Showing posts with label iipm-article. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iipm-article. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

Look where we landed!

The new CEOs of Walmart & Yahoo! could actually explore an alliance!

At the beginning of this century, when the world had just begun adjusting to life after the Internet, everyone was talking about how the brick & mortar companies would be out of contention soon and the Internet upstarts would seize the day. The dotcom bubble burst and badly so, taking many believers with it. But the belief was not misplaced. Only, the Internet’s potential was overestimated. However, what must be understood is that no amount of technology can make up for the lack of a sound business model. This is evident from the travails of Walmart and Yahoo!, one company hails from the brick & mortar world of yore, and the other belongs to the futuristic Internet space. For both, 2009 is bringing in a crucial change in leadership (as US President Barack Obama would agree, change is the key word this year!).

Walmart will get its new CEO Mike Duke on February 1, replacing Lee Scott (who’s term has ended) and Yahoo! has already gotten its new CEO Carol Bartz replacing co-founder Jerry Yang (who stepped down following intense criticism). Well, the irony is that the ‘past’ seems to be ahead of the ‘future’. Walmart is successfully surviving the downturn and Yahoo! is struggling. But both CEOs have their own set of challenges.

Duke has been with Walmart for over 14 years. His appointment indicates that Walmart may be looking at expanding international operations (where Duke has valuable experience) immensely. Liz Crawford, VP-Retail, Strategy, Tracy Locke states, “Duke has learned valuable lessons in markets like Germany (where the chain had to close down).” Walmart will face overwhelming competition from Tesco, Metro, Carrefour, et al in emerging markets, as per Bryan Roberts, Global research Director, Planet Retail.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Wednesday, September 05, 2012

The Royal Life, like it was meant to be

Wander in the streets where Nawabs once walked, Marvel at the Mahals where they lived and bite into kebabs that were created especially for the royals; you just might find the city of your dreams waiting for you, here in Lucknow

The glories of Lucknow were born accidentally when in 1774 Asaf-Ud-Daulah, the self indulgent nawab who took over the reigns of Avadh, stifled by the watchfulness of his mother Bahu Begum, thought it best to pursue his interests away from his mother whose court was at Faizabad (120 km from Lucknow), which till then was the most fashionable city of India. Hence when the nawab zeroed in on Lucknow, the courtiers, traders, the nautch girls, the musicians, the story tellers, the magicians and the architects all came along bringing with them the glories of Faizabad to Lucknow, which in time was transformed into India’s most glorious court or what Rosie Llewellyn Jones calls “the city of dreams”.

Although architects have been quick to point out the mismatch of architectural styles and inconsistency in Lucknow’s buildings, historian Honria Lawrence writes that Lucknow comes closer to “Nearer to anything I have seen to realize my early ideas of the Arabian Nights and Lala Rookh.” So strong was the Britishers’ longing for their homeland that many imagined Hazaratganj, a grand Gothic boulevard running east to west of the Gomti river, then home to shops run by Englishmen and out of bounds for most commoners, as the Oxford Street of Lucknow. A walk through Hazratganj was a popular pastime called ‘Ganjing’. Walter Hamilton wrote of Hazratganj in 1928: “a very handsome street, after the European fashion…. a well-built new chowk in the centre, with a lofty gateway on each extremity, which presents a Grecian front on one side and a Moorish one on the other.”

An event that considerably shaped Lucknow was the 140-day-long siege of the Residency during India’s first War of Independence in 1857. Well documented, the siege was instrumental in changing the image of the capital of Oudh from a genteel, fun-loving place to a dangerous city that needed to be guarded against. Ironically, the Lucknow before 1856 was not built entirely of Nawabi dreams. It was this settlement at the Residency Hill, a garden suburb where the English lived in substantial bungalows, with a banqueting hall, a Gothic church and a tennis court running past pucca roads that proved to be the saviour of the British.

Though home to great writers, poets and intellectuals, for the tourist Lucknow offers three main delights. The gossamer beauty of its chikan or shadow work, its buildings and food. While reams have been written about Lucknow’s famous embroidery, some of Lucknow’s architectural delights include the Firangi Mahal, 400-year-old palaces once home to French traders. The Sheesh Mahal, with its inlay of numerous pieces of mirrors in different shapes and sizes, presented multiple reflections of objects moving before the mirrors laid in wall niches presenting a violent panorama of colour and beauty. The Moti Mahal, so called because of its pearl shaped dome, was especially treated to reflect the greatest of white brilliance. The Chattar Manzil is a magnificent palace depicting the best of Indo-Italian architecture.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

How many of us give a real answer to this question when asked across a computer screen?

Though these results can’t be extrapolated to draw conclusions about the Indian situation, one can’t deny the dependence on digital socialising that surely has changed the nature of social interactions. “I am quite a regular on Facebook thanks to my daughter. I’ve traced several old friends through this network. We’re in touch through e-mails, but then meeting personally as regularly as you e-mail is definitely different. Visiting a profile page isn’t as real as visiting your friend’s home and therefore, his or her life. Half our stories are told by the setting and the mood of our houses. Personal interactions build trust and comfort. In digital interactions, the veil always remains. In those ‘only positive’ digital discussions, there isn’t much room for discussing the grey areas of life and that’s why this sense of disconnect and a feeling of lack of real friends,” suggests 52-year-old Kanika Wali, a homemaker, from her personal experiences.

While inept use of great technology can still be blamed for creating a social disconnect among its users, similar rationalisation by psychologists for lack of empathy in present generation seems short-sighted. This hypothesis ignores that they grew up with abundant resources, undivided attention and constant protection. Perhaps, it will still take the world a while to realise that screen interactions (for now) can only help in finding long-lost friends and sharing memories, and not in creating new stories!




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Friday, August 24, 2012

THE MIDDLE PATH APPROACH

IT’S NEITHER AN EXTREME OF ADVENTURISM NOR AN EXTREME OF CONSERVATISM, THE APPROACH THAT INDIA’S LARGEST PRIVATE SECTOR BANK, ICICI BANK, NOW SEEMS TO FOLLOW IS THE MIDDLE PATH

It was on May 1, 2009, when Chanda D. Kochhar took the reins of ICICI Bank from her mentor Kundapur Vaman Kamath who had transformed ICICI – a crumbling development financial institution – to India’s most visible universal bank. For Kochhar, who was instrumental in establishing ICICI Bank during 1990’s, and who successfully built the nascent retail business with a strong focus on technology, innovation, process re-engineering and expansion of distribution and scale, the timing of her taking over as the Managing Director & CEO of India’s largest private sector bank was indeed challenging. The going was certainly not great, the global liquidity situation was tight, and it was absolutely a burgeoning task for her to steer the bank through the period of financial turbulence.

It was just a few months (September 2008 to be precise) before her appointment as the MD & CEO of ICICI Bank, that the bank had to confront baseless and malicious rumours regarding its financial strength, as well as news that some of the top management had been selling shares for the last few days. It was around the same time that Lehman Brothers collapsed and given the sparkling timing of the collapse, ICICI Bank faced an unprecedented crisis with speculation mounting that its exposure to Lehman held enough potential to wreck the whole bank. The edgy traders hammered the stock down and nervous depositors queued up outside the bank premises to withdraw their money.

In a short period of two weeks or so, many people had unanswered questions on their mind and withdrew their deposits from the bank. The deposits of Infosys Technologies Ltd. in ICICI bank came down to a mere Rs.100 million from Rs.10 billion over the nine month period (April 2008 to December 2008), citing reasons of “better interest rates and relative safety of deposits”.

But the bank, under the stewardship of Kochhar (who was then entrusted to manage the crisis) was quick to respond to the rumours of bankruptcy. As damage control measures, the top brass came out in the media assuring depositors that their money was safe. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), too, on September 30, 2008, issued a statement to this effect. But what perhaps was more daunting was the bank coming under fire in the media for allegedly using strong arm tactics to collect credit card and loan outstanding amounts.


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Thursday, August 23, 2012

WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE WAR OF WORDS

SUTANU GURU ANALYSES HOW ACTIVISM IS EMERGING AS ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR CEOS IN THE 21ST CENTURY. HE ALSO ARGUES HOW ACTIVISM HAS OFTEN ENDED UP SAVING CAPITALISM

Power corrupts and aboslute power often corrodes common sense. No matter what your ideology, you will agree that this is one of the fundamental lessons – or maxims if you please — that has literally brought Capitalism to its knees since the autumn of 2008. Look at it another way: everyone seems to agree that the real reason for the existential crisis that has thundered across capitalist societies is the apparent absence or utter failure of regulation. Put it even more simply, Capitalism faces its gravest crisis since the Great Depression of 1929-33 because the system of checks and balances that is supposed to function in a free market system and a democracy virtually collapsed. Hubris, arrogance, myopia and even megalomania seem to have replaced common sense vision as glorified CEOs and bean counters strutted across Wall Street like Lords of the Rings. If they had listened to the common sense voices of what we can now portray as “activists”, Wall Street today would not look like an ageing harlot who lives under the delusion that she is Marylin Monroe re-incarnated.

Yes, we come to the most cliched and arguably most abused terms in contemporary times of angst and anguish — activism and activists. In this 21st century, as globalization gathers pace relentlessly and as technology enables citizens to access what was once the privilege of the high and mighty, the CEO is realising that he can ignore activism at his own peril and he might even end up destroying his company if he underestimates the power of activism. Name a theme or a a cause and you will find a hyper ventilating and often angry swarm of ‘activists’ who appear determined to make governments and companies “do the right thing”. They can force General Motors to make safe cars; they can force Nike to use more humane labour practices in China and also force Ratan Tata to relocate his Nano plant out of West Bengal. Yes, it is time the 21st century CEO realised this simple fact: growing corporate power will now frequently confront the growing power of activism. The activists have possibly nothing to lose except their ideology; the CEO and his company can lose tens of billions of dollars in market capitalization!

Many seem to think that activism is a recent phenomenon. But I would disagree. Personally, I think the now discredited ideology of Marxism was the single greatest feat of activism in modern economic history of the world. It is trade unions inspired by the vision of Karl Marx that finally convinced the wealthy and the powerful that not sharing wealth with workers would inevitably lead to revolution. Henry Ford might have brutally treated his workers; but he knew that they could also be his customers.


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Friday, August 17, 2012

Work-wise

Katrina Kaif has proved that she is a thorough professional and her work life is her priority, for now at least. When her flight to London was cancelled and she couldn’t attend her grandfather’s 90th birthday, instead of moaning over it, the Partner star decided to not waste a single minute and set off to re-dub portions of her upcoming movie Rajneeti, which she felt could be improved. One girl who believes in party hard, work harder, Katrina looks set to not just be a pretty face but make her mark in acting too.


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Monday, July 30, 2012

Iran’s WMD hype; Iraq redux?

Be it through murders, Kidnapping, Virus attacks or sanctions, a careful and well coordinated stealth Programme is on to Jeopardise years of nuclear capability building by Iran. Is the US, along with its allies, drawing itself into another long drawn misdirected war? Is the hype being built about Iran’s supposed nuke ambitions even real?

The importance of nuclear scientists can hardly be undermined by a country harbouring nuclear ambitions. Iran is one of those nations that acquire centre stage. The country has not only built several nuclear reactors but has also, since the last few decades, set up a number of nuclear research centres and universities. The government also encouraged its youth to take up courses in science & technology and consequently created a huge array of nuclear physicists and scientists. Of course, sanctions from the US also came in tow. But if recent revelations are looked at, a slew of covert attempts are being made to jeopardise Iran’s nuclear programme.

The recent murder of Darioush Rezaeinejad, on July 23, 2011 in Tehran has raised concerns about the security of nuclear scientists and physicists in Iran and how it also affects the country’s nuclear ambitions. If one goes by reports, many such incidents have taken place in the past as well. In January 2007, Iranian nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hosseinpour was found dead under mysterious circumstances. A private American intelligence firm Stratfor claimed that Mossad was behind the ‘radioactive poisoning’ execution. In another incident, Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, quantum physicist working as a professor at Tehran University, was killed in Tehran in January 2010. Similarly, Majid Shahriyari, working at Iran’s Atomic Energy Commission, a prominent figure in Iran’s nuclear program and a specialist in neutron transport, was murdered (in a car bomb attack) on November 2010. On the same day, another scientist Fereydoon Abbasi (currently head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation), escaped death by a whisker. Besides the above, a number of important physicists have also been kidnapped in the last three years. In one example, in June 2009, Shahram Amiri – an Iranian nuclear expert of radioactive isotopes at Malek-Ashtar University of Technology (MUT) and also working with Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation – was kidnapped from Saudi Arabia and was reportedly extradited to US; the scientist strangely resurfaced in July 2010.

Concurrently, there have been a series of attacks on the computers in Iran’s nuclear facilities, including one major hit by a malware named Stuxnet (supposedly developed by Israel with the help of America’s intelligence). Stuxnet destroyed almost 20% of Iran’s centrifuge systems in their nuclear facility. Early 2011 saw another such attack, which has apparently pushed back Iran’s nuclear progress by two years. A WikiLeaks cable commenting on Stuxnet revealed that US was “advised to perform ‘covert sabotage’ of Iran’s nuclear facilities, including computer hacking” by an influential German think tank. In fact, it is alleged that George Bush approved $300 million for this joint covert project before leaving office in 2009. Condoleezza Rice, Volker Perthes (Director of the Institute for Security & International Affairs & an expert on Iran) and Philip Murphy (US ambassador to Germany) were all involved in this project, as revealed by WikiLeaks.


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Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Rupee EPS Guidance is a Concern

Besides The Upheaval at The Top, it has been a Defining year for Infosys, which saw some Welcome Growth in Revenue Terms. However, Rupee EPS Guidance is a Concern 

Going forward, while the company continues to seek opportunities in other emerging markets, the key is going to remain the US, since that is where it still gets around 65% of its revenues. As far as the US market is concerned, Forrester Research concludes in its report that the market for Information & Communication Technologies or ICT (which includes both products & services & involves both government & corporate spending) will grow by around 8% to touch $805 billion in 2011. Of this, IT outsourcing is expected to account for around $104 billion. Though slower than the growth of 8.9% in 2010, it is bullish from the standpoint of the larger base. Consumer spending, which is two thirds of the US GDP, has risen by 4% in Q4, 2010 and unemployment rate has fallen to below 9%, according to Forrester. If these trends continue, the economy should be on a strong growth path.

Besides the protectionist pressures that Indian firms like Infosys faced, there is one more important point to take care of – the fact that location centric advantages are becoming less relevant, thanks to multiple sourcing opportunities being explored by clients. So far, Indian software companies have been able to weather the storm and even gain market share. Dean Blackmore, senior research analyst at Gartner, comments, “In a market that grew 3.1% in 2010, India-based vendors collectively grew by 18.9% (in context of the global IT outsourcing market), increasing their market share from 4.8% in 2009 to 5.5% in 2010.” Yet, caution is advised.

Now the greatest criticism of Infosys has been more towards its conservative nature, particularly towards inorganic growth. Cash is indeed one area, where the company has been far more defensive, with its policy of keeping enough cash reserves for one year of employee salaries at all times. But when it comes to succession planning, Infosys has done a major shift in terms of getting K. V. Kamath in as the Chairman of the company. While promoting S. D. Shibulal to the CEO chair was anticipated, Kamath’s elevation is a first for the company that has traditionally been known to reserve higher positions for its own people. In a past interview to B&E, Kris remarked, “We very rarely select people in direct leadership positions from outside. I also believe that if a company wants a CEO from outside the company, that means the company is not doing well.” While the issue may not be with performance at the moment, recent developments indicate that the company wants to inject some new thinking into its DNA, particularly the kind that took ICICI Bank to new heights. Besides, it does silence quite a few voices that consistently point out how the company is still very founder driven.


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Monday, July 16, 2012

“It’s India, not Botswana!”

Chander Mohan Sethi is a Reckitt veteran (he has been with the company since 1984), whose love for its brands, especially Dettol, is evident every time you converse with him. He has ensured an excellent track record for Reckitt Benckiser in India, taking it to various segments on health, personal care and hygiene. His focus on power brands has ensured that brands like Dettol, Veet, Durex, Vanish, Lizol, Harpic became household names especially in urban India. Rural is still a tough nut for the company, where its high price points are proving a deterrent. In this interaction with onkar pandey, Sethi talks about the road ahead for the company in India, and strategic importance that India has in Reckitt’s global roll call.

B&E: Today, Dettol is your star brand in India contributing almost 50% of your revenues. It has successfully extended into soaps as well. How do you look at the brand’s future ahead?
Chander Mohan Sethi (CMS): Dettol has been there for 75 years in India. It’s one of the most trusted brands in India in the health and hygiene segment. Today, it has an 86% market share of antiseptic wash liquid and a 52% share of the liquid hand wash segment. It has crossed the Rs.10 billion annual sales mark by far. But we don’t give much importance to numbers; the consumer is most important.

B&E: What’s the product penetration of the soap category in India?
CMS: Today soaps have a 96% penetration level, but if you take antiseptic soap category where we play, the penetration is roughly about 62%. If you then take Dettol antiseptic liquids, the category penetration again comes to about 70% in urban India, and 40% in rural India.

B&E: You promote Dettol as an antiseptic product, but today it’s being increasingly getting popular as a body wash as well. So how do you straddle the two segments simultaneously?
CMS: There are different products in the area of hygiene that we make. For liquid handwash, we have a different product. Then we have the soap as a personal body wash. Dettol antiseptic liquid is used not just for cuts and wounds but also for surface cleaning, surface disinfection, clothes disinfection in the wash, and even in the water we use for wash. Not just that, even for shaving purposes, it’s used over cuts and wounds if any. So there are different products for different usage. So the point which comes across is that for the health and hygiene habits we follow, Dettol is there at every step.

B&E: How is your rural penetration faring and how are you going about your rural strategy?
CMS: If I take Dettol soap, the total universe of outlets in the country is about 5.5 million shops including paanwalas and mom-and-pop stores. Dettol soap is distributed in 2.3 million stores. And that is between urban and rural. In rural India, we have a 40% distribution reach. Of course, no company is able to reach all the villages. So like many others, we too use the wholesale channel, where we go to more than 3000 towns. In those towns, we have distributors, retails and wholesale operators who act as suppliers to other smaller markets in their vicinity. In terms of business from rural India, it’s different for different products.

B&E: How is the OTC segment faring. What is the business potential you see from it in the coming 2-3 years? What will be your global marketing strategy vis-a-vis Paras?
CMS: Currently, OTC comprises 15-20% of our business, and is an integral and important part of our overall portfolio. It’s one of our strategic growth pillars. As far as Paras goes, these are still early days, but watch the space. We paid Rs.32.6 billion to buy Paras. So it’s extremely important. We are in India to grow our business, and it is an important future growth market for us. Paras products are already in Africa, Middle East region and Bangladesh. So it already has a decent global footprint. And we will help it further with our traditional strengths like distribution in those markets.


Read more.......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri 
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles. 

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting



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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Weird open sky policies!

Millions in this world are still condemned to live without a roof on their heads. Rather than blaming it on destiny, it’s time that the ‘haves’ did their duty more proactively

“The human right to adequate housing is the right of every woman, man, youth and child to gain and sustain a safe and secure home and community in which to live in peace and dignity.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights on adequate housing for everyone has been generously accepted by every country and has been a part of many constitutions; but unfortunately, it has not been accomplished effectively in practice. There is a global housing crisis here and now, and we are not talking about the vagaries of the real-estate market.

The most widespread and shameful phenomenon is forced eviction or the removal of people against their will from their homes or property, which is sought after by the government and private developers. These people either become homeless or move to remote or slum areas. However, people living in slums and informal settlements are particularly in danger from forced eviction. Currently, more than one billion people live in slums across the world. More surprisingly, United Nations has projected that more than two billion people will live in slums by 2030. In Nigeria alone, more than two million people have been forcibly evicted from their homes since 2000. Around seven lakh people lost their dwellings in a single mass eviction campaign called Operation Murambatsvina (“Operation Drive Out Rubbish”) in 2005 in Zimbabwe. The Central American Council on Housing and Human Settlements (CCVAH) revealed that around 43% of the 43 million inhabitants of the seven countries in Central America – Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama – lack decent housing.

But the problem is not limited to only poor and least developing countries in Africa and Central America. Rights to housing have been ignored in developing countries (like India & China) as well as developed countries (like US). As per UN-HABITAT, there are 3 million people live without adequate housing in the European Council. HUD’s Homeless Assessment Report to Congress exposed that there were 671,888 homeless persons in the US in 2008. In recent times, migration has become a serious problem throughout the world. As a result, almost 200 million migrants have faced discrimination in housing.


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