What could be one of the most turning point of the fight in great Mahabhart story . The Leader of the era Krishna who had been continouslt in the fore front of all the incidents suddenly takes the role of a Charriot driver for his best friend Arjun. It did not take him a split second to decide whether in coming ages it would hurt his image , whether it would immediately demote him from a heavenly deity to just another earthling and even more inferiors in the community , just a charriot driver.
I feel odds have turned other way round because it is this phase of Krishna's life he has delivered the most respected wisdom of Hindu Mythology - Gita . It is in this role he has influenced the entire saga in such a way that no one else could have done so including elmination of Karna or Jaydrath like warriors .
I am trying to think something else as well , Krishna was the leader of entire story , un disputed decision maker for pandavas bu he also comes across as the best follower giving command in the hand of Arjun.
Some one who has already proven leadership skills must also be able to follow well , there will be many hurdles in his way to the follower topmost being his ego self , already been in a position where he has only given orders now putting him in the shoes of order taker will be dificult, what can add salt to injury is if this time some one who has followed you is going to lead you or some one who is not of the same status.
Even though there are all kind of risks associated when a leader steos down to be follower but if he successfully does it with a humble heart than he may emerge a greater leader , almost a legend
Friday, April 10, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Cook the book ?
Accountancy is not only science but a very sophisticated art as well , Purpose of this article is just to look at different methods which companies use from time to time to present a different picture of thier books , none of these methods can provide any long term benefit , all they can assure is trouble. Real profit is some thing which is earned by a direct increase of top and bottom line and not just be shifting numbers here and there.
depreciation : Depreciation is an highly effective tool of cooking books , specially for manufacturing and logistics companies which have huge capital investments in machineries and vehicles. Suppose the average industry practice is to depreciate a lath machine for 10 years but some smart company thinks it can depreciate similar machine for 15 years , this kind of tweaking will be effective enough to bring the books from red zone to green as the
earning will be increased because lesser depreciation is being subtracted .
COGS : If Cost of goods sold is subtracted from the revenue that gives gross profit , Further subtractions of operational expenses, interests payments and taxes will take us to the net profit. If one wants to increase gross profit artificially the easy way is to move the cost of goods sold towards operational expense. There will be some smart accountants who found arguments for the same.
Showing earnings in advance : In service industry there are contracts which can be as long as 5 to 7 years , if 40% of the money comes from software development than 60% is from maintainace and support. If an organization is getting into a contract with its client which is about delivering a software as well as supporting it for next 5 years , then it can show any fraction ( as liked by its accountants) of this revenue at any time in the books
and guess what its perfectly legal.
Goodwill : one of the best ways to create an impressive asset base is to increase the goodwill, whenever an organization aquires another there is lot more than just physical property. Mainly a huge client list , good work force , a well established brand etc. all can be put under goodwill. In addition to this if some of the value from plant , property can also be shifted to goodwill , that will mean no depreciation charging for such assets in turn direct impact on the bottom line.
Bill and hold : This has been a very popular accounting technique in many of the organizations which asked their corporate customers to purchase much earlier then the business cycle and pay only after sale has taken place. The purchase made was billed and showed as a revenue in current cycle, very clearly this can work only one odd time.
depreciation : Depreciation is an highly effective tool of cooking books , specially for manufacturing and logistics companies which have huge capital investments in machineries and vehicles. Suppose the average industry practice is to depreciate a lath machine for 10 years but some smart company thinks it can depreciate similar machine for 15 years , this kind of tweaking will be effective enough to bring the books from red zone to green as the
earning will be increased because lesser depreciation is being subtracted .
COGS : If Cost of goods sold is subtracted from the revenue that gives gross profit , Further subtractions of operational expenses, interests payments and taxes will take us to the net profit. If one wants to increase gross profit artificially the easy way is to move the cost of goods sold towards operational expense. There will be some smart accountants who found arguments for the same.
Showing earnings in advance : In service industry there are contracts which can be as long as 5 to 7 years , if 40% of the money comes from software development than 60% is from maintainace and support. If an organization is getting into a contract with its client which is about delivering a software as well as supporting it for next 5 years , then it can show any fraction ( as liked by its accountants) of this revenue at any time in the books
and guess what its perfectly legal.
Goodwill : one of the best ways to create an impressive asset base is to increase the goodwill, whenever an organization aquires another there is lot more than just physical property. Mainly a huge client list , good work force , a well established brand etc. all can be put under goodwill. In addition to this if some of the value from plant , property can also be shifted to goodwill , that will mean no depreciation charging for such assets in turn direct impact on the bottom line.
Bill and hold : This has been a very popular accounting technique in many of the organizations which asked their corporate customers to purchase much earlier then the business cycle and pay only after sale has taken place. The purchase made was billed and showed as a revenue in current cycle, very clearly this can work only one odd time.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Ideation:
As an organization which need to survive on highly innovative ideas how do you make sure that you create an environment suited for idea generation from your employees. In all the organizations an employee is absorbed in routine day to day activity , there are very few like google who have a special 20% of office time is left for the employee to work on the ideas which appeal to them. If we look back , historically organizations have given almost no chance to its employees to generate ideas and implement the same. Most of them had very few key decision makers at the top who were the only people responsible for various ideas and their implementation. There is hardly any effort to manage ideas and innovations. One of the most impressive innovation management I have seen is in John Deers, the global agri equipment organization really knows how to select the best idea and implement it. It has a structured way to do it , it encourages its employees to come with new ideas and some of the best are chosen to be presented in a 3 day long event in the organization , after which the most impressive one is selected for implementation.
Recently I came across another very innovative ways to select ideas in GE, the Global technology group started Idea trading in its department, here employees have registered their ideas in a virtual exchange, each employee has been given virtual currency of 3000 rupees and a trading account for this exchange , once he logs in he can start trading ideas and the price of an idea goes up and down depending on the volume of its trade.
It really make sense to set a structure for generating ideas in organization and giving some of the best once a chance of implementation. Just imagine if one idea can create organization of worth billion dollars than how many brilliant ideas can come from thousands of people in that organization. This is the reason processes like six sigma specially focus on methodologies of idea generation.
One of the oldest method of idea generation is war , most of the revolutionary ideas including Internet were generated during war. Now a war can not be started inside an organization to generate ideas but definitely an environment can be created where every employee feels the heat of competition from outside world, I guess that is what ad agencies best at and that's how they keep generating ground breaking ideas.
Recently I came across another very innovative ways to select ideas in GE, the Global technology group started Idea trading in its department, here employees have registered their ideas in a virtual exchange, each employee has been given virtual currency of 3000 rupees and a trading account for this exchange , once he logs in he can start trading ideas and the price of an idea goes up and down depending on the volume of its trade.
It really make sense to set a structure for generating ideas in organization and giving some of the best once a chance of implementation. Just imagine if one idea can create organization of worth billion dollars than how many brilliant ideas can come from thousands of people in that organization. This is the reason processes like six sigma specially focus on methodologies of idea generation.
One of the oldest method of idea generation is war , most of the revolutionary ideas including Internet were generated during war. Now a war can not be started inside an organization to generate ideas but definitely an environment can be created where every employee feels the heat of competition from outside world, I guess that is what ad agencies best at and that's how they keep generating ground breaking ideas.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Small but strong
The normal notion also says that bigger is stronger and certainly we will have many examples whre size determines strength. Nature has its ways to create exceptions and examples, The strongest material on the earth is diamond , no doubt about it. In fact phsycis will agree that the smaller is the size of particle , more energy it will require to break it. This year global recession has hit business school placements like never before , MBA graduates who considered themselves employable in any circumstances are having tough time to find a job so colleges started looking for small firms and start ups .
In last few days I have got a chance to interact with several such organizations from head count to 4 people to 100 , from revenue of 60 lacs to 100 crores. I am really amazed that even in such bad times many of these smaller firms who have been in existence for around 3-4 years are doing extremely well . There are many reasons to it and one of them is to target a focussed area and provide end to end executable solution in that area at very competitive price.
In discussions it also came out that where many of the larger firms could not predict about their future projects and cash flows , these smaller firms have project lined up for next couple of years so much so that they are turning down clients because they don't have enough resources to execute many such projects at the same time.
What is keeping small strong ?
Low Operational expense : Most of them are still running from small rented spaces and have not opted for purchasing and maintaining their own facilities. This is keeping the operational expense low. These organizations are running from premises with less than satsificing facilities where they may not even have a cafeteria for their staff. Where other larger ones have now a big task at hand to cut down highly on operational expense , for smaller ones its life as usual on this front.
Every one does everything : For start ups it is not acceptable at any time to handle an attrition rate of 25-20% , even if it happens than the key to remain strong is a flatter hierarchy where every one knows and does pretty much every thing, one is responsible from opening the office doors in the morning to making an international sales pitch, collecting receivables , recruiting projects and managing existing projects in hand.
Closeness to customer : Large organizations today have client list running in hundreds , one of the KPI of quarterly results is number of clients added and specially from fortune five hundred, post which it is about deal size but in case of start ups and new organizations in block , they have almost all of their projects are coming from very few clients which means complete attention and close association with these clients. There may not be deal sizes of millions of dollars but there are definitely continuos flow of projects and great trust on these small but flexible partners.
Its not money but passion and vision : I thought these it is very bookish and theoretical concept that small firms are driven by sheer passion which does not care much about cash flow , specially in short term. Recent interaction with some of the CEOs opened my eyes to a world which is full of energy , vision and un quantifiable passion. They are so intoxicated in it that every second sentence they speak gives a confirmation of their passion and commitment. Small size helps making such feelings contagious to the entire team. Offcourse money follows , many entrepreneur commented that earned much more in their small entrepreneurial stint of 3 year than their corporate career of 30 years.
Developing a perfect ecology : Larger organizations have too much pride and arrogance which hinders development of a cooperating ecology with their peers but this is just opposite in case of smaller ones, they are constantly looking out for friends who can help them in various phases , be it complementing them to provide end to end solution to customers or helping them in expansion to new locations. This kind of ecology gives them more strength.
I am certain that many such small organizations will not only sail through the current crisis but also will establish themselves as strong players in respective fields . Lets hope when they become bigger , they don't forget how they have drawn strength to do so.
In last few days I have got a chance to interact with several such organizations from head count to 4 people to 100 , from revenue of 60 lacs to 100 crores. I am really amazed that even in such bad times many of these smaller firms who have been in existence for around 3-4 years are doing extremely well . There are many reasons to it and one of them is to target a focussed area and provide end to end executable solution in that area at very competitive price.
In discussions it also came out that where many of the larger firms could not predict about their future projects and cash flows , these smaller firms have project lined up for next couple of years so much so that they are turning down clients because they don't have enough resources to execute many such projects at the same time.
What is keeping small strong ?
Low Operational expense : Most of them are still running from small rented spaces and have not opted for purchasing and maintaining their own facilities. This is keeping the operational expense low. These organizations are running from premises with less than satsificing facilities where they may not even have a cafeteria for their staff. Where other larger ones have now a big task at hand to cut down highly on operational expense , for smaller ones its life as usual on this front.
Every one does everything : For start ups it is not acceptable at any time to handle an attrition rate of 25-20% , even if it happens than the key to remain strong is a flatter hierarchy where every one knows and does pretty much every thing, one is responsible from opening the office doors in the morning to making an international sales pitch, collecting receivables , recruiting projects and managing existing projects in hand.
Closeness to customer : Large organizations today have client list running in hundreds , one of the KPI of quarterly results is number of clients added and specially from fortune five hundred, post which it is about deal size but in case of start ups and new organizations in block , they have almost all of their projects are coming from very few clients which means complete attention and close association with these clients. There may not be deal sizes of millions of dollars but there are definitely continuos flow of projects and great trust on these small but flexible partners.
Its not money but passion and vision : I thought these it is very bookish and theoretical concept that small firms are driven by sheer passion which does not care much about cash flow , specially in short term. Recent interaction with some of the CEOs opened my eyes to a world which is full of energy , vision and un quantifiable passion. They are so intoxicated in it that every second sentence they speak gives a confirmation of their passion and commitment. Small size helps making such feelings contagious to the entire team. Offcourse money follows , many entrepreneur commented that earned much more in their small entrepreneurial stint of 3 year than their corporate career of 30 years.
Developing a perfect ecology : Larger organizations have too much pride and arrogance which hinders development of a cooperating ecology with their peers but this is just opposite in case of smaller ones, they are constantly looking out for friends who can help them in various phases , be it complementing them to provide end to end solution to customers or helping them in expansion to new locations. This kind of ecology gives them more strength.
I am certain that many such small organizations will not only sail through the current crisis but also will establish themselves as strong players in respective fields . Lets hope when they become bigger , they don't forget how they have drawn strength to do so.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
From spending dollars to saving paise : Back to basics of cost cutting
When I came to Mumbai in early 2007 , there was a barber down the street Near my hostel . Unlike many others in the main road it was slightly on the off road and no frill barber shop where other jazzy shopes charged 75 to 90 per hair cut this guy charged only 25. Initially he had equipment only enough to support his operations plus a music system. After some visits I started noticing the change in the shop , old music system was a gone and a new one with surround sound was purchased , entire front wall was replaced with glass walls and than came the AC. He now even has a TV inside the small shop. Talking about charges it has gone up slightly from 25 to 30 which I feel was acceptable given the kind of facilities he has added, specially the AC ( and yes give some credit to inflation as well).
What was the necessity of adding so many facilities which are none essential to his operational activities , he can give many logic1) To attract more customers from higher end who would like to have thier hair cut in AC saloon2) To make waiting time of customers more comfortable 3) May be it is for the owners own comfort , he had positive cash in flow , he thought why not make life more fun at work for myself and employees.
Once all the facilities are set up now he does not have any way to track which facility is adding how much to his income , customer retention or operational efficiency , he has not even made any effort to do so. Each of these facilities have definitely increased his expenses to a significant level. So much so that now he may be working on a very thin margin and any change in market will make his operation unsustainable , what if tomorrow a no frill shops start in neighbourhood ( just like he was two year back) , it will surely take away atleast 25-30% of his customers who are not bothered much about AC and music in the saloon.
Recently in a discussion with one of the professior at SPJIMR , he mentioned that IT firms had a tendency to spend lavishly when cash flow was good and margins were high , this is what has put them in all kind of troubles today however small firms are always conservative in thier spending . I will have a slight difference of opinion here , It is normally characterstics of any individual or organization to climb up the spending ladder as his income grows. He is always attracted by some thing which seems just a little better and little expensinve than what he already has.
The Barber down the street is just an example , even a vegetable hawker would try to add facilities for his comfort as and when income grows ( not necessarily this will add to his revenue). So it is common tendency , and this is the entire focus of cost cutting in bad days. To some extent IT companies did over spent in building those glossy structures and than they needed to hype up salaries of their employees because thier global counterparts were ready to poach trained and groomed talent at almost double and triple the cost. Once upon a time the indian BPO employee used to get around 2200 $ a year which was 1/15th of what thier US counterpart would get but now this difference has narrowed down to 1/8 and very soon it could have been to 1/4 eliminating the very basis of competitive edge which was delivered by Indian vendors , probably a good cost control in bad times will again take organizations to some basics.
What was the necessity of adding so many facilities which are none essential to his operational activities , he can give many logic1) To attract more customers from higher end who would like to have thier hair cut in AC saloon2) To make waiting time of customers more comfortable 3) May be it is for the owners own comfort , he had positive cash in flow , he thought why not make life more fun at work for myself and employees.
Once all the facilities are set up now he does not have any way to track which facility is adding how much to his income , customer retention or operational efficiency , he has not even made any effort to do so. Each of these facilities have definitely increased his expenses to a significant level. So much so that now he may be working on a very thin margin and any change in market will make his operation unsustainable , what if tomorrow a no frill shops start in neighbourhood ( just like he was two year back) , it will surely take away atleast 25-30% of his customers who are not bothered much about AC and music in the saloon.
Recently in a discussion with one of the professior at SPJIMR , he mentioned that IT firms had a tendency to spend lavishly when cash flow was good and margins were high , this is what has put them in all kind of troubles today however small firms are always conservative in thier spending . I will have a slight difference of opinion here , It is normally characterstics of any individual or organization to climb up the spending ladder as his income grows. He is always attracted by some thing which seems just a little better and little expensinve than what he already has.
The Barber down the street is just an example , even a vegetable hawker would try to add facilities for his comfort as and when income grows ( not necessarily this will add to his revenue). So it is common tendency , and this is the entire focus of cost cutting in bad days. To some extent IT companies did over spent in building those glossy structures and than they needed to hype up salaries of their employees because thier global counterparts were ready to poach trained and groomed talent at almost double and triple the cost. Once upon a time the indian BPO employee used to get around 2200 $ a year which was 1/15th of what thier US counterpart would get but now this difference has narrowed down to 1/8 and very soon it could have been to 1/4 eliminating the very basis of competitive edge which was delivered by Indian vendors , probably a good cost control in bad times will again take organizations to some basics.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Evolution of Customer Experience : Retail
One of the oldest business of the civilised society, what all changes it has seen in terms of customer experience.
“The Shopping is no fun” Experience:
Historically this business started with small shops catering to different needs. For a customer there was no fun being in these shops why?
1) There used to be only one narrow counter where all the customers have to line up. Most of the time counters were designed in a way so that customers have to stand outside the shop.
2) One or two attendants serving customers for whole day so in rush hours customers have to make extra effort to draw their attention.
3) Customer used to receive only what he asks for, all the brands, sizes, shapes could not be placed on display shelves.
4) Shops used to cater only a particular need , there were different shops for grocery, cloths, footwear’s etc.
Overall it was a tiring experience for the customer, he felt happy to get out from the shop as early as possible.
“Delighted to be ” Experience:
By 1862 seeds of organized retail had started germinating, this was the year 3 players who would change the future of retail industry started their operation. Kmart, Walmart & Target , there is not much to discuss about K mart but it is interesting to see how walmart and target decided to provide very different kind of experience to the customer in the same retail business. First of all let’s see come commonalities which they brought
1) First time customer can experience the satisfaction of seeing & feeling almost all major brands and before taking any decision , as larger shelf space made sure that all prominent brands for the same category are displayed at one place.
2) Customer could walk at his own ease in privacy; he did not have to ask someone to give him the merchandising; however reps were few meters away whenever there was a query.
3) Now it was time to make sure that customer does not waste much time on counter waiting in queues for transaction to be processed.
4) The shop floors were huge which meant customer can come with entire family or friends and shop.
5) As these stores received discount from vendors on volume, they passed their savings to customer. Which gave customer feeling of getting value for their money?
6) Advanced point of sales systems made checking out easier, it not only gave a sense of comfort to customers but also helped retailers in maximizing customer’s time spend on the floor shopping merchandising rather then waiting on POS.
So some of the common experience enhancements were: Sense of independence, A better ambiance, Satisfaction of having checked all available brands, I can shop at ease and my own pace, value for money.
“Shop till you drop” Experience:
Late 90s and early 20’s started seeing altogether a different side of retail , customers were now being spoilt, not only by the choice of merchandising but also by providing various facilities in the store.
Food joints: Some of the retailers leveraged on amazing combination of having food joint inside the shop, Shoppers Stop, bigbazar , spencers, Trent and many other retailers were now giving no excuse to customer to go out of the shop.
Child care : Many retail outlets started having special children zone where trained employees take care of younger ones while their parents shop. This is amazingly relaxing for mothers who can not leave kids alone at home .
Not only this , lifestyle retailers in particular have been spending a lot on their ambience which has given birth to various shop interior consultancy firms who claim to know art and science of shop interior.
WalMart here also broke all the records and started keeping photo labs, dry cleaners, optical shops and hair salons in its super stores in early 90s
The experience was of complete peace of mind , shopping in an environment where one does not have to worry about anything.
“From my couch” Experience:
After satisfying all kind of sense in the shops, retailers started driving sales by technology. As the new generation started getting tech savvy, retailers knew its time to take the store the house.
Several have tried their fortune in online retailing or e-tailing but not too many success stories. Tesco remains international leader because of following
1) Ease of shopping online: Online shopping can be a very complex business hence the focus has to be bringing simplicity in customer experience which Tesco & Amazon have done quite well with the help of good technology and customer data.
2) Personalization: This facility of offering you items which may be of your interest could have never been a possibility in a brick and mortar business of several hundred square foot but in e-tailing this is the vantage point. Tempt customer with her interest , giving him a personal experience of being cared.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Evolution of Customer Experience
When we talk about customer experience in interaction with business, this experience is made of two factors
1) Senses of customers ( i.e. sight, sound, taste, touch, smell).
2) Emotions of customer.
To make sure that customer gets a brilliant experience which satisfies both of above parameters , following drivers need to be focussed.
1) Customer Expectation: What is the expectation of the customer while entering into the shop. It is interesting that most of the organizations will have standard operating procedures of hundreds of pages describing how customer should be treated but yet there is no practice to have documentation of what customer is actually expecting or what kind of experience customer desires.
2) People: Employees who are facing customers will directly impact customer experience. Specially in the industry where entire business depends upon customer facing , it is very important to have trained employees facing customers.
3) System: Today when technology drives business, systems being used impact highly on the customer experience, for example it was really embarrassing for customers to undergo the security scanner of handheld metal detectors, which used to take some time. Instead walking through those metal detector doors is a better option.
Similarly another important touch point for customers is POS, the smart your POS system will be the better customer experience will be. Another complain raised by customers is about IVR systems. Complicated answering systems in call centres make customer feel as if they are any transaction which is under processing.
4) Facility: In physical interaction with customer, this is the most obvious and a very strong touch point with customers. Today organizations (specially retail, hospitality chains) are very particular about the kind of experience they want to provide to customers in organization premise. Not only they are spending huge sums on making better, elite, sophisticated, easy to navigate facility outlets but they are also thinking out of box, Mid Columbia Medical center is one special hospital where patients are allowed to choose room interiors of their own choice. This clearly shows to what extent they care about human choice and experience, it is also very obvious in health care industry where if one is able to make patient feel happy then entire process can run smoothly.
5) Organization culture : Once George drapper Dayton ( founder of Target) noticed one of his employee is arguing with customer in what seems to be the customers mistake. He immediately resolved the issue and later on told the employee “ It is not important whether customer is right or not , what’s important is whether she thinks she is right” It will be difficult to view assume that this change was same for almost all the businesses , we will try to see 3 major industries which have been influenced heavily by technology to provide better and effective experience to their customers.
1) Senses of customers ( i.e. sight, sound, taste, touch, smell).
2) Emotions of customer.
To make sure that customer gets a brilliant experience which satisfies both of above parameters , following drivers need to be focussed.
1) Customer Expectation: What is the expectation of the customer while entering into the shop. It is interesting that most of the organizations will have standard operating procedures of hundreds of pages describing how customer should be treated but yet there is no practice to have documentation of what customer is actually expecting or what kind of experience customer desires.
2) People: Employees who are facing customers will directly impact customer experience. Specially in the industry where entire business depends upon customer facing , it is very important to have trained employees facing customers.
3) System: Today when technology drives business, systems being used impact highly on the customer experience, for example it was really embarrassing for customers to undergo the security scanner of handheld metal detectors, which used to take some time. Instead walking through those metal detector doors is a better option.
Similarly another important touch point for customers is POS, the smart your POS system will be the better customer experience will be. Another complain raised by customers is about IVR systems. Complicated answering systems in call centres make customer feel as if they are any transaction which is under processing.
4) Facility: In physical interaction with customer, this is the most obvious and a very strong touch point with customers. Today organizations (specially retail, hospitality chains) are very particular about the kind of experience they want to provide to customers in organization premise. Not only they are spending huge sums on making better, elite, sophisticated, easy to navigate facility outlets but they are also thinking out of box, Mid Columbia Medical center is one special hospital where patients are allowed to choose room interiors of their own choice. This clearly shows to what extent they care about human choice and experience, it is also very obvious in health care industry where if one is able to make patient feel happy then entire process can run smoothly.
5) Organization culture : Once George drapper Dayton ( founder of Target) noticed one of his employee is arguing with customer in what seems to be the customers mistake. He immediately resolved the issue and later on told the employee “ It is not important whether customer is right or not , what’s important is whether she thinks she is right” It will be difficult to view assume that this change was same for almost all the businesses , we will try to see 3 major industries which have been influenced heavily by technology to provide better and effective experience to their customers.
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