Billions of enterprises to enterprises of billions

Time of small has come , last year apple released its ipod nano which was smallest and sleekest in the family and after that there was much hyped dream of Mr Tata , Tata Nano which shown to the world that small is really disruptive it can bring a paradigm change in the industries and prove that impossible is nothing . There was a time when people used to long for big , today the liking has changed ( If we keep some exceptions like real estate out) and it has been rapidly caught up by Industry biggies , at one side Fijitsu and Apple have come up with the smallest laptop this year on the other side from mobile to hard disk everything is shrinking into a pocket size portable device.Now the question is does small mean that it has some tradeoffs , is it compromising something ? Today in most of the cases answer is no. Small is as powerful as its larger counterpart and whenever small comes into market, it instantly becomes favourite of masses. A very comparable trend has been seen from last couple of years in industry, there is a huge surge in number of small and medium size industries worldwide. These SMEs are emerging as the growth engine of the world economy . In the EU, SMEs comprise approximately 99% of all firms and employ between them about 65 million people. In China there are close to 8 million SMEs and in India the number is 4.5 million.SMEs are also responsible for driving innovation and competition. These are the businesses which later on become some of the largest empires in the world, recall the days when Infosys started with 5 man and a two BHK apartment in Pune and went on to become the second largest software services provider in Asia . At one side where big stalwarts of India Inc are making news worldwide, back home the efforts of the small and medium enterprises are also gaining appreciation and support from all the dimensions.

Great Governance :

Indian government has been closely monitoring the development in SME sector and formulating many supportive policies to boost it further and it has to definitely do this for a sector which employs more then 178 lakh people. For funding SMES financial institutions like Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) , National Small Industries Corporation have been instituted . the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has already issued guidelines to the public sector banks to ensure 20 per cent year-on-year growth in credit to the SME , other banks are also encouraged to provide loans to SMEs .

Advocacy by Non profit associations:

Most of the Industry associations like CII , FICCI , NASSCOM which represent all sections of industry have not only setup a separate wing catering to the SMBs but also started encouraging SMEs by giving away various awards in almost all of the verticals where SMEs are functional. One of the most talked about awards is "Emerging India Award" which is instituted by ICICI in collaboration with CRISIL. Corporation bank has also initiated an ward called National award for mSME which will be focussing on sector wise contribution of mSMEs. As per my understanding the most critical role played by these authorities is by doing advocacy for SMEs with government as well as private organizations specially banks , this helps in bringing attention to the areas of improvement and creating better opportunities for SMEs. It is because of these effortsmany organizations are joining hands with regulatory bodies and trying to come up with solution and funding products for SMEs. Media is also fully supportive of these efforts.

Now IT is easy :

There was a time when arrogance of IT companies was at peek , it was impossible for anyone to realise that any small business can leverage on power of the mighty mainframe or for that matter any state of art computing facility like data centres and storage solutions but today rules of the game have changed . IT companies have suddenly started targeting and building solutions for SMEs not only because they want to help SMEs grow larger but They have also realised this is where their future top and bottom line is. As per the latest Microsoft-AMI Partners report, "the India SMEs are on a firm growth trajectory, with 60 per cent of PC-using businesses expecting 20 per cent growth and 16 per cent planning to add branch offices to expand operations". Some of the classic example of these focussed solutions are storage product by Sun , HP , Toshiba , Network solutions by Cisco , nortel . Another breakthrough in this space is emergence of software as service have given value for the cost put in by SMEs as they only pay for what they use and hence they are not bound to purchase complete packages to use just a small part of it. Now setting up IT infrastructure is possible in very affordable prices for SMEs thanks to the concepts of platform as service and On-Demand delivery model enabling firms to move their entire IT infrastructure management to the ‘multi-tenant system’ shared resources where complete infrastructure can be leased or rented .

Environment :

Whenever entrepreneurial ventures are discussed , we always discuss successes and not failures whereas more then 80% of start-ups never complete their one year of existence . I see this a good sign for other entrepreneurs because they always have fascinating success stories like virgin , FedX , Infoys , Microsoft , Dominos , Air Deccan to follow and no failures which can cause any hesitation in their minds. Visionaries like Dhiru bhai Ambani gave a life to this word "Entrepreneur". Entrepreneurship today is the most respected occupation !

This is the time when SMEs have a perfect balance of opportunities and sources to leverage on those opportunities , at one side globalization is continuously opening new opportunities for industry and on the other technology enablement like ecommerce.

There is no dearth of talent specially when they are sitting in the hub of worlds coast arbitrage centre.It is worth appreciating that everyone is realising that one size does not fit all and hence special nurturing is needed in case of these small but powerful giants. The quest for searching new growth avenues never stops , up to now we are master in putting lower categories up in value chain and so will be done here as well , the concept of micro small and medium enterprises has already caught up the momentum and given various supporting factor there is every possibility for each of these billions of enterprises to become enterprises of billions.

Connecting India !!

When it comes to digital divide and internet connectivity , For a country like India it will not be possible to make one size fit all , we will have to work on different models . The best way would be to take the best practices from different models and integrate them . Here is a framework

1) Use of WLL : Traditionally the infrastructural aspect of digital divide has been focus of internet connectivity . India must improve its infrastructure to support internet deployments across the nation , If it can not be done then we must look to alternate solutions recently Patrick Gelsinger from Intel suggested that developing countries should say no to copper wires and use wireless local loop and fibre optics for backbone.

Pabal, a small village located 70 km from Pune in Maharashtra, is all set to join the Internet revolution.
Efforts are underway in the village to provide Internet connections to an area of 2,000 sq km through the Wireless Local Loop Technology (WLL). The technology was developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, and is marketed by N-Logue.
2) Setting up Kiosk : The way telephone services were made available to the masses by setting up PCO’s similarly now it is time to set up internet kiosk where people can walk in and browse internet , the biggest benefit which consumers get out of this is cost effectiveness , here they are exempted from cost of buying a computer system and paying monthly rental to ISP . All an user has to pay is 15-20 Rs per hour. These kiosks can be set up in existing government infrastructures like railway ticket booking outlets , postoffices , schools , hospitals , panchayats . These are the basic government offices which are there in every villege .

3) Encouraging private players to enter in this field : Private players can be invited to setup infrastructure and resources , some players have already entered and successfully innovated business models in urban and remoter areas. The focus should also be there to organize these resources well .

4) More employment generation : There should be more employment generation with the help of internet so that more people can be attracted towards it . Specially in terms of setting up internet kiosk , small BPOs and data entry centres . n-louge and ITC both create local service partners who can earn their living by running these kiosks

5) Offline availability : Small backup servers and data repositories should be maintained which can help providing offline data when there are issues in connectivity . Electricity is also a problem even for tier 1 and 2 cities of India in such situation proper battery backups , UPS Circuit breaker and voltage stabilizer should be provided

6) Making internet more relevant : Information which are relevant to diverse sector of society should be made available online . It should include agriculture, Veterinary , Health Care, Education , current affairs and much more
7) Finding alternate ways : There can be still many remote areas where we may not bring IT revolution in such cases we should be ready to work with non conventional ways , for example the alternate solution implemented by DAknet where data is collected by mobile vans.

Shattered dream fo decoupled economy

http://www.coolavenues.com/know/gm/saurabh-economy-1.php

The bulls were all riding to the north till February, the celebration of Diwali, Christmas and New Year was still in the air, and above all, there were talks of India and China economies getting decoupled from US economy, India becoming more self-sustainable
and self-dependent. Then came the acid test of the de-coupling, US Sub-prime crisis started taking tolls on all the foundation pillars of the financial services across the globe. At initial stages, it looked as if only IT companies, which have major chunk of revenue coming from these big financial service providers and banks, will be getting affected, but then started one of the deepest bear hug of Sensitivity Index.
The crisis in US had down-sized the Indian growth story from a futuristic fairy tale of crown prince to a below average story of struggling man. Now the idea of decoupling sounds laughable, We have seen the result, how independent our functionings are with respect to Western Economy, US Economy is still the engine of world growth express. We are far away from being a decoupled economy, and how can we be one.
Complete Sensex was overloaded from FII and FDIs. All major financial institutions have picked-up almost every stock available listed in the sensex. What happened when they felt trouble in thier homeland? Obviously there was liquidity crunch, there was apprehension that US recession can send growth of complete world couple of years back . Institutional investors started selling their holdings one after another, and the result was the downward journey of Sensex. The same message was received clearly by Indian investors and they followed the way shown by wise men of the finance world.
What Next?
Asia-Centric Approach
Looking at the current trends, there is a shift expected from West to East, Indian investment banks are still doing better. Recently, Indian arms of I-Banks offered highest salary in premium business schools. In India, these banks are still showing profit and distributing bonuses, which are higher then anywhere else in the world. Same is also applicable for China.
Shift to Commodity
Commodity, metel and oil are still crossing new limits every day. Recently, oil crossed 112 Dollar per barrel whereas gold is its all time high of near 13,000. There is a direct correlation between prices of gold and oil and, hence, they are increasing together. For investors also, it makes more sense now to invest in commodity market as it will not only provide less volatility but also save value of their money from inflation.
Slowdown in Growth
With US recession, the growth in India and China will not be that fast, still Asian countries are highly export-oriented and US is the largest customer for them.
Further Rise of Europe
All this can be good opportunity for Europe to rise. Euro is continuously getting stronger in comparison to other currencies, and there are not many bad news coming from Europe.
Leadership Change
In a very short span of time, we are seeing leadership change for the biggest power of the world, Vladimir Putin stepped down from Russian president-ship, Soon there will be new president in USA and new premier in Pakistan. UK and Germany have also seen a change in leadership and for India also this is the last year of the UPA government before election. Although any of these changes will not be able to affect much in terms of economic factors, but they may change the sentiments of people.
Accumulation & Bottom Fishing
Problem for one and opportunity for other. It is shopping time for all those who were sitting on large reserves and waiting for correct valuations to arrive. Recently, large number of stocks have been accumulated by various investment firms, and the trend will go on gradually.

Kautilya's 7 pillars of organzation .

The ancient wisdom which Chankaya had passed to us is amazing , It penetrates two main areas of any orgaization 1) Finance ( Arthshashtra) and 2) Organizational structure and Roles and Responsibilities.
Here is an example of what chanakya's opinion was about organizational structure. In one of the verses of Arthshastra he quotes
Swami , Amatya , Janapada , Durg , Kosha , Danda , Mitra , Iti Prakariyet.
These are the seven main componenets of any organizations
AS par kautilaya shastra it is very important for any kingdom to keep all of these 7 factors intact for smooth functioning of the nation . Following are the 7 pillars mentioned by Chankaya.
Internal constituents :
following 5 internal constituents are important for an organization
(a) Swami: The master or king of the nation who rules the nation and has complete control , he is not involved in day to day activities of the nation . Swami is responsible for building long term strategic plans for growth of the nation
(b) amatya : bureaucracy, often loosely described as ministry, They work directly under Swami and control all functioning on his behalf .
(c) durga: fort, often identified as city (pura),
(d) artha or Kosha : treasury or finance of the nation . Kosha is accumulated earning from the janapada which is used for several purposes.
(e) danda : army of the nation. Danda is the workforce of the kingdom which is instrumental in any key implementation and execution of the task

External constituents :
As per chanakya there are two external constituents which affect any organization
(a) Janpada : Rrural hinterland, Can be translated as the end users or stakeholders who are directly affected by what is done by Kingdom.
(b) Mitra : friends of the nation who can help them in the crisis situation .

In todays organizations , these can be compared as given below
1) Swami is represented by the CEO of the organization
2) Amatyas are represented by different managers of the oranization
3) Durg is the headquarter of organization
4) Kosha is the reserves with organization
5) Danda is the workforce of the organization
6) Janapada is the market which organization serves
7) Mitra are partners and other allies of organization

Any activiy or problem of organization can surely be fit into one of these seven pillars and then can be solved accordingly !!

Based on a discussion with Mr Radhakrishnan Pillai , Management evangelist and strategic consultant

Want to build a sustainable organization !!

More than 80,000 company failures per year in the last 20 years, compared to 19,000 per year, on average, in the previous 30 years. Going forward it is becoming difficult for corporations and experts to predict sustainability of organizations. It is not at all surprising in this scenario every one is talking about making organisations more resilient.

Here is what I feel can make an organization sustainable

Connecting with Employees : It is said that employee are the biggest Assets of a company , accountants might not be very happy with this statement but in todays world where intellectual capita is considered the biggest asset , this statement definitely holds true. For any organization to be strong , to grow and break all the barriers it is very important that their management connect to Employees . Employee should be an integral part of organization , he should live the value of organization .
This connection works as bedrock on which whole organization can sustain. Leaders must make sure that they understand each and every team members to, get to know them - to build a connection based on trust, honesty and respect. Lets take a very simple example of Indian freedom fighters , they literally built an empire where every one was connected , Leaders not only gave instructions but also set an example and that resulted in a connection in all the members , Connection to an extent that every one saw the same vision , everyone worked on the same ‘s mission . Similar connection . Most important thing about connection is , its infectious nature , even if one employee is in synchronization with organization , his influence will work like a charm on other team members as they will be able to relate with organization via him very easily and hence will be transformed from an employee who simply does a 9 to 5 job to someone who will feel integral part of organization to such an extent that he will be engaged to it for always. An organization where leaders are able to connect with employees will never loose its valuable employees and will overcome the biggest problem which comes in way of companies resilience i.e. attrition rate , migration of talent. Once you are able to retain your master performers you will certainly be able to amaze yourself and team with a brilliance and consistent performance because when you have succeeded in creating a team that is connected, you can count on each of them having a higher degree of personal engagement toward meeting the goals before them

Change management: Change can be defined as "… to cause or to become different, alter, transform, convert. Implies a radical alteration of character or replacement with something else" [2]. As truly said , change the only constant thing in the world , when an organization grows from a small 20 – 30 people company to a MNC having headcount in thousands , it goes through in numerous changes . Accepting a sudden change is not in nature of human being , he likes to be in his comfort zone which he is familiar with so if these changes not handled properly they lead to a big panick and chaos. Change inherently brings conflict and turmoil to organizations.
According to Smit and Cronjé [18] management should be sensitive towards potential change in order to prepare for it and should be aware of the steps
involved in a change process to increase the possibility of its successful implementation. In the process flow diagram there are some important steps which need to be followed for implementing any change in an organization. A resilient organization must be able to manage it’s changes at the same time making sure that it’s employees don’t see new change as a liability on them and this can happen if and only if desire of excelling and improving can be generated in employees so that they can feel the need of change from within.