idea behind tying such a massive elephant to a small pole which it can uproot in a second. The answer obtained was, the elephant was tied to this pole when it was a baby. By then, it tried once but could not uproot it. After that, though it grew much bigger and more powerful, it never tried to uproot it again. That gave me a wonderful insight that, most of the limitations are self-imposed and that we never would have realised our full potential.

Thanks for your time, All the best folks!

So, the speech ended, but the day wasnt over as yet. It was the time for photo session. In the next 15 mins, more than one thousand clicks flashed. I too gotta chance to take a photo with VIVEK PAUL... It almost took late that night for it to sink that we interacted with such a great guy.. in one word, here was a global leader, humility personified!

Good to Great - Book Review!

Recently, I read this book, Good to Great by Jim Collins and found it very practical. It is about companies who have performed exceptionally well in the US and about what they did differently as compared to their competition. Interestingly, I found that Bajaj Auto Ltd in India seem to have followed the Good to Great steps. Hope you enjoy reading my review of this book...

Good to Great By Jim Collins

Jim Collins the well known management guru has produced yet another best seller after his well known book, Built to Last. After Built to Last became a best seller and widely appreciated, once, Jim Collins happened to meet the Managing Director of Mckinsey & Company, Bill Meehan at San Francisco. During the conversation, Bill mentioned that, Built to Last was a wonderful book; however, it spoke only about great companies but did not try to explain how about how to achieve greatness. This triggered an interesting thought process in Jim Collins in studying the turnaround that had happened in some of the companies in the U.S that made them great from being mediocre. This study has lead to the book, Good to Great. This book essentially answers one question, which many corporates across the globe would like to understand.
What makes some companies perform exceptionally well while most others are mediocre?
The author had researched on a host of Fortune 500 companies and had chose eleven companies that have performed exceptionally better than the market over a period of time. These companies are from diverse lines of business ranging from paper manufacturing to banking. The companies that were considered to be ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins are as follows:
Abott, Circuit city, Sallie Mae, Gillete, Kimberly Clark, Kroger, Nucar, Philip Morris, Titney Bowes, Walgreens and Wells Fargo
The concepts discussed in this book evolved out of studying these companies as against a set of their immediate competitors. The high level framework of the findings can be classified as three stages of Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought and Disciplined Action.
Within each of these three stages, two key concepts have been described. Wrapping these concepts together is a framework which is a gestalt of transformation from good to great. Six key concepts that have been identified to be the common attributes among all companies that have shown a turnaround from good to great are the following:
Level 5 leadershipFirst Who then WhatFace the brutal fact, Yet Never Lose FaithHedgehog conceptCulture of DisciplineTechnology Accelerators andThe Flywheel
Level 5 leadership
Every good to great company was observed to be managed by a Level 5 leader when the transformation took place. Level 5 is considered as the top of the five levels of leadership. The commonly observed characteristics of these Level 5 leaders are particularly surprisingly. They were found to be very modest, self-effacing and often shy individuals. However, they were all highly driven towards bringing sustained growth to their companies and are not as much particular about their own personal successes or failures. Most importantly, these leaders were not those dazzling celebrities but the ones who often look out of the window to give credit to others for the successes and always take ownership of any failures. The author goes on to mention that it is not difficult to actually get one of those Level 5 leaders. Often they are the people around us; it’s just that one should know what to look for in individuals who have the potential to evolve into Level 5 leaders.
First Who then What
The second thing that all these companies have been religiously following is that they always took the right people on board even before working on the right strategies. These companies did not believe in having a genius leader surrounded by a group of followers. For these companies, always people come first. They believe that the key to success is keeping the right people at the right place. At the same time, they were all found to be extremely rigorous in their people choosing processes. They were ready to wait till they were fully convinced about the right person for the right place and when they made these changes they understood that the choice of people is more to do with characteristic traits and innate capabilities and less to do with the specific knowledge or skills. They were also always quick to act to make people changes when necessary. Face the brutal fact, Yet Never Lose Faith
The transformation process of the Good to Great companies always started with facing the brutal facts. Accepting the reality was the key to the transformation. The key to greatness is the belief in the Stockdale Paradox which says that, Accept the truth however brutal it might be but have faith that we will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. To achieve this, the organization should develop the culture which provides opportunity for the people to be heard. This could be achieved through, debates and the culture of raising red flags that get noticed, always. It has been observed that companies which had the culture of facing the brutal facts always were able to handle adversities better than others.
Hedgehog Concept
Companies require a deep understanding of three important facts for sustaining in their respective businesses. The author calls these facts as three circles. The three circles are the following:
1. What you can be best in the world at – All Good to Great companies had clearly understood their strengths in terms of what they can be best in the world. Equally important has been to understand what the company is not best at. This is different from the core competency of the company. It is not what the company knows to do but what the company can be world’s best at. 2. What drives your economic engine – Companies needs to understand the key driver of their economic engine. This is the element of the business that brings in major portion of the revenue for the company. This can be measured against anything, depending on the nature of the business such as, profits per demographics, profits per product or per brand category.3. What you are deeply passionate about - Companies should also look at the things that they love doing. This could even be very different from the core competency of the company.
With a deep understanding of these three circles, crystallize a simple understanding for the company which is essentially the intersection of these three circles. The Good to Great companies made all their decisions by matching them against these three circles. To make these decisions, the Good to Great companies had a team which consisted of individuals with varied competencies, which the author calls a council. This council would primarily brainstorm and debate on the opportunities guided by the three circles. Although different organizations called this council by different names, without exception all Good to Great companies were observed to consist of such a setup.
Culture of Discipline
Bringing sustained results depend primarily upon building teams that have self-discipline ingrained in them. The author says that bureaucracy brings in inefficiency and is unnecessary for self-disciplined teams. Culture of discipline involves a duality of responsibility that comes along with freedom. This culture of discipline applies to all concepts that we have discussed so far. This discipline should be applied right from bringing in the right people till making any decisions by adhering strictly to the three circles concept. This means willingness to shun from opportunities that do not fall inside the three circles of the organization. Also, companies should make a ‘stop doing list’ along with the ‘to do’ list. The author finally cautions that this culture of discipline should not be misunderstood to be a tyrant who disciplines everyone around. This would only de-motivate the self motivated individuals in the team.
Technology Accelerators
One very interesting observation that the author presents regarding technology is that, 80% of the 84 CEOs interviewed as part of this research never mentioned about Technology in their top five factors of transformation. This drives home an important point that, technology cannot be the creator of a transformation; however, it is a great accelerator of the turnaround.Technology decisions must be closely associated with the Hedgehog concept and only those measures that fit in the three circles be considered by the organization. Technology changes for the sake of it have never resulted in any benefit to growth of an organization. This does not recommend companies to stay away from upgrading technologies but conveys that technology should be dealt with thoughtfulness and creativity. Almost all the good to great companies studied were pioneers of technology; it’s just that, they never considered technology as the reason for the turnaround.
The Flywheel and the Doom Loop
When the good to great companies underwent the transformation, the transformation was gradual. It was never a big bang approach. In most of the cases, there were no launch events, no tag lines about the turnaround. Most people involved in the transformation were not even aware of the extent of the transformation when the change actually happened. They could appreciate this only in retrospect. This brings in the point that, these changes happen gradually over a period of time like turning a flywheel, inch by inch, until the flywheel attains the momentum of breakthrough. The external world notices the company only when this breakthrough is achieved but the transformation would have started much before the company gets noticed. When the competitors of the good to great companies were studied, most of them had a big level launch of the change process and tried to bring in changes in one go which turned out to be ineffective.
‘Good to Great’ to ‘Built to Last’
The author concludes the book by comparing the concepts of ‘Good to Great’ with that of the author’s previous book ‘Built to Last’. The author opines that Good to Great is a prequel to Built to Last and not a sequel as people might normally perceive it to be.
Interesting Anecdote from the Book
All the above mentioned concepts have been explained by providing instances of various actions taken by those chosen ‘good to great’ companies and the effect that it had towards making them great. One such interesting note was about the company Kimberly Clark. Once, when P&G had announced that it was going to enter into the paper market in a big way, many of the paper companies accepted to be the second level players, considering the size and power of P&G. However, Kimberly Clark clearly understood what it can be worlds best in specialised paper products.
Just before the start of their council meeting, the CEO of Kimberly Clark stood up and asked everyone to stand in silence for one minute. After one minute, he said, that, it was their mourning for P&G. This greatly motivated the team and they eventually came out to be the market leaders in producing specialised paper products. This incident explains how a company won competition by accepting the brutal facts and at the same time believing that they will prevail in spite of everything – the Hedgehog Concept.
Additional Observation: An Indian ‘Good to Great’ Company
In the Indian environment, one company that seem to qualify is Bajaj Auto Ltd. This company was a mediocre scooter manufacturing company for a long time, which has transformed recently into a major two-wheeler manufacturer in India. The world is taking notice of this turnaround, now. However, deeper analysis shows that Bajaj had started their transformation efforts almost a decade ago and were moving their flywheel, inch by inch. This company, as one could observe on deeper study, has undergone the transformation and have stuck to the six concepts explained in this book.
• They had the right person on the top, Rajiv Bajaj, a Level 5 leader
• The first thing that he did was bringing the right people and getting rid of the people who were a misfit to the organization – First Who then What
• The company could face the brutal fact about the sinking market for scooters – Face the brutal fact, Yet Never Lose Faith
• It understood the three circles, which included a passion for motorcycles, where it had the potential to be worlds best at - Hedgehog concept
• The company improved its quality standards to world standards and their efficiency by three folds – Culture of Discipline
• Invested in setting up a new plant for product development that is now the R&D centre for the company – Technology Accelerator
Having said this, it’s to be seen, if this company which has transformed itself from ‘Good to Great’ has also been ‘Built to Last’.

Digital Realms – Who am I?

I want to talk about something that many of us hold very close to our hearts (literally). I’m not sure if we all love them but we all do have them. In case you haven’t guessed it yet, well its ID cards that I want to talk about! We spend a majority of our time each day at work, and all throughout this time, we use a Magnetic/electronic card that determines our boundaries, our realms! Does this end here? Not really! Whenever we try to open a bank account, take membership in a club, register for anything at all, we are asked to produce proofs of identity! Even in the olden days, messengers and ambassadors of kings used to carry some kind of identity to prove that they represent a particular King/Kingdom. But then, they carried Identities to prove whom/what they represent and NOT who THEY were?To look at this from a practical angle, I present myself in a place but I need different kinds of identities to prove that I am ME. I cannot stop wondering as to, what better proof can I provide that I am me, other than presenting myself in flesh and blood. I repeat ‘what better proof can I provide that I am me other than presenting myself’. The system cannot recognize me from myself, but can recognize me from a piece of paper or a card? What a strange position for one to be in! Will it not be great if my office premises identified me not using my ID card, but using myself? How great it would be if these systems identify me using my own self?Sounds great, but too fictitious, in it? Not really… here is why!Let’s try to find out what inspired people to develop hi-tech systems like the identity systems that I was referring to earlier. Computers are basically tools that could do jobs that are repetitive, ones that have a pattern. So, if any of us were attempting to invent a computer to add two numbers, it would use the same method that we normally use. Computers came into existence just to automate the repetitive jobs that we already knew how to perform.Just a couple of examples to validate this claim!Those who have spent enough time in India, would have visited a tea-shop sometime and observed how tea is made in such places: The person would get the glasses (lets say 5 of them) ready, add sugar to each of them, then tea and then some milk to each glass and there you go, tea is ready for 5 waiting customers and none of them would have felt that they weren’t given priority. What kind of processing is this? You guessed it right! Is this not ‘Time Sharing’? Is this not something that we naturally tend to do, when we had to attend to more than one request at the same time?Maybe not from a teashop, but the scientists who formulated the time sharing concept in computers could have been inspired from one such instinctive action that they might have done or noticed when people had to cater to multiple requests. Quite Possible!Let’s look at another example of one such instinctive human behaviour that most of us would have experienced. This is an everyday happening in a crowded area such as a fast-food shop. We go in small groups. Pull in those moulded chairs and sit together for lunch. One of our friends goes back to the buffet, and we just sit in a way that we touch the empty chair slightly. People around looking out for a chair would not ask for this empty one. Sometimes, our friend changes his mind, signals to us that he is done with his lunch and rushes back to his desk. We just make a very slight adjustment to our posture distancing us from the empty chair and the next moment somebody else takes up the chair, because they could understand that you do not want that chair any more.In the situation I described above, we had limited resources shared by multiple entities. As long as the resource was needed by an entity, it posted a signal to other entities that it is holding that resource and once the need for that resource ceased to exist it released it by ‘signalling’ that this resource is up for grabs! Is this not what we call as ‘Semaphores’ in Operating Systems terms? Are they all not concepts taken from the real world?Let’s get back to where we are today. If complex concepts like Time Sharing and Semaphores could have been inspired from intuitive actions like this, we would agree that creating a digital realm is indeed doable. To identify our friends and acquaintances we do not ask for identity proofs, but we recognize them. We have patterns in our brain about the various attributes of an individual, the combination of which uniquely identifies him/her to us. This could be automated as well. This identification system would record different attributes of an individual, combining which it can identify him/her just as we humans do. The attributes recorded for each individual could be many, and different attributes could be matched at different places, depending on the security needs. This information could also be updated when required.If and when such systems are in place, this world will seamlessly, identify ‘me as me’, without demanding any kind of proof. No passports, no ID cards, nothing at all. If an individual were to be allowed into a country, let’s say, Egypt, the permission to enter checkbox against Egypt in his/her profile will be checked and everything else happens by itself. Paperless work indeed!