Sunday, October 31, 2010

Identity

India is growing fast. Consumer demand is growing and businesses are doing good. But I  see a problem. We are not finding our identity. We are not finding something that only we can have.

I will like to take example of cars. We are driving Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, Suzuki, Fiat, Tata, Mahindra but all these cars are having designs which are European or Japanese. Where is the Indian design. You may get confused by the statement above. Let me explain.

When you say Japanese car Toyota Corolla or Honda City comes to mind. When you say European car Volkswagen comes to mind.

imageshondavolkswagen

What comes to mind when we say Indian Car.

ambessedor

Yes Old Ambassador. I think though it was not originally designed in India this car truly symbolizes India in Car industry. I am very disappointed that no car after ambassador was having such Indian stamp on it. All cars were inspired by European or Japanese models and reconfigured to Indian conditions. 

Now take case of US. When you say vehicle for US market what comes to mind.gmc

Yes true a big truck.

I want India to find its Identity. I took example of Auto industry as I saw example readily available. Unless you find your identity you will not be a leader in world. You can not be unique and important.

I think Indian businesses should start creating their own identity otherwise it will be difficult to grow and survive. I am thinking about how we can be different and yet successful. I will post my views about that shortly.

Disclaimer : The car pictures are taken from manufacturer or related websites and brands visible are owned by manufacturers. The pictures are not intended to promote or comment about quality of the product and are only used to help reader visualize the idea.

Signing off

Nikhil Parchure

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Find Your Navratnas (Nine Jewels)

Reference : The Concept is not directly derived from any reading. But I think it is influenced by two writers. One is the father of management Peter F Drucker and other is Chief Belief officer at future group Mr Devdutt Pattanaik. Any other writer who touched on this subject before I wish to give credit to him.

Entrepreneurs, businesses, institutions, organizations are all humans. When you are working in any company you are practically helping someone achieve his dream, joining efforts to extend the passion of some pioneer. You may not realize it if you are stuck in day to day working but when you can pause for a minute and see the global picture then you will find some link.

So it is very important for leader to understand that people are working for him, people are working to achieve his dream, people spending their valuable lives to help him reach new highs.

So I thought of dream as a basis of institution and hierarchy as follows.

Untitleddrawing

So Master dream is a dream of creator or Pioneer who is visionary and want’s to change the things around him or her. Step 2 Dreams are dreams which are related to any one of several aspects of bigger picture and small tasks are the wheels on which all the system works. The interaction between them is bi directional and not unidirectional. Proper feedback is important for success and revise the expectations or even increase the level where we want to reach.

Ok why I introduced this concept here is the fact that I want to emphasis on the fact that Step 2 dreams are most important. These are the pillars on which building can be built. So you should have people who can do this. You need people who will support your dream but also Create their own dream to motivate the tasks.

The concept of Navratnas come up here. Raja Shivaji was one of the greatest warrior in the history. he saw a big dream. But he had people who could see step 2 dreams. People who were aligned with big picture but also having their own path. So these people were motivated and were pursuing individual dreams. Take another example of Pandavas, Krishna was having bigger dream of defeating evil forces but pandavas wanted revenge and their land back. These step 2 dreams were powerful it propelled bigger dream.

So if you have dream, start looking for people who can see step2 dream for you. Start looking for partners who can align with your thinking and will create their own path to reach their dreams. so I gave the title as “Find Your Navratnas”. Find people who will fit into and your chances of reaching the goals suddenly increase many folds.

Motivation comes from meaning and dream and not from money and material things. Leader who understands this will be successful and his partners will be satisfied.

Disclaimer: The views above are independent and not pointing towards any organization or person. examples from history were used as I tried to relate the subject. If someone thinks they are not suitable please feel free to comment on the same. 

Signing off

Nikhil Parchure.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Inside Out

From the name you can not make out what this post is about so to save your time and energy I will like to mention that the post contains my opinion about assumptions and realities in companies. Assumption when we are inside company and realities when we are outside.

Always people asking questions are seen as trouble makers, they are people who will never follow..these people are untouchable and should be kept at arms length. This is the approach of managers.

Managers will hire consultants and get the work done, consultant will ask the same question as the employee asked but as consultant an outside party asks the question it suddenly becomes important. It gets the due attention that was needed. And perhaps if company paid attention to what employees was saying it could have saved thousand of dollars. It amazes me that you can start your career as consultant straight from college. Big consulting firms hire graduates from B School and put them directly in consulting role. So it shows that it is not different things that need to be done but rather do the same things differently. The outside view will allow you to do that. So in organization someone should always be doing this. looking at organization from outside, looking at it as if you don’t know anything about the organization and then evaluate from whatever data is available to outsiders.

Shareholder are one of the most important stakeholder of company and their opinion is important. But companies fail to take the advantage of that. Some companies have millions of shareholders so that is they have millions of outside eyes watching them. each eye will bring different perspective and each one has some different expectation. What companies do is that they will send postal ballot form (As it is required) and ask whether you approve the deal to buy the company, whether you approve appointment of X person as CEO. So most of the decisions are already taken and shareholder approval is just a process.

I want companies to ask what product you want us to bring in next five years, what field you think company should invest etc. You can get good feedback from them, it may not be something top class which you can work on but it will certainly give you outside view of the company which will help evaluate plans for the future. Asking your top shareholders only will be big mistake as you will play into hands of some individuals who want to make extra money all the time.

When you are inside company everything is rosy, all plans are good and every plan has guaranteed future success. But actually reality is different and when company comes out with the plan it fails. Then it hires consultants to fix the thing and pays through the roof to them, using expertise which consultants have from prior experience. So what you are doing is replicating the process that your competitor or someone in the industry already tried. And now you want to make it a success and so you make it happen rather than it happening.

I am not suggesting consultants do not bring value to company they surely do, they give valuable insights that you are missing. The point I am making is that they are able to do it because they look at organization from outside, they look at you as client. They are not afraid to say things which employees may not dare to say.

So as manager you have to respect employees who object your policies and raise questions. The simple questions asked today can answer the complex problems of tomorrow.

Note: The intension of the article is not to point fingers at consultants, I used the example only to establish the fact that looking at company from outside solves most of the problem. In case anyone has different opinion, then I respect the same.

Signing Off

Nikhil Parchure

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

 

CSR…what a great topic. Very hot to handle. Shareholders, markets, people, businesses going crazy over this word. Every business wants to prove that they have very good CSR, some have formed dedicated departments for this. Businesses are made to believe that CSR is a way to give back to society. Is it really what companies should do? Many Pandits are of opinion that it is most important thing in today’s world. I beg to differ. I am not objecting the idea of CSR, I don’t like the way it is done.

Some examples. XYZ company starts program for poor children in villages, Another company gives donation to school, ABC company gives donation to hospital in rural area.

We feel great when we hear such stories. People think these companies are really doing wonderful job. I beg to differ. I don’t believe in such donations and gifts. Companies claim tax benefits for these CSR so they are not actually donating they are just giving money to Non profit organization instead of Government. So can you label it as “donation” or you should label it as “Account Transfer”.  Companies using resources earned from their core operation to help poor and needy and at the same time laying off many people, cutting salaries on the excuse of cost pressure is a harsh reality of today’s world. 

I believe that companies are not formed for doing charity and they should not try to do.(Humble Request: Don’t form an opinion unless you read completely). Let people contribute as per their wish. I don’t think giving grant and donation is actually helping society. Because company is giving it from the profit it earned from society itself and just paying back less than 1%. Today’s corporations and businesses just add these costs to overheads and recover from products and services they offer. So actually customers are paying for that.

According to me the responsible company is the company which do not only look at profit but develop products and services that help solve problem people face. companies role should be create products that help growth, create products that needy can use and grow. Utilize resources it has earned to develop new concepts, new business models which can be implemented for growth. Only Growth can solve the problems and not the donations.

I may be wrong about this, may be my understanding is not that clear about role of companies in current society. But to me I will like big software company to create a center that will give small businesses easy access to software that they can use to grow rather than feeding poor in village. I will like big cement maker to build training center where people can learn construction at affordable cost rather than running hospital, Big power company can invest in renewable energy which can solve the power crisis and give people chance to grow rather than donating. Such acts will not only create growth but also create resource pool which can be tapped by needy and underprivileged. Current success in microfinance is a role model for this. These companies are earning profit but creating resources which can be tapped by needy. 

I don’t deny school, hospital are not important but there are 1000 such things which are not correct and need to be fixed. Water, malnutrition, aids, TB, unemployment, illiteracy, and so on. So which problems company will tackle, how will it decide which problem to be solved and which problem is bigger than other. After thinking about it I can say company should concentrate on field it wants to excel in, create wonderful products and services that will be not only affordable but will help growth.

My belief is companies who are interested in CSR should create environment where needy people can grow, but companies should not give everything on the platter.

References: Some of thoughts above may be influenced by readings from  Peter F Drucker’s work and other related readings. I have not used any specific material to get the facts but in case anyone has already presented these ideas I wish to credit the person for the same. 

Note: Please note the content above is my own understanding and opinion, I respect the counter views and opinions. Also please note that the content is not intended to be directing to any particular company, country, region.

Signing Off

Nikhil Parchure

Saturday, October 2, 2010

System Thinking

 

The content Posted here is directly influenced by class discussion and prior reading. Readings are from Works of Peter F Drucker, Prof Joseph Maciariello (Drucker Scholar, faculty at Peter F Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate school of Management) and Prof Karen Higgins (Faculty at Drucker School). Many Fellow Students also contributed and purpose of posting this blog is to summarize what I learnt and thank all the contributors.

I was really amazed to see the structured way of thinking by which we can look at problem and things going around us. From reading it was very clear that great work is done in this subject which allows such to think not only about short term goals and problems but also take care of unidentified consequences that may arise because of our decisions. The concept of looking at big picture before we take decision is vitally important. So middle level managers should be taking into consideration not only the immediate cause and effect but also take a look at whole picture.

Few steps that I learned in order to do system thinking are

Awareness : You should be aware of condition and environment around which is constantly changing and dynamic. second is that you have to look the reasons behind the situation before making any assumptions. Third is to identify resistance to change, which is evident in day to day life, i.e to identify loops which seek stability. and Forth is identify areas which are growing unbound.   One more thing that is very important is that when you think more than your scope and you assume you have covered all the aspects of the decision, you can hurt some one unknowingly so you should be very careful.

The loops and cycles that explains things going around us are very important. There are positive loops, the negative loops and loops that balance. If you are facing some problems and difficulty the best way to tackle is to identify the loop. What is causing this, what is accelerating it and what is end result and how this end result is supporting start. If you can identify this then you have solved half the puzzle. Then you can devise a way a opposite loop which can reverse the whole process. Start to think about actions that can change the result, think which things will oppose the bad thing and then you can try to get out of problem.

This looks very idealistic and not always possible as there are so many factors affecting the situations, but its always better to try working towards this rather than not doing anything.

Nikhil Parchure

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