Need of different approach to anti piracy

The view mentioned in the topic will look controversial if the economy attached is not explained. Piracy costing more than 5 lakh jobs and a loss of around one billion dollar to bollywood. See the article in ET " Pirates of the Indian Ocean" on 18.07.2009. This is the virtual premium industry losing in the name of intellectual property. Let us not confuse my views as I am not advocating piracy, but in turn I want to highlight some of the associated economics and industry inefficiencies.

The first point is the millions of dollars of small scale unorganised industry spread all across India in manufacturing low cost VCD and DVD players. This is one of the largest unaccounted source of self employed youth who earned their skill in small assembling of these consumer electronics to the trade in the supply chain reaching a customer in rural most areas at lowest cost. The point to mention here is the incentive of the rural consumers in buying a vcd or dvd player is the availability of his favourite movie at rs 10 to rs 20 per vcd or dvd. If the cost of same increased to Rs 150 to Rs250, the self employed industry of vcd and dvd players will be crashed.

The second point is the inefficiency of the industry in providing their intellectual properties at reasonable price. If piracy can, if organised players like Moser Baer can, why not others? The government should first set pricing regulatory norms for the industry before taking any harsh action on the piracy. An efficient and transparent price mechanism will protect the incentives of the small scale industries I mentioned in first point.

The third point is different as I agree in favour of anti piracy because of its malicious supply chain originating in Pakistan. This could cost an illegal organised system of flow of goods across borders, the side effects of which need not to be explained. Government should make special task force to bust these systems. Piracy would automatically be curbed.

Air India In-action

When a government enterprise like Air India books huge losses, have you ever thought who is financing it? Government or ultimately the tax payers? Had it not been a government controlled organization, a private company in this situation could have filed for bankruptcy by now. I want to highlight few fundamental things again as consideration for AI. Lean manufacturing is a concept which revolutionased the world can be extented to other areas like lean staffing, lean service infrastructure, and lean collaboration. A government bailout or IPO could be only a temporary solution to finance the losses immediately. But for sustainable survival AI need to focus on cost rationalization, performance, quality of service and customer experiences. Remember,when you determine to become lean you need to invest in quality and services for future. Any ways, thank to government or tax payers, to make AI survive. Hope Air India to be out of "Inaction" to "IN Action".

Law of Conservation of Happiness

In a zeal to achieve something we lose a lot on the way. Is law of conservation of energy applies in life too? The energy is happiness in this hypothesis. So happiness neither can be created nor could be eliminated. Though it can be transformed from one form to another. I had witnessed some examples of high flying executives of corporate world getting heart attacks in very early stages of their life. They are pretty successful in managing their profession but not so in managing their personal life. Unhappiness of so called successful people can be seen in their sluggish desire to maintain a healthy work life balance.

If happiness is energy, containment can be termed as static energy. If one goes towards a dynamic life loses its static energy and gain kinetic one in the form of accomplishments. Being contain is not the solution to conserve the energy as being healthy and maintaining a happy family are also accomplishments.

Now if the total energy is constant, so happiness in this hypothesis, how to increase happiness? you need to convert static energy around you into dynamic opportunity for you and thus increasing the total balance. The other way could be to reduce negative energy and allow it to flow outside your area of influence into the universe.

Who Am I?

Rene Descartes, a French philosopher once said: 'I think, therefore I am'. I am thinking so my existence is established. The next question which bothers me is “I”. What is “I”? Whom we refer as “I” when we say “I am”? If I try to put my doubt simply the question is slightly different than “who am I?” Surprisingly a lot of work has been done to find out answer of the question “who am I”. The most difficult looking question has some ready-made
answer in various books and articles. Then there is a devil in me who asks a question, why are you bothered to discover who r you? How does it matter? Enjoy your life when you know the end is certain. Sometimes, devils' also get philosophical.

It looks very confusing but in reality it’s very simple. As long as I am happy and enjoying my life, nothing matters. Nice conclusion but have I ever thought that lot of things matter simultaneously to make me happy.

Then I thought of myself. Something others will also agree. I can not withstand indefinite wait. Success makes me happy. Incomplete tasks; both personal and professional, bothers me. When I lie, for any reason, I feel tensed. There are lots more similar things to list down. If I have to derive something from above, being happy is easy. Simply wish that you do not have to wait, you are always successful, you never lie and you never leave any task incomplete. Most of people will say it’s impossible. Bhagvad Gita has its saying too on this, that is, define your Dharma, the goal and do your karma for your Dharma, involved positive action, without bothering results. How one should define Dharma? Again we will have to resolve the purpose of our life or in other words the answer of the question who am I.
Back to “I think, therefore I am”. How many of us think that they really think? If I make a theory on this philosophy it would be: “My existence starts with the thinking and quality of the thinking defines our identity. And if I can find my identity, “Who am I?” is answered.”

Recession and Organizational Restructuring

Cautious recovery of stock market and second innings of government has changed the Indian economic discussions from 'recession' to 'growth'. Just few months back when various companies were innovative in changing practices to fight recession by reducing cost are now thinking optimistic for expansion and growth. I feel the greatest gain of last crisis to Indian industries are cost consciousness with eye on opportunity for growth.

In this blog i want to discuss the strategies adopted by various companies on their organizational restructuring by either splitting up for growth or consolidation for cost rationalization. Which strategy is better? Should it be a role of a recession manager or a regular activity in regular time.

Here are the examples of various companies who used either consolidation or expansion for efficiency or growth or vice-versa in last few months:

1. Bharati Airtel recasts business into nine arms to increase focus on non voice business like mobile commerce, entertainment, media, internet, enterprise services and small & medium businesses.

2. Dabur decides to split sales force, stockists to prop up market share

3. Tata Tea Brews plan for consolidation by merging tea, water and soft drink business into single entity to simplify operations and rationalize cost.

4. In the similar consolidation line Godrej announces merger of its three businesses; Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) and two of its joint ventures — Godrej Sara Lee (GSL) and Godrej Hershey’s (GHL).

What Motivates You?

Have you ever tried to identify the key drivers which define your integrity and commitment to the organization you are working for? Lets look this question beyond pay cheques, promotions or other best HR practices. Also beyond morale and value system we have learned in our upbringing. I’ve tried to find out the answer out my own industry experience and discovered that at least one or more than one of the following four drivers are must to define your commitment and the associated approach to your work in any organization or industry:

1. The degree of believe in the product or services you are working for. The more believe more the association. The degree of believe should be to the extent that your personality can be identified with the product or services you are in.
2. The feeling of 'WOW' on the present strategies or future plans of the company. It is company's top management responsibility to make this clear and transparent down the line. It could be fully or partially in your hand too.
3. There should be a leader in the organization who should be inspiring enough to be your role model. If there are such personalities, you will find that your personality will take a radical shift. If there are no such personalities in your organization, well, there's an opportunity.
4. Last but not the least the clarity of your own carrier growth path. It should match your ambitions and futuristic financial requirements.

Well to find your motivation just asses the product or services, the strategies, the leaders of you organization and your own ambitions.

Efficient Rural Marketing

Take an off road from the highway to any village in India, you will find a different world. When you see a defined, natural and unconstructed narrow path, the village road, field with crop or in crop in waiting, small corner with panwala, chaiwala where people in small group discussing local and national issues, natural gardens with few dense trees where children are playing their own manufactured games and the ladies working on something around their home, you are in real India where more than 60% population is based. The people here do not experiment much with their traditions. They use their tacit knowledge for all professional and non professional decisions. Professional decision like when to cultivate, when to harvest, what to produce, how to sell, and other non farm decisions along with personal decision are taken based on their knowledge, they earned in centuries. Television media has reached this population but continuous electricity is still on the way. The other communication tools are radio, local news paper, and their interaction in panchayat (a frequent gathering to discuss issues related with village). Given all these the effective rural marketing is the latest concern of many organizations today. In ‘RURAL CONSUMPTION AND GROWTH’ I’ve discussed the role of government and corporate to strengthen rural consumption by investing and participating in rural India value chain. In this post I want to discuss following strategies which I feel can make rural marketing more efficient:

1. Rural Value Chain comprise of the producer (farmer), the processor, the retailer and the consumer. The organizations need to think where they are adding value. I feel vertical integration of companies dealing with agricultural product will increase the efficiency of every one in the value chain. Companies who are not dealing with agricultural output directly should participate in the development of rural infrastructure, which can be used to increase efficiency of their own distribution.

2. Share of non farm income of rural India is increasing. More than 20% of rural population earns equal to urban middle class. The rural consumption potential is big but it is not geographically concentrated. Also the taste and preferences of rural consumer are different from the urban consumers. The buying decision of rural consumer depends on following parameters:
a. Their cultural upbringing.
b. Cyclical farm and non farm earnings.
c. Trust on the product and seller.
d. Local availability.
In view of above companies focusing on rural market need to reassess their strategies on following parameter:
a. Robust product design focusing performance to build trust among rural consumer.
b. Innovative and cost efficient supply chain by involving local retailers.
c. Brand communication in local language.

3. For long term sustainable consumption of rural consumers, the corporate and government must invest in farmer’s business education. The objectives of such education should focus on following parameters:
a. What to produce? What market wants?
b. How to improve crop yield?
c. How to reduce cost of production?

In order to achieve sustainable penetration in Indian rural market, companies need to strategies’ hard from understanding rural consumers, their product related requirements, robust design and offering, right and localized communication, localized distribution and participating in rural value chain by investing in infrastructure and education for mutual gain.