Deciphering The Alchemy of Growth

Why some companies grow & some companies flounder? Why some companies remain the darling of stakeholders alike year after year whereas in the same breathe we find some companies who become untouchables after remaining the golden egg laying goose for quite some time ? Why do some companies come and go while others endure?

Growth is really an ambiguous term to decipher(ask any CEO) which have compelled so many business gurus and analysts to write so many volumes that it looks superfluous to have another volume. But when one comes out of McKinsey stable,don't take it lightly that it will be like all the other books which promises much but fail to deliver on their tall promises in terms of their content.

Here comes the title “The Alchemy of Growth” wherein McKinsey & Company, Inc. consultants Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White have tried to simplify the secret to the lasting growth of an enterprise. In this pleasantly simplified book, the authors offer a practical guide for jump starting expansion and keeping it going. "Growth is a noble pursuit. It creates new jobs for the community and wealth for shareholders. It can turn ordinary companies into stimulating environments where employees find a sense of purpose in their work," they write. "Growth's transformative power is akin to the alchemy of old."

The authors describe the approaches that have succeeded in helping their corporate clients around the world to step up the pace. For instance, companies must simultaneously focus on "three horizons" critical to growth. The first is the current businesses of the firm wherein the firm have already demonstrated it's core competencies; the second, the fast-developing entrepreneurial ventures which the firm believes that there is a strong future; and the third, the ideas that will germinate into tomorrow's profits which may not have a strong visibility as of today or three to five years down the line. These three horizons reflect the company's present, short-term future, and long-term future. One must be able to manage these three horizons effectively by:
· defending and growing core businesses
· building up new core businesses for the future
· planting the seeds that may become potential businesses for the long term.

The power of this book lies in it's simplicity yet powerful description of the ways to be a venture which grows year after year. It cites real life examples like NOKIA,Disney and some other companies which have made growing as a habit and some companies which have turned around to be profitable.

Though one example like ENRON may not be the company someone would like to see among these ventures,but so are many books which wrote rims and rims about the company's glorious growth period not withstanding it's doubtful accounting practices

If you want a book full of business jargons then this book may not be for you, otherwise this is a lighter read which is highly recommended. Can be used as an instructive handbook for managers interested in spurring their companies to new heights of growth.

How To Make An Elephant Dance

Recipe to make an elephant dance

1-Keep the company together
2-Change the fundamental economic model on which the organization is built
3-Reengineer how you did business
4-Sell unproductive assets to raise cash
5-Be market driven
6-Protect the fundamental R&D
7-Keep your core competency intact
8-Create an atmosphere where leading from the front is encouraged
9-Discourage politics at work
10-Don’t diversify too much
11-Don’t acquire companies if they don’t fit into your business strategically
12-Create a strong brand with the help of superior customer service, loyal employees
13-make the compensation performance driven.
14-Make every employee understand that customer comes first
15-Make a principal driven organization
16-Have a passion for your business
17-Remember no to fall into the trap of too expensive too slow
18-Walk the talk
19-Reward the future, not the past

Processes And Procedures

The organization where I work has been trying hard to put a system in place where in everything will be process driven.You want to apply for a leave.Then what you have to do is log into the leave system.Log in your details.Apply for the leave to your manager.

You have some queries regarding the transportation.Log into the transportation portal.click on the clarification link.Your query will be sent via an e-mail to the concerned authorities.

Though it has been successful to a great extent in making the lives of the employees smoother,what I feel is that it is really loosing the touch of being an organization where in employees felt that they are cared about & listened to.

I remember reading Peter Drucker in one of his books that effective organizations have lot of well built processes embedded to their work culture.But what happens when these processes are followed by people blindly with out having their own discretionary power being used.

Take an example.The other day I was traveling by the office bus to the office.As soon as the bus reached the bus terminal,the bus driver in place of keeping the bus at a place which will be nearer to the departure,took the bus to the position where he was asked to keep the bus every day.The terminal was totally vacant & there was no possibility of a bus coming in for next half an hour as this was the last bus.

The other day one of our partners' personnel who came for being trained with us wanted to avail the office transportation facility as the local transportation was very time consuming.I had to send a mail asking the dept. if some thing can be done about this.15 days passed by with out any reply from the concerned dept..One fine day out of irritation I had to send a reminder to the concerned people asking for the updates.Then only the person entrusted with this activity came back over phone giving me all the details.But it did not serve any purpose as the personnel had to leave after a very small period & he was not willing to fork out that much for a small usage of the transport.

Why to go to other dept.s.Even managers in my unit rarely bother to use their discretionary power(Except the cases where their interest is involved).You have not followed the procedures,your queries & concerns will go unanswered.

Now building a system & a lot of processes are good.But is it always good to be process oriented always.Can't the system & process go wrong???? Doesn't this build bureaucracy to the organization???

The system & processes are made looking at some of the factors which are very dynamic & they don't remain stagnant.But processes remain the same year after year.After how much time & after what duration the processes should be looked into for change is a very debatable question which does not have a clear answer.

Let the organizations have well defined processes.Along with that let the people implementing the processes be educated enough so that they can use the process as well as their discretionary power in an effective way & to the satisfaction of all.

So Much For Being Employee Friendly

The conference room was filled to the full capacity as the hype over the talk by the head of our sub group had already created a lot of intrest and anticipation among me and my colleagues.Every seat of the room was occupied well before the mentioned time.To add to the curiousity, this talk was held amidst thick clouds of confusion within the unit due to the resignation of a lot of top brasses of management.So there was bound to be some sense of enigma about what the top managemnet had to offer for clearing the doubt and letting the employees know where the unit as a whole is heading.

As usual the speaker who is one of the top managament cadres stood up & started delivering the talk with all those glossy slides & with all those numbers showing where we are progressing,how far we have come since the last time we started concentrating on customer satisfaction etc etc. 20 minutes went by with all those figures which we have been seeing for the past two years.No new things.I don't say customers are not important,but what about the employees .The slides were just copied from some earlier presentations .Some were just modified to let people know that at least the speaker has cared to go through the slides.30 minutes went by.We were anticipating some refeneces to the steps those have been taken to curb the employee dissatisfaction,something to let people in the room know that their concerns are being looked into.Already the group head had resigned some days back.

To be very very precise,these were the words with which the speaker wrapped up the talk "Please don't go by rumours.We are really taking care of you all.Be sure that this company won't do injustice to you in terams of monetary & other benefits."

I genearlly don't ask questions in these meetings of late as I have becme cynical of these peoples' ramblings which have become kind of monotonous.But this time I was really curious.I asked ."****,"addressing the speaker by name."Do we have any plans as such for this as we have one for customers ?"The answer was capital "NO",but we are trying to come up with some thing."

I don't know how many more meetings will take place before the people at top come up with something which is really worth talking about.Till that time I think we have to go ,drowse of seating at the back and come back with a cynicism which becomes more day by day.

After Sales Service

On the other day as soon as I picked up a call,was greeted with some rude remarks from the other side which sometime happens for people who are in support in our unit.The point of concern was that after raisng a call for 15 days there was no action taken to resove the issue which was faced at the site.After pacifying the caller I got down to work .The issue which reported looked like a bug .Analysis was done & it was found that my initial guess was correct.A devoloper was assigned the job,the code was fixed,testing was done & when the patch was released the issue was almost 1 month old due to the only reason that a lot of processes were in the picture.

Recently took a relinace connection for the sole purpose of one CUG(Closed User Group) facility where in you can talk to some particular numbers of your choice for 24 hrs free of cost.Don't ask me the purpose of such a phone with this kind of facility(Every one knows it ;)).The salesman was really proud that he has got a customer who is well satisfied with the product he has offerred.After finishing all the formalities I was happy to lay my hand on the CDMA phone with the connection.

But to my dismay, the problem started after I came home.The promise was made to me that the CUG facility will be activated in 3 days.After 3 days the number was increased to 7,and after this the number was increasing as if there was no end to it.

It beacame a daily chore for me to go the reliance web world near my place & get the status update.But even after 1 month also there was no progress.I was forced to call the customer care executive & had to put the manager of the web world in conference with him to let them know that it is really a pain for me to run for the activation which should have been done earlier.It took some harsh words from my side to get the facility activated after 1 long month.


On the way home could not help but think if there is any similarity between these two incidents.
One related to a consumer facing the wrath of the after sales service,the other an enetrprise facing the same problem.One invloved the mentality of the people,the other involved the layer of processed those have been built in & around supporting a customer.

A lot of times we know the value we add to the customer experience when we give them a good after sales service.This sometimes is the bread & butter of an enterprise,the cash cow which we can milk if we maintain it in such a way that customers' goodwill is always there.Why do we get embroiled in so many processes and difficulties when we are supporting a customer??Why don't we have the mentality which makes us think "customer is the king"??Is it that we read & forget or is it that once we sale a product we take the customer for granted??Real business is like a war & good customers are the best weapons to fight with.Once you make them bad you are out of the business.

On the way from the reliance web world I was thinking if I have learned a valuable lesson in my career.

C Lover

Some time back saw an article in Sunday TOI about the influence of C in indian people's psyche written by Shashi Tharoor.Starting from cricket,cinema ,caste where ever someone goes it is hard to miss the sight of words starting with letter c which has a profound effect on Indian public.
The article forced me to think about the profession I am into,where in I tried to find out if at all we do have some words like this which has some impact on us.

So many words I found but I filtered out three most prominent words according to my observations.

Communicate,Collabarate,Creativity

A person who has already spent a lot of time in this industry is well aware of the role good and effective communication.Wihtout this whereevr you are & whatever you do will not bear result.

The magic of good collaboration is well explained by the giants like APPLE & MICROSOFT.

Without creativity a software engineer is bound to be doomed because the devolopment in technology has made every one agood programmer with the use of high level of abstraction & IDE.So tools are created the only thing that will differentiate the people from each other is the amount of creativity people bring to the table.

Did I forget the Ctrl key ;). No looking at it's widespread use I have decided not to write on it as we generally don't comment on things which have become so common that it is offensive to write some thing about them.

A NATION OF ANALYSTS

We indians are very fond of analysing issues by sitting at the periphery.I sometime wonder if at all we have become a nation of by-standers who don't like to get into the thick of the actions,but would rather sit at the border & keep analysing about the people who are in the thick of the action & their performance.

The above observation was corroborated recently when India made an early exit out of the cricket world cup.It was no doubt an ignominious exit considering the fact that we have one of the best teams in the world.But what happened after that was more shocking.Only after a few days which were marked with deep anger,frustration,desperation, our people started analysing the other teams' players & their records.No one from Indian team was taken into task for such a dismal performance.No heads rolled.

Same is the case with football,We have so many people who knows more about MANU or CHELSEA clubs' players' performance than the player themselves might be knowing.what about our Indian team???? No one knows.

Ask any Indian to analyse a situation & give his or her fedback he or she will be more than willing to do that.But ask the same person to get into the action place, he or she will refuse or show some kind of hesitation for action .Why?? Because the practice of analysing rather than acting is already so deep in our psyche that some time we feel that action is not our cup of tea,only analysis is.

Though the above phenomena is very bad considering the fact that we have not been able to produce a world class sports person(Though Sachin Tendlukar can be looked upon as one,he is confined to the cricketing nations only which are very few in number),but we can use this national trait to our advantage.When the world is moving towards a global village where there is no bounadry & when we are clearly moving towards a service oriented business model where consultancy comes at the top,let us be a nation of consultants.Let us be a nation where only consulatancy firms prosper.Let us not loose the tempo.Let other people sweat it out in the middle of the ground.We will simply sit in the AC rooms with all our tools to analyse how bad or well they are performing.Then give the feedback.Who knows there may be a time in future when we will have a olympics in Consultancy & we will be in the top for some time.Till that time let us not loose hope.Let us build on our strengths.

GIFTING YOUR WAY TO SOMEONE'S HEART

The mail from my company Bulletin Board

Hi All,

I need suggestions for buying a good and different gift for my husband on our marriage anniversary. I am not able to understand what to buy as guys have very less things to be presented.

Pls suggest some good gifts to make him feel special.


Thanks & Regards,


I was wondering, looking at the mail,do we really need to express the quantity of our feelings towards our dear & near ones???And isn't it impossible to quantify sometghing like emotions,feelings.

Can't blame on people when we are growing up in a world where everything is quantified.And how do we tend to do that??? We tend to measure everything materialistically when it comes to quantifying.We tend to measure the intangibles with the help of tangibles.I am still confused how can we make someone special by gifting him or her once in a blue moon.

Anyway till I find out the answer let ARCHIES & all those people make merry & laugh their way to bank.

Aiming At The Future And Missing It

We are living in an exciting time.Technology has taken us to that height which was looking incomprehensible some time back.So magical & enticing is the devolopment that sometimes it makes us to lok at the devolopment & make so many predictions which may not come true completely.It is like though we know where we are heading to but the picture is still unclear.In our over enthuisiasm to see the trend & predict something new we tend to forget the fundamentals that shape the human beings,the society & the organization.

Let me site two trends which have caught the imagination of everyone, and reams of paper & loads of webpages have been written on them.

The first & the most glamorous of these is undoubtedly the e-commerce or doing business online.The basic premise on which this concept is that if you have a net connection,a desktop which can help you to go online, you can do commerce on line.You can buy & sell everything on the net even if you don't have the requisite infrastructure.

But sometimes it is amzing how simplified we have made the process of going to a mall & shopping there & comeback.Is buying & selling all about going to shop,see the product to buy,choose,pay???Does it happen so linearly or sequentially????Is it so automated ?? What about the intangible factors that contribute to this process like the ambience of a mall,the chatting of people all around,the feeling that someone gets when he or she tries out a new pair of clothes,the pampering of the cutomers by salespeople, so many to count about.

But that is not the case.Common sense tells us that shopping is not at all an automated process wherein everything is done sequentially.You may go to a shop but in place of buying clothes as the next action you may meet an old friend & then get into a long converstaion or you may go to a section which is not meant for you.

Take another example of a trend which was predicted to change the way we build organizations,change the way we work.It caught the imagination of the futurists so much that the doomsday for the huge organization was predicted to be very near & the future organizations, it was hoped will be built of people who will be mobile,who will work from home or any place they feel like working from.

But contrary to all the predictions, still we have huge organizations where people go to work daily.Still we don't find much people taking an intrest in this HOT DESKING concept wherein if you have a gadget to connect to your office network, you are no longer required to come to office.You can always work from home or any place for that matter.

What is it that is missing in the above cases????If online retail was & is the future, why do we have so many huge companies investing so much on opening big malls?Why a large crowd everyday throngs the mall.Why in the morning you find people waiting in the bus stop with laptops to catch their office buses.They could have very well worked from home.

A little bit of closer look & the most important thing that will be glaringly visible is that while predicting the future & understanding the trend of the devolopment of technology & it's impact on society we have missed out an important aspect of the way we human beings live which has to do with our social activeness.No one goes to a mall only to buy or sell.People go to malls to mingle with the crowd,to get a feeling that they are not alone on this earth.Same is the case with people going to work.No one works because of the work only,but because they get a recognition in society ,they get to mingle with people,they get to build a social network of their own.

The moot point here is that when ever we have a new technology coming up we tend to look the other way & ignore the social dimension of those activities for which the technology is meant to be used and indulge ourselves in predicting the trends.It is great to find out the trend & predict acordingly,but we have to be very careful accordingly,else we may take some fads to be the trends.

No one denies the place of technology in our growth story.But to be sure about our future let technology devolop taking into acount the social aspect of the activities.Let a hundred technological devolopment blossom,but let there be a part for social aspect also.Let both the social dimension & technological dimension compliment each other,then only we will have a clear trend which we can be confident to predict.

Salaam Mumbai

As soon as the flight takes off for Mumbai I always get an unknown pleasure which is sprinkled with little bit of anxiety.No, it is not for the reason that maximum of the time I go to a client's office for sorting out some technology related issues.Whether it is to a client site visit or some personal related works,journey to Mumbai is always something very unique.It always arouses within me a feeling that is beyond description.Always someone inside me gets anxious to get near her as soon as possible but does not want to stay with her for long.It is as if an adolescent venturing out to a mistress' place in night.

Yes, Mumbai to me looks like a mistress.with her buzzing crowds,hustle & bustle of fast paced life she entices me.I look at awe to the crowd in the local train, to the people who are always focused on a decent living & to people who makes the struggle to live look so easy.

With her busy life Mumbai won't give you a lazy time.She never sleeps.Even at 3 O clock in night one finds full traffic in suburbs.What to talk of the centre of the city.And what to talk of the dhabawallahs & vada Pav sellers in the city.Anytime they will give the MNCs of the world a run for their money.

But the only thing that I felt lacking is the intimacy of people towards each other(Notwithstanding the show of strength of Mumbaikars to help each other in recent cyclone & blasts). Everyone tries to save his/her own turf.No place for sympathy.If you are not able to catch up with the pace of leaving then you are bound to be run over.If you put your unquestionable faith on someone you are bound to be disheartened.When it comes to living, everyone is on his/her own.But why to talk of Mumbai does not it happen in every place???

But with all it's shortcomings Mumbai rocks.She is simply superb.She makes a man out of a kid.She makes people value the cost of life.She does not force you to love her.But you never know when you fall in love with her and would lopve to come back to her again and again

IT TAKES A LOT TO BE A MAVERICK

How do u rate an enterprise that is run by unconventional rules,Unconventional people who does not leave a single chance to go aginast the well laid down rules to run a business.A workplace that boasts of all the unusual ways in which the business is conducted.Unconventional methods they say, never yield results always and if you want to achieve that magic notion of being called as a successful organisation, obey all the rules,obey all those techniques those are created out of research but don't ever dare to go against them even if they go against the common sensees.But this stroy shows you how an organization going against all the rules has been so successful.

So much for the introduction.The book, starting from it's title (MAVERICK) is really an encyclopedia of unconventional rules & practices that amazes the reader from page one itself.This book tells the story of Semco( A brazillian Organization) which is run by Ricardo Semler who turned this family run business(Once upon a time being run by his father) into a profitable organization in a very short span of time.The story forces you to sit and take cognisance of the fact that a great business is about a little common sense being put into practice in a big way like being friendly to the important stakeholders(It's employees),democratizing the decision making at work place,empowering the employees to take the charge of their work & giving them the ownership of the bottomline.

Some of the gems worth collecting from the books are
1-Treat all the amployees like adults.
2-Show the employees the big picture and let them realise how the business is run
3-Practice democratization not on paper but in spirit also
4-Empower the employees to take their own decisions.

Though the book gives all the positive aspects of democratizing the workplace ,how feasible it is for a lrage organization to practice whatever the book is advocating.Take for example how feasible it is to find out what each employees like their places of work to be painted with.How feasible it is for the organizations to put the salary of the top people in front of their employees.A lot of aspects the author has advocated may sound very Utopian,but it is only Utopia where everyone likes to go.

Not withstanding the minor glitches this book stands apart in this crowded business-books' market as a distinguishable product with it's lucid style & concise chapters which does not bore a reader with all the minor details.

Thoroughly enjoyable & enlightening .Read this book & you will not be let down.

Sunday Supplementary BLUES

Why do I have to see these crap things again & again???
My roomie was grumbling looking at the TOI last Sunday. No he was not looking at any thing like a psycopath molesting & killing children or Iraq burning(These have become so common to warrant any respond from any one living on this planet).
What he was grumbling about,,,, was the way this paper which claims to be the number 1 Indian English Daily is setting dangerous trend.Rather than admitting that they don’t have any thing to give to reader, they start printing some craps which is not outright offensive but which crosses all levels of decency which a civilised society asks for.

Last Sunday it was about public display of affections by couples.According to the paper nowdays people are not scared to show their feelings in public, be it getting locked in lip kiss or be it hugging each other or for that matter fondling each other(Common should some one tell them that being Number one is a huge responsible task also,though the self claim of being number one sounds duboius).I don't know if at all it is the trend that has started(Still I see those loving & caring parents who are desparate to instill some ethics & values in their kids,still I find people wearing respecatble clothes who outnumber those about whom the paper shamelessly writes vaguely calling gthem trendsetter) or the paper was clueless how to grab eyeballs.

By the way which cities or places do these people survey????MG road in Bangalore(The crowdest place in Bangalore where one does not have space to turn one's head),Pubs & JUHU beach in Mumbai(Which is a safe haven for s*x,) or for that matter these clubs where the rich splurge themselves & where money talks, morality does not find any place.

No one discredits any one for doing this because we all human beings are emotional beings, we all have emotions which some time is vented our by each of us. But the way we display it, warrants debate at an intellectual and matured level which does not need soft pornographies.This paper rather than studying the major important aspects and publishing some mentally simulating debate, publishes pictures & arts which some time even crosses decency.

If this state of affairs continue & if we give patronage to this kind of yellow journalism,I Can imagine the day when there will be no difference between a stray dogs satisfying it's carnal desire in street in the open space & the human beings .

An Ode to Brand Experience

AT THE SHOP
I- How much is this shirt???
ShopKeeper- 2000 Rs. sir.This is a ***** shirt,,, sir.The pieces those are moving very fast.You will surely like it.You can confidently buy this sir.

IN MY ROOM

My RoomMate-Where from you bought this shirt????
Me- From that ******* showroom.
My RoomMate- Does not look that costly. It looks very cheap.I guess he took you for a ride.

ME ON THE BED

I should not have bought that shirt.It really looks bad.Price was very steep also.

AFTER 15 DAYS

Our Cook(Looking at the bundle of clothes placed on the floor)-Sir,why have you thrown these clothes???Can I check out if I can take some of them???
Me-Sure.

He picks up the shirt which was still new & left.

So much for getting inside a dazzling shop & getting something which we call brand experience :(