Innovate the way knowledge is managed in Indian companies

Everyday we come across judgments, opinions and reports about how Indian companies should focus on innovation to overcome the challenges they are facing today. They say how you should invest time and resources in research & development, how you should innovate the way your company, its employees and its business functions are managed but none of them stress enough on how to manage the knowledge, both internal and external, to enable you to achieve this. How to gather, arrange and apply your domain knowledge in inventing a new product/service/solution which is customized for an emerging market, or the managing expertise you have gained all through this years running your business in a dynamic economy like India to overcome the challenges while expending to a new geographic area or new market segment is never emphasized up on.

 

When we say we want to build a culture that is flexible and dynamic enough to respond to ever evolving market needs we actually have to build a workforce which can look out for and identify each and every opportunity to evolve your business and a practice of sharing the knowledge it gain through everyday activities vide the organization so that synergies develop between fragments of knowledge leading to innovation which could be a new product or a new approach to business or identification of an untapped opportunity. When organizations continuously develops and enhance such capabilities among its employees it leads to fulfillment of the ultimate objective of making innovation an integral part of its DNA to move forward, reorganizing and adapting to changing market needs.

 

Today companies all over the world realize the importance of managing the intellectual capital of the company and that is why they are in constant effort to figure out precisely what their customers want and how to get it to them before the competition does. Many companies in the West have reaped the benefits of appropriate Knowledge Management in the past but copying what they have done may not be the ideal solution in Indian scenario because of two main reasons. First, people being the core asset of any business there is an inherent difference in the way business functions are carried out and organized in India and in the West. Second, when we say about managing knowledge to innovate and reorganize from the expertise you have gained in the past through customization and service of foreign products/solutions we need to go one step further than the present concept of knowledge management. Other challenges Indian companies could face are the poor IT infrastructure both within and outside the company, attitude and lack of awareness of employees, lack of successful existing model in India and hurdles management may face implementing knowledge management as an enabler for their business goals.

 

The future lies in the knowledge-intensive processes. When you go to a customer, the biggest challenge is dealing with the perception of risk. It’s not only price, technology, or attrition of people – it’s also whether the customer feels comfortable. So you have to come through with deep credibility. No longer should India be just a source of cheap code/commodity/service, the country’s corporate should rapidly move into more complex operations at a fast clip.

Top Ten Marketing Efforts in 2008-09

The list is India specific and politicians stole the show this time.

 

1. Obama – Facebook, Need for Change
2. Tata Motors or Ratan Tata -Nano, JLR
3. Advani- Advani for PM campaign
4. Varun Gandhi- You know……
5. Dhoni- Cool Captain
6. Raj Thackarey- Amchi Mumbai
7. Google- Chrome, Google Phone, the list goes on and on..
8. Apple- iPhone
9. Big Baazar- I’m a fan of whatever they do.
10. Vijay Mallya- Gandhi Auction

Rahul Gandhi (Kalawati, Aam Atmi) , Manmohan Singh (Nuclear Deal), Mamta Banerjee (Singur) are some other politicians who were serious contenders for the Top 10 slots.

Economic Crisis

Today I happened to attend a seminar at which Mr. Prakash Gupta, Partner, Mckinsey & Co delivered a speech on Implications of Global Crisis on India. I thought I will reproduce the highlights of the speech in this post for the readers. I have subdivided the topic into different areas and have focused on bullet points rather than paragraphs.

 

Possible Outcomes of the Crisis

 

1)                  Quick Recovery: Improved psychology, Effective government spending, End of credit crunch.

2)                  Battered but Resilient: Innovation, Regulation

3)                  Stalled Globalization: Nationalistic Sentiments, Over-safe lending rate

4)                  Over-freeze: Ineffective policies, Prolonged pessimistic sentiments 

 

How vulnerable is India?

 

1)                  Vulnerability of IT: Underestimated contribution of IT to the growth story

2)                  One-third of GDP is constituted by red-flag sectors

3)                  25% of GDP by sectors –demand intact but capital problem

4)                  34% of GDP by sectors-good demanded & well funded

 

Factors which can affect course of the crisis in India

 

1)                  Realty sector

2)                  Foreign Capital

3)                  Domestic Savings

4)                  Government Measures

 

Opportunities/Advantages for India

 

1)                  Capacity to attract capital (Relatively higher economic growth even in slowdown)

2)                  Government has headroom

3)                  Commendable financial regulation-RBI-conservative

     

What recession means for companies?

 

1)                  Overhaul of structure

2)                  New entrants getting bigger market share

3)                  Survivors extremely value creating for investors

4)                  Risk diagnosis & Scenario painting-Future Orientation

5)                  Cash Optimization replaces profit optimization

6)                  Acquisition or getting acquired

7)                  Opportunity to drive changes-‘Blame Recession’

Dhoni: The Transformation

I admire Dhoni more than any sportsperson in India. It’s not just because of his success as a captain or because of the fact that he is the most valuable cricketer alive. More than all these I admire him for the transformation he has undergone. Most of you will recall the Dhoni during his first matches for India. The long haired, aggressive and clunky youngster; nobody could have ever imagined moving forward he will become the cornerstone of Team India. But things changed, more importantly Dhoni changed. The long hair is a thing of the past. The new hairstyle and the matured looks he sports are admirable. The shots are still gawky but no longer people care about it as he is giving performance after performance. He is branded as the representative of new Indian generation which is a synonym of coolness and fearlessness.

 

Ernst & Young released its report on growth stories of smaller Indian cities with the title ‘The Dhoni Effect’. Some say he was at the right place at the right time. It could be true to an extent. India needed a sports icon who could symbolize its recent growth story. Who else could have been a better fit than Dhoni who is young, stylish and who has small town boy image. May be ‘Brand Dhoni. is a phenomenon which is the result of several factors like power of cricket, India’s growth story and many others. But you cannot take away the credit from him for living up to the expectations of an entire nation. The way he have conducted himself, both on and off the field is commendable. From changing his looks to looking matured and cool at the same time, he has fared as well as anyone could have demanded from him. For a commercial industry that requires pegs to hang their laptop-generated-marketing initiatives on, Dhoni is a logical leader, especially when a secular India has declared cricket as its official religion.

 

How often would you come across a youngster who was under lot of pressure to perform and persist in the beginning of his career and was able to pull it off? Today’s youth, irrespective of their field of work, ought to learn a lot from this young man about career management and level-headedness. I would like to take a sentence from Wikipedia which describes Dhoni in the following words. ‘Initially recognized as an extravagantly flamboyant and destructive batsman, Dhoni has come to be regarded as one of the coolest heads to captain the Indian ODI side.’ Now this is real career management.

Advani Trying an Obama!

“Advani for PM”; it will be highly improbable that an average net user has not come across these words in the last two months. Yours truly sees it everyday at places ranging from news websites to education websites to technology websites. So how and why the octogenarian is doing this net campaign. According to Economic Times newspaper BJP is targeting 2.5 Crores of net users in India who are above the age of 18. The campaign is powered by Google and it is believed that BJP has bought more than two lakhs keywords which also include words which are not even remotely related to politics and India. Anybody can tell you from whom his or his party’s campaign managers’ inspiration has come. It is none other than American President Mr. Barack Obama. His success with the online campaign is encouraging many around the globe to imitate him or as they say ‘do an Obama’.

 

But how effective will be the campaign? Will it reap him success similar to Obama’s or will it backfire like BJP`s ‘India Shining’ campaign last time. It is good for BJP that they are able to project for themselves a Prime Minister candidate without any clutter unlike their opponents. This fact should go well with the target audience. But there is also the apprehension that they are overdoing it with Advani’s name popping out almost every five minutes infront of an average browser. The essence of Obama’s campaign was the influence he could cast on the youth through social networking sites. It was the emotional connect which he was able to establish with his peers in the network which enabled his success rather than volume of advertisement his party put on the websites. His speeches used to instigate the youth to demand a change and become the cause of the change.

 

But Advani is neither advocating a change nor will his age and background permit him to do so. The internet users are mostly a generation who are indifferent to current Indian political system. Many of them don’t even exercise their voting power also. Such campaigns will not make them do vote unless it is well presented with elements of change and energy which BJP will find difficult to promote with Advani in the forefront. In addition to this the young internet users are ticklish and the moment you try to oversell something it can create a negative impact. I hope Advani and his party know what they are trying to pull off and his dream to become a PM comes true this time.

Story of Rise and Fall of R Subramanian and of Subhiksha

An IIM A graduate, who wanted to join Ponds, ended up joining Citibank but quit the bank after 15 days and then worked for two years at Enfield before he decided to start on his own. His first venture, a financial services company called Viswapriya brought him money but he was not satisfied as he was not occupied with work the way he wanted. This obsession for being occupied led to Subhiksha, one of the largest retail chains in India. He became the poster boy of Indian Retail as another of the retail tycoon, Kishore Biyani of Big Baazaar, preferred to stay away from the all the clutter.

Alas! Today if you see Subhiksha or Subramanian in newspaper chances are high that it will be preceded by words like closedown, non-payment or some of the recession common jargons like cash-strapped or accounts discrepancy. Eminent business personalities like Mr. Azim Premji of Wipro Group who used to praise this young man for his business skill (he also invested money in the retail chain) is accusing him of haste in business. ICICI Ventures and Subramanian are coming out in open against each other. What actually happened with Subhiksha? I am just putting down the thoughts which came to my mind.

1) Rapid expansion without consolidation and focus

For the last few years fund was not a problem for anyone and everyone who had a decent idea and a good business plan. If you have already proved the validity of your idea then capitalists come after you. Subhiksha couldn’t stop its expanding spree and give itself time for consolidation of its success because of the market mood of more and more expansions. In June 2000, Subhiksha was operating 50 stores in Chennai and in November 2007 had 1000 stores allover the country.

2) Correct Format & Wrong Strategy or Correct Strategy & Wrong Format

Subhiksha was neither a supermarket nor a normal retail shop. This special format required a special plan. R Subramanian couldn’t deliver it. I recall once when we were discussing what is happening to Subhiksha one of my friends made a statement which could give us an insight into the problem. He said there are three Subhiksha stores at equal distance in three directions from his home.

 3) Dangerous intention to become a conglomerate as fast as possible

This needs no explanation. The Satyam Syndrome, tendency to ignore business basics to become a major conglomerate as soon as possible. If Satyam wanted to in the league of TCS, Infosys & Wipro it was Pantaloons in the case of Subhiksha.

4) Bad Market or Slowdown

 One reason for which we cannot blame Subramanian or anyone else from Subhiksha.

5) Slow response to the crisis

As I have mentioned all his undertakings before Subhiksha including the stint at Enfield and venture in Finance were successful and he did not have struggle anytime of his career. His lack of experience in handling crisis did not help him at all when his Subhiksha was crumbling in face off the slowdown.

Those who want a full coverage of the issue refer the link below.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/quickieslist/4111381.cms

The Slumdog-Slum Connect

Oscar is over. I’m happy for Rehman and Resul. They deserved those awards. But what changes have happened to the life of those children in the slum who are supposed to get hope from the movie. What is this entire gag about the movie giving hope to them? Come on; first of all we cannot expect them to see the movie. Second, even if they get to watch the movie you cannot expect them to be hopeful saying ‘you people keep on struggling in your life, beg on streets, get mal-handled by nefarious gangs, sold in the market, engaged in drug deals or abused in brothels: one day you may win a bloody lottery’. Friends if you really think there is truth in what Danny Boyle has shown in the movie, if you really want to make change in the life of those children who doesn’t get education; instead of debating how the movie is giving hope to the children in slums and how this is the best thing that has happened to them ever, do something for them.

If you are thinking what you can do, you are just another person in the crowd see below:

1) You can join Teach India Movement and volunteer their activities. http://teach.timesofindia.com/index.aspx

2) Or you can join the organization http://www.teachforindia.org/

3) Many of us are lucky to be a part of big corporate companies who have large scale CSR activities, be a part of it.

4) Join any NGO which works in the same field.

An orkut community to discuss the same: http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=59810994&refresh=1

B-Schools in downturn

As critics say, many of those involved in taking disastrous decisions which led to the present crisis were from prestigious b-schools around the world and their effectiveness in ‘teaching business’ is being questioned. But this is not the only problem faced by the schools in this downturn. Below is the link to an article which analyse how recession is affecting b-schools.

http://www.economist.com/business/businesseducation/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=13053352

Pyramid Capitalism

Read an interesting article on how family businesses manage to have a corporate reach which is much more than their financial stake. This strategy for projecting control is termed as Pyramid or Pharaoh Capitalism. Satyam fiasco is a good example of how this strategy can affect business. Find the relevant link below.

http://www.economist.com/finance/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=13108704

The Entrepreneurship Summit 2009

IIT Bomaby campus has something special about it. Don’t know whether it is the natural beauty of the campus and the lakes nearby or it is the energy radiated by each person you meet there. May be it is both. So while I was on my way to meet some of the brightest minds in the country in the E-Summit I was sure it was going to be an enriching experience and it did bring a smile on my face. As any other program in IIT Bombay this also was well organized and started right on time. I reached early and took a seat in one of the middle rows in the hall were first session was to be held. I could hear, all around me, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs explaining with lot of enthusiasm and energy what they have started and what they were going to start. As always all present including yours truly was ready to give instant tips to anyone who came across during the summit.

 

Slowly celebrities started occupying the friend row seats; people like Mr. Kanwal Rekhi, who is among the pioneers in Silicon Valley came in much before the program actually started. After a welcome address from Director of IIT Bombay, Mr. Rekhi delivered his key note address. He said about how a junior engineer who quit his job and became a successful entrepreneur prompted him to leave his job and start on his own and how he had to learn everything from the fundamentals on his own as those were days when no mentoring was available to entrepreneurs as today. He embarked on how important and difficult it is for an entrepreneur to take the first step in the journey, to leave his job.

 

After the key note address there was an experience sharing session when some of India’s most successful entrepreneurs came on stage along with Mr. Rekhi and Mr. Vinnie Vyas of Crossover and answered questions from audience and gave their opinions on the current business climate in India and how recession will affect entrepreneurship. The highlight of the session was the quote from Mr. Vishal Gondal of Indiagames about entrepreneurship. When one of the audience said he is having a concept in his mind for a long time but is not able to go ahead and execute it then the reply got the crowd into splits.  He said,” Entrepreneurship is like becoming pregnant, if you are not able to deliver then you may not be pregnant at all”. After this the group was split into two, one for aspiring entrepreneurs and the other for people who have already started their ventures. Audience continued to shoot their questions at the new group of successful entrepreneurs on the stage; most questions were directed at Mr. Jay Gupta of The Loot Store, with audience very keen to know how he is able to sell branded clothes at such a low price.    

 

After that took place The Networking Lunch which was an opportunity for the budding entrepreneurs to share their experiences among themselves and also to get tips and guidance from the invitees about their ideas and business plans. I could see the satisfaction on the faces of the people for getting a chance to be among people who work in the same direction. Some were busy trying to get clients for their business while some where looking for apt partners in their ventures. One guy had started a B2C brand building firm and he was looking for a partner while another was busy promoting his tourism based portal. I met people who are selling food at railway platform looking for venture capital to scale up their business and also people who are doing a second job as remote executive assistants for overseas firms. IT was still the most favored business choice with Clean Tech catching up fast. This was also evident in the business plan competition held in which of the top three teams two were into Clean Tech.

 

In the evening session Ms. Farzana Haque, Global Decision Manager of TCS said about how Education and Health sectors are going to be the way forward for India as a country. She also said about importance of availability of safe water and welcomed entrepreneurs to work in this front. The entire day was so packed with sessions that I was not able have a proper lunch or tea in spite of delicacies arranged by the organizers for the participants. At 7.30pm when I left the venue the entire hall was still beaming with energy with the crowd waiting for Bollywood actor Rahul Bose for an interactive session. The summit reminded me again that India abounds in admirable human capital: optimistic, hard working, endlessly entrepreneurial.