Bold Moves...

Increasingly I notice, extremely bold moves are coming from very young, small companies.

Just a year ago, when giant laptop maker,  to accommodate one more key in the key pad, wanted to reduce the size of the SHIFT key. The design was eventually rejected, even if the new key was really cool addition for taking one touch pictures and videos on the embedded camera.

It was rejected, mainly because no one had the risk appetite in that corporation to change anything in the key board lay out.

Key board has evolved form type writer. Generations of human being are used to typing fast using the so called QWERTY lay out with space bar, SHIFT keys etc proportionately as big as you see on your computer.

The age old method of providing efficient typing does not need more validation than what it has gotten over years. Even the smart phones today are sporting QWERTY key board, to create value of business users / e-mail users.

In this time, comes a really small, 14 month old budget mobile phone company and changes that one thing that no one has dared to change. The Keyboard lay out.  Arguably making is simpler.. the ALPHA key board.

Could any large corporation take this risk ?? Younger companies, based in India, are breaking rules like there is no tomorrow .. its a welcome attitude !!

Being "Instructive" !

.. in a polite (and yet very irritating) way !  

 Not sure where this new trend has surfaced from. May be some wise MBA picked it up from a copy of HBR and then it is making its rounds !

In last week itself, at least three leaders have told me "I do not have to tell you what exactly you need to do in this situation,.... " and yet went on to tell the exact set of instructions.

Other forms of that statement are -

"You know how to do this better than any one else ... however ... "

"Can't do the job for you, but ... " !

Worse, I found my self doing the same thing to one of my line managers today ;)

Anyone else sees something wrong in this approach ??? Or its just me ??

Outdated law or deliberate inertia ?

I do not think any other country in the world goes close to covering all segments of population when writing laws.

Here is a snippet of a law written in 1967 and still in force, although "illiteracy" is officially a infinitesimally small issue now !

Its a thought - where one can clearly describe it by attributes like - "Age old classic !" .

Expat Invasion ..

After 64 yrs of achieving independence, and 20 yrs of open market economic progress, India is facing a new threat.

Corporate India is losing independence, slowly yet surely !

Expat Invasion is a clear and present danger.

Prologue : As MNCs / Global companies moving in to India to tap in to relatively cheaper and yet skilled and English speaking human capital, corporations going all the way to preserve multinational corporate culture and identity. Which is a very noble intention, and from this intention come the numerous expat executives, who have today infested all board rooms and maligned all policy decisions, making each Global company established in India, more and more a western company.

Cases in point -

1. A Global corporation in Bangalore updated employee health insurance policy. The council that was formed for this consisted of all Expats, far far away from Indian health care system. In India the health insurance is only for hospitalization for more than 24 hrs. In US, it is for all visits and they pay a co-pay. Here is council set a 20% co-pay in India too.. even if it is for just hospitalization which is least used option by the insured. When questioned by the employees, the expat council says "co-pay" is a norm across the world.

2. The new mom's coming to work in a Global company, were happy by an announcement that there will be day care at work. That was two years ago. Now they have outsourced the day care to a Singapore company. That costs a whooping RS 15K a month per kid. And can accommodate 1 teacher to 3 kids. Not the luxury Indian mom's used to. There need to be volume. Amazing facility creation by yet another expat board.

3. A health club / gym contract needed to be updated for an office in Bangalore. The process of selecting the right gym vendor done by ???? You can fill in the blanks - and can really imagine how it is not suitable for Indians working out here.

There are a few more. But increasingly depressing. And just like when India was under British rule, a lot of Indian's helped British rule this country, there are tons of expats of Indian origin in those boards and councils.

My sincere apologies to the readers of my blog to be in such a whining mood today !

Global business ! Exploiting varied labor laws...

Employees and employers often agree on just one clause of the job offer letter.

"Employment at will".

It gives freedom to the employee to explore better ways to further his / her career. It gives freedom to the "Employer" to clean up dead settled wood from the warehouse !

However, a lot of mid and small enterprises struggle to keep employees and always wish that people would stick around for many years, to accumulate enough details of the organizational DNA that helps a company run, the way it does !

While having lunch today with a well settled Bay Area venture capitalist today - I heard this new idea, that locks in good employees with their ventures. Use/Abuse of Global Labor laws...

The software companies that used to send jobs to India, facing this challenge of employee retention. So, Venture Capitalists are pushing them to hire India software engineers in Malaysia / Kualalampur.
Malaysia has this labor law - where a foreign worker can change a job only when current employer allows. And still a lot of Indian software engineers find Malaysia (an OIL country) lucrative to work.

For Venture Funds sitting in US, its cheaper than building something in USA and they can hold on to good employees that they import from India to this land !!!

Win-win-win ??

The economic world order - for dummys !

There is an age old joke - let me repeat that here !

"What do you call a person who knows 3 languages ?" - Ans: Trilingual
"What do you call a person who knows 2 languages ?" - Ans: Bilingual
"What do you call a person who knows just 1 language ?" - Ans: American

That used to be indicative of world power. No need to know others languages. As others would need the super power and not the vice versa. There was no compulsion to know and go through the uncomfortable learning phase.

Today I was talking to a long time friend who has settled in US of A. His son going to high school wanted to choose a second language and his first preference was "Mandarin". Yes ! You heard it right. That used to be Spanish / French earlier !!! But he did not get Mandarin because that class was already FULL !!!!!

Did not 90% of world intellectuals keep saying, China's Achilles heel is lack of English speaking population as opposed to India ?

Well.. world is trying to learn their language now !

"Amavasa of Asadha" vs. "Friday the 13th"

People of Karnataka / Bangalore treat "Amavas of Asadha" as the most inauspicious day.
This was last Tuesday for this year.

And that's the day one of my govt transactions registering a land was scheduled.  Something that is a candidate and driver for finding an auspicious day.

I was excited by the thought that the office would be really empty. I and the seller of the land, wont have to wait too long. We will get in, do the registration and get out.

Did not happen that way ... ! The govt. officer himself said, nothing can be done today and please plan on postponing.

Alas .. the queue, one day of waiting of Govt office I thought. I started looking for another inauspicious day near by. Viola - "Friday the 13th" today. There it was not so far away ! I would think, at least good portion of urban population wont show up on this day.

Went in being 1/3rd as excited as last Tuesday. Hoping the queue is smaller.

And it was  crowded like a festival. Wondered why ?

Then a priest comes out of the govt registrar's office with "Alathi" and "Prasadam" - asked whats up ? He said its "Shravana" something. The most auspicious day of the year :)

Guess, it all had to be done at the right auspicious moment, no matter how much one plans !!!

Video Blogging - Over rated ???

A new fad in today's corporate executive communication. Most of the communication comes in form of video blogging.

Let us not kid ourselves - Executive communication is important. No matter how high level it is, just knowing what your chain of command till the pinnacle of the organization think, adds value to day to day operations most of us burjuas do !

Earlier, it used to be a simple e-mail message. Text. One can read. Then it became rich e-mail message with pictures. Pictures are worth thousands of words ! Good .. Now it is Video Blogging..

A text mail comes with 2 lines and a link to video - "You can see what is on top of my mind at this below link".

I ve not personally seen any one of them. Well ! I ve not gotten any exec communication since this trend started. Totally wrong use of video ?

What's is the right price ?

Limiting this "observation" to sporting goods for now.

I love playing the sports that deal with a raquet and a ball or a shuttle type. I think, it comes naturally to me. As a result thoroughly enjoy  tennis, squash, table tennis and badminton.

Over the weekend, I was trying to change my gear for all these games. Buying new raquets and getting rid of the 5-6 yr old ones. They get a good amount of trashing :)

One thing surprised me is - price of a great TT paddle that players who think they are better than most (may not be professional, but in school, corporate circuits may be near the top layer) choose, is in the range of 5-6K INR.

Badminton Raquest.. good ones for the same demography, Tennis raquets, as well as Squash all in the same range.

This is certainly not coincidence ! They are made up of different material, different quantities, endorsed by variably paid athletes. Still, priced around the same range.

I ve a strong feeling, a good amount of research is done on what "players" of certain seriousness, want to spend for these equipments. And hence the price set that way !!! May be the marketing MBAs can qualify this for me ?????

"Collaboration Works"

..only if there is "Command and Control" to enforce it !!

Major corporations are moving to collaborative platforms like WiKi, and coaching their managers to pitch in two cents on each initiative, that helps move the tasks in a better manner and shares the risks.

As my own experience goes in past one year, all collaborative initiatives start out with a lot of excitement, and then slowly dies down with no single person taking ownership, until some one in exec ladders notices this and whacks everyone.

Need to find a sweet spot - that can get best of both worlds !!!

Sick Child Syndrome ?????

Got annual customer satisfaction results for two hot selling products in the entire industry.
Both of them are out there for more than 10 years. Make a Billion USD each, every year ! Pretty useful products.

One has been in constant news for wrong reasons, last year. Issues, Quality - customers needed a lot of hand holding with this one.

The other one has been pretty quite ! As as of the comments in customer satisfaction report says, "It just sits there in the corner and works !!". And each hour it stays up and works, make money for the owner !!!

Now, one would expect good customer satisfaction score for product 2, right ? NAH ...... The score is exactly opposite.

While trying to understand this "limite" mass-user psychology, I did remember one incident / story !

When in school, you ask a healthy child to describe his  mom,  he says good things.

If you ask the exact same question to a child who falls sick often, his response would be much more "elaborate" and much more kind to mom, as the child has gotten continuous care, being sick often.