Can't Fire

It will be a dejavu for Mr Naresh Goyal , head of jet airways. Last year during tougher times he tried to remove around 1900 employees from the jet payroll , which sounded a right decision for the company as many of these people were on probation and they had completed their probation period post which it was Jet's call whether it want them to continue or not, given the special macroeconomic conditions there was no other option . Of course no one can deny the human side of the story but this risk has always been associated with private jobs and people today come prepared to face it any time .

Doing a job today does not make you feel as safe as it was 4 years back or much safer before 2000 bubble burst or safest before GE Neutron Jack era when lifetime jobs were guaranteed and companies like IBM was famous for committing to life time employment of its employees . Currently once more jet fired 2 pilots facing an unprecedented situation with almost entire pilot staff going on a synchronized leave. Organizations which are service intensive and have to face volume of customers on many touch point every day turn themselves into a tricky situation by such issues , some thing similar happened in 2006 when some staff of gourmet ( a food supplier to airlines) was fired resulting a strike which meant no food in flights irrespective of the fact that many of these flights were as long as 14 hours journey.

In such conditions company would not have any choice but give it up to the demands of the union. Even though there is no such instance observed in IT industry where in last two year thousands and thousands of people have left the job but there is definitely damages, when companies remove employees who are redundant or so called non performers , people who have been retained also feel the fear and start looking for the opportunities to leave the current company . It may result to a fast attrition rate once normal times return back which leaves companies into a situation where they have work but no resources and now they are bound to hire resources from market at higher costs.

Given this vicious cycle , it seems organizations just can't fire but still they do ....

Challenges of third kind!

Recently I was reading the 2008 annual report of varian Inc which is one of the leading medical equipment manufacturer , in the opening statement of the report Varian Inc CEO mentioned that he put forward a challenge in front of his employees to save 100,000 lives every year , that is the number which can fill a football stadium.
This challenge aptly suites to Varian which has already developed many cutting edge instruments based on radiotherapy and other cancer related treatment technologies to save cancer patients , enhance the accuracy of the results and reduce the overall treatment time to almost half. One latest example is their rapidArc beam which targets tumor in a single continuous
rotation around the patient leading to the highest possible precision and control of the treatment ( Hence lesser chances of killing healthy tissues) . Whats motivating in this case is rather than putting forward a target of increasing bottom line , increased rate of product development, rapid go to market timing ( and what not) CEO hit on a point which can be related by almost every one in the company and also by supplier and customers of the company , a higher cause which is worth putting every bit of effort . Should it has been a normal sales and number oriented motivation , only top and middle management would have been running behind those numbers but now every one would be willing to contribute looking at the noble cause.

This should be a learning for many other in different industries as how to thing of a bigger picture and inspire people to do something which can give them extreme satisfaction and drive their enthusiasm to the peak point of making a difference. The beauty of such inspiration is that it has not ignored top and bottom lines in fact it has encompassed everything in much better way then any other vision could have been , meeting such challenges means producing most innovative products, driving highest quality level and near zero defects , taking direct feedback from customers and their customers and implementing them , carving a niche for yourself and when all of this is done numbers will follow.

Look back in the history of business whenever such a vision statement was created , it had become an instant success . I see Mr D B Ambani's objective of making a call cheaper than a postcard considering our rural population can afford only this much for communication created one of the largest telecom player of India, there are many more !!.. Tata family also put forward many such challenges to its employees like creating a world class Indian hotel when Indians were not allowed in british hotels, Developing leading science institute like IISc to groom young india !!

Questions which can not be answered

Since the downturn has started there are some of the questions which have gained popularity with all the business news papers and news channels , interesting fact is no one seems to know answer to these questions yet these reporters keep asking same thing to almost any one and every one they meet
What kind of recovery we would see? : Now we all know there are various kind of recovery , W, V ,U shape etc but how can one predict recovery from a recession which is not yet near to completion , anyways how does it matter to business and common man as what sort of recovery it will be . It sounds important only to great economist and academicians who are good only in postmortems and never in predictions.
How should industry leaders respond to this down turn ? : after reading couple of answers on this I am myself now expert to give an answer , tow things 1) Innovation 2) Cost optimization . These two are the buzz words and now even in normal times innovation is very difficult for an industry where thousands of players selling same thing so the easiest resort to the industry is cost optimization which means cutting on head count . I have till now not seen a different answer to this question and hence stopped reading at the point where this arrives , whether its been asked to some business guru or minister , I have yet to see some innovation in their answers.
What is your focus market ? : Dare any one answer this beyond India and China , people will think he is illiterate and have not even attended pre school education, even kids know that these countries are focus market from super cars to match boxes , whats the point in reading a whole paragraph just to get the same conclusion

Do you see these green shots as a sign of recovery ? : This is a binary question and half of junta replies in 1 and other half replies in 0 so you are left confused whether there are any green shots , whether there are any recovery ? no matter how logical answer to this question is , it will not satisfy your quest of knowing whether recovery is happening or not because you yourself keep looking at so many contradictory examples around.

My pick on top tech trends

I believe next technology business would see lots of potential in following areas
Mobile application : Internet did spread like a wild fire and every one had gut feeling about its potential but today mobile has much wider penetration then internet and also the time people spent on mobile is almost their entire waking up time. Currently where internet penetration in India is for 250 Mn people on the other hand mobile penetration is almost double with
around 500 Mn people . Organizations which missed on net applications can directly jump to mobile . Recently SBI's Mobile banking is a classic example , SBI could never make it big in ebanking but counting on the fact that now mobile technology is mature and secure , plus their are regulatory frameworks around , it can instantly reach to such a large user base.
With cheaper high end sets ( including iphone and BBs) applications dealing with media contents are also becoming popular and a large segment is using these apps exhaustively. Mobile is already transferring good amount of data from one place to other.

Security : Here I am looking at all kind of security , with global connectivity Internet security has definitely become high priority and companies and professionals in this business are making a fortune a logical extension to it is mobile security which seems to be more vulnerable thanks to wireless , blue tooth , data card etc.
On the other side now physical security is also taken very seriously not only at corporate level but also for personal and private usages, look around the new real estate development and you would find each flats have security systems.

Television applications : Television penetrates even much larger segment then Internet and mobile and now holds lots of potential . The first immediate preference would be to make it interactive and start selling products via live televisions. however the hidden treasure is in on demand content , today's lifestyle make it very difficult for people to follow some
program on a regular schedule , they must have flexibility to watch any program at any time of their choice , In India some operators are now already equipped with these facilities where any one can view any program ( at his own preferred time )telecasted in last one week .
Going forward a huge entertainment library which would empower users to pick and play her favourite programs ( no matter whether they are telecasted on current week or closed down last year) and watch them. Latest plasma LCD panels and home theatre system will compliment it very well

Reasons why Facebook can replace twitter

After doing some analysis of facebook and twitter I am feeling that the "share whats in your mind " feature of facebook could be a good replacement to twitter. At one place twitter started to facilitate only small updates about self but then it restricted itself to it , even after there is so much buzz about twitter in the web world and increasing users , it has not added any significant applications to attract more hits. Sharing a pic with follower would have been a very basic facility
Your message is shown to everyone connected with you : what ever you share in facebook is available for everyone to read instantly whereas in twitter one has to follow you to be aware of what you are up to

A pic is better than thousand words : Facebook like orkut enables sharing of pic and video plus friends can comment on those pics/videos . I see people using this feature much more than simply putting text on their status of facebook

Other applications : There are so many application which facebook is enabling its users to use ranging from surveys, quizzes , games, sending gifts and so on . This keep users involved and also generates more comments and related discussion comments

Celebrity trust : Twitter generated initial buzz because of some of the celebrities choosing it to keep their followers updated but look facebook today and you would find so many of them are already present there.
Structure : The way twitter shows messages of people you follow looks messy and unstructured some times whereas facebook has put across a good structure of showing messages and clubbing related comments in the same discussion

Even though the ease of accessing twitter from mobiles can not be debated but with so many high end hand sets around I feel accessing facebook from mobile is also becoming a trend. If twitter does not come up with some thing better , I feel it may loose its grip over the user base within couple of years

What a Mentor can do

Recent advertisement " What a Mentor can Do" of ET Idea has represented the nearest picture of what a mentor can do . a falcon is shown flying ahead and guding a cock in the open sky , well this is what a mentor can do a cock does have wings and willingness to fly but its not capable of taking long flights similarly there are many talented mind around who may have ideas and commitment to work on those ideas but they may not know the exact path and to approach things . This is where a mentor can do wonders by helping you streamline and focus your thoughts and giving you right inputs to not only start off but also go long way in the journey.

We have been seing this relationship since ages and its transformation can be observed from mythological to hitorical era.I would say the best ever mentor has to be Lord Krishna who directed Arjuna and helped him choose the right path. In history also we would find many such examples where mentorship has helped in developing immortal legends out of ordinary man. Ramkrishna transformed a curious child narendra into a monk who could create a new perception about India and its spritual philosophy in the world.
So what all a mentee expects from her mentor

1) Inspiration : The very basic need of doing something , one has to be inspired and charged up. The inspiration generated from other source is much more impact full than the one generated from within. Mentor must be able to light up inspiration in the mentee.

2) Deep expertise in the area : IT will be very rare to have someone mentor without being good expertise in the area where mentee is working. Mentor is supposed to know all and resolve the doubts of mentee with entire confidence.

3) Ability to explain with simplicity: Mentor should be able to make things simple for mentee in terms of the understanding , he is like a watchmaker who can diassociate all the parts of the watch and explain each and every one to his mentee.

Time For New Spring

Once upon a time there was a great jungle , it had various varieties of trees , bushes , animals , birds and resources to sustain all of it. Some trees were really very old and strong . These big trees were from various variety and size . They were around since ages and now many of the birds and animals have nests over them. As these trees grew they were expanded into mammoth structures with capturing maximum space and resources in their area. They absorbed whatever came near by their roots. Water , soil and light was equally absorbed by them . Because of such consumption it was impossible for any small sapling to grow under their shadows since they
could not get enough resources .

With more urbanisation around the normal life of jungle was also interfered in many ways ,The grand river in the jungle was used to waste disposal as well , some canals were created to take the contaminated and toxic waste to the river and central jungle for disposal.The greed of big
and arrogant trees was such that they started sucking much of such toxic waste equally. The birds who were supported by the trees or any one else could not notice any thing from outside but because of high intake of such wastes roots and foundation of the trees were contaminated , insects and hermits have started eating them up. It was a painless and slow process
which went unnoticed to every one.
As winters started , there came a strong storm . Unaware of the weakness which these trees had accumulated in their roots , they could not stand this storm and started falling one by one. It was a chaos in the jungle since these were old epitomes and supported the environment around them. Many animals and birds became home less , while falling these trees also destroyed smaller plants and bushes around them . Some who fall on another of their kind resulting fall of both trees. There was hardly any thing could be done about it. Lots of unfortunate damage was definitely caused and we all will surely miss the sweet fruits , the grand shelter , esteemed identity and magnanimity which was associated with these trees.
With in some time fallen trees will be covered in soil and provide good fertile base to other smaller plants to grow on them . The positive side is with their fall they left a large open area where new saplings would be able to grow freely now , there will be new breed of tree , may be stronger and more diverse. With this kind of evolution probably these new ones would avoid toxic waste and depend upon clean natural resources for growth .

( PS : With GM filling for chapter 11 today , It was heartbreaking to see such large organization getting annihilated in given crisis . Hopefully there will be new ones to take charge )