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.

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.

Holi Hungamaaa 1

On 22nd we celebrated holi in SPJIMR campus , here are the different colors. Even before we could prepare ourselves , evry one was red blue and black .

Gulal , color , WAter , Thandai everything was used to play holi and still there was much more to come

Be aware Thoughts can become Action

Dedicated to a friend who turned thoughts into action.
It was a session by Parimal Merchant , Prof has called 3 volunteers from near by slum area to introduce them to us and tell us about the work which they are doing in slums , these volunteers themselves lived in slums and earned their livings by small jobs of hawkers , domestic help which fetched them an earning of 2-3 K per month . During the discussion it came out that doing social work obviously was no cake walk for these people specially when they don’t have support and funding from big organizations . All they had determination to do something and courage and conviction to take it forward.
The agenda of session was not Social service of work of NGOs but it was the four C’s of Parimal Sir , Conviction , compassion , courage and Confidence. While talking to these normal people who have started very small in slums , many times they mentioned that the path taken by them was by no means easy but they had already decided on it and hence they did not have any other go but to follow their heart. Vedas and old sayings also mention “ Thought produces actions “ , what you think is what you become irrespective of environmental and other constraints whole universe will be in your support to materialise your dream into reality , no matter how big it is .Amazingly it also does not matter whether it is good or bad , what matters is how clear is your vision , how clearly do you see it approaching . I recall one of the interview by now hit pop singer Daler Mehandi , He mentioned , when he was in USA working as cab driver , he used to visualise himself as a pop singer , he would visualise himself performing in front of large audience . Later on when he became a singer , he designed his own attire and this attire was the result of his visualisations only.
Next Level of it is "Thought with faith produce and attract stronger action " , I could immediately recall one strange habbit of Henery Ford , Mr ford had a habbit of of touching anything he liked and promising to himself that I would have it before this much time , and he always managed to fulfil his promise . Obviously Ford had confidence on his abilities which attracted even stronger actions , Whatever people say repeatedly and with conviction is bound to happen , probably that is the reason in old days our elders used to say that we should not say something bad about someone , who knows it might come true. So next time think big , think creative and think larger then life who knows it may turn into reality , after all its Law of attraction.

Mantra of Marketing

It is not about new ways of marketing and promotion , it is about categorising old ways
Must Use them : IF one advertiser which you should use always and at any cost , that is your customer . There are very few businesses which use their customers as their brand ambassador. I feel rather then investing a million dollar on a big celebrity , it will be worth more to invest 1 million dollar on 10,000 customers and give them some kind of benefit to advertise for you.
Customer must be used to promote your product as they are the one who can convey the message with the most credibility to other likeminded people . A customer can even break another persons brand loyalty and bring him to your shop . I have seen this many times in youth and teenage group where they are mostly influenced by people walking around them.

Can’t do without them : In todays world one thing you simply can not do without and that is internet . It is redundant to say how important is net for your products advertising and promotion. Social networking sites like orkut , facebook and linkdln are creating hypes they give you power of reaching to thousands of people , categorize them on the basis of different parameters and target them by writing just one message. That’s the power of technology and innovation which simply can not be ignored.
Other medium like blogs , ads in websites and search engines also provide similar value in almost insignificant cost.
Use them anyway : TV and newspaper are the medium which are anyway used they have become so obvious that now advertisers don’t even bother to find out how many people they are going to reach by putting their ads on these medium , they simply going for it knowing both of these medium jointly penetrate more then 90% of the population. So next time you decide to advertise a product don’t waste your time thinking how many people will you reach by TV,Radio and newspaper . Everyone can be reached by them and everything can be sold using them.
Don’t Go Alone : Almost every business needs partners and suppliers , one must also try to arrange mutual cooperation with partners to promote each others product . Remember how intel become a brand by advertising on PCs with “intel inside” logo , that was a very smart move and before that no one cared much about internal processor of the system , what mattered was the name of the assembler or manufacturer of the laptops or PCs but this advertisement generated the kind of awareness which made intel a strong brand .
CoCreate Value : Once the business is in comfortable zone , it is time to give something back to society , environment and planet , infect now there is concept of triple bottom ,where even the social activities and values generated by these activities are also added in balance sheet , ITC is one of the few which have already started doing it. So if you are in associated with any NGO then it can be promoted on your websites and similarly your product can be listed in NGOs website . Its all about being in the club of mutual admirers after all :)

Realizing the power of Small ( and medium enterprises)

In most economies, smaller enterprises greater in number then the large corporations . some of the facts related to SMEs in the world are:
1) In the EU, SMEs comprise approximately 99% of all firms and employ between them about 65 million people.
2)China’s more than 8 million SMEs, account for 99 percent of China's total enterprise and 60 percent of the nation's industrial output and exports.
3) In India 4.5 million SMEs contribute 40% of industrial production but create 70% of industrial pollution.
4) 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" .

Not only are SME's seen to be the engine of employment growth but they 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 aprtament in Pune and went on to be the second largest software services provider in Asia. SMEs also play a major role in developing entrepreneurship and ways of diversifications.
Given the rosy picture , SMEs are the one hit hard even by minutest change in the macroeconomic conditions. They have great difficulty in obtaining captal for scaling thier operations , crossing boundaries of nation , going with technical upgradation and attracting the best talent. This all keeps these indegeneous industries shackled with thier potential locked.

The Human Identity Crisis

In last few years I have noticed that almost every one under the sun suffers from identity crisis , there are very few of us who can be themselves and hardly influenced by what others say or do , these people have only two categories , either they are mad or they are highly successfull individuals in thier fields. Every one wants to become someone else and it starts from very early stage of life , since childhood you are being told that you are not good enough , you should become like your elder brother , sister or some freinds . This comparions keeps going on in school and college and after some time rather then exploring your self you start exploring idntities and traits of others because you want to become like them . If you sing good
then probably your parents would like you to become Abhijit sawant as he prove himself somehow somwhere , I am sure that parents of Abhijit Sawant must must have asked him to become like Sonu Nigam and Parents of Sonu Nigam might have had an expectation that one day thier son would be like Kishore or Mohammad Raffi. This continues and does not have any end or beginning and strange part is this happens even when the difference between us and someone might be very little and insignificant.
Swami Vivekanand used to say in many of his lectures that only those who are brave and couragious can admire and accept themselves , Infact hindu philosphy goes beyond this , Vedas put forward the concept of "So-Aham " , " Shivo-Aham " , Brahm-o-Aham" which was to believe that you are everything , you are not a part of god but god himself because there is only one supreme power and all souls are his projection just like thier is a single sea which has many waves coming and disappearing in a span of time . With the help of this knowledge our sages and greate man were able to see unity between Universe and themselves and attain the highest level of one ness and peace. Alas we don't even know this wisdom and even if we know , it hardly impresses us because what matters today is materialsic pleasure and success with which no one can be satisfied , so one always keep on looking to someone else who "look" more satisfied and happy and behold here starts desire to become some one else and loosing yourself.
Come one be brave , be strong accept yourself as you are . It is not bad to keep on improving yourself but that drive should come from within .

Entrepreneurship : Do you have it in you

Few day back we were listening to Captain G.R. Gopinath of airdeccan ,his tell of building an empire was mesmerizeing and from that speech and our readings we have drawn some basic characteristics of an entrepreneur
1) Risk Taking abilities : So taking risk is the first step of entrepreneurship . An entrepreneur must have risk taking ability , one who can not take risk can not become entrepreneur. When one tries to enter into any venture he never knows whether it is going to be successful or a failure and that makes it very difficult for a normal person to come out of his comfort zone . The decision of taking a risk is very important , one who passes this examination of taking risk has surely one of the very basic characteristics of being entrepreneur. If we track back the starting point of some of the today’s successful entrepreneurs like G.R. Gopinath, Mr Narayan Murthy and many of their likes have left their jobs and took a risk of loosing the financial security of their life.

2) Entrepreneurs believe in humble start : Many of today successful entrepreneurship ventures have started in a garage , almost all of them have had very humble beginning be it HP , Amazon , Dell , Infosys , Linksys or Google. The reason was obviously not that they liked the idea of working from garage but because of obvious resource crunch in the beginning phase of entrepreneurship most of these people have to work with minimum available facilities and resources in early days. Just before starting google , larry page and Sergey bin have concerted their own hostel room into a research laboratory , In early days of Infosys it used to function from a small 2 BHK in Pune , there was no servant to clean the flat and founder members themselves used to clean it .

3) Entrepreneurship demands Vision : It is not a mandatory criteria that entrepreneurs must have some clear vision about what they are about to do but if this vision exist then the organization is bound to sustain for long term. When Gopinath Munde started a no frill cheap airline , he had a vision that his fellow countryman should be able to travel by air without paying a fortune for it , It was this vision that kept his motivation high and made air deccan an instant hit among people from middle society. Consider example of Harper-Arrington Publishing and Media which was started by Harper and Arrington with a vision to educate kids and adults.

4) Entrepreneurship demands persistence : There are very few entrepreneurs who get it all right in the very first shot. It need lots of persistence to carry on the quest for success and to not give up the hope. Entrepreneurs don’t let it go , they would exercise all available options and make sure that they get the outcome . One of the example of persistence is

5) Entrepreneurs learn from mistakes : Infosys was not the first venture started by Mr Narayan Murthy , First of all he started a company named softronix but within a span of 1.5 years he had to close it , after doing a job for few years he again started a new venture named Infosys but this time he had already learnt the lesson , Softronix was targeting indian software market which did not have much scope at that time so later on with Infosys Mr Murthy targeted US markets where software industry was booming at that time .

These are not the only characterstics for entrepreneurship but these are definitely few important onces and if you have them all then I guess you should start now

USe customer to innovate

If we talk about innovations , researching on cutting edge technologies , working on new systems and frameworks , the immediate thing which comes to mind is the huge cost associated with it which does not always provide a good return . Imagine how many innovations and research never make it to the production environment . What could be the way in which companies can still get innovative ideas without having to spend too much on thier own workforce , that is surely learning from customer and involving him in your system to innovate.
Who would know customer better then himself , Customers are the biggest source of innovation . They can come up with any weird idea because it is not going to cost them any thing , they won't be afraid of failure (It hardly matters to them ) and they don't have any pressure from thier management to drive innovation in a certain direction only . One such idea is innvated by customer in Punjab , Dhaba owners of Punjab also purchase Washing Machines but not for washing clothes , guess what they make lassi in those washing machines. Just imagine if one of the negineer in Videcon would have come up with this idea that lets project our washing machine as Lassi maker also , what would have been reaction from his management ?
Now when customers have shown the way , they must be seeing a business proposition here , may be in future they can simply do some changes in design of washing machine and make it more suitable for lassi making .

Going forward it will be very important to involve your customers into your business , just imagine you end having a workforce of millions of people by using this methods and guess what you even don't have to pay these people . All you have to do is to listen to them carefully , understand them and thir needs and encourage them to provide feedbacks on any aspect of product and services . One other industru where I see this practice prevalent is media and entertainment , Many news channels have started making thier cutomers their reporters . They ask viewers to send any latest happening around them , You see now they are literally coveringentire nation without sending any one physically anywhere. What adds to this is tehonology which has made it all very simple.

So remember when next time you meet your customer , don't think that he is just customer , give him a new role that is of critique and Engineer for your product and he may change the way you do business.