A sneak peek at Outbound FDI of India

In 2007, Tata Steel acquired Corus for a whopping $12.9 billion. A month back, Bharti bought African’s assets of Zain for $9 billion cash. These 2 deals just go to show the vigor and intensity in the mood of modern Indian day trade. Indian Outbound FDI (OFDI) has come a long way from 1950s when Birla’s did first overseas deal.

Historically, FDI has been a major force behind globalization. Few rich nations of the world used it to get cheap natural resources and large territories of developing markets. Slowly, emerging nations empowered themselves for a role reversal. China, India and South East Asian nations took the lead and started a new phase of outbound FDIs from emerging economies of the world. Chinese have also been aggressive in looking out for foreign partners and acquiring natural resources, primarily in manufacturing sector. Besides spreading global image; access to market, natural resources, foreign technologies, distribution networks and strategic assets, like brands have been driving outflow of FDI globally.

Manufacturing dominated good part of Indian FDI outflows for several decades. The movements of funds were primarily restricted to acquiring minority stakes in foreign companies and accesses to latest technologies. Post-liberalization, Indian government has opened up doors for Indian companies to invest abroad and set up foreign bases. The focus has slowly shifted towards investing and selling more knowledge-based and other services. Indian IT majors have shown the path to this new composition of shopping spree to many other Indian companies. More and more Indian companies are setting up sales and service bases to reach out people globally. As a result, total Indian FDI outflows jumped to $14 billion in 2007. India’s share in total developing economy FDI outflows remained below 0.5 percent throughout the 1990s, but increased continuously since, reaching nearly 6.0% in 2007. Till now, US tops Indian FDI outflow basket. Recently, there has been lot of FDI outflows to Singapore, Mauritius and other smaller countries in Africa.

Now, the big question is how good is OFDI for fast growing countries like India? Should Indian government go overboard in shelling out all kind of incentives? How RBI approach the issue of fuller capital convertibility to facilitate free movements of goods and services? There is an even bigger question on the effectiveness of the whole FDI saga to country’s development. Should India follow a rather conservative, inclusive approach to build a robust domestic platform to take on spiral financial tsunamis of the future?

To my mind, Indian government should roll out aggressive inclusive growth plan with rather cautious phase wise FDI growth path. Indian companies should focus on building competencies and domestic markets. A rather long term strategic overseas buyout would eventually fetch a more sustainable model. RBI and Indian government need to closely monitor the developments and build a strategic framework to facilitate the smooth growth path.

Mobile VAS in India

3G bids are on. 500 million mobile subscribers are added and still counting. Telecom sector in Indian is booming. ARPU figures are all time low. Amidst all this, price wars are on. Operators are looking at large VAS market to generate additional revenue stream. Is VAS going to be a big revenue churner for involved stakeholders? Do India has support infrastructure in place? Are all stakeholders are seriously working to organize VAS market? Is regulator ready to shell out all required benefits and support this nascent industry?

No doubt VAS is a big opportunity waiting to be explored. Let’s try to understand the VAS market and industry in nutshell and discuss issues and challenges at hand. Low ARPU numbers have already forced Indian telecom operators to explore alternative revenue streams. Indian retail industry has failed to encash e-commerce boom and looking for a more ubiquitous alternative. M-commerce looks much more promising given the wide reach base and popularity in the hinterland. Mobile channel adds 3^rd dimension to multi-channel retailing. Indian banks have been very fast in adopting IT and cutting down huge costs over past few years. Mobile channel is again something that is luring many bankers. Mobile payments and mobile banking are sought after applications. Additional data bandwidth and popularity of mobile commerce are key enablers to spread these applications. Advertisers see mobile channel as a goldmine to reach their target customers. Mobile has a distinctive advantage of a personalized and localized device opening up huge opportunity for target marketing. Games, applications, multimedia content, songs, movies and lot of creative content is piling up on internet and many data servers looking for additional revenue. Mobile VAS throws up a huge opportunity to sell this content to a wider set of audience. So, a large number of people are set to ride on VAS wave.

Now look at the roadblocks. Our VAS industry is highly fragmented and unregulated to a great extent. Content providers, telecom operators and other parties involved do not have well crafted revenue sharing model. Also there is lack of standardization in the content and service provider’s interface. 3G technology and data bandwidth is still out of reach of most of Indians. Our masses just have basic phones and limited by their usage and communication skills.Credit card penetration is still very low for mobile payment to see any market in India. Mobile security is a big concern in India due to large number of frauds and thefts. Mobile advertising is getting bit intrusive due to improper regulation. There seem to be a lack of synergy amongst bankers, retailers, application providers and telecom operators. There is a strong need to understand consumer’s psyche and needs, lack of which has resulted in lot of undesired applications.

So where are we heading? In my mind, all stakeholders need to come together to understand real consumer needs and devise their strategies accordingly. 3G might not be an immediate remedy for the challenges at hand. Government should provide adequate incentives and tax holidays for this cause. Instead of fighting for revenue with existing VAS market pie, all efforts should be taken to increase the pie many folds.

In my opinion Interactive Voice response (IVR) is a way ahead for India as we people are good at vocal communication. Microfinance applications, rural VAS and basic payment services could just be the right mix of VAS for India at this hour.

A Billion Dollar Baby!

IPL is now a 4 billion dollar brand. Two new franchisees are brought for nearly 700 million dollars. IPL earns 3 million dollar per match. There is never ending media reporting on IPL from quite some time, you just can’t avoid it. Where is this mania marching to? How realistic are valuations and hype around IPL? Who is winning and who is losing? What does it mean for a growing economy like ours?

Indians are crazy about cricket. We eat, drink and sleep cricket. IPL is just a revelation. There is Cricket and Bollywood, staple diet of Indians. It’s a win-win proposition for everyone. IPL is bound to swell disproportionately. The big question is that how far and how long this is going to last? To answer this, we need to look at real bottom line, i.e. fan following. Yes this is what dictates revenues and valuations of top sporting leagues of the world. With the time, every franchisee is adding fans day by day. Also, with time, fans are getting more and more loyal to their home team which is a healthy sign. Current valuations are certainly way beyond any financial estimates which got to show that these associations with IPL are beyond numbers. Big business houses value IPL as a long term fast growing investment. Who’s winning? Sponsors are getting high visibility. Cricketers are getting paid handsomely. IPL and franchisees are at the centre of the storm, riding on high popularity of the business model and fan following. People see it as a rather cheap and unlimited source of entertainment. Cricket commentators, coaches, staff, media is just riding on the success story to get their share out. But, what does it mean for Indian economy? Are we going to see a big impact on actual GDP? Well, there has been some preliminary estimation done on this. IPL is still at a budding stage. There is already a lot of expenditure done in entertainment, food & beverage, travel & tourism and other miscellaneous services industries which will proliferate these sectors. Slowly, IPL is engulfing few other industries and services. Above all, there is general upbeat in the mood of investors and consumers. I believe that we are definitely going to see an upward GDP shift impact of IPL as the time progresses.

3G rollout in India

3G is just about to reach millions of Indians. People can enjoy uninterrupted mobile broadband internet. A lot of Bollywood and cricket content is getting ready to be pushed though extra data bandwidth that 3G is going to add. Mobile VAS business is just about to take off with 3G rollout. Data hungry mobile applications are going to find a definite relief. Finally, technology companies will rollout interesting mobile applications, like Mobile TV, Mobile conferencing, Mobile Video Call at al. Retailers who are bogged down by fairly low success of e-commerce will find an alternative channel to sell. Banks can now go mobile with m-secured mobile banking payments. Many e-commerce/web portals are ready to launch m (mobile) portals. Stock market is going to move to millions of mobile subscribers soon. Mobile is going to get more interactive with services like Movies, Games, and Songs on demand. Nokias and Samsungs of the world are bound to raise their investor’s expectations. Credit cards and other plastic money are going to get embedded in mobile phones. With the advent of 3G, there will be fresh flood of new 3G models in the market with even lower prices. Telecom operators will design variety data plans looking at the masses. Farmers can hook onto their mobile applications for latest farm product prices, demands, weather forecasts. Mobile which originated a substitute for landline phones is all set to become one stop shop for all basic needs.

Nokia’s open innovation drive

Open innovation is the buzzword. Recently, many companies have charted it out as a strategic initiative while pursuing out of box innovations. Google has been a powerhouse of internet innovations right from the inception. Two years back it triggered open innovation in the mobile industry by announcing Android, an open source mobile platform. Nokia, the market leader, was observing these moves with wide eyes. Though Nokia had been promoting collaborative efforts in development but was made to re-look their business roadmap. Nokia had a long strategic partner as Symbian who had been working with Nokia on their most popular platform for quite some time. Sensing the changing market dynamics, need of wide scale innovations and potential competition threat, Nokia decided to buy Symbian and decided to open it up as foundation. This is like “adding more costs and then giving out for free”. Well this surprised many industry pundits. Nokia had already been working to build up Services & Software business unit to earn revenues beyond devices. This was Nokia’s strategy for the future growth. Nokia is looking to cash on this move to build up innovative devices and services in the future. Nokia has already seen a good response to it with Ovj, its online portal, seeing large upload of mobile applications developed all over the world.

I was working with Nokia in midst of these developments. Suddenly Symbian became dearer to all of us. An organization wide reorganization took place. We got our new mission statement focusing on doing everything to change people’s lives. A team at senior management level took charge of this transition. A phase wise change management plan was worked out. Several horizontals were merged to create new verticals. New positions were opened up in the new setup. Few layoffs also happened during this transition due to work overlap at some positions. A sub-unit vertical was created for ex-Symbian employees and Symbian foundation. On 1^st June 2009, Nokia’s new organization took over. I was amazed to see the way information flow and the entire process was managed. Though our team was more or less shielded by these changes but we saw few people opting out for new positions inside Nokia. We had 2 ex-Symbian employees boarding our team. Innovation topped our team’s objectives from then.

Mobile Banking :: Financial growth?

Inclusive growth has been very high on the government’s union budget this year. Never ever it was given so much prominence. Fresh hounds from financial crisis and a double digit growth target are creating a strong need to look inward. All Indian IT majors have already started looking at Indian market in a big way. Mr FC Kohli reiterated TCS’s commitment for inclusive growth in his recent talk. RBI is working out a detailed plan for building up a huge microfinance market in India and pushing Indian banks to start working on it. Indian banks are evaluating lot of options to embark on this new challenge.

Indian banking has moved from umpteen traditional lenders to modern day banking institutions. Banks play a pivotal role in country’s economic growth. Our central bank has been actively monitoring and regulating the entire setup. Opening up of banking sector for foreign investment, emergence of new private sector banks, internet penetration and now mobile services have transformed the banking processes in a decade or so. People are talking about virtual banks with no branches, no ATMs, supported by IT systems and customer care personnel. With advancement of technology, mobile banking is just getting more attention. Can mobile banking change the dynamics of Indian banking? Can mobile banking help us in moving inwards for inclusive growth?

Let’s look at the current dynamics of mobile banking in India. As such the technology itself is in pretty nascent stage. RBI is keeping a close eye on the developments and has been evaluating strict norms for mobile banking. Telecom operators and retailers are eyeing this opportunity to increase their revenues. Tech entrepreneurs are building up their teams and setup for a viable mobile banking solution. Security solutions are also getting mature to bring about the mobile banking revolution. SMS and IVR based mobile banking solutions are already in the market. These are primarily enabling enquiry based banking transactions. 3G and broadband penetration is going to add much needed data bandwidth to numerous mobiles soon which would help WAP and standalone mobile banking applications to offer large bouquet of banking services.

Looking at mobile penetration, government policies, world economic balance and need of the hour, I personally think that mobile banking is all set to facilitate inclusive growth path in India.

Lalit Modi – Commissioner IPL, Man at work

IPL (Indian Premier League) is Lalit Modi’s brainchild. In a cricket crazy country like India, a doze of cricket with Bollywood is always going to be a big hit. IPL has unique business model with very high value for global sponsors and advertisers. ICL (Indian Cricket League) was also a similar concept, but what made IPL stand over erstwhile cricketing league ICL?

I would say it is Lalit Modi’s great vision, sheer brilliance, sound interpersonal skills and efficient administration. He took IPL from a startup cricket league to one of the best global sport’s league. IPL-1 was a great start. It drew attention from who’s and who’s of cricketing world. Lalit Modi, with his astute management skills, could bring IPL franchisee’s owners, top cricket players, state cricket boards, media, and big Bollywood stars onto the board in a relatively shorter span of time. Lalit Modi took personal attention of lot of things to ensure that smooth operations. The show was absolutely fabulous with lazer shows, cheerleaders, in-stadia extravaganzas, events and celebrations all over the country. The hype was such that it stopped Bollywood producers to release any movie during that time.

IPL went into its second season. The months were closing for second season’s inauguration. Mumbai terror attacks happened. Security concerns were raised over the whole tournament. India’s home ministry did not risk extending the security blanket for IPL-2. Foreign players showed their reluctance in participating during this time. The great success of season 1 raised the expectation bar of everybody. The pressure was on to hold commitments. Lalit Modi analyzed the situation and decided to move IPL-2 out of India. His decision astonished many people. But he was very clear about his work. He wanted cricket and not politics. He showed his thorough professionalism in handling this situation. He flew to South Africa and worked out a plan. He worked day and night to ensure that IPL-2 goes as per plan. Lalit Modi brilliantly re-negotiated few contracts and ensured that nothing falls apiece. He was instrumental in restoring people’s faith in his decision by his actions. Suddenly, there was great rush and IPL-2 was on in South Africa. In its second season itself, IPL managed to move out of India with a mass support from people all over the world.

Again, IPL-3 returned to India. Lalit Modi has worked out everything to perfection. This season is biggest of all. Lalit Modi has recently flown to US to check feasibility of similar such tournament. There is an expansion plan worked out for season-4 with 2 new teams. The initial bid process saw some poor response due to hard regulations. Lalit Modi quickly responded to the situation and re-worked things. The revised bid process is received phenomenally. The total valuation of 2 new franchisees outnumbered total valuation of existing franchisees. Big business houses, like Adani and Videocon could not manage to get a team. IPL-3 in on and has reached theatres and decks. The man is at work. Kudos, Mr Lalit Modi!

Indian retail mania

Big Bazaar, an organized avatar of mandi, has changed the course of Indian retail scene. Metro, a German retailer with its cash and carry model, is operating in India from quite some time and Wal-mart has just made its entry with its ambitious joint venture with Bharti Airtel Ltd. Other global retailers, namely Tesco and Carrefour are making beeline to enter the hot Indian market. Old cinema halls, offices , shopping complexes, single screen theatres, shopping arcades, old hotels are giving way to swanky shopping malls almost in every urban India. Adding to this, retail is getting organized as Hypermarkets, Supermarkets, Departmental stores, Specialty stores, Convenience stores et al. With broadband making inroads, online retailing is just starting to take off. Café coffee day and Barista have brought coffee culture to India. Pizza hut & Dominos, with a fast pizza delivery service model, are not letting their delivery boys rest even on bad Indian roads. McDonalds & KFCs are keeping Indian youths hooked onto their stores. Landmark & Crosswords have defined new rules to book and music retailing. High street shopping as been a new addition to the retailing space. Indian railways is driving millions to internet to pick their tickets.

Though retailing is Indian is an age old business. In a traditional setup, small mom and pop stores dotted every nook and corner of India. Food retailing was restricted to road side outlets and vendors. Vegetables and fruits are available in local markets or mandis. Brands were literally non-existent.

The journey from a very traditional retail setup to a modern day shopping mall indicates the complete turnaround in the retail sector. The sector which was almost unorganized is cutting a pie for organized retailing. Indian middle class is burgeoning with high disposable incomes. People have started cherishing shopping as entertainment. Plastic money and easy credit is just providing fodder to the hungry customer. Shopping in mall is a wholesome entertainment with ample parking space, food court, multiplex, gamut of brands and regular fanfare events. Mouth watering pizzas are just a phone call away. Online tickets, online books, e-payments, e-shopping and plenty of other online stores are seeing huge online traffic.

So what is India’s retail future outlook? I would say that we are moving in the right direction, yet we need to do some corrections, especially in taking care of Indian conditions and consumers in mind. Indians are still price conscious and conservative when it comes to spending. Online retailers need to keep look and feel psyche of an Indian buyer. With bad infrastructure, unfriendly regulatory framework and high dependency on traditional processes, modern retailer needs to carve out its own path. Efficient use of IT needs to be worked out for smoothening out internal business processes. India needs more of a value shopping with less frills. Malls catering to needs to masses and villages would drive this retail mania. The sector is poised to explode with a thud with an immense potential to grow. Indian retail is all set to contribute significantly to India’s growth story.

Startup Saturday in Mumbai

I have been a regular attendant of Startup Saturday from quite sometime though this was my first one in Mumbai. The venue was very convenient, 1 floor below  my classroom in SP Jain. I would like to cover the course of events in brief here.

The event kicked off with a quick round of introduction. The theme of the event was food and beverages. Then there were 3 lightening pitches presentations. First was questionpapers.com, a business model around student’s question papers. This will be a user generated content wherein students can come and upload and download study question papers freely. Few things which came during Q&A was that there no incentive for anybody to upload papers though there would be good number of students interested in downloading. The promoter is finding it  difficult to monetize the idea. The real bottom line is to build a loyal base of students and generate a large question paper database. There was a suggestion from one of us that it would make more sense to focus before going whole hog on it. Personally, the idea did not appeal to me.

The second business pitch was shareyourjoy.com. It is a online platform to create and find wish lists for various celebrations in life. This is already a popular concept in US, where people generate their wedding and b’day wish lists which help visitors present their gifts. As such, I have heard of this idea before but good to see somebody going about doing it. People in India was still very conservative when it comes to sharing their wishes around. Nonetheless, this is just a start and there is long way ahead. I gave a suggestion to work on pull model wherein the gifts database could be dynamically updated. Also there was a concern on cheapest gifts which I think is very relevant in Indian context.

The third presentation was on a web-based e-tender management solution. The idea has been conceptualize 1.5 years back and able to garner some business. People found revenue model bit off wherein sellers and buyers both need to bear the cost of the product services. There was a suggestion to sell this a software product as against web-based solution. I found the business well but really not sure about takers of same in Indian context where a large part of tendering is done by government who is already working with IT majors on automating several key business processes.

Tea break followed by a brief talk by Mr Hari from DB’s Matunga. The talk was a journey of a businessman as how he went about building his business.  Mr. Hari looked to be thorough professional and answered questions to perfection. He looked passionate about his work and shared a insightful anecdote from his experience about handling a irate customer. These guys have recently open a new restaurant in Lowel Parel, Wok Hei, a 38 seater Chinese restaurant. Mr. Hari was damn sure about not making this a chain as he was happy with the current operations and quality of service.

Last talk was by Mr Talekar. This was a struggling journey of 2 IIM pass outs who wanted to make a beer by themselves. Got to know about craft beer and briefly about brewing process. This talk had elements of pain and passion. These guys make a beer in the name of doodally. I was amazed to see their perservance and the talk stayed in my mind for quite some hours.

Union Budget 2010-11 – a bird’s eye view

The budget presented by our finance minister on 26th Feb, 2010 is aimed at sustaining long term strategic growth while balancing out short term priorities of Indian government.

It has been designed to partially rollback fiscal stimulus packages ,doled out by government to handle economic crisis, embarking on fiscal consolidation period. The current fiscal deficit which is as high as 6.7% of GDP  has been planned to cut down to 5.5% by 2011 and 4.5% by 2012 by series of consolidation measures.

Other major objective of this year’s budget is to take off long term inclusive growth plan. Ambitious programs like NREGA and UIDAI has been allocated sufficient funds to meet their objectives. Government has also given special boost to agriculture and infrastructure to help this growth.

Taxation rates have been fine tuned to get phased out to meet DTC and GST rates (planned to be effected from 1st April 2011). GST has been a big initiative towards united India indirect taxing policy. Direct tax slabs widening has given a big relief to middle class.

The budget has seen some criticism for increasing fuel prices, specially diesel and prices. But overall, industry, markets and corporates have received this very well. This is a budget from a seasoned politician who understands Indian needs very well. Well done Mr Pranab da!!!

Gita Shibir – Day3

It was last day of the Shibir. Few of our classmates were in ethnic Kurtas. Swamiji dedicated good part of time answering to queries on yesterday’s session.

The first topic of the day was on stress management and graceful acceptance. I should know what I can control and what I cannot. For any task that I undertake I have full control over my actions but no control over the outcome. I should focus all my energies towards my actions without worrying about results. Outcome is a function of many know variables and unknown variables. Some of these known variables are controllable and some of them are not.  Task well performed should always give happiness whether your result is failure or successful. I should have humility to manage success. I should thank others and almighty for their grace. I should also accept failures in the right spirit. I should learn from my mistakes, understand my limitations and move forward. I should let myself feel unhappy by failures. This would lead to a happy and prosperous life. Be committed to your work and perform duty to perfection.

There were 3 sessions in the afternoon session.

First one was on human personalities namely, Sattvik, Rajasik, Tamasik. Sattvik is someone who has calm, compose, balance mind. He believes in inclusive growth and equanimity in success and failure. He is committed to a worthy cause including the well being of others. Rajasik person is a selfish, committed to personal gains and exclusive in nature. Tamasik has a narrow-minded head and irrational in his thought process. Emotional growth is journey from Tamas to Rajas stressing on performing duties whereas Rajas to Sattva path is shift to being a net contributor for spiritual growth.

Second topic of the afternoon session was on Leadership and division of duties in Vedic societies. Brahmana is a scholarly person who teaches and preaches wisdom to society. A try Sattvik person by nature. Kshatriya is a leader who protects the society. He is a courageous person who is ready to face any challenges. Vaishya is a trader who upkeeps accounts and sales good and commodities. Shudra is a Tamasik, a laborer who used to help others with the daily chores and other mundane works.

Lastly, we learnt art of self-management. Kama, Krodha and Lobha are the three elements we need to manage. To control our ambitions, we need to include others, enjoy happiness with others. We need to be compassionate for others, reduce our expectations and accept the world to manage anger. We need to be contended with whatever we have and then look for finding happiness in sharing.

We should be self-accepting and self-assuring. Prayer has an important part in one’s life as there are things beyond anybody’s control. We should seek help and thank almighty.

For me, it was intense 3 days of learning. It has given me strength to move ahead with peace and prosperity.

Gita Shibir – Day2

The day started with a small announcement by Dr Shrikant on noting down questions.

The topic of the morning session was Karmayoga. The world is all connected, networked. Man is a social animal. We are all dependent on others. Family, Teachers, Society, Other creatures and God gives us everything in our lives as Upakaar. It becomes our duty to return the favour. Our actions should be to fulfill our duties with no expectations in harmony with the natural laws. Human being is the only life form who can manipulate or violate natural laws. He possess freedom to do so. A abuse of this freedom can create lot of disturbance to the nature. So this freedom should be exercised within boundaries. There has to be fine balance in judging this boundary of free will and restraint so as to perform our duties and be in harmony with the nature. For eg, Tabla, Sitar, Dholak and other musical instrumentals has to be played in the same pitch with the same tone to sound harmonious. Similarly, human beings need to abide natural laws to upkeep a harmonious environment.

The afternoon session was focused on Gita’s wisdom on net contribution for spiritual growth. Gita propounds a model of life totally different from current social setup. It preaches theory of giving rather than taking. It asks for finding happiness within you and not elsewhere. It asks us to manifest the hidden success mantra. It is an inward approach where all impurities such as ego, greed are removed. Nobody can be happy by asking for more. It might give temporary happiness taking away long term happiness. Gita’s model reiterates the fact that short term pain intelligently faced results in long term gain of success and happiness.The process of spiritual journey starts once we have this realization. And to work on it, we can fake it till we make it, meaning we can start giving though we are not satisfied.

The day makes me appreciate the gist of Gita “Karma kiye jaa, fhal ki chinta mat kar”.

Gita Shibir- Day1

The day started with the early hustle and bustle to reach the campus within 8:30am. We were there without having tea and breakfast. Adding to our agony, we found Bistro also closed as it Holi today. I started the day with less sleep, no tea and breakfast. Everybody assembled in the auditorium before 9am. Swamiji walked-in in his orange attire. We were all set for an exciting day of Gita discourse.

The first session was focused on Success. Success has two dimensions to it, one is objective which most of us are familiar with and second is subjective which is empathetic in nature. As I reflected back this thought many times during day, I could relate this to west and east, capitalistic and socialistic, machine and human. The human being is a self-conscious person. He has capacity to learn, grow and judge himself. There is always this tussle between “Ideal I” (based on the expectations) and “Actual I”. Success is goal of everybody’s life which is nothing but happiness of the mind. To be a happy person, not only the individual needs means but capacity to enjoy. This capacity to cherish the achievement calls for emotional maturity. For this we need to work hard. We can change our mind for good.

The second session was centered around Value of Values. There are natural universal values of love, care, non-violence, forgiveness, kindness which everybody has in them. Then, he/she builds acquired values based on upbringing and social conditions.  Good Values are internal wealth of an individual. The value for value gets inculcated in oneself as assimilated and non-assimilated values. It is always better to suffer short term pain while adhering to values. 

The third session was about Relationships. Why relationships are important? We get lot of happiness by maintaining a healthy relation. How do we build healthy relationships? for this we need to be sensitive to other’s needs. We need to be less of demanding in a relationship. We should try to give more and take less from others. We should built our relations around loyalty, trust, compassion, forgiveness. It is very important to nurture relationships.

It was bit late by the time last session was over. It was a day of intense learning and reflection. Certainly, I can appreciate honesty more than ever now.

Design : My management learning process@SPJIMR

Design as per John Magretta’s “What management is?”

Value creation: If I wonder as whom I am learning management for. Is it to peek into management jargon? Is it to get a wonderful cozy job? Is it for my family? Is it for society at large? Well, I don’t have any definite answer and it’s a real difficult question to answer..If I reflect and look back as what was my motive to join a elite B-school, one thing come out very clearly, I want to do something more. Was I happy with my previous salary? I would say more or less, yes. So, Is money the motivator? I don’t think it can drive me..My previous stint as entrepreneur, I failed miserably. Do I want to take that path again? I am married and I hold certain obligations towards my family. Should I work for them and then go on my own? But why do I want to become an entrepreneur when I don’t have motivation for money? Is it for society at large? Or is it to earn fame? My horoscope says that I would become a politician, yes I have lot of interest but am I ready to take the plunge. What will I get working for society? I certainly would like to be remembered after my death, but what do I have in me? Yes, I love taking challenges, I have done it in past and I see it as my strength. Do I need to live a easy going life? Certainly not, I had rejected offer for PhD in US and gave away a comfortable job with Nokia. I guess, I am hungrier to do things and earn fame and certainly not looking to ride on smooth way. If I try to summarize, there are 2 themes emerging out of my thought process. First one, pointing towards my social obligations for my family and second for society at large. Are these my short term and long term objectives in life? So would I be creating value for companies and then social enterprise? At least, I think so at this point of time.

Business model : Who will accompany me in this journey? My parents, in-laws and my wife. No second thoughts about it. All good times and bad times, they are there. But do I owe a favor? Yes, my wife would expect some really good gifts for her. And, I would definitely be obliged to my parents and in-laws. My class mates at SP Jain, all of them? I need to give a thought here. I don’t know most of them personally. But yes, I would need to learn from peer’s experiences. And why would they share it? Probably, they also need to know about my experiences. Faculties at SP Jain, yes I would learn basic management lessons from them, but beyond that. I need mentoring on my career planning. Yes, IM department is more important to me as it is my specialization. But why would they mentor. Largely, as they are suppose to help students, but completely when I show interest. I need to be actively filling this gap for my personal interests. Beyond this, my friends around. Who all and why? I have few good friends with whom I share a good camaraderie. Can I bank on them? For learning, yes. I believe they would be more than eager to provide me valuable resources. How about long term objective? I need to shed my inhibitions and touch base people around me who are also pursuing something similar. Should I join a NGO? Do I directly want to get linked into a social work now? Do I need to mentor my juniors who can help me grow ahead? I think I should help as many people I can.

Strategy: What would I do differently? I have round about 10 months. I would read a lot. 1 book per week would be a good idea. Beyond this, I need to build my skill sets and right attitude. I think I should participate more often. May be take 1 competitive challenge every month. Learning and sharing is something I should upkeep. I find Twitter and Facebook more useful to do this. Use technology to excel the learning process. Learning from videos, a fast way to learn. Be active in entrepreneurship cell and contribute as much as you can. Write something good, much better stuff to reflect the learning process. Be self-motivated and look to achieve good things in life. Team work is a good way to learn. I have an opportunity, I need to encash this. Apart from this, I have yoga and access to spiritual learning. I need to buck up and increase my spiritual quotient!!!

Organization: To keep a smooth learning process, I would be working with my academic group for all assignments and presentations. I would listen to the professors and conduct myself well in the classroom. I need to build my circle of trust among fellow classmates for learning and sharing. I would let other people with right skills to work on activities important to me and my learning process.

Out-bounded at Garudmachi!

It was 5 am in the morning when I woke up to my surprise. We were supposed to check-in by 5.15 am to board the bus. Counting every minute from then, I and Vikas managed to reach our institute campus by 5.20 am. We were given breakfast packets that morning a water bottle for the journey. I immediately sneaked inside the bus. There was a small problem. The second bus did not come on time so our departure got delayed by around 40 minutes. Few of our batch mates played football. I was just cursing my luck to have known this delay. With this initial delay, both buses left the campus around 6.15 am. It was pleasant and quite Mumbai. I could few flower vendors to have occupied footpaths reminding me of valentine day. With less traffic, we could move out of the city in good time.

People in our bus opted to make up for lost sleep. I was bit uncomfortable in the initial part of the journey, with a blaring movie sound, upset stomach and passivity in the ambience. Most of us did not have any idea about the location of our destination - Garudmachi. The total distance was around 5 hours. The buses took diversion from main highway towards Mumbai-Goa highway. My batch mates resorted to Antaakshri finally to see the rest of the journey.

We reached our training abode just before noon. It was scorching hot as we stepped our way" in. My initial reaction was dull to see the place.

Nevertheless, after an initial brief about the place, we checked-in to our tents. We were asked to drink lot of water to avoid dehydration. The tents were nicely done. It has 6 beds with 2 toilets. It was cozy inside the tent away from the hot sun. We were not given enough time to refresh ourselves. We had our lunch in the open and asked to assemble for the session. I am sure nobody would have liked it. Anyways, we started with our micro-lab sessions. We were splitted into 2 groups for the sessions ahead. The first session had big five locator discussion and a instrument to assess yourself. We were served tea soon after the first session. The mood was getting better and sun was setting down. Our sessions continued to around 8pm on the first day. After dinner, people got together and had gala time. Few performed and others enjoyed. I had a wonderful discussion in the tent back with my tent mates. The nature was getting on us and all of us were excited about our next few days.

Second day morning, we were asked to start by 9 am. I woke up early to enjoy the nature. I had a brief early morning walk and some yoga to start the day. All of us began the day by mediating and reflecting previous day's learnings. Rest of the day was filled with micro-lab sessions, instruments and discussion. It was kind of reality check getting harder for many of us to believe. We located our internal locus of control and motivation needs. We also had role plays to depict our emotional quotient learnings. It was fun to act and learn. People could bring out their work life experience to the foreground. I just went back few months in office watching those plays. We ended our day's learnings about group behaviors and NASA exercise (Lost on the Moon). We had outdoor trek and assault exercises in the next day of our schedule.

First group started with a brief journey to the trek base. The trek was bit steep to begin with. We were made to move in the line without overtaking each other. The trek was smooth with not much toil on our bodies. In about 90 minutes or so, we were at the peak. People were busy capturing the shots in their cameras. We could see our tents and camp site from the top. We had apples, biscuits, water and taadi on the way. The descent was mentally tiring. It was steep. Few people slipped without any injuries. We motivated each other and reached our camp site back before noon. We got a debrief to reflect on our learnings during trek. We were given good time to catch on sleep to start our assaults. I found these assaults very useful and good. There were 6 games. We were splitted in 6 teams. We started the exercise with a total blank out. Team formation, strategy and execution were the major learnings in these exercises. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Though we lost the race, these assaults keep getting reflected many times. The other group was lucky to catch a glimpse of sun set on their way trekking back from mountains. We had bath and dinner. A camp fire was arranged to get soaked in the fun and entertainment with no loud music. Songs, musical performances, jokes, mono-acts took center stage once we all sat down around the fire.

Next morning was the last day of our sojourn. We were served Poha in the breakfast. I had heavy doze of them. We mediated and reflected all of our learnings. We jotted down our instruments scores and took feedback from our group members. Finally we made presentations depicting our entire learning experience at Garudmachi. Team work was the theme in most of the learning charts. We realized that complex tasks and organizations essentially bank on teams to perform. “A” frame work assault was the choice of many teams to reflect their thought process. The lunch was arranged bit early and we slowly boarded our buses. Garudmachi, tents, mountains, Mala ma'am, Keith sir, exercises just keep buzzing my mind all the way back.

A Sojourn in Backwaters

Tender coconut water, ‘Toddy’ in the bottle, a hammock ready to get on, laidback river with canoe resting on it,  fresh air inviting blowing all the way, a houseboat making its way into the lake, a herd of growling ducks with their disciplined captain and a hospitable host waiting for another dose of delicacies. This is one of the cuts of the 48 hours of our backwater sojourn.

It all started with our taxi making way to the Yeshwantpur railway station after battling 2 hours of traffic from Marathahalli in Bangalore. We had around 45 minutes for our dinner. Soon we opened our food packed in foils and thulped it in no time. Train in this part of the country do not get late very often, so we headed right to platform number 4 to catch Garib Rath train to Kottayam. We were just thanking Lalu for his brain when we felt that AC was too cold to bear. We soon got 4 blankets on rent for 100 rupees (on the lines of paid food in no-frill aircrafts). The train journey was smooth till Ernakulam which then became slightly painful due to 3 stoppages. We finally checked-out of Kottayam railway station around 9.45 am on sunny Friday morning. I immediately called Mr Xavier (our host for next 2 days) for the help in getting taxi. Soon we settled on some amount for our rest 13km journey from Kottayam station on Ambassador taxi. In about 20 minutes or so, we made our way into the quite heritage home. My first impression was “awe” to see the place.

There was freshness in the air with quiet river in the backyard. We got sweet coconut water as welcome drink from fresh red coconuts served in the glass waters. The mood just got set for the thrilling time ahead. We soon unpacked ourselves with our luggage. Our host called us for a short visit to Snake Boat. I was very confused about it till the time I actually saw what it was. Snake boats are very long boats used in the traditional boat races in Kerala. “One boat is around 1 crore”, according to Mr Xavier. We headed back to our home with a brief stint of canoeing. It was bit late for the breakfast and we were unlucky to have just breads and bananas to stuff ourselves. Thankfully we had some more food to complete our first dose in Kerala. We took bath immediately after breakfast. We had wholesome Kerala special meals in the lunch. Still, there were running noses (train’s AC effect) waiting for attention. Sharad had hard time breathing which forced him for a immediate visit to the doctor. Our host came for our rescue. In no time, Sharad got counseled and medicated by a doctor. We decided to rest to store energy for the day ahead. We spent good time interacting with Mr Xavier in the evening. Our host was very excited to disclose his plans about adding more cottages in the property. We decided to get into Mr Xavier’s old Maruti 800 for our evening trip. We saw rubber plantation and its processing in one nearby property. We came to know that we are actually in Ayemenem village (place where God of Small things was written by Arundhati Roy). We saw Arundhati Roy’s huge bungalow property soon after the plantation. Mr Xavier took us to his alma mater, a very old college(not able to recollect its name now) in Kottayam. Lastly, we did some spice shopping from our shop in Kottayam. We retired after having light chapati dinner and scrabble game.

I got up early, around 6am next day and took some awesome shots. Massage lady came with a oil in a bottle to freshen up females. We had coffee and coconut water after taking bath that morning to start activities for the next day. We were served hot idlis..Charu loaded herself with extra dose of them. We packed our luggage and Mr Xavier got us an auto to reach jetty for our houseboat. The journey in the auto was rough and it got hot by the time we reached Kumarakom boat jetty.

We soon made our way in the houseboat which was still being cleaned. Our houseboat started at 12PM, almost after 1 hour we boarded it. We had coffee and coconut water on board. At around 2PM, we were served another dose of nice Kerala meals. We were cruising in Vembannad lake (largest lake in Kerala). Shruti gave us some nice time driving the boat for around 10 minutes. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Soon, we retired for sometime in our makeshift rooms. Sharad and Shruti found themselves stuck in a small room (which was meant for kids as we later discovered!). Soon, our day’s journey came to halt near to a small village. We went out to a temple and asked for “toddy”. We spend some good time quizzing Sharad and Shruti on the eve of their first anniversary. We again had chapati meals for our dinner with some “toddy”.  After sometime, we decided to call it a day and headed towards our rooms.

Next day, we were served appams on request. Thanks to Cook! We thulped literally. The morning was simply awesome to be in a houseboat.  Soon our houseboat stay came to an end. We exchanged pleasantries and had a photo session to leave the pleasant memories. We had a quite day shopping and roaming around in Cochin before we took our bus from Ernakulam’s KSRTC bus stand.  It was simply one of the best sojourns I have ever had.

For more snapshots , please visit following Facebook photo album link - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=139165&id=652431043&l=119a49d02a

If you are interested in the home stay, please visit (http://backwaterheritage.com)

What did I learn at IIT?

The Youtube video shared by Navneet, one of my college junior took me back to my golden IIT days. I kept thinking about classes, pressures, fun times, meals, friends, hostels and everything that forms a college life. From the day I entered the hallowed campus, situated very close Raj Bhawan in Chennai, I could feel the excitement. Ragging at IIT, though officially banned, serves the right purpose of you knowing your  hostel mates. Long class schedules together with workshops and lab classes just kills you in the first year. And, slowly you get used to the hardships of putting night out for the quiz and preparing for the event. But, finally what do you learn? Is it lectures given by umpteen professors at IIT?

No, at least in my case. I hardly can remember something now.  Am I mentally more strong? I would say, yes. I can seriously take more pressure. Can I take more challenges? Yes. I have become a believer of hard work.  There are no shortcuts in life. You have to walk on fire to cross it. Can I mix easily? Yes. I can eat mess food at IIT Madras and live with students of every known region in the country and mingle with them. Can I apply myself? Yes. I have done this in past and I always think and apply my knowledge to solve my problems.  Yes, above that I always want to know bigger things in life.  The IIT journey has prepared me to search my destiny and work for others.

Entrepreneurship potential in India

India is a vast country with rich cultural diversity. There are large number of languages spoken and different customs practiced all over the country. It is birth place of Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Hinduism, religions which has spread over the globe many centuries ago. ‘Yoga’, ‘Ayurved’, ‘Basmati’, ‘Neem’ are India’s gift to the world. People all over the world have recognized the innovative elements we posses and readily accepted them. Indians have always believed in following its own customs and traditions and creating their own identity from very early times. Mahatma Gandhi gave us ‘Khadi’ & ‘Charkha’ and preached us to be ‘Swadeshi’.

At this juncture, many Indians have seen western culture closely after having worked for many years in US, Europe. In fact, these Indians were among few who contributed to Silicon Valley revolution in the west. There is a vast pool of professionals as engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants getting generated every year. Due to its huge population, there is no dearth of manpower. India having rich culture and enormous talent has potential to create new ideas. Difficult lives have hardened many Indians to take up new challenges and take more risks. Education awareness brought up by TV has brought new revolution in India. People from villages and small places are roaring to take up new challenges and drive new initiatives. ‘Amul’, a co-operative movement started from Anand talks volumes about changing India. India has already witnessed IT revolution with Bangalore donning title of India’s Silicon Valley. India has seen improvements in infrastructure with large government projects. ‘Delhi Metro’ is just one example of such endeavours. Mobile revolution has stitched the entire nation. It has already reached nook and corners of India. There has been lot of changes in government policies supporting local industries & SMEs. Indians are experimenting and tasting sweet success for past few decades. ‘Dabbawallas’ in Mumbai is one great example of Indianised distribution network very uniquely tailored for India. ‘Big Bazaar’, a truly Indian hypermarket chain has marked the birth on Indian organized retail story which was primiarily dominated by neighbourhood small stores for ages. Tightening of work norms in western countries and economic downturn has certainly forced many NRIs to return back to India. Institutions like TiE are sowing entrepreneurship seeds in minds of India. Initiatives like ‘Vibrant Gujarat’ are sparking new lights in the heart of many Indians.

India has stepped onto growth path with booming outsourcing services sector in last 3 decades. FII’s and MNCs have started chasing big Indian growth story. Indians have started venturing with fresh ideas. People have risen to the occasion to take a plunge in these changing times. Time has come for the BIG BANG.

The need of the hour is a complete rejig in government policies. Government has to promote and provide adequate support to setup and establish local small, medium and large enterprises and dislodge foreign establishments in the country. Few key sectors, like food, housing, health, and infrastructure have to be identified by the government. Enterprising & leadership skills should be taught at grassroots level by small camps all over the country. Special programs have to be launched to promote leadership and development of small and medium enterprises which could include easy funding, tax waiving, cheap electricity and special incentives. People have to be rewarded and recognized for their valuable contribution especially from rural areas. Government need to provide additional insurance to cover up risk arising out of such venture failures or any other tragedies. People should be encouraged to start co-operative movements and required support should be extended from the government. A separate ministry has to be set-up to focus on government promoted initiatives. A feeder system should be established to ensure ready and timely usage of agri-based products in industries and immediate consumption. Governement has to systematically develop infrastructure in several areas of the country.

Leading educational institutions, entrepreneurs & executives in the country should come forward and prepare next set of budding leaders. For this, there is a definite need of changing curriculum to include success stories of leaders and their ventures. Technical research should be made more attractive to graduates by providing excellent facilities and scholarships. Special sessions should be conducted to discuss ideas and mentoring should be provided freely. Open forum discussions should be encouraged and eminent personalities should be called in to join panel discussions. Special workshops and talks are definitely needed to change the mindsets of many risks fearing people. These should be very interactive and students should be encouraged to come forward and raise their concerns. Incubation cells should be setup at educational institutions and grass roots with focus on developing and honing small and cooperative enterprises. Educational tours should be conducted to give impetus to such drives. People should be encouraged (by securing their future) to come forward and train rural people about IT and upcoming technologies.

NGOs, social activists & media have their task cut to bring in new innovations and imparting leadership skills among Indians. Some slots in TV and radio channels need to be identified to just spread the message of leadership, workshops held all over country in this direction, programs launched by the government, incubation cells details and camps schedules. Social entrepreneurs & NGOs should highlight social message coming out of such initiatives. Our national days should be full of India’s growing might. There should be some really good movies made on subjects like this.

Enough has been said and talked about. We were window cleaners till very recently. People all over the globe can now trust Indians for their back office work. India is preferred over other outsourcing destinations is a testimony of large English speaking professionals in India. Few people have ventured out and met with reasonable success. It is time to act and move forward. Indians need to work more independently than ever. Our mindsets need a hard paint of determination and courage to take on new initiatives with ease. People should take pride in working for India and Indian products. We need to let our minds fly free for new ideas and experiments. We need to be proactive in handling and grabbing new opportunities opening in every walk of life. We need to mentor our young generation to lead new India. We need more Abdul Kalams to inspire many Indian lives. We need more of nationalistic songs and movies to unite our cadres and work together. An open atmosphere needs to be created where people can unleash their ideas and create new things on their own. We need to create enterprises getting fed from agri-based products in India. Instead of getting called to play for English Premier League, we should create more Indian Premier Leagues and attract talent from all over the world. Instead of vying for prestigious Milan film festivals and Oscars, we should promote more Goa’s International film festivals and lndian filmfare awards. Baba Ramdev and his preachings should be broadcasted over a wide network of channels. We need more technical research institutes on the lines of IISc, IITs and IIMs. Entreprenuers like Narayan Murthy and Vinod Khosla should owe bigger responsiblites in sharing their experiences. We need to open our Vedas and spread richness of our culture. We need to build more Bangalores & Mumbais all over the country. We are not very far away from restoring India’s glorious history.

(this essay was submitted to National Knowledge Commission’s essay competition)

My Bansal Classes days

It was hot mid April in 1997 when I started my first class at Bansal Classes, Vigyan Nagar building. I was in A batch, thanks to my 18th rank in Bansal entrance exam, last one to sneak in a small batch of 18 students.

18 of us who belong to A batch got personal attention from Bansal Sir, at least for Mathematics classes. DPP (or Blackboard as what Sir used to refer it as) were just challenging enough to kept all of us on toes. Bansal Sir always had this “soft corner” for girls and he used to take all the pains to mention it again and again when required. “Kuch kuch hota hai”, Sir often used to ask us this, not to mention it was that time Karan Johar’s blockbuster released. What to say about classes, most of them very funny with riots of humors and some gyan from Sir about life. DPPs, Sheets, Lony, Shanti Narayan, everything was no nicely done in those 2 grueling years. Can’t think of repeating them again now?

All, I can say is that it was amazing time. I would continue this in my subsequent posts.

My wander wishlist!

1) A Long drive along the west coast of India

2) Long sojourn in the highs of mighty Himalayas

3) A Cruise on the Atlantic ocean

4) A long stay in the quiets of a remote Indian village

5) Long vacation on an isolated Island( Hawaii, Bali,..)

6) Wild wild west - African safari

7) A long stay in the parched Sahara desert

8) Cruise on the river Nile

9) An Euro-rail tour

10)Farm-house stay in the remotes of Punjab