An interesting discussion started off on my school alumni group. While one guy felt that Westerners are more enterprising than Indians are.

Here is a rather interesting interview with the EMC CFO David Goulden on how he started a Cost Transformation program at his company. 

What is the future of Indian Offshoring business? As far as I am concerned, pretty bad.

I am Desh who lived in Delhi. Now, the professors from some top business schools tell us that this was ordained.

SWOT: SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats inside a company, project, or a business venture.

Now shouldn't the value of a company depend on what it produces?  It has 60 employees and loads of messages floating around.  Everyone else - those making apps for Twitter - are making money

Finding the core of your business is critical to its success. The truth is that there is a small core of your business and customers that really drive most of your business.

Cultures affect brands and their marketing. Pepsi in Argentina has taken an interesting turn - which would have been unheard of few years back.

Google always thinks out of the box. It uses very traditional things and a lot of hard work to some great effect. For example, even there Street level mapping used taking pictures at the street level to sow everything together.

Goats
Now, due to the fires in California, the Government has made it mandatory for the owners of the land to remove excess brush from their land. While other companies use the regular lawn mowers. What does Google do? Well they use a cutting edge brush cutting company - California Grazing - which provides GOATS to get rid of the brush. This is what Google has to say about the process:

A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time. The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.

BIG MOAT
Meanwhile, Google have some new fans - Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and the endorsement from them of the Google stock is just amazing. The duo suggested that Google has a strong business that can't be matched or taken away by rivals.

This is a very interesting study! The barely 10-year-old Google is the world's most powerful brand, followed by General Electric and Microsoft, according to a s urvey conducted by Millward Brown's BrandZ index (attached). The survey assigned values to various brands based on their financial strength and consumer sentiment. The survey is a bit dated.. but its message is very clear! Life changes. World changes and people find different things more attractive.



1. Google

Satyam Shivam Sundaram - is a mantra that is very popular in the Hindu philosophy. It is often translated as "Truth is God and God is Beautiful" - where Satyam is translated as Truth, Shivam as God and Sundaram as Beautiful. Unfortunately this translation exposes our prejudiced view of "God". We want - desperately really - God to be beautiful and have that air of piety and holiness and something "divine" as we define it. But is God only beautiful?

And that's where my interpretation of this mantra differs. Shivam in Hindu pantheon is the embodiment of all that is not-beautiful with the world. In fact, Shiv is supposed to have drank the poison of the world so world could be free. He holds in him the poison and the seeds of destruction.

So to me Satyam Shivam Sundaram means - Truth is both beautiful and non-beautiful! Satyam is a synonym of "God" primarily and inherently, so there is no reason to bring in any additional word for God.

This gives some insight into what is going on in the more mundane Satyam - the software services company from India. It is easy and very fashionable for all to bring out the evil of the fallen and eulogize the one who is up and growing. It is because for us, God is beautiful and Satan is Ugly. Both are incomplete. Both the creations of our prejudiced and narrow minds.

I remember when I first to US and was getting immersed in SAP, the guys who had started their careers in India (had done a project there) were outstanding in their indepth knowledge of SAP modules. The reason probably was that they got a wider latitude to experiment while implementing. The US companies followed a consistent methodology and people were more concerned about the documentation than actual experimentation!

Over the years, I have seen the level and quality of SAP consultants coming out of India being drastically lowered. At first, I could not understand this drastic difference. Lately, I have finally been able to fathom the issue.

The Indian IT majors acting like the Burra Sahibs made an almost conscious decision perhaps not to engage much in the Indian market. While their precursors - and much smaller now - Birla Software and Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL) started implementing SAP in India... and IMPLEMENTING is an important word here - the IT majors were happy doing support for US or European companies in SAP and other software. The result being that the talent pool hardly had any implementation experience now. Only support knowledge. Since these IT majors were the training grounds for most IT talent in India, they spawned a retrograde culture of low quality ERP talent in the country. Here is prime example:

Saw a real cool site for business strategy and problem formulation, way to analyze, communicate and execute. Somehow I felt it made the entire thing a bit too complex! But nevertheless it looks rather cool.. just check out Idiagram.

Here is the official word on what their visualizations achieve:

The Power of Integration

There are dozens of approaches to strategic planning and 'complex problem solving', so why do we focus on the use of pictures? What makes pictures – visual models, diagrams, metaphors, and stories – uniquely suited to helping us understand and communicate complex issues? The short answer is that visual models provide the power of integration:

And just when every network and sharing web site is going juvenile in its character and content.. here is a site which has started off with thinkers' content: BigThink

Here is the official version of what the company thinks this site is. I am all for the web site owners making me think and assuming that I have an IQ > 50! What do you think? More importantly, what do you prefer?

bigthink.com is a new and growing website, currently in its private beta version, with a simple mission:

This is a digital age, one in which a wealth of accessible information empowers you, the citizen-consumer. But where is the information coming from? How accurate and unprocessed is it, really? Ask yourself this: how empowered do you feel debating a television screen or a newspaper?

Our task is to move the discussion away from talking heads and talking points, and give it back to you. That is Big Think's mission. In practice, this means that our information is truly interactive. When you log onto our site, you can access hundreds of hours of direct, unfiltered interviews with todays leading thinkers, movers and shakers. You can search them by question or by topic, and, best of all, respond in kind. Upload a video in which you take on Senator Ted Kennedy's views on immigration; post a slideshow of your trip to China that supports David Dollar's assertion that pollution in China is a major threat; or answer with plain old fashioned text. You can respond to the interviewee, respond to a responder or heck, throw your own question or idea into the ring.

Raj send yet another story suggestion - what are the signs of a dying industry? And what makes a successful business climate in any industry?

As I've said before, a good sign of a dying industry that investors might want to avoid is when it would rather litigate than innovate, signaling a potential destroyer of value. If it starts to pursue paying customers -- which doesn't seem that outlandish at this point -- then I guess we'll all know the extent of the desperation. Investor, beware.

The article refers to this case where the music companies went after him for sharing the songs from the CD he had bought. Worse they tried to implicate him for the songs he had ripped off the CDs he had bought legally .. on to his OWN computer for HIS use!!

I joked at the time that maybe they'll come after us for singing tunes in the shower, but at this point, maybe that thought isn't funny so much as scary. says the author.. he may well be right!!

The limits to which the archaic minds of the telecom companies - controlling the stakes in the cables that run the internet - or the music companies can stoop to are amazing! There are a couple of innovations about to happen .. right around the corner. And these two bunch of crazy folks will be left holding their sticks.. to beat the bushes around them!

Business is about innovation. You either grow and move with the market or perish. Halting the market to keep step with you is a bad.. a REALLY VERY BAD IDEA! It doesn't work!

I had written about the controversy between Orient Express and Tatas for the OEH Hotel in UK. The OEH executive (CEO Paul White) had written about how an Indian brand name association will "devalue" the OEH brand. He had also raised several other issues. Krishna Kumar (Vice Chairman of Indian Hotels) wrote a stinging reply (see attachment for the complete letter). Here is the last para - which ends with a befitting line:

...those with fossilized frame of mind risk being marginalized

The world is changing... and changing rapidly. What was good yesterday will not be good enough today... and same going forward. Those who cannot, or will not, understand this verity will be history.

Every person is a brand and so he/she should manage him/herself well! There are many aspects to managing the Brand called "You". Shawn Graham discusses 7 steps to managing the BrandYou in this Fast Company article:

1. What are you trying to accomplish? A question you should ask yourself multiple times throughout the day. Whether it’s how you word a follow up email to an angry customer, or positioning yourself for a promotion, you can’t get out of first gear if you don’t first know what you’re trying to accomplish.

2. What’s your value proposition? Chances are there are dozens of equally qualified people just like you within your department, company, and industry. What’s unique to your brand? What can you do that will add more value than someone else?

3. How are you packaging yourself? From how you dress, to the role you play with your work group, your packaging occurs on many levels. To get a feel for how well you stack up, observe how others in the organization are packaging themselves.

Its all about the right idea and execution in the world of business. There are numerous singles and marriage sites that it is nothing new to have another one! So, it was a surprise to see a site with a concept that will surely work in this area - marriage/singles site for the Divorced and Widowed in India - Marryagain.in! I think it is an interesting concept... although some second-timers may want to go with a first timer again.. but the maturity levels will probably be higher for the second timers.

I had talked of investment advice from Phil Fisher, who talked of a superior advertising capability within a company to be a good investment. Well, now the investment gurus would need to go a step further... the best companies are those who become household names without much advertising! Like Google has done!

While the Internet search leader has sold more than $30-billion in advertising since 2001, Google has become a household name without buying expensive ad campaigns on television or radio or in print.

"It's almost as if they have this cultural allergy to advertising," said Mark Hughes, author of "Buzzmarketing," a book about unconventional ways to build a brand. "It has been an advantage because it has helped keep them cool. They have zigged while everyone else has been zagging."

This advertising aversion has freed up money for engineers, computing hardware and other resources that fuel Google's search engine while leaving plenty of profit to keep shareholders happy and lift the company's stock ever higher.

Here is a guest article from By Christine Comaford-Lynch Author of Rules for Renegades

You've got the idea, now package it well. The way you present your company and vision determines whether you get the right financial partners and the right deal.

Life is marketing. Marketing ourselves personally and professionally, marketing our products, marketing our ideas. Every day we are constantly marketing or being marketed to.

What constantly amazes me, is that knowing this, so few early stage entrepreneurs market their startup effectively. The business plan, executive summary, and financing pitch are the ultimate marketing tools. Marketing your startup successfully results in getting optimal investors, more favorable financing terms, outstanding executives, committed customers, basically a shot at success in today's extremely competitive market.

Let's start with the love-hate relationship we have with business plans. As a former entrepreneur, and a startup consultant today, I've certainly seen more business plans than I care to remember. Of the 30,000+ high tech business plans submitted to venture capitalists last year, less than 3% were funded. Why? The plans were either for products or services no one truly needed, or the plans were for great ideas that were not presented well. I see far too many of the latter. What a shame to have a brilliant idea, and the right process of executing it only to communicate the idea without being concise, compelling, and complete.

It is being rumored that Infosys may buy CapGemini. Although CapGemini has a total Sales of USD 10.35 billion and Infosys sales are USD 3.1 billion, but its profits and market value are half that of the Indian company.

Some say it is too big a fish to swallow, while the past experience of Indian acquisitions show that it may be brought about. One thing that most Indian companies are not losing sight of is that this is a time when they command fantastic Market Capitalizations, despite lower sales. These times may not last long! The sooner they acquire some big fish and become a global player, the better it will be for them!

Know of the latest in the email war? Yahoo Mail has raised the storage to UNLIMITED! Now, you need not delete your emails.. pics etc.. just to make space for the new emails. They have followed Gmail now.. Once again.. Hotmail has been left behind in the race. Just a few weeks back they had come out with the latest upgrade to Live mail..

Email war, I believe will remain as the most classic ever! It is an amazing saga of how the leader - by far (Hotmail) - lost it to Yahoo Mail.. and Yahoo Mail which did not think it through carefully.. lost it to Gmail. Now it is catch-up for them.. while Hotmail is rendered to the sidelines of the battles.

So many Indian stocks are growing at a rate mushc faster than the Indian economy - in fact many times. The projections for these stocks growth rate are fantastic at times.. going into many decades. But, can a company - high growth one - keep growing at a multiple to the economy itself for ever?

NO!

Because otherwise it will become the economy itself!

So, the brakes to a company's growth is dependent on the growth of the economy itself. THAT is the reason why all the companies in an economy - who want high growth for a long time - should worry about the growth of the economy as well... because it is not the competition that will slow them down.. but the VERY environment they perform in!!

I have been observing and discussing with friends the state of Indian IT industry and some trends have become pretty obvious. Here is what seems apparent to all:

• Salaries in India are rising while the numbers of graduates to recruit are not enough
• The Indian IT companies and MNC companies in order to hire talent are going to lower grade colleges to hire.
• Turnover in employees is very high - sometimes unacceptable. It is not uncommon these days for projects to have had 4 Project Managers in India by the time the project is delivered from start to finish!
• The standards amongst the experienced people have fallen! It is fairly common for a person with 2-3 years of experience to become a Project Manager role.. and be counted as a "Senior" resource! Such people do not measure up when they go abroad for onsite projects.

So, how are the companies coping up? They are trying new places to hire folks and retain them. New schemes are used to retain employees and keep them motivated.

I am happy to share this lovely article from a book titled "Simple Solutions". I have read through the book and personally I loved it a lot for one simple reason - it just cuts the crap out of the whole management stuff and hits where it matters the most and says it exactly the way it should be! I will share my own review and the stuff that I particularly loved the most from that book. But for now, here is one article based on that book! One of the major thing for the managers to learn is decision making which is the main goal of business intelligence!

By Tom Schmitt and Arnold Perl, Authors of Simple Solutions

If you’re in the early stages of your management career, there are some basic ideas that we want to pass on so perhaps you won’t have to learn the hard way how to provide leadership to the people who work for you. As a manager, whether you know it or not, you’re under constant scrutiny. Subordinates watch your every behavior and make decisions on department, team, or company values based on that behavior. Intense (but balanced) focus on the work and goals, seizing opportunities to learn more, and promoting subordinates’ interaction with more senior executives or other leaders all are considered good by your subordinates. Not so good is sloppy behavior, even off the job, shifting blame, or criticizing others personally.

Rajesh Jain posts about the article on why the "why" in a decision for the company is so important for buying in support from the employees! This is the basic requirement of a good change management effort.. but most often forgotten. Sometimes because the executives do not believe that those under them will understand them or appreciate them in any way... thus assuming they are leading a bunch of dumb people!

In a study last year, Mr. Clampitt found that employees are more likely to support decisions when they are told about the rationale. The study surveyed roughly 300 managers and employees at more than 100 U.S. employers, asking what they knew of decisions and how supportive they were of them. Mr. Clampitt says employees of companies that explained decisions more fully were more than twice as likely to support those decisions as workers who got less information.

I recently got to read Ram Charan's Know-How (Thanks to Jeffrey of FSB associates). I have a very high regard for Ram Charan as a business mind. He is a quintessential CEO's consultant. That is what a consultant dreams of becoming. So for someone like him to come up with his wisdom in such a candid way is amazing.

..People who create organic growth that is profitable and sustainable connect dots sooner and are on the offensive.

In this book he has tried to distill the wisdom he gained through all these years of consulting and advising the top executives. I very rarely agree with the "leadership" type of books, but this is one book I agree with.

Very early in his book, he makes an interesting distinction - of those who look Leader Material.. and those that are Good Leaders! Good Leaders have certain "Know-Hows" of how to run a business that those who have the charm of leaders have no idea of. I have also observed that the swashbuckling type guys at the helm are generally hollow. The ones who really succeed are the ones who are quiet and with a vision. Ram points out a certain characteristic of synthesizing various informations and data sets into a consistent thought and framework that can be used for a decision as the key distinguisher of a good leader. I agree! There is so much knowledge that is bombarded on our brains that it is not important to "collect" all that or just understand it... but the critical piece is to take ACTION!

This is a very topical article. Indian companies are indeed lining up to buy the US firms. Granted, the acquisitions are not as high profile as the acquisitions by the Chinese, but then the Chinese companies are not based entirely on private initiative - they are in fact representative of the Government mandate! That is why the Chinese go for the bigger things - while the Indian firms are buying only those assets that make sense business-wise and not trying to make a big splash unless the dominance of the entire Global sector is at stake - like stake. That is what Tata did by bidding for Corus - the second biggest Steel company.in Europe. But despite the fact that a company like Infosys has a higher market capitalization than Accenture, BearingPoint and other consulting companies - still it has stayed away from acquiring any.

The telecom market in India is exploding! The analytic criteria that are used for analysis in the developed economies do not mean a thing in the emerging markets. Here is the "Fisherman Legend" that illustrates the irrelevance of the analytical techniques for developed economies in a place like India

A Mumbai fisherman used to sell his catch by going from house to house, visiting a circle of regular customers. Now, as he's approaching shore, the fisherman calls his customers from his cell phone to see if they would like seafood for dinner. The cost of a cell phone amounts to a huge proportion of the fisherman's income, analogous to what an American might spend on a car. But it's worth it, because it boosts his income by letting him spend more time fishing and less time touring the neighborhood.

Indian railways is on a tear! After the near global celebrity status for business acumen that Laloo enjoys now, here is something that other departments should learn from. Indian Railways has large amount of properties lying around. They will let the large hotel chains build budget hotels there on a BOT (build, operate,transfer) format and utilize that land. Cool huh! The issues will come once the properties are T'ed back ... as in transferred back to Railways bureaucrats :-)

Of the eight locations, four have Rail Yatri Nivas hotels, which would be refurbished by the hotel groups and operated for 15 years before being handed back to Railways.