Ashutosh Bose's Strategy and Consulting BLOG...Strategizing your Moves

PORTFOLIO APPROACH TO MANAGE INNOVATION

2010-08-11T13:57:00.002+05:30

Portfolio is nothing but initiatives that the organization takes to build new products/ services or to bring a difference in the services it gives to its customers. The initiatives should be compared across dimensions such as stretch, strategic fit, risk, and potential return and resource requirements. By using different charts as lenses to compare initiatives, you can mix and match alternatives until you come up with the portfolio that's right for you.

There are four reasons why the organizations should use the portfolio approach to manage innovation

1.Risk Management :The portfolio is a risk management tool. If the organization have more innovation initiatives under way than traditional firms, and it is prone to stretch farther within each initiative, without an overall view of its innovation efforts, it could easily wind up taking too much or too little risk.

2.Visibility: The portfolio provides visibility that allows the organization's firm pace the introduction of new products and services. The organization should balance the introduction of revolutionary products with incremental improvements in others so as to maintain a steady flow. By having a comprehensive view of initiatives over time, it can avoid either overwhelming or underwhelming the marketplace.

3.Timing of New Initiatives: The innovation portfolio will time when the organization start a new initiative or transfer a completed one into manufacturing or the marketplace.

4.Discovering Synergies: The portfolio illuminates potential leverage opportunities among technologies, processes, products, and markets. This capability will enable your firm to get more for each innovation dollar while reducing development cost and risk, reduce complexity and free up people to work on tasks that generate greater customer value.

Source:100 ADVICE

FEEDBACK: How it has evolved??

2010-07-20T13:32:00.001+05:30

Businesses since time immemorial have a tendency to follow the lifecycle of START-GROW-MATURE-DIE. But then, the trend changed with the evolve of technology, the lifecycle had a new face, START-GROW-MATURE-FEEDBACK-REGROWTH and then something called “Social Media” re-defined the way companies do business. The term “FEEDBACK” is not restricted to “WHETHER you are satisfied in my product/service?” any more…It has got new dimensions to it…

FEEDBACK is closely associated with INVOLVEMENT, PARTICIPATION and sometimes BEING THINKERS!!! If Fritolays plans to come out with a new Flavour, instead of involving the core research team, why not throw the question to the people itself who uses the product “LAYS” and then “RAJMA” flavor gets introduced. Gone are the days when customers were treated as the ones who gives feedback, they have become an integral part of business re-definition. With the advent of Blogs, Twitters, Facebook, it has become easy to reach and extract the untapped customer interest/ideas, I would not use the term “feedback” for the sheer reason that it helps in giving a new face to business. “Customer Conversations” are a key to successful business, nothing to do with feedback, but just mere plain conversations!!! Conversations are not just one-sided anymore where the customers used to get newsletters, read about profits/balance sheets from the newspapers/websites, it has become two-way. The “Conversations” have an enriching customer experience where there is an open platform to interact with the company and the topic can range from complaints, issues, feedback, general discussion on services/products etc.

No wonder “Feedback” is associated with TRUST and LOYALTY, an engaged customer can only provide a true feedback be it positive or negative because of the sheer trust he/she has in the organization and believes the organization will show the same loyalty by taking care of such feedback.

Businesses which die and are thrown out of competition are the ones who stick to the old ways of taking feedback from their customers coz it’s not FEEDBACK ANYMORE, IT’S AN ENGAGEMENT!!!

BEST PRACTICES: A KM Initiative

2010-05-21T12:48:00.002+05:30

There is always a room for improvement and every organization has some measurement and benchmark placed to improve their policies and processes. The Best Practices can be treated as a KM initiative and a way to improve the policies and processes in an organization.It’s not something which is internal to the organization,but external to an extent that it involves the study of the practices across industry. Best Practices are certainly not absolute and it depends on the kind of organization and its services/ offerings. But few things for an organization to look for while defining the best practices for them are:

1. Internal Practices: Before you start looking outside, concentrate internally. If you are a start up, then check the measure, matrices and balances and see whether they are properly in place. Before you actually start on improving policies and processes, see to it that the basic requirements are met for any processes or policies. For e.g. a successful project management should fill the criteria of gathering exact client requirements, defect management, risk management etc. And, if you are already an established organization, how the existing practices have affected and impacted the organization as a whole in terms of performance and running of organization.

2. Market Benchmarking: An organization cannot run in isolation. A lot of external factors impact the organization. It’s always advisable to research on specific practices and policies used by other organizations in the market who sell the same kind of services/ offerings. Not only that, you can also focus on the practices and policies which are generic to all the organizations. For e.g. Risk Management is very specific area while Resource Management is quite a generic one.

3. Involve your customers: Customers are the king. Always involve them while setting up the best practices in your organizations, take their suggestions and regularly inform them regarding the changes in process and policies in your organization. Publish Newsletters and let them know the practice areas of other organizations and how it differs in your organization. And, sometimes, involving your clients and customers can help you get the benefits of extracting information regarding the dynamics of other organizations as they are the one who works with different service providers.

4. Involve Industry Experts: Industry Experts are the one who have the experience of working in various organizations across the globe, working with acclaimed industry leaders and renowned organization. So, they have the knowledge of setting up the best practices for each and every kind of organization. Involving them would certainly help the organization in knowing the loopholes in the existing practices and the areas of improvement.

5. Documentation and Version Control: It might seem trivial but this is one of the important aspects of best practices in any organization. Proper documentation and version control helps in knowing the history and the changes that actually occurred in any practices and its overall impact.

Can we have too much KNOWLEDGE???

2010-05-21T12:45:00.000+05:30

When it comes to Knowledge Management, too much knowledge can prove even more dangerous than having just a little if you want to share ideas.

Why is it that the more we know about something, the harder we find it to explain what we know to other people? Research evidence suggests that our difficulties aren’t caused by the amount and complexity of our knowledge but by our inability to accurately judge just how much other people already know.

In other words, we make life difficult for ourselves because we’re not very good at working out what goes on in other people’s heads. And, because the content of our own mind is the only reference point we have for understanding other people’s minds, we often struggle to appreciate just how different other minds can be from ours.

Bridging the knowledge gap

The solution is to create a metaphor that will make it easier for your listeners to make the journey from familiar territory (what they already know) to unfamiliar territory (what they don’t know). Thinking metaphorically forces us to take a step back from what we know and imagine seeing it from someone else’s point of view. This is because metaphors are created by answering the question, “What’s it like?”

However, when we know a lot about something we often find ourselves resisting this question because we’re worried that any answer to it will be simplistic and inaccurate. We are so in love with the detail and subtlety of what we know, we can’t stand the thought of misrepresenting it. When it comes to expertise, it’s often a case of all or nothing.

For example, there was a time when computers were the exclusive domain of experts who communicated with each other in the mysterious language of computer code. The great breakthrough in the design and popularity of the personal computer happened when the metaphor of the desktop replaced the barren landscape of the command line. Instead of being lost in an abstract world of code, the home user now found themselves in a familiar office environment surrounded by documents, paper folders, filing cabinets and wastepaper bins – a place where they could do business.

The desktop/office metaphor may have many inadequacies (for example, seeing a word processor as a typewriter wouldn’t lead a new user to look for a replace command) but without it, the computer revolution might never have happened.

Many computer experts doing innovative work today started life on the desktop and eventually burrowed their way down to the creative power of the code beneath it. Once we have a map of the unfamiliar territory and a feeling for it, we’re ready to revise our mental models and start making sense of the technical details. At this stage, we can hear the tune in all its glory – and we can even hum it ourselves.

- An article by Martin Shovel. Source:Knowledgeboard

Social CRM: Balanced Scorecard

2010-05-09T09:35:00.003+05:30

I had previously written a post on SOCIAL CRM explaining what SOCIAL CRM is all about. Today, I will be sharing on what actually SOCIAL CRM means to companies and how should they percieve about it. While recently reading “The world is flat” blog, I bumped into “Balanced Scorecard for SOCIAL CRM” which I thought to share with you all.

From a financial perspective, how about measuring the profit through Improved Lead Management by listening to customer conversations, reminds me of “Tweets, Retweets” concept. Capturing the conversation happening between the organization and the customer in a system helps in better understanding and catering to their needs. A proper history/track of conversation is definitely a better way from turning lead-prospect, converting to an opportunity and then grabbing it.

The simple example of DELL India catering their customers in Twitters, listening to their problems, giving them solution…how about all those information flowing into SOCIAL CRM, the point being here the customer are not individuals but organizations.

There is always a fear among the sales force of losing their clients to other sales people in the same organization because of the targets and other factors but then there is a loss of information which happens in the process because of the fear. If I as a salesperson approach some customer and some conversation happen between me and him which I think can help other sales people who are targeting similar clients, why not share it with them and what better than a SOCIAL CRM which can help in the process ensuring free flow of ideas/discussions to others sales force. SOCIAL CRM can act as an incredible tool in forming an association among sales force and a platform for them to innovate and discuss ways which can help to improve and peform better.

And, when customer behaviour/conversation/insight is tracked, then definitely it guarantees a higher satisfaction among customers and that in turns ensures customer loyalty and retention.

Balanced Scorecard

Financial: Improved Lead Management, Improved Brand Image,Higher Cross/Upsell, Higher Profitability

Internal Business Processes: Innovation via Employee Ideas,Internal Social CRM enablement,Technology enablement

Customer:Higher satisfaction and retention,High service quality, high loyalty

Learning and Growth:Targeted Products, High Innovation (both made possible due to customer behaviour and insight)

IFFORT-YOUR GATEWAY to Social Media Consulting

2010-04-20T18:50:00.003+05:30

Iffort is an India based web strategy & social media consulting firm that plans,
creates and executes a thorough road-map to deliver tangible value for its clients and their stakeholders.

Co-founded by Daksh Sharma, Iffort is the "IN" thing in the field of Web Strategy and Media Consulting.Iffort's value principles are built on working together with organizations of different scales & processes to define their overall objectives and help them leverage the social web in the right manner. The offerings span across businesses which lie in the WAP (Web Adoption Pyramid) framework.

Iffort's end-to-end web marketing activity covers the following:

1.Corporate Blog Strategy
2.SEO/SEM
3.Social media marketing
4.General internet marketing (Collateral creation and Email marketing)
5.Viral campaigns/ Viral applications
6.Corporate website (CMS migration)
7. Community strategy

If you think, your business needs a competitive edge, then look no forwards because IFFORT is the one stop solution for all your needs.

Truly, IFFORT is YOUR GATEWAY to SOCIAL MEDIA AND WEB STRATEGY!!!

www.iffort.com

Contact@iffort.com

SOCIAL CRM: The "IN" Thing...

2010-02-26T18:22:00.002+05:30

CRM has always been a fascination for me. So, after all the buzz CRM has created focussing on the “constructive” interaction between a customer and a company, something else has taken a centerstage now. A new thing that has added a zing factor to CRM is “SOCIAL“. So, how different is SOCIAL CRM is from a regular CRM system??

The difference between these two is just one word, social. Social brings a new element into CRM because now instead of just dealing with data and information we are dealing with conversations and relationships. These conversations and relationships take place not just from company to consumer but also from consumer to consumer. The social CRM can be used by marketing and sales teams to listen to conversations, craft appropriate messages, join in immediately with customer conversation and offer them value in terms of information and solutions.

Social CRM has the ability to:

* Convert content to conversations therefore humanising a company so that customers regard the organisation as a trusted peer.
* Extend conversations into collaborative experiences, putting the customer at the core of a company’s strategy.
* Transform these experiences into meaningful relationships based upon real customer engagement.

Social CRM will help generate marketing intelligence, providing the marketing department with insight that will assist your company to source better leads and reduce customer support costs through self-helping communities.

FORMULATION Models

2010-02-07T08:01:00.003+05:30

There are various models that can be used to assist in the formulation of strategy.I would discuss three broad categories of formulation models:

1. Matrix based Formulation Models
2. Nmemonic Letter based Formulation Models
3. Issues/Themes Models

Matrix-Based Formulation Models

These models take two variables, one variable being placed on a vertical axis and the other being placed on a horizontal axis. This makes possible to plot various options, products, companies and so on. Variables can be dependent or independent. They need to be important issues that are of relevance to the strategic situation being considered. Scale can be any of any parameters either a matrix can have three scales like "high", "medium", "low" etc or even 2 scales like "high" and "low". Plotting of variety of things like products/services, companies or even strategic choices can be done on a matrix which can be represented as bubbles, dots or enhancements. The size and shading of these can be used to show vital information.

Keep reading STRATEGYAAN for more FORMULATION MODELS..

OPERATIONAL Alignment- Continued

2010-02-03T16:39:00.003+05:30

3. Degree of business strategy and IT alignment:HIGH and Use of Technology:HIGH(B):It means the business has a clear view of where it is going and how to innovate, identify and deploy technology to contribute to business success. The challenge for a business is to maintain this initiative to avoid falling into the place where the degree of business strategy and IT Alignment is low. Both the Balanced Scorecard and the 5 Views Model will be used continuously and reviewed to ensure that a business can maintain its competitive lead.

4. Degree of business strategy and IT alignment:LOW and Use of Technology:HIGH(D): There is a chance that the business is spending too much on technology and also that it is not getting any measurable benefit or contribution towards its business strategy. Many new start-ups either started or ended up here because of combination of poor business models and bleeding-edge technology solutions.

There are additional drivers pertaining to Planning, Funding and Communications from Operational and Strategic point of view.

Planning

Operational Fit: Responsive to business unit requirements, prioritize by business unit, IT plans reviewed by the business, IT infrastructure approval linked to funding

Strategic Fit: Involves all key business stakeholders, Single, well-integrated business plan

CONTINUED....

OPERATIONAL Alignment

2010-01-05T19:56:00.002+05:30

Businesses aim to enable strategy through the proper use of IT to support business processes. The Operational Alignment Matrix allows a consultant to test and position a business within this framework. The axes of the matrix are first, degree of business strategy and IT alignment, and second use of Technology. The first axis defines the degree to which a business has established a strategy and the level of alignment expected to deliver it. The second axis determines how businesses will make use of technology to enable business processes so that they can deliver their products and services.

To give a bigger picture, a business may see a particular technology as being a fundamental differentiator of its products and services in a marketplace. There are 4 situations:

1. Degree of business strategy and IT alignement:HIGH and Use of Technology:LOW (A):It means the business is forward looking and has a clear view of where it is going and why. The technology is enabling the strategy, but probably not driving business change and process improvement

2. Degree of business strategy and IT alignement:LOW and Use of Technology:LOW(C):As long as the business recognizes that it is here and why, then there is no problem, although clearly there will be many opportunities to improve on both strategy and enabling technologies. The Scorecard model will be of particular help here, to develop and focus a business strategy and provide the drivers as measures to develop an IT strategy in support of the vision.

Keep reading for the next 2 situations.....

ENTERPRISE 2.0, What is IT??

2009-11-02T21:59:00.001+05:30

Everyday, we hear about a lot of new terminologies that raise our curiosity level to know more about it. After Web 2.0,the new buzzword in the market is “Enterprise 2.0” which surely connects to Web 2.0.So, what really is “Enterprise 2.0“?

Enterprise 2.0 is the term for the technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. It provides business managers with access to the right information at the right time through a web of inter-connected applications, services and devices. Enterprise 2.0 makes accessible the collective intelligence of many, translating to a huge competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity and agility.

Enterprise 2.0 takes the original concept of the Web, using websites to feed content to visitors, and turns it upside down. Instead of a one-way conversation-your company talking to the site visitor-Enterprise 2.0 lets you implement a multiparty conversation to share information and manage knowledge inside and outside the organization using blogs and wikis, social networking and tagging, rating systems and the like. The link among these tools is the ability of the individuals involved to participate and to control the process while they work together, share information and create networks of people with similar interests.

Remembering LEHMAN after a year

2009-09-14T22:04:00.000+05:30

Last September, something unusual happened which brought a turbulence in the world economy. The major stock markets hit an all time low, fear gripped the investors minds, recession everywhere and the list of negativities continues. It’s been a year and time to relook at the major events, impacts and lessons learnt straight from the LEHMANIAN BOOKS.

The economists believe that it was capital inadequacy and not liquidity which was a major factor for the failure of Lehman Brothers. A risk management framework should be in place to identify and implement risk mitigation measures to reduce the likelihood of future credit and liquidity-based losses along with addressing the complexities of a changing regulatory landscape.

The firm should increasingly focus on these areas to mitigate the likelihood of future market and credit based losses.

* Understand and monitor counterparty, market and credit risks.
* Increase the operational effectiveness of collateral effectiveness.
* Measure and monitor liquidity risk.
* Understand the importance of transparency of internal controls surrounding the safeguarding of assets.

A central lesson from Lehman Brothers is that prime brokerage clients should understand not only where their assets are being held, but also the contractual provisions and legal remedies that exist should a prime broker or other counterparty default. Assets may not be held at the legal entity with whom the prime brokerage agreement was executed, and may have been transferred to other legal jurisdictions globally. Investor protections and bankruptcy/insolvency laws differ depending on the legal jurisdiction in which assets are held at the time an entity either files for bankruptcy or otherwise becomes insolvent.

Policies should be implemented to manage capital market risk across the enterprise. This may include re-tooling or developing and implementing robust models to measure market, liquidity, and credit risk. Models and tools should be linked with effectively designed governance practices to establish risk appetite, and to monitor, manage, and report risks.

Valuation models should be appropriately stress tested to provide senior management with confidence that a complete and accuratepicture of the firm’s financial position is visible on a daily basis.

Truly said, a structured Risk Management Framework in place can help firms to weather the financial instability. Do, we want another Lehman to happen?? The answer is certainly NO.

Social WORKING or NETWORKING???

2009-08-10T20:16:00.000+05:30

I happened to come across an interesting subject called “Social Working” and I must say it was gripping enough for me to spend some of my time to go through it and also read the comments.And, being Twitter the center of discussion, I couldn’t help but start TWEET on it.

For me, social working is working with “like-minded” people with whom we share common interests and there is a mutual benefit.Simple. So, if I socialise with my team, that’s because probably our objective and work environment is common. If “x” person visits my blog and follow me, that means I and those “X” persons share something in common, might be our interestes, style of writing or a mere liking for me. Social Working is beneficial when information in any form reaches between the members uninterrupted and there is no loss of information.

Taking the discussion to the next level, do Ch1blogs and Twitter fulfills it?? CH1blogs surely does it. But, I have my reservations on Twitter. Though being a tech savvy and having used numerous social networking sites like facebook, orkut, twitter never seemed to attract my attention and there are reasons for it.

My observation on Twitter says that its an application only for certain amount of people with a certain purpose to fulfill. So, if today, Priyanka Chopra is using Twitter and has already gathered 20,000 fans, then it’s not at all a shock for me. For a celebrity like her, her fans would be interested to know her min by min updates.Twitter is a great advertising tool.So, for budding entrepreneurs and people who share knowledge, it’s a great place for advertisements and notifications.

Though I am not quite aware of the statistics of Twitter, but how many of the people would have time to update it frequently except when we are enjoying our holidays and hooked up to a computer or lazying around in office and tweeting with unknown people? Why would I like to allow some unknown people to follow me when I am not sure about their background or not aware whether we share some interests or not. I am sure TWITTER is not a tool to befriend anyone. May be it would work in a corporate environment where people within same platform would like to listen min by min update of their team members but again here too, why would people from other team would like to know about the update of some other person in some other team until and unless they share some common interest.

Twitter is a great concept but definitely not an answer to “Social Working” or “Social Networking”. Social Networking happens when socialization happens with a certain amount of interdependency which Twitter fails to fulfill.

Social Working or Networking is successful when the correct person sends correct information and it flows to the correct person. And, if there is a mismatch and these three are not in sync, then the whole idea of social working or networking fails.It’s just not the information flow but also the visibility of information which is important. And, there is always a chance to block and ignore a person if you do not want to be socially connected to that person.

So, are we socially on the right path??

Principles of CHANGE Management

2009-07-25T14:10:00.000+05:30

Two to three decades back, probably, Stability was a major goal for most of the organizations and shareholders expected nothing more than predictable earnings growth. But the scenario has changed drastically, market transparency, labor mobility, global capital flows, and instantaneous communications have blown that comfortable scenario and have forced the management of most of the organization to face a new challenge called “CHANGE“. Successful companies, as Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter in 1999, develop “a culture that just keeps moving all the time.”

This presents most senior executives with an unfamiliar challenge. In major transformations of large enterprises, they and their advisors conventionally focus their attention on devising the best strategic and tactical plans. But to succeed, they also must have an intimate understanding of the human side of change management — the alignment of the company’s culture, values, people, and behaviors — to encourage the desired results. Plans themselves do not capture value; value is realized only through the sustained, collective actions of the thousands — perhaps the tens of thousands — of employees who are responsible for designing, executing, and living with the changed environment.

Long-term structural transformation has four characteristics: scale (the change affects all or most of the organization), magnitude (it involves significant alterations of the status quo), duration (it lasts for months, if not years), and strategic importance. Yet companies will reap the rewards only when change occurs at the level of the individual employee.

No single methodology fits every company, but there is a set of practices, tools, and techniques that can be adapted to a variety of situations. What follows is a list of guiding principles for change management. Using these as a systematic, comprehensive framework, executives can understand what to expect, how to manage their own personal change, and how to engage the entire organization in the process. The principles to cater CHANGE MANAGEMENT are listed below:

1. Address the “People Issues” systematically.

2. Embracing CHANGE should start at the Management level.

3.The Transformation programs should involve all different level of organizations.

4. Creation of a Vision Statement Document and articulation of a formal case for change.

5.Ownership by leaders willing to accept responsibility for making change.

6. Communicating the right message (Top to bottom) and Feedback.

7.Assessing the cultural landscape.

8.Prepare for the unexpected, assess the risks.

Interesting, I will write on these principles in detail in my next post on Change Management and let me know the feedback whether this post is gripping enough or not.

Implementing CHANGE Management

2009-07-05T11:50:00.002+05:30

The process of implementing change in an organization lies in bringing changes in people's actual behaviour and in the values, beliefs and attitudes that underlie this behaviour. The following are some of the most commonly used implementation techniques:

1. Direct communication involving, where feasible, the entire workforce, but in groups of manageable size at a time so as to facilitate exchange of viewpoints and provide opportunities for feedback.

2. Role Modelling: Leadership comes in, as top management sets an example by behaving in ways that are consistent with the standards and behaviours that the new organization seeks to reinforce.

3. Written Communication: A whole arsenal of newsletters, posters, stickers, badges etc, all carrying the messages associated with organization change, help to reinforce motivation to change.

4. Appropriate human resources policies that support the desired changes including revised performance criteria and methods of performance appraisal, revised renumeration systems.

5. Investment in Training: Training not to impart skills but also to influence attitudes and values.

Implementing Change Management means the actual business of redrawing organization charts, rewriting job descriptions, drawing up a new incentive scheme is a relatively small, albeit vital, part of the process

KUDOS to STRATEGYAAN: Rated 6.7 on Blogged.com

2009-07-03T09:17:00.001+05:30

Dear Ashutosh,

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 6.7 score out of (10) in the recreation category of Blogged.com.

http://www.blogged.com/blogs/ashutosh-boses-consulting-blog.html

We evaluated your blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.

After carefully reviewing each of these criteria, your site was given its 6.7 score.

Please accept my congratulations on a blog well-done!!

Sincerely,
Amy Liu
Marketing Department
amy@blogged.com
http://www.blogged.com

RECESSION synonymous with IT

2009-06-02T13:53:00.002+05:30

I have been hearing a lot about recession in India, job cuts everywhere, panic all around etc. What recession mean to the people of India?? Even I have been a victim of recession in the early 2008, the reason, quite same to that of everyone, my ex-company which used to work for US Clients suddenly didn't have any projects. The sceanario is quite same everywhere. The problem is more external rather "UNITED" more than Internal. Even if there is a rise in the GDP growth, govt. focussing on more investments in the Railways sector, a confident political scenario beaming but this doesn't help.

I somehow feel that the word "Recession" is synonymous to IT. It's all about how Lehman and GM getting bankrupt, turmoil is the financial industry esp sub prime crisis taking a toll on India's IT health, market dynamics in US directly affecting the IT market dynamics in India. There's a saying which goes, if US sneezes, India catches Cold which is very true.The Indian IT companies are so very dependent on the US market ranging from Banking, Retail, Healthcare etc, that if there is even a slight variation in the performance of those sectors in US, the Indian IT companies performance too varies. Suddenly, they are left out with no projects, big companies loosing out on major chunks, people losing their jobs and ITS RECESSION everywhere in India!!!

US is not the only reason for the recession in IT companies in India. The other thing which affects is "CAUTION". Fear grips the world market because of certain incident affecting the world economy for e.g Sub prime crisis and then other financial companies in the world get alarmed and take more precautions to stop such incidents in the future. This "Caution" leads to shrinking of budget,putting hold to some on-going projects and plans and take a strategic shift from transformation to settlement. In this scenario when the whole world sits and takes a close watch rather than focussing on their future plans, it too affects our IT economy.

The problem is not how and where Recession started, but how and what to do so that it doesn't affect us in the future!!!

Journey of KM in Tata Steel

2009-05-27T12:41:00.004+05:30

Last week, I attended the KM Community Meet in Infosys organized by Cognizant Technology Solutions in Chennai. No doubt, it was an informative session and the AVP-KM of Infosys spoke about the KM initiatives that Infosys have adopted down the years and how successfully the initiatives have repead benefits in the organization. I came across another organization Tata Steel who decided to embark on formal KM initiative in the year 1999 and yes the results are there to see. Please click the link below to know more on

Knowledge Management in Tata Steel

RECESSION Bug on INVESTMENT

2009-04-29T12:40:00.001+05:30

Recession everywhere, no jobs, less pay package, cost cutting, phew!!! It’s time for basics, putting a cap on your expenditure and think about some serious investments. Where to invest, well, here goes the answer:

•Bond Funds
Now is an especially good time to consider bonds, some planners say — perhaps for as much as 20% of assets. The percentage of corporations defaulting on their debt obligations is on the rise as the economy slows, the risk to investors is particularly low for investment-grade bonds. Moody's says the default rate on these products is less than 1%, compared with the 7% default rate on much riskier high-yield or junk bonds. The risk associated with investment-grade bonds is further minimized in a broad-based corporate bond fund. "If you hold an investment-grade bond fund, your exposure to defaults is pretty low," says John Puchalla, a Moody's economist. "But if you start buying individual bonds, you start raising that risk."
Investors with a greater risk tolerance — and much deeper pockets — may even want to consider buying into a junk-bond fund. Recent history has shown that junk-bond investors have earned their best returns the year after the junk-bond market bottoms out.

•Exchange-Traded Funds
For those investors itching to play the stock market again, planners say now isn't the time to try to pick hot stocks. Instead, they suggest buying shares in several exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. That way, they can participate in any early rally in stocks without being overly exposed to any single company's poor earnings performance. In the past few years, ETFs have grown in popularity with individual investors because they're cheaper and easier to invest in than traditional stock index funds.

•Money-Market Accounts and CDs

Finally, financial planners say that in a recessionary environment, investors shouldn't be ashamed to keep some extra money in an interest-bearing money-market account — especially if they're investing money they'll need fairly soon. He also suggests investors stash some money in six-month or one-year bank certificates of deposit, which on average pay a 2% higher annual yield than a money-market account. The bottom line is diversification. And that's a valuable lesson investors should keep in mind even when stocks are again heading due north.

For more, read SMART MONEY

Power of Ideas: SELLING your IDEAS

2009-04-07T13:34:00.001+05:30

Now that your idea is ready, what’s next??? Well, it’s time for selling your ideas, the big task ahead i.e. approaching angel investors with your idea. As long as the idea is in your mind, it’s a piece of thought, the moment it comes on paper it becomes a blueprint of our business. And, when it’s business, it’s serious. So, how to make your plan eye catching for the investors?? What are the points to be covered which gives a strong foundation to your business?? Well, here are some points that needs to be covered on the paper:

1.Value Proposition of your Idea: Every unqiue idea sells and every generic idea fades. So, the first and foremost thing to cover in your plan is the business model and it’s USP.You should be clear enough of the market you would be catering to, geography segments and any validation that supports your business idea. If you have charted out a framework for your business, mission and vision statement, then it would be a value addition to your plan and good enough for the angel investors to believe your thoughts.

2.Sales/Marketing Strategy: The idea is viable, it’s unique and have potential to grow. But, the next question arises, how to sell your products/services and acquire customers? Mind you, without a good sales/marketing strategy in hand, business die. You might be very good in ideating but if you don’t know how to sell your ideas, then you are not a good businessman. Prepare a clear sales/marketing strategy for your proposition along with the expenses (advertising,branding and others) and growth model for your business.

3.Competitor Analysis: Your idea is unique and saleable but what about the existing players in the market? A good competitor analysis always supoorts your plan and help the angel investors to know the differentiation points of your business. Support your plan with the exisiting players in the market, SWOT analysis, unique features/ parameters of your products/services. DO mention the entry and exit barriers too.

4.Key Financials: Every start up/ business has a key question to ask i.e. when do we breakeven??? And that’s also the interest of the angel investors too. Present a proper plan of the funds required for your business, allocation of funds, capital required projected P and L Account, Balance Sheet etc. Good numbers support good business.

5.Risk Management: Risk Management is the key to everything right from a business survival to its downfall. It’s an important point that needs to be covered in the business summary. Risk Management includes risks that you either foresee or are already facing in your business and explain the same and do make a point to add risk reduction strategies too.

Interesting?? Well, keep reading STRATEGYAAN for more…

Power of IDEAS in Business Recession!!

2009-04-03T13:42:00.000+05:30

Is the recession hampering your business and affecting your work as an individual? Are you one among those who is on bench because of no project allocation? Well, why not just sit peacefully and churn your brain to ignite the thought process which I am sure the recession will not be able to affect. Yes, I am talking about one thing which can really bring a revolution in your organization especially for start ups and also as an individual. The magic word is “IDEATION”. When you have nothing to do, brainstorm with your friends or colleagues. Think about the business ideas which are unique and you think can bring a change to the face of economy or society. The idea need not have to be great, but yes, it should be practical and something which can be implemented. Truly said by someone, that only when you think 100 ideas, then only there would be 10 which would be viable and perhaps 1 or 2 which would hit the bull’s eye. Sometimes, the worst of ideas have made millions not because they were rejected outright by few angel investors or didn’t have the potential to made it but because of the confidence and commitment by the individuals to make it happen.

In times, when the recession is hitting every individual and business, Economic Times came up with POWER OF IDEAS and to everyone’s surprise some 11,000 entries were received out of which 1000 got selected for second round of selection. And, those who were rejected, well my advice would be to work on your idea more, think about the loopholes of your ideas and work on it to make it more viable. And, if not anything, start ideating more. Every individual can bring a change. Whether it’s an economy or society, change starts with an effort of a single individual. And, Ideation is one way to bring that change. Ideas good or bad help you in exploring and understanding a lot about the nuances of business because a lot of research is involved. A thorough research on the market, competitors, and services/products gives you an insight whether your thought process is in right direction. Sometimes, there is a common question which arises is, what triggers an idea?? Well, the answer is “Difference”, difference to the society, economy or you as an individual. Anything that can give you a creative satisfaction is the cause for an idea to evolve. Whether an idea to be a success or a failure depends on the efforts, analysis, and viability of implementation of an organization or an individual. There’s nothing which can beat the recession the way an IDEA do. Idea can be about a fresh start, diversification, acquisition or merger or sometimes a mere discussion. An IDEA CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE, rather, it changes the very moment of you as an individual or organization because of the hunger to do something new. So, what are you waiting for?? FORGET THE SENSEX and START IDEATING….

Product Management: An Insight (Contd.)

2009-02-16T21:48:00.000+05:30

1. Confusing innovation with value: Innovation without a clear purpose is simply technology looking for a problem to solve. There are countless products on the market today simply because they were now possible, not necessarily because they solve a real problem, or solve the problem better than other solutions. What motivates the engineers on the product team may not be the same thing that motivates others. Engineers care a great deal about the technical challenge itself, and the particular technologies that they get the opportunity to learn and use. However, if the engineering team is provided with a clear vision and product strategy, and if the engineers are provided the opportunity to see the customer problems directly, then they can often come up with innovative solutions to very real problems, and breakthrough products can result. The key is that innovation needs to happen in the context of a vision and strategy. The innovation needs to be in support of providing true customer value.

2. Confusing yourself with your customer: We must constantly put our products in front of customers directly from the target market, and consider carefully their response and constantly strive to keep their perspective in mind and not our own understandably skewed viewpoint. So many products today are unusable to all but the product’s creators. Typically this is the result of poor product design and no usability testing. When usability testing is performed, it is often too little, and too late in the product lifecycle to matter. If you haven’t had your product tested for usability recently, it is likely the insights you will gain from testing will benefit you greatly. The goal should be to redesign your product as necessary to get to the point where you can run usability testing with people from your target market and have these potential customers emerge enthusiastic and eager to buy the product. The use of prototypes during usability testing can significantly help in building confidence that the product you eventually build will, in fact, be usable and desirable.

3. Confusing the customer with the user: The person who buys the product to address a business requirement may have very different concerns from the people that sit down and use the product every day. Sales people understand this distinction, and often break the types of users down further into the various people in a company that influence a purchase. But too often the product team is just exposed to the customers – the buyers or economic decision makers – who may do their best to try and represent the needs of the users too, but it is critical to have a clear understanding of the different types of people that will actually have to use the system. The technique of personas or user profiling can help to raise this issue early and ensure the product.

Interesting, more in the next post….

PRACTISING the Best PRACTICES

2009-02-03T16:48:00.000+05:30

There is always a room for improvement and every organization has some measurement and benchmark placed to improve their policies and processes. The Best Practices is certainly not absolute and it depends on the kind of organization and its services/ offerings. But few things for an organization to look for while defining the best practices for them are:

1. Internal Practices: Before you start looking outside, concentrate internally. If you are a start up, then check the measure, matrices and balances and see whether they are properly in place. Before you actually start on improving policies and processes, see to it that the basic requirements are met for any processes or policies. For e.g. a successful project management should fill the criteria of gathering exact client requirements, defect management, risk management etc. And, if you are already an established organization, how the existing practices have affected and impacted the organization as a whole in terms of performance and running of organization.

2. Market Benchmarking: An organization cannot run in isolation. A lot of external factors impact the organization. It’s always advisable to research on specific practices and policies used by other organizations in the market who sell the same kind of services/ offerings. Not only that, you can also focus on the practices and policies which are generic to all the organizations. For e.g. Risk Management is very specific area while Resource Management is quite a generic one.

3. Involve your customers: Customers are the king. Always involve them while setting up the best practices in your organizations, take their suggestions and regularly inform them regarding the changes in process and policies in your organization. Publish Newsletters and let them know the practice areas of other organizations and how it differs in your organization. And, sometimes, involving your clients and customers can help you get the benefits of extracting information regarding the dynamics of other organizations as they are the one who works with different service providers.

4. Involve Industry Experts: Industry Experts are the one who have the experience of working in various organizations across the globe, working with acclaimed industry leaders and renowned organization. So, they have the knowledge of setting up the best practices for each and every kind of organization. Involving them would certainly help the organization in knowing the loopholes in the existing practices and the areas of improvement.

5. Documentation and Version Control: It might seem trivial but this is one of the important aspects of best practices in any organization. Proper documentation and version control helps in knowing the history and the changes that actually occurred in any practices and its overall impact.

Product Management: An Insight

2009-01-22T22:01:00.001+05:30

Products are everywhere, some succeed and some fail. To create a successful product, it needs to follow a structured approach which is the product development process. Product development is the process of designing, building, operating, and maintaining a good product or service. Software and Internet companies use a product development process to ensure that they are not just manufacturing a technology, but creating a product that people will want to buy and continue to use. Product development adds things like pricing, marketing, and customer support to the technology to create a complete product. Without a product management philosophy and discipline, an IT organization becomes focused on the technology instead of the customers and is often organized along technology lines rather than in ways that benefit the customer.

This article is dedicated to few common product pitfalls which lead to a product disaster which are listed below:

Confusing product requirements with customer requirements.
Confusing innovation with value.
Confusing yourself with your customer.
Confusing the customer with the user.
Confusing features with benefits.
Confusing building right product with building product right.
Confusing good product with good business model.
Confusing Inspiring features with “Nice-to-Have” features.
Confusing adding features with improving product.
Confusing impressive specifications with an impressive product.

To briefly explain the first point, it’s not always wise to look forward to your marketing team, sales or customer for knowing about the kind of product you are working on. Sometimes, the customers don’t understand or know the kind of similar products available in the market and sometimes they don’t have the expertise on the technology and don’t understand the possibility of developing the product. Hence, Product management is responsible for defining the right product. It is the job of the product manager to deeply understand the target market and their needs, and then to work to combine what is possible with what is desirable, to create products that solve real problems. This is why top product managers often come from the engineering ranks; they understand what is possible, and when they see an unmet need they can often envision new and innovative solutions. Product marketing is also very important, just very different. Product marketing is all about communicating what the product does to the target market, and supporting the sales channel with the tools they need to effectively sell. Good product marketing is difficult and critical, but it is not at all the same thing as inventing the actual product.

Interesting, more in the next post….

The buzzword is CMR more than CRM...

2009-01-12T21:40:00.000+05:30

Customer Relationship Management has been the mantra for many organizations now. Though critical, most of the CRM implementations are failure stories. Why?? Probably because, most of the times, the organization wants the CRM deployed quickly and the returns are expected soon, the vision remains unclear, the management of customers appears to be a Herculean task. They fail to understand what the customers really want and how CRM can be a driving force to better manage the relationship. There is a paradigm shift now from CRM to CMR i.e. Customer management of relationships, it’s just not about customer relationship but customer empowerment too. CMR gives the customer the power to tell what he’s is interested in and not interested in.

Every organization is different, so are its requirements. It’s always essential to align the right kind of CRM vendor application with the kind of clients you cater to and the services/ products you offer. More than what you perceive as important in CRM application, it’s important what your client wants in an application. The organization should not try to implement CRM as a technology but as a Sales and Marketing practice. The organization should be ready for a process and philosophy change if required from client’s perspective. It has been observed that CRM is being used to curb the information flow for security reasons because of which the importance of information flow among certain stakeholders is ignored. CMR addresses that companies should encourage information flow not only with customers but also within the organization. A classic example being one organization bidding with two different solutions/offerings and the two teams are unaware of each other, the result being business clash among practices. CMR just not stresses on capturing right kind of customer information but also how that information would be helpful to the organization in return. It’s a two way process of maintaining the relationship. The most important question to ask next is whether your sales force is trained enough to understand the terminologies of the application and enter the correct data. In many situations, the sales force just ignores the meaning of certain terminologies and enter data what they assume and in the process the reporting shows inaccurate results hampering business forecasts. Training and updating the CRM users on the latest functionalities and features should be a continuous process and automation of knowledge transfer should be a key initiative by the organization through CRM. As they say, the first step for the success of CMR is CRM. Interesting, more in the next post…
to be continued)

Ernst and Young’s tips for Business in 2009

2009-01-09T19:05:00.000+05:30

One
Focus on Cash, manage it well as it is the most precious asset that businesses hold. Ensure that even if your revenues are dropping, you have sufficient cash to meet your immediate obligations.
Plenty Cash reserve can avoid situations like automobile companies in US.

Two
Pay attention to risk management as unidentified risk can lead to catastrophic results - shown by 2008. Try to ensure that effective risk management is tied directly to business priorities.
Lehman fiasco along with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lacked good risk management policies in place.

Three
Be mindful of compensation as pay programmes affect stakeholders in the form of accounting, reported earnings, disclosure and tax implications.

Four
Keep your eyes open for mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Companies looking to expand through M&A should stick to their core services and competencies and ensure they're making smart purchases, including snapping up an underperforming competitor as prices become more affordable.

Fifth
Retain high performers in tough times. For companies searching for quick ways to reduce costs, labour may seem like an obvious expense. But retaining top talent during crisis time can help companies stay afloat and reduce costs in the longer term.

Sixth
Always look beyond here and now. While navigating current challenges, businesses should not forget about the future.

Seventh
Make your non-financial metrics count. In the current state of the global economy, many will argue that economic reality will kill the budding green industry. But investing in clean technology can give you competitive advantage in the form of cost cuts, efficiency, compliance with new regulations and the creation of new products and services.

Eighth
Get ready for International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Soon public companies will be expected to provide securities administrators with a detailed implementation plan and quantify the conversion's impact on their business, more precisely.

Ninth
Be smart with tax strategies to save you money. Talk to your advisor and do it early. Implement tax strategies to improve cash flow or minimize taxes.

Tenth
See the lemonade, not the lemons. Use the heightened scrutiny caused by the current financial and economic challenges to identify ways to improve and grow your business.

According to Ernst & Young, a climate of fear and risk aversion creates real opportunities for investment and innovation if firms are able to step back and see beyond the current turmoil.

It's 100, Way to go STRATEGYAAN

2008-12-25T17:59:00.003+05:30

Dear Readers,

It gives me immense pleasure to announce that this is the 100th post of STRATEGYAAN. A blog which started on Feb 2007 succeeded in gathering a religious group of readers who not only enjoys BLOGGING but every bit of STRATEGYAAN. STRATEGYAAN just not believe in talking something new but always been in the forefront of sharing knowledge. STRATEGYAAN has always valued KNOWLEDGE and will continue to do so in the future too, that’s why I call STRATEGYAAN, just not a BLOG, but a “KNOWLEDGE BIBLE”. “Strategyaan” got its name from the combination of two words i.e. STRATEGY+GYAAN (which means KNOWLEDGE in “SANSKRIT”). I really thank to all my readers making STRATEGYAAN a blog worth to read.

Ashutosh

Laws of BRANDING a CONSULTANCY

2008-12-19T16:37:00.001+05:30

Most consultancies are good at selling, but not at branding. In other words, they do a very good job of rounding up prospects and making presentations to sell their services. On the contrary, they do an abysmal job of branding. To build a brand, Consultancies have to stand for something in the mind and need to position them in such a way that they differentiate from others. Advertising could be a good way of branding your firm, but its importance comes only after public relations. The big 4s don’t differentiate from each other; all of them claim to be the best accounting firms but nothing more than that. More than the service you provides, it’s your credibility of service that matters in the market. Position something which is unique to your organization only. Similarly, take the case of Wipro, Infosys, TCS or Cognizant, everyone has a catchy punchline but that doesn’t reflect the kind of work they do or position themselves unique to each other.

PR is generally a more effective branding strategy to establish a position in the mind. After that position is established, and then you can switch to advertising to maintain the position. To build a successful PR strategy, consultancies need a unique position that they can use to try to get into a prospect's mind. They might, for example, pick out a segment of the market that they are the leader in and then position themselves as the leader in that category. If they are not the leader, they need to position themselves as the “alternatives” in the market which can give them the best services as good as the leader. Good publicity requires a lot of time on the part of internal people and sometimes the hiring of expensive PR firms. The major cost of PR, both internally and externally, is the cost of the people involved. Most of the other expenses are relatively minor.

Naming a consultancy is a critical area which has lot of importance in branding the consultancy. Ernst and Young, Mc Kinsey, Bain consulting, do these names trigger an alarm bell?? Yes, you are right; they are named after the owners of the company. That’s the way you brand your company and yourself too. Bigger names are a disaster, so use smaller ones to brand them.

CONSULTANCY PRACTICE

2008-11-20T21:11:00.000+05:30

In my earlier post, I have highlighted BCG’s approach to proprietary approach to consultancy. So, what exactly is a Consultancy Practice, how to build it, what are the key elements of this practice? Well, this post answers all such queries. Consultancies whether big or small require certain elements in place to be managed successful. And, practices look to balance consultancy delivery to the customer against the need of developing new propositions and services. A consultancy practice may therefore be outward facing i.e. market facing or inward facing i.e. business facing.

Outward Facing:
Clients, their sectors, markets and business trends.
Knowledge of technologies and how those trends and technologies would enable or differentiates business strategies.
Alliances with key suppliers in order to gain an understanding of their products and services to provide new innovative business models to deliver business benefits.

Inward Facing:

Inward facing aspect emphasize that the consultancy practice’s key element is people. The consultancy should focus on enhancing consultant’s skills and competencies. Inward facing aspects includes:

Consultant skills and competencies including credibility, integrity, creativity and ability to influence customers.
Knowledge of markets, sectors, technologies and business trends and how to continually innovate new business models with enabling technology.
Products, models and services that allow consultants to deliver value of their customers.

I will give more insight on practices and some case studies. Keep reading.

DIVERSITY: The new FORMULA for Business Opportunity

2008-11-10T19:10:00.000+05:30

“Diversity” is the mantra for business and seen as an opportunity to cash in. Diversity drives innovation and not only that, it drives creativity too. A culture of diversity across functions helps business to strengthen the bottomline in terms of capturing new and diverse markets. By working together, a diverse team of customer service representatives can more effectively understand and meet the needs of customers with a range of backgrounds. A diverse product development team can find ways to expand the use of a product, and ways to make the product more effective for a wider customer base.

According to IBM, workforce diversity is the bridge between the workplace and the marketplace. People tend to do business with people they believe can understand their unique needs. Companies that demonstrate an ability to meet those unique needs are going to win customers in any market. A corporate culture that fosters diversity and inclusion can support recruiting and retention efforts as well. Employees choose and remain in jobs at companies where they feel welcome and comfortable. A company that embraces diversity can offer that kind of work environment, and as a result, can attract and retain top talent with diverse backgrounds. For a successful corporate diversity initiative, sometimes, the corporate culture needs to be changed to suit the lifestyle and working style of people from diverse backgrounds. It’s a proactive and slow process which needs to be tailored accordingly and tied to the company bottomline. These initiatives should be widely focused, leverage technology and should be receptive to change. These corporate diversity initiatives should have a benchmark set and the progress should be continually monitored to check whether the organization is at a right path. Top management must ensure that the commitment to diversity has buy-in at all levels of the organization by making diversity an integral part of company success. It should be taken care that these initiatives are not single handedly responsibility of some particular department. Companies that relegate diversity to a single department miss out on opportunities to improve and integrate the diversity initiative that are offered by other areas of the company. For example, a communications department has the expertise to effectively communicate the initiative company-wide. A purchasing department that already has vendor diversity can offer insight.

When there is a diverse group of people with varied background and knowledge quotient, it gives rise to diverse ideas, and sometimes those vague ideas turn out to be innovative enough when brainstorming occurs and thought process is given. The diversity ranges from people to subjects, knowledge, and creativity, level of thinking, analytical skills, research abilities so on and so forth. That’s why a company like IBM which has a global presence and gives importance to diversity boasts of INNOVATION. So, are you ready to embrace diversity in your work culture????

Building a PRACTICE:A Boston Consulting Group Approach

2008-10-26T11:24:00.002+05:30

For a Consultancy firm, a good proprietary approach promises real and different benefits to the clients that hire the consultancy. It is easy to see the attraction of this for the consultancy as well- that is able to offer something that is uniquely the intellectual property of the firm. The Boston Consulting Group is one of the best examples of a firm that founded a substantial international reputation and business on two original concepts, which were linked to provide a powerful consultancy approach for the first time. The first was its approach to Portfolio Analysis with the terminology of dogs, cash and cows which still remains a part of the management vocabulary. And, the second being the Experience Curve, a phenomenon whereby costs fall by a constant percentage everytime cumulative production of an item doubles. This phenomenon is widely used in Manufacturing Industries.

The Boston Consulting Group did enough research to be able to extend this thinking to the total cost of the firm, enabling consultants to calculate the experience curve effect for any given company. So, the business started with these two powerful and effective tools for strategic decision-making that fitted the strategic issues of the day at a time when little was on offer to aid the systematic analysis of strategy. After Porter’s Competitor Analysis and Value Chain Analysis were accepted by many other firm of consultancy, BCG slowly released its methodology, although the basic concept of portfolio analysis became known quite early on, many of the essential details of how to make its analysis system work only became widely known after the original technique had become outdated. Most Consulting firms that build a business on proprietary methods move on as time passes to avoid the danger of being dependent for too long on something that could lose its value. Thus, the Boston Consulting Group today has a business that has developed new techniques and is not dependent on the success of portfolio analysis. The firms should take care they are not hooked too much to the original concept, so that it is used after its sell-by date has expired, or the technique or approach is used in situations for which it is not particularly appropriate.

DO’S and DON’TS of EVENT Management

2008-09-29T19:35:00.002+05:30

Event Management is a tough task and can get on your nerves when the plan is not clear and precise. Here, I would be specifically highlighting Corporate Event Management. It could be in the form of seminars, workshops, or a cluster of miscellaneous events organized for more than a day. The situation can get gruesome if the communication among the event owners is not clear and the owning of responsibility is not defined. Below are some do’s and don’ts of Event Management.

Do’s of Event Management:

1.Define the Hierarchy: The biggest flaw in the failure of any event is the improper communication flow and reporting. Before the start of event management, select the event owners and specify a clear cut hierarchy of how the communication should flow and who will report to whom. Once it’s done, assigning of tasks is done.

2.Assigning Tasks: How do you assign tasks?? A verbal communication and assigning of tasks always proves to be a reason of confusion in the later stage of Event. Have a plan ready for each event and if there are different event owners assigned, they should take the responsibility for their event right from preparing the plans, listing the pre and post events, allocating tasks to volunteers, communicating their plan to other event owners etc.

3.Allocating Volunteers: Finding and allocating volunteers for each event is a Herculean Task. This should be done even before you plan is ready on papers. An estimation of volunteers should be completed before your concrete plan is ready. Instead of running around the bush during the event, its better to get your volunteers ready and prepare them for the tasks.

4.Handling Volunteers: Once your volunteers are finalized, the immediate action is to communicate your plan with them and allocate tasks to them. Always keep buffer volunteers ready incase some of your volunteers don’t turn up during the event for any reasons. Ask your volunteers to include the updates and prepare a MOM for every meeting that is organized pre event so that the volunteers are responsible for their tasks and everyone included in the event are aware of the proceedings.

5.Handling the Event Owners: The Event Head should be prepared to handle the event owners. Sometimes, there are so many tasks to do that there are heated discussions and arguments which occurs among the event owners. That’s the time when Event Head should play a pivotal role in stabilizing the situation. The success of an event always depends on the coordination among the event owners, event head and the volunteers.

Interesting?? Well, I will post the Don’ts of Event Management in my next post. Till then, keep reading STRATEGYAAN!!!!

Reconceptualization of ACAP

2008-09-16T19:34:00.000+05:30

If Firm 1 has a low efficiency factorcompared to Firm 2, it is still possible that Firm 2 may have a higher RACAP than Firm 1, in spite of Firm 1 having a higher PACAP. Firms that achieve or maintain a high RACAP-to-PACAP ratio would be well positioned to gain value. This point underscores the importance of separating potential from realized ACAP in order to account for the contributions of this construct. Thus, distinction between potential and realized ACAP provides an explanation of why certain large firms, in spite of their greater investments in developing their ACAP, may lose out to smaller firms that can more efficiently convert their potential capacity to realized capacity. This discussion suggests the following two propositions:

Proposition 1: A firm's absorptive capacity is composed of potential and realized
capacities wherein PACAP is a function of acquisition and assimilation capabilities, and RACAP is a function of conversion and exploitation capabilities.

Proposition 2: A high realized-to-potential absorptive capacity is positively associated with future value creation.

It has been observed that companies do not always foster the sharing or integration of knowledge. Structural, cognitive, behavioral, and political barriers may stifle the effective sharing and integration of knowledge. Integration can take place informally (e.g., communication) or formally (e.g., use of coordinators). Informal integration is useful in building bridges and exchanging ideas. However, more formal ways to integrate knowledge have the advantage of being more systematic. They can be more useful in distributing information within the firm, gathering interpretations and identifying trends. Firms that use formal integration are, therefore, likely to be better equipped to make their members aware of the types of data that make up their PACAP. This can expedite the process of converting and exploiting knowledge and make it more efficient. Sharing and integration of knowledge can increase efficiency factorby reducing the gap between PACAP and RACAP. These observations suggest the following proposition:

Proposition 3. Knowledge integration reduces the gap between potential and realized ACAP, thereby improving the efficiency factor.

Exploiting technologies (or technological knowledge) requires different skills from those that constitute ACAP. These skills are termed “transformative capacity,” defined as “the ability to continually redefine a product portfolio based on technological opportunities created within a firm.” This capacity centers on selecting different technologies, nurturing and developing these technologies over time, and synthesizing these technologies as needed to accomplish the firm’s strategic goals. These activities differ from the acquisition, assimilation and conversion of externally acquired knowledge.

Proposition 4: A firm’s transformative capacity reduces the gap between potential and realized ACAP, thereby improving its efficiency factor.

ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY

2008-08-12T19:20:00.000+05:30

Absorptive Capacity or ACAP as it is widely known as is a “less- heard” term. This is because the definition of ACAP and the measurements are still a matter of arguments for most of the researchers. Organizations view ACAP from different perspectives but what remains a matter of discussion is the true meaning of ACAP and its value addition to the organization.

CAP is an organization's capability (or set of capabilities) required to manage knowledge for the purpose of value creation. These capabilities involve the abilities to acquire, assimilate, convert, and exploit knowledge. It also highlights value creation as the dependent variable or outcome of ACAP, which can help explain a firm's motivation to develop and maintain these capabilities. Now the question comes, how to measure ACAP? The measurement is quite simple, you have a potential ACAP and then you have a Realized ACAP.

Potential ACAP makes the firm receptive to acquire and assimilate external knowledge developed elsewhere. It corresponds to the ability to value and acquire external knowledge but does not necessarily guarantee the successful exploitation of this knowledge. The ability to acquire is a function of three factors: experience, assimilation and effort Realized ACAP centers on converting and exploiting the same knowledge.

PACAP * h = RACAP; where PACAP >= RACAP, h is the efficiency factor, and h<= 1
The efficiency factor denotes the difference between potential and realized capacities.
Interesting?? Keep reading, I will continue on APAC in the next posting….

CRM for Financial Institutions..Continued

2008-07-29T19:31:00.000+05:30

As promised, I will discuss the remaining parameters that the financial institutions should give importance to successfully get the benefit of CRM.

Innovative Product Management: Product Managers must adopt a modular approach to product development, creating products and services that can be combined to become personalized offers for the customers. This will deliver maximum flexibility to the segment owners, the channel organizations and customers in creating a package of financial services that meets the customer’s needs.

Process Leadership: Financial Institutions must commit to ongoing process management and disciplined execution. Process Executives must be assigned to manage end-to-end process performance, especially with customer facing processes. Their role is to ensure the process is performed consistently, reliably and delivers value to financial institutions, its customers and its employees.

Customer Interaction: Gather and use customer information effectively and streamline the integrating processes from the customers’ perspective.

Customer Profiles: Identifying customer information necessary to manage customers’ needs and drive value-added customer relationship management strategies. Unify the customer data to create profiles of the customers which will act as a roadmap for capturing and retaining relevant customer information.

Customer focused Processes: Financial Institutions must redesign their processes from their customers’ perspective, mapping processes end-to-end across the financial institutions. The outside-in process view will create insight into the gap between financial institutions is delivering and what customers require. Once this is known, financial institutions can redesign their processes to meet customer needs.

Courtesy: Van De Laar

CRM for Financial Institutions

2008-07-24T20:06:00.000+05:30

How can financial institutions ensure that they get a return on their CRM investments? It has been observed that in most of the financial institutions, there is a gap between the strategic intent of financial institutions, their CRM infrastructure and their operational reality. In order to realize full potential of CRM and the customers, financial institutions must restructure their organization and invest in professionalizing their customer interaction to close the gap. Financial institutions need to look at these parameters to successfully implement CRM and get the benefits out of it. They are:
1. Customer Advocacy
2. Customer Behavior Management.
3. Innovative Product Management
4. Process Leadership
5. Customer Interactions
6. Customer Profiles
7. Customer focused Processes.
I will highlight the first two parameters in this post and will write about the other parameters in my next post.

Customer Advocacy: CRM must have dedicated leadership at board level, naming a single executive to be responsible for creating the customer-centric culture. This person will be responsible for financial institution’s customer relationship vision and must define the strategy, restructure the organization, develop the channel capabilities, manage KPIs, and build the technical CRM infrastructure to realize the vision.

Customer Behavior Management: Behavior Management Strategies define key customer benefits and behavior objectives for a specific customer segment in order to drive the desired behaviors, such as:

1. Buy new products and services
2. Increase overall investment.
3. Make appointment
4. Use internet instead of branch
5. Feel good about their choice of financial institutions.

By defining behavior change strategies financial institutions can leverage the power of their CRM technology to effectively integrate and manage messages, offers and results.

DIRECT Marketing

2008-06-21T14:37:00.002+05:30

As promised,I am posting an article on Direct Marketing.Direct Marketing is any advertising activity which creates and exploits a direct relationship between you and your customer as an individual.The purpose is to isolate your prospects and customers as individuals and build a continuing relationship with them to their greater benefit and your career profit.The advantages of Direct Marketing are:

1)Treating Clients as Individuals:By isolating your prospects as individuals,you can find out what makes them tick and use the knowledge you gain about them to help you select the ones you feel confident you can serve and ignore those who are less likely to want to work with you.You need to understand and calculate the likely income you could gain from each prospective client and likelihood of being able to win that business.Then a decision of which individuals to invest can be taken.

2)In Control: With Direct Marketing,you are in control.You can test your message, change it for each person you are addressing.You can contact your prospects at times you think will be likely to elicit the best response.If you record every communication and its response on your database, you also then have the data that is necessary to make good decisions and you can learn from each promotion.

3)Cut down on Risks: Most of the consultants are success oriented and record their wins effectively but fails to understand the failures.However,to make the most of the investment, you need to find out exactly why you did not win and make sure that the lessons learnt are incorporated into your planning for future pitches. Direct Marketing helps you to understand the failures and work on it so that it does not affect your future endeavours.

HUMAN Behaviour in BUSINESS Schools

2008-05-24T00:17:00.003+05:30

Should the business schools teach HUMAN BEHAVIOUR as a subject?? Quite interesting and a relevant question posed by one of my friends in Linkedin.It inspired me so much that I decided to write a post in Human Behaviour.

Human Behaviour is often considered as one of the important traits to test during HR interviews. It includes they way a person talks, his body language, his views about the people and organization and a lot of factors which influences him to act/react in a certain way.But,as a matter of fact, human behaviour is not stable. The way a person portrays himself during an HR interview might react in a different way under different situations.This gives rise to two important questions:
1)How to train business graduates on "Human Behaviour"? Whether there should be a different subject for them the way they learn about organizational behaviour?
2)How the HRs can use this aspect to hire the best talent?

One of the effective ways to access a particular person and make a person understand human behaviour is Case Studies.There should be case studies on various situations and how a particular person should react given a particular role and situation.This might vary from organization to organization and one role to other.Framing of right questions is important.The case studies should be categorized on the basis of fields chosen by the candidates like Sales/Marketing,Customer Support,Client Interaction/Presentation,Client Interviews in Business Analysis or Business Consulting etc.

Human behaviour can be altered or measured using stress tests.For example,the reaction of a particular employee can be monitored putting pressures on him in different levels.It will give an insight of the employee's stress taking abilities.The same could be applied to the managers in the organization.

Culture of the KNOWLEDGE based Company

2008-05-21T00:47:00.000+05:30

A knowledge based company values knowledge workers rather than employees who work from 9-6.Most of the knowledge based companies send their employees to seminar,workshops conducted by creme B Schools and other associations.The employees in a knowledge based company just not focusses on his work rather takes interest in different roles so that he can swap roles if ever the organisation demands.A knowledge based company conducts training and workshops and encourages their employees to take training that can enhance their skill sets and knowledge benefitting the organisation. Apart from that, the Senior Management/Manager conducts meetings where he discusses the initiatives of the organisation with their.his employees and ask their feedback thus involving them in the whole process and make them responsible for their organisation.Carrying this activity,they make sure that the lower level employees are aware about their organisation and are taking keen interest to work in the organisation. Sometimes,knowledge sharing presentations are conducted where the employees are asked to prepare a presentation on different topics and share it with their respective teams.Such initiatives makes the employees more confident and enhance their communication skills.

First Ever CONSULTING MEET in Mumbai

2008-05-03T18:15:00.000+05:30

I am thinking to organize a Consulting Meet in Mumbai where like-minded people can gather and discuss topics on Business/Strategy/Management Consulting. The idea is to gather people from varied backgrounds under one platform and organize Consulting Meets in Mumbai once a month where we can know each other,discuss topics related to business consulting and do some business networking.If anyone is interested, reply to the topic and if we have substantial number of people,we can decide the venue and time for Consulting Meet. People nearby Mumbai or outside Mumbai can also join and attend the Consulting Meet.

Well,the common mail id for all the interested participants is
consultingmeetmumbai@gmail.com

and the Password:consult11

All the interested,please drop a mail to this e-mail id or add yourself to the Contact List.

Please do share your views.

CONSULTANCY Marketing Strategies

2008-04-30T15:20:00.002+05:30

How do we define the term "Marketing" in Consultancy language.Put in simple words,Marketing is a way of looking at doing business,promotional activity and a location.Infact, most consultants would associate the marketing approach as being able to understand the clients point of view-the issues they have in their industries,in their companies and in their own roles.The marketing concept involves meeting three requirements which are:
1.decisions about what your business should do are based on your clients' needs and wants.
2.you select the best way to meet the needs of your clients and prospective clients.
3.your organizations' performance objectives are achieved by meeting clients' needs in a way that satisfies them.

Generally,in a Consultancy,the consultant enters the client's domain to learn all there is to know about the client's fears and desires and then uses that information to design and supply the service.Marketing in the consulting language is being able to createa product or service that fits the client so it will sell itself.

I would post on one of the most important aspects of Consulting i.e. "DIRECT MARKETING" in the next post...So keep reading

Essentials of a PROPOSAL

2008-04-21T11:12:00.003+05:30

Last time I discussed about proposal and presenting the proposal,but,preparing the proposal is a challenge and it has to fulfil all the purposes of the entry phase,in particular

1.specify the objectives for and the approach to the assignment,based on an agreed understanding of the problem.
2.be a persuasive selling document.
3.be the basis of a legally binding contract.

The below mentioned should be described clearly in the proposal.
1. The problem described in the context of the client's business situation,strategy and competitive position.
2.The anticipated benefits of the assignment.
3.The methods and approaches the consultancy will use.
4.The results that are expected from these approaches.
5.The experience and the staffing of the consultancy.
6.Experience and capability of the firm.
7.Professional Staffing.
8.Standard terms and conditions.
9.Professional fees and expenses.
10.billing arrangements.
11.Standard terms and conditions.

I will try to elaborate on each of these points in my forthcoming posts..So,keep reading and putting your valuable comments and suggestions.

Formal PRESENTATIONS to the Clients

2008-04-05T15:01:00.003+05:30

A proposal is something which gives an insight of your consulting firm and the consultants to the clients.This is probably the first formal interaction between the Consultant and the Client.And, as someone truly said "First Impression is the last Impression", you need to look certain things before you approach your client.Typically,some consultancies may be eliminated when the proposals are received and others may be invited to make presentations to the clients and discuss the proposal in depth.A presentation is required even when the client has either eliminated the other bidders or never invited any others in the first place.

WHAT TO FIND OUT IN ADVANCE
1)What the client's expectation from the presentation are.
2)Whether or not a formal presentation is wanted.
3)The time allowed for a formal presentation and for discussion.
4)Who will be there and what their interests are.
5)Which other firms have been asked to present.
6)What's the order for presentations.

The PRESENTATION
1)Prepare the presentation carefully.
2)Rehearse the presentation and make the presentation client-centered,stressing what is important to them.
3)Make sure all visual aids are of a high quality.
4)Do not follow the presentation literally:keep to key points and change the order to suit the situation.
5)Decide who is to attend and the role of each and encourage discussion.

Hope this post helps and you give your best whenever you approach client with a presentation.

TECHNICAL Analysis and DOW Theory

2008-03-23T21:23:00.003+05:30

This post is dedicated to the basis on which the investor takes his/her investment decisions.While fundamental analysis and security evaluation explain why share prices fluctuate,what to buy and sell, the Technical Analysis helps when to buy and sell.Technical Analysis of the market is based on some principles,the first one being, all fundamental factors are discounted by the market and are reflected in prices. Secondly,these prices move in trends or waves which can be both upward or downward depending on the sentiment, psychology and emotions of traders.Thirdly, the present trends are influenced by the past trends, and the projection of future trends is possible by an analysisof past price trends.

Certains tools used to Technical Analysis are Daily fluctuation and trends data, floating stockand volume of trade,price trends and volume trends,Rate of change of prices,Japanese Candlestick method,dow theory,elliot wave theory,theory of gaps,Advance decline line,relative strength index.

Dow Theory postulates that prices of industries securities tend to move in tune with the business cycles of the boom,depression in the economy.If the business conditions are good,demand increasing,industrial performance will be good and the corporate share prices will be on the upswing.The reverse is true in times of recession and depression in the economy.The trends in the economy are reflected in the market average prices of shares.All fundamental factors are discounted by the market, and get reflected in average prices. A study of these average market prices is what is attempted in technical analysis and its trends are in the form of peaks,troughs and cycles.

Top 5 Company Mistakes That Cost You Money

2008-03-17T12:34:00.002+05:30

Even if your business is moving along in a seemingly smooth manner, someone in the company may be dropping the ball in certain areas. It only takes a few small holes to eventually sink a ship, so now is the time to assess how many mistakes are being made.

When you add up all the little problems, you may find you are losing major money because of them. Here are the top five "little" company mistakes that cause big problems:

1.Invoice Errors – Your accounts receivable department has a very important job on their hands. Are you sure they aren't slacking off or making mistakes? From typos on invoices to failure to mail out invoices, there is no room for error when it comes to getting paid.
2.Misfiling Documents – Your administrative team should be diligent about keeping accurate, orderly files. You need to have back-ups for everything and those files should be easily accessible. When something falls between the cracks, major problems could occur later.
3.Running Out of Stock – If you have customers who are getting frustrated by your constant lack of stock, then it's time to increase production. Otherwise, you may find they stop returning altogether.
4.Delivery Problems – Whom are you depending on to deliver your goods? It starts with your own company, so make sure everything is properly packaged and sent out in a timely manner. Then, make sure the delivery service you offer is fast and dependable. If something is damaged or lost in shipping, you will pay for it.
5.Poor Customer Communication – Customer service is paramount to your business, so don't ignore or disrespect your patrons. Hold everyone in your company to the same standard when answering phones or contacting customers in any way.

Perhaps a few of the above mistakes only happen from time to time, but that is enough to slowly whittle down your business' profits. While no one enjoys working for a micromanager, it is very possible that you are being too passive about your company's "little" mistakes.

Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for best business credit cards and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com

FINANCIAL Planner

2008-03-09T19:44:00.003+05:30

What makes a good Financial Planner or what are the fundamental traits of a successful Financial Planner.
1. Building trust with the client by empathizing with them and understanding their aspirations,concerns and needs.
2.Familiarity with taxation and estate planning issues.
3.Good knowledge of financial products and options, their risk-return profile, and a strong understanding of the behaviour and track record of various investments and asset classes.
4.An understanding of the various stages in a client's life and wealth cycle and the asset allocations that make sense of each of these stages.
5.An organized way of working, with one of the critical elements being a written financial plan which documents client needs and resources,a specific investment strategy and the progress made towards achieving these objectives.
6.A clear focus on the overall financial well-being of a client,rather than on individual transactions.The financial planner should link his remuneration to the overall achievement of client goals,rather than relying on a fee from each transaction.

I INVITE!!!

2008-02-29T01:37:00.001+05:30

I invite any budding business or strategy consultant to be a co-author of my blog. I need writers who are good in industry analysis and possess knowledge in consulting practice. They should be able to analyze the happenings in the business world and can present their opinions with facts and figures. Interested people can write to me at ashutosh11.bose@gmail.com and I would appreciate if you can send some of your articles so that it would be easy for me to select the best writer for my blog. Looking forward to meet some really interesting people. So, what are you waiting for?

CORPORATE IDENTITY

2008-02-28T17:20:00.000+05:30

Corporate identity merges strategy, culture, and communications to present a memorable personality to prospects and customers. The term is closely linked to corporate philosophy, the company’s business mission and values, as well as corporate personality, the distinct corporate culture reflecting this philosophy, and corporate image. The main objective of corporate identity is to achieve a favorable image among the company’s prospects and customers. When a corporation is favorably regarded this is likely to result in loyalty. If the corporate identity is the self-portrayal of a company, then the corporate image is the perception of an organization by the audience. The closer the corporate image is to the corporate identity; the closer the public’s perception of a company is to how the company defines itself, making for superior corporate communication. For example, most companies have access to the same technology. If they want to further distinguish themselves, the strategy must rely on another factor than technology: the user experience. As the audience’s focus changes constantly, corporate strategies must move in the same direction as the customer. The consumer s impression of a company, or the corporate image, is highly influenced by how he or she experiences the company’s products. The product identity, the sum of the products formal and functional properties, will help the user shape a mental image of the product manufacturer. Therefore the corporation needs to carefully plan what it wants to communicate through its product, and how.

The type of corporate identity will determine the characteristics that link the product to its company or brand. The identity can be monolithic, meaning that the whole company uses one visual style and that the consistency between the corporate identity and the product identity is very strong, the product reflecting the corporation directly. The identity can also be endorsed where the subsidiary companies (brands) have their own style, but the parent company remains recognizable in the background. In this case, the link between the corporation and its different brands may take the shape of a common factor, tying the different brands together. Finally, there is the branded corporate identity in which the subsidiaries have their own style, and the parent company is not recognizable. The products represent the brand identities rather than the corporate identity. All the same, a strong general corporate identity remains of great importance, as it defines the guidelines and strategies of the subordinate brands. Therefore the identities of the products of each brand are consistent with the main corporate identity and values. The consumer s impression of a company, or the corporate image, is highly influenced by how he or she experiences the company’s products. The product identity, the sum of the products formal and functional properties, will help the user shape a mental image of the product manufacturer. Therefore the corporation needs to carefully plan what it wants to communicate through its product, and how.

Courtesy: CEONEX

BANKING on the BRAND: HSBC

2008-02-20T16:22:00.002+05:30

HSBC, Europe’s largest bank by market value, has been named the world’s most valuable banking brand according to the Banker magazine’s Top 500 Financial Brands listing. It was also the only bank featured in the study to achieve the highest possible triple ‘A’ brand rating. The strength of the band depends on the bank’s focus on emerging markets. A great example of this was the launch of HSBC Premier in September last year. Premier customers now have the ability to open accounts in 37 different countries and HSBC assist them wherever they are in the world using their network of branches and dedicated relationship managers. The benefits offered by Premier Banking Services include free travel insurance, preferential lending rates, and improved customer service.
But, what it takes to be the best banking brands?? Credit card oriented bank brand display the highest proportion of brand value to market capitalization. This is because emotional and image related factors are significant drivers of demand in this sector. Consumer-focused banks generally display a higher brand value to market cap than corporate-focused banks. This is because consumer banking involves more emotional and image related factors than business and wholesale banking. Investment and wholesale banks display surprisingly large brand values. This is because banks of this type do not need large retail networks, infrastructure and similar tangible assets. Much of their value is intangible and the two main assets are key personnel know-how and the corporate brand itself.

HSBC as a brand has been always on the forefront of creating and subsequent sponsorship of a new advertising channel: the ‘airbridges’-the gateways linking aeroplanes and passenger terminals - at major international airports. The bank’s ‘Managing for Growth’ strategic plan has reaped huge rewards in growing the earnings, shareholder returns and the overall global footprint of the business in the past.

CEO’s and SUCCESS

2008-02-12T15:16:00.001+05:30

Everything is in a constant change. The business and the way the business is conducted has seen a sea change, a complete transformation in the last decade. To ensure success is consistent, CEOs balance the risks and opportunities of competing and collaborating in a world where globalization, technology, and rapid social change are transforming the business landscape. There are many factors which contribute to the change in business environment and are definitely the point of contention for the CEOs. These include Business Confidence, Mergers and Acquisitions, Global Risks, climate change and North America/Asia Pacific region. The fear of a global downturn has emerged as the number one threat to growth because of the recent global credit crunch and the heightened risk of recession on business confidence. The countries in the south Asia are turning to be a major contributor to the global growth. Last year, China overtook the US as the greatest contributor to global growth, measured at market exchange rates. It’s interesting to see that the developing countries in Asia are turning out to be the major hubs for business success. Despite fears of an economic downturn, CEOs continue to recognize the strategic importance of overseas expansion. However, interest in M&A is highest in Asia, where CEOs are the most confident, and where Asian companies have increasingly become acquirers rather than the acquired. Obstacles to M&A activity were headed by cultural issues and financial considerations. It’s a fact that the global risks has fallen in the past 12 months. The world turning to be a global village has resulted in diversifying the opportunities and thus diluting the dangers occurring due to local difficulties. The CEOs believes that climate change is less of a threat to their business than last year, with only 34 percent of them worried about the impact of climate change. But, as expected, CEOs are concerned about energy costs, although they are also taking notice of the impact on the environment.
CEOs continue to believe that people are a key factor in achieving success, but that it is difficult to find people with the right combination of skills. CEOs globally said that combined technical and business experience, global work experience and leaderships skills are the most difficult areas for their companies to recruit. As far as collaborative business networks is concerned, CEOs now regard them as a defining principle of the organization of the future, although actual implementation is still lagging behind these expectations. They also stress the fact that governments and regulators could make significant improvements ― particularly in matters of labour law, tax regimes and, to a lesser extent, education. However, despite all the talk about Sarbanes-Oxley and other financial regulations over the last few years, CEOs are less concerned about requirements for listing of public companies for new listings.

For more, please visit “Emerging markets and economies: The 11th Annual Global CEO Survey”, PWC.

If I say....

2008-01-29T14:15:00.001+05:30

There are certain things which we do not say thinking of the consequences. Everytime we are asked of something, we tried to portray as if everything is fine and the reasons cited are extremely honest. But do things changes or what is the probability that if I say what I wanted to say will not affect my life and it will go smoothly. Why you want to leave the company was a question I was asked by Ernst and Young and my answer was because the line of business of Ernst coincides with my interest area which is true but not enough to give me a job. But, if I would have spoken the truth, can it guarantee a safe place in the organization. If I would have said about the politics played with me in my previous organization by my ex-manager and the mental trauma I underwent because of that and my current company is nothing more than a compulsion to me just because I left that company and didn’t have a job, will Ernst and Young would have recruited me??

There are lots of things which you come across when you are in an interview. And, being in the corporate field for the last 2 years and having attended numerous interviews, I could say there is no way a company could judge the real potential of an employee asking these questions. There is no specific way to measure whether the candidate fits in an organization. Even if I had a bad experience with my ex company I can never abuse or malign it in front of the other company who is taking my interview as it is not politically correct. What seems to be correct is purely a fake picture that the HRs considers as the valid reasons for an entry in an organization.

Where do I see myself after 5 years is a question posed by most of the employers? Well, I saw myself as a person who could easily go up the ladder just because I was quite confident about my abilities when I joined HSBC and yes, I made it a reality giving my 100% to the project I was working for, took initiatives and maintained a good rapport with all employees. But, due to a dirty trick played by someone, now I am somewhere else trying to build my career again from scratch, just to have something in my resume which can earn a job which I want. I have lost my 2 years in an attempt to see myself what I thought. Did my honesty pay?? No…..But, I have to fake everytime whenever someone asks me the question and my obvious answer is “ Well, I would like to see myself as a strategic consultant in an organization where I could exercise my existing talent and benefit the organization”.

Taking the right candidates is a challenge for sure when it comes to the HRs. But, more than that posing the right question to the candidates is much more important. Don’t judge a candidate asking a wrong question but judge them asking a question where they can do justice to themselves and to the organization. Commitment to an organization comes only when there is a mutual benefit. Attrition exists everywhere but that can be tackled when proper employee counseling takes place in an organization by the HRs. The first round of interview before selection is just an attempt to read the profile and not judging the person.
The next time when you ask, “How do you fit in the organization??”, think twice. Because, fitting in the organization is just not what the candidate thinks, it also depends on the project he works for, his line manager, circumstances around him and a lot many factors.

Sensex says, STICK to your STOCKS

2008-01-25T12:41:00.001+05:30

The market is volatile. A sudden fall initiated a fear in the mind of the investors. Reliance IPO excitement almost resulted withdrawal of from the secondary market. The market noticed large outflows of FIIs adversely impacting market sentiment. In such a scenario, what could be recommended investment strategy for long-term equity investors?

The strategy is to remain unfazed by near-term market movements and invest in mid-cap funds. Key is to maintain a balance of mid-cap funds and actively managed funds in building long-term portfolios, alongside themes such as Infrastructure, natural resources and gold. The market is uncertain and definitely there is no reason to worry about your portfolio if it is diversified. In a volatile market, mid-cap funds have always performed better and if the funds are managed by fund managers having knowledge on which funds to invest, and then surely it’s a win-win situation for the investors. It’s necessary to keep a close look in the sector funds which are not sensitive to global trends which potentially give rise to such fluctuations. It gives an indication of the sectors performing in a volatile market situation and when the market is stable or upbeat. India is surely in the midst of strong domestic growth. With a positive indication of conducive global monetary environment coupled with stable domestic macroeconomic factors, monetary policy going forward is widely expected to support economic growth. Market performance over the medium term will thus benefit from the strong growth story as well as the increased investment interest it shall attract from both domestic as well as global investors.

JUST PUNCH IT

2008-01-17T20:09:00.000+05:30

Business is a catchy affair!! Glamorizing business certainly helps to boost the profits. The best way to glamorize is Punchline. Before anyone could think of what you want to sell, your punchline should convey the message. Sometimes, a punchline makes a lot of difference in selling of a product in the most unconventional market. If I think of selling a Deodrant in a cold country, how would I sell it through a punchline?? I might market it something as “ Let the Fragrance matter more than the Odour”. This simple punchline solves two issues:
1)Deodrants should not only be used as a Odour removing spray.
2)And, your deodrant’s fragrance is too sensual.

Sometimes, a catchy punchline conveys your organization’s vision and mission.Sometimes its easy to differentiate a product's target market just by seeing the punchline for e.g.
Kingfisher:Fly with the good times
Deccan Airlines:Simplyfly

Deccan is an airlines for masses and Kingfisher for Classes.For a common man, there can nothing be more attractive than "Simplyfly" and for the men of class,they obviously fly with the King and its always a good feeling with Kingfisher.A punchline conveys more than a product use or value.It reflects sometimes an organization's culture.Just make your product near to your customer just by saying "LOCAL" wherever they are in the world.A simple punchline just convey the organization's message accurately.Nike-"Just do it"-There is no other better way to boost the self-confidence the way Nike has put through their famous Punchline. Thus the ad line simply communicates that using Nike can improve your performance by enhancing the self-confidence.IBM ThinkPad- " I think, therefore IBM"-Here IBM tries to say that if you have the capacity to think then you should go for IBM ThinkPad, the Punchline exactly conveys the message.

So,ready to punch!!!

Consultancy MODEL

2007-12-27T18:03:00.000+05:30

Every Consultancy follow some practices and models to deliver effective solutions to the Clients.Before operating as a Consultant or having your own consultancy,prepare a checklist:
1)Your Clients,Markets and Business trends.
2)Knowledge of technologies and how the implementation of these technologies will affect the Business Strategy,
3)Alliance with key supplier inorder to fully understand their products and servives.

Generally,consultancy begins with addressing business strategy creating opportunities for programmes of business change.These programmes address the design and implementation of new technologies along with change management.During the Consulting lifecycle or process,business benefits and key success factors are articulated and measured which leads to business performance at the end.The key elelment is a consulting is programme management which includes either Change Projects led by Business Consultant or Technology Projects led by Technical Consultant.The Change Project encompasses the benefits,business acceptance and support,cultural change,communication and traning needs and implementation while Technology Projects focus on infrastructure,development projects,technical acceptance and production support.

Banning BLOGS..Thoughtful STRATEGY!!!!!!

2007-12-10T19:03:00.000+05:30

That day when I tried to access my blog from my company's PC,I was schoked to see the result on my screen.To my amazement,the access was denied. Its not the situation in my company,but there are many companies where the employees are restricted to access BLOGS. The point to ponder is why such a step is taken by the organizations???

Blogs are viewed as "KNOWLEDGE BANK" today ,a place where you can access information easily along with discussing on issues.If we take a close look into the trends, then Infosys,Accenture,Thoughtworks encourage their employees to involve themselves in Blogs.But, there are few companies like mine who sees BLOG as a threat.Some possible reasons could be:

1. Leakage of confidential company information by the employees.
2. Blogs are taken as a source of entertainment when they are not working.
3. Sometimes, the employees participate in discussion forums and use of their time for self knowledge than organization benefit.

But,again the question arises why only BLOGS especially Blogspot.While most of the companies are using Blogs to encourage greater co-ordination between management and employees, its also being viewed as a potential Data Threat for others. The possible solution is to block some blogs which have pornographic or content not beneficial to the employees. Banning BLOGS not only suppress the knowledge of the employees but also is harmful for the orgaizations also.A thoughtful startegy....well,think again!!!

Metrics of FINANCIAL Performance

2007-11-23T08:05:00.000+05:30

1.Primary Reserve Ratio= Expendable Net Assets/Total Expenses

The Primary ReserveRatio measures the financial strength of the institution by indicating how long the institution could function using its expendable reserves to cover operations should additional net assets not be available.

2.Return on Net Assets Ratio= Change in Net Assets/Total Beginning Net Assets

The Return on Net AssetsRatio measures total economic return and indicates whether the institution is financially better off than in previous years. A decline may be appropriate if it represents an institutional strategy to fulfill its mission. An improving trend indicates increasing net assets and additional reserves which provides financial flexibility.

3.Net Operating Revenues Ratio= Income before Other Items/Adjusted Net Operating Revenues

The Net Operating RevenuesRatio indicates whether the institution’s operating activities resulted in a net deficit or surplus for the year. The ratio measures whether available resources are sufficient to fund operating activities.

4.Viability Ratio= Expendable Net Assets/Total Debt

The ViabilityRatio measures the ability of the institution to cover its debt as of the balance sheet date, should the institution need to settle its obligations.

5.Debt Burden Ratio= Debt Service/Total Expenses

The Debt BurdenRatio measures the financial strength of the institution by indicating how long the institution could function using its expendable reserves to cover operations should additional net assets not be available.

6.Bond Ratings:The Bond Ratings indicate the institution's debt is considered high-grade, high-credit quality.

Managing RISK while Consulting

2007-11-11T20:22:00.000+05:30

Consulting has always been a difficult task when the problem of the Client is huge and complicated.Its obvious that the greater the problem,the more the Client ready to pay for it.If a Consultant wish to undertake higher value-added engagements, he is likely to expose itself to greater risk.The bigger the organization,bigger are the issues,more time required to understand the organization,lot of analysis.In the above scenarios,Risk Management is a real necessity.

The key to good risk management is an early assessment of where the risks may occur.The best way is to categorize risks to Clients,Engagement,Methodologies,People and Fees/Contract.The power structure of the Client needs to be understood.The pre-conceived notions of the Clients can create a clash.Its always necessary to understand your client especially in big organizations.Especially, in a big organization,nature of engagement is important.It could be that a solution in a big organization is being sought for an immensely difficult issue.The likelihood of finding such a solution must be assessed.Methodologies that are well proven reduce risk.Its always necesaary to match the skills of the Consultants with that of the staff in the Organization.It helps in understaning the problem better and co-operation among both the parties increases.Finally,there should be a clear cut understanding of the payment procedure,clauses,liability terms n conditions.

A good risk management leads to a better Consulting!!

The BEST Companies to work for!!!

2007-11-06T11:54:00.001+05:30

Its time for the Companies to conduct Surveys and Research.Its time again for the companies to see themselves as the Best Company to Work.Its time again for the Companies to be in the RAT Race and put all their efforts to be the BEST Company to work.But,my concern is whether the companies effort really helping the employees and the organization.Suddenly,everything is changed during the survey.The senior management closely take a look at the employees of the organization to MOTIVATE and provide GYAAN to vote their organization.Whether the Survey just consider the "SMILING FACES" or also consider the "DEJECTED MINDS".Are the efforts of the organization have just turned as a TINSEL WORK like "Koffee with GM", conducting Fashion SHOWS and Tournaments for the Employees, providing global opportunites just to stop the employees from leaving their organization.Everyone talks about hiring the Best Talent,training and organizing them,but whether the Best Talent hired are used effectively or the best talents takes a pleasure in spending most of the time in Cafeteria,chit-chatting near the Vendor Machines.

Whether the "BEST COMPANY" really exists or is just a misnomer which takes its shape during the Surveys and suddenly there is a fullstop after that.A thing to ponder for sure....!!!!

Achieve IT OPERATIONAL Excellence

2007-11-01T11:49:00.000+05:30

IT Operational processes includes:
1)Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery.
2)Change, Configuration, Inventory, Asset, and Service Request Management.
3)Infrastructure and Application Management.
4)Production Acceptance, Production Control, Quality Assurance and Release Management.
5)Workload Management and Job Scheduling.
6)Systems and Network Monitoring, Capacity Planning and Performance Measurement.

The Processes that support Operational Excellence includes:
1)Database Management and Administration.
2)Business Relationship Management and Service Level Agreement.
3)Cost Recovery and Budget Management.
4)Hardware and Software Support.
5)Web Services Management.
6)Vendor, Negotiation and Contract Management.
7)Problem and Knowledge Management.

Steps for moving towards Operational Excellence:
1)Document Process Flow:It is easier to change processes when they are documented and understood by staff.
2)Identify Skills required for staff:Continued institutional commitment is necessary to keep knowledgeable staff in operations area.
3)Automate routine aspects of the Job:Since consistent process execution and maximization of resources is very important, automation becomes crucial.Automation resolve more complex issues.
4)Improve Processes:Operational Processes whould be reviewed against actual performance.Eliminating human failure,frequent handoffs, and bottlenecks needs to be a stated goal and addresses on a consistent basis.
5)Define best Practices:This is the ultimate goal of service delivery

COURTESY:EDUCAUSE(ECAR)

Equate your EQUITY

2007-10-31T13:43:00.000+05:30

The stock market is at an all time high.Its roaring at 20,000 and the investment barometer is rising with the rise in the index.How do you plan to get better returns?
There is always a fear whether to invest in pure equity funds when such a situation arises.The best way is to invest in Balanced funds which is a combination of equity and debt funds.Equity should always be a small part of your investments even if you want to be on a safer side.Before investing in equities,try to access the Real Rate of Return as the measure for assesing returns on your investments which is nothing but return minus inflation.

Seeing the current condition,selection of funds in critical.The right way is to select a fund that is managed well and has been providing consistent returns.Select funds that will meet your objectives over time.Sometimes,undervalued equities turn to give out better results in this case.Its not advisable to jump into sector funds or mid-cap funds at all.If you plan to invest in Sector funds,take a close look into he performance of that particular sector in the past when such a situation arose.It could be a Banking or Healthcare sector.

A word of advice "Buy different BASKETS and different fruits and make sure the combination too varies in all the baskets. Diversification is the key".

Be a MONK who cherishes his FERRARI

2007-10-30T11:25:00.000+05:30

In a country of more than 1 Billion people,how many of them dream to make it big??I am sure more than 50% dream but how many really make it big,well,just 1%.Every morning more than 0.5 billion wake up with a single thought "What I need to do today?What are my appointments today and when I need to complete my work?". But, those 1% who make it big, they do not think, but visualize a PICTURE PERFECT REALITY where they see themselves as a CREATOR of a DREAM ORGANIZATION. Every morning for them is a stepping stone to their PICTURE PERFECT REALITY.If I make it big,I make sure with me,I make thousands realize their dreams and in turn I create a Nation which dreams to be one of the DEVELOPED COUNTRIES.

I have realized one thing "The day you are happy with your job, your GROWTH stops". Do not be happy doing a 9-5 job and see happiness in a 6 month onsite.Thats temporary and the dream of 50 million common people.If you want to be uncommon, think of making those 50 million common people dream about your Organization. Nurture the Warrior in you who knows what to achieve and how to achieve.

Simplicity is precious and is pure when you make other people lives rich with your experience and success. A MONK who knows to reach the Horizon with his feet firm on the ground is admirable and an insipration for those common people.Dream to have a FERRARI seeing which,thousand others will nurture the same dream.
ITS NOT JUST YOU WHO IS PROGRESSING BUT THE WHOLE NATION IS PROGRESSING WITH YOU.Are you still dreaming "When to complete your Project,meet the Deadline and have a party with your Team???".......

Mutual Fund:INVESTMENT Process

2007-10-25T11:00:00.000+05:30

Step 1: Financial Analysis
Providing sound investment advice begins with establishing the client’s current financial position. An Advisor should profile the client based on their investment time horizon, liquidity needs, desired rate of return objective and tolerance for risk. The result is a written Investment Policy Statement, which summarizes the client’s objectives and assists the Advisor in determining how to proceed in their best interest.

Step 2: Asset Allocation
According to respected academic studies, over 90% of a portfolio’s performance is determined by the asset allocation decision - the diversification of funds across multiple asset classes to meet a target level of return at an acceptable level of risk.

Step 3: Asset Allocation Strategist Selection
Once an Investment Advisor has determined which approach to the allocation decision (strategic, tactical or a combination of both) makes the most sense to meet the client’s objectives.

This Multi-Strategist approach has been widely accepted by Advisors because of its appeal to prospective clients and because it allows Advisors to replace asset managers who may underperform expectations without having to completely re-position assets into another investment program.

Step 4: No-Load Mutual Fund Selection and Implementation
In implementing asset allocation decisions using no-load mutual funds,Strategists should have an outstanding set of resources within their reach.

Step 5: Portfolio Monitoring and Rebalancing
Market forces continually impact the underlying value of the asset classes in client portfolios. Strategists should continuosly monitor these market shifts and periodically rebalance portfolios to ensure that they remain consistent with their asset allocation policies, including re-allocation of funds between asset classes in our tactical models.

Step 6: Reporting
To keep clients informed, confident and in control,Strategists should provide an extensive reporting system. Clients receive monthly brokerage statements, quarterly full-color performance reports and year-end tax reports, all of which are easy to read and understand.

Business Intelligence in BANKS and role of Consultant

2007-10-17T16:03:00.000+05:30

Building a Data Warehouse or BI System is neither the core business of banks nor of any single IT Vendor.It is best to hire a Consultant to guide the bank to plan and build a Data Warehouse and BI Solution.
The Consultant will guide the Bank towards a professional approach for the Project and provides a value add for:
1.Planning to build a Data Warehouse and BI System.
2.Assisting in the Bank's preparation for the requirements of Data Warehouse.
3.Guiding the Management and the bank Project Team.
4.Preparing the RFP for the solution.
5.Identifying the right solution provider.
6.Reviewing the Data Warehouse Project Implementation.

The Consultant will advise the Bank in selecting the solution provider.However,the Bank has to bear in mind the following when selecting the BI System Provider:
1.Experienced in building Data Warehouse and BI System.
2.Recognised by Analyst for BI Services.
3.Established framework with domain/technical solutions which will reduce the lifecycle of project.
4.Business turnover and number of Consultants in the BI Space with the solution provider.

CONSULTING MARKET INTELLIGENCE

2007-10-10T17:00:00.000+05:30

Market intelligence provides the context for a business' performance. Market intelligence concerns the attitudes, opinions, behavior, and needs of individuals and organizations within the context of their economic, environmental, social, and everyday activities. To ensure the marketing plan operates in the right context, you must understand how the external world behaves and develops. The kind of things you might want to know include:
·Proportion of the target market that's online (e.g., number of businesses, households, or individuals)
·Internet users' profile (e.g., demographics, device ownership, psychographics, lifestyle)
·Internet use (e.g., length of time online, sites visited)
·Competitive activity (e.g., advertising campaigns)
This type of information helps an e-business create a picture of the environment it operates in:

How fast is the market growing, and where is it growing fastest?
How are my competitors performing, and how do I compare against them?
Some primary market intelligence sources include:
·Audience panels, such as Nielsen/Net Ratings and Score
·Large-scale syndicated surveys
·Data aggregators
·Industry analysts
Market intelligence brings context to the site-centric world often inhabited by digital practitioners. It allows you to understand and assess your business' performance in the context of the overall market's development and your competitors' performance.

Consulting Market Intelligence services have become quite popular. While providing market intelligence services, you help your clients in:

Assisting management in the development of strategy formulation and execution.
Adding tangible stakeholder value through its capacity to deliver powerful market insight.
Delivering practical, unambiguous, market objective based recommendations.

The Consultants takes care of the things mentioned below while providing Market Intelligence Service.
·Linking Market Share Outcomes and Bottom Line Improvement
·Engineering Successful Market Entry and Expansion
·Locking In Market Dynamics to The Business Planning Process
·Strategic Market Positioning for Client Companies within Industries
·Linking New Product Development and Market Success
·The Operation of the Company qua Brand
·Merger & Acquisition Analysis
·Forecasting potential industry development scenarios and corporative implications

MEDIA and CREATIVE Strategies

2007-10-04T18:43:00.000+05:30

Enough of Business Consulting!! Lets glitter this post with paparazzi..errr..I mean MEDIA.I will be talking about working on CREATIVE and MEDIA Strategy. CreativeStrategy means deciding on the tone in which you wish your story to be told. Here, I mean "Is there a better way than featuring your Client Testimonials and have them talk about their work with you?". Media Strategy means what are you planning to do?? How to make sure creative and media strategies go hand in hand and helps in benefitting your organization.
1)Conduct Workshops and launch Newsletters to invite Clients.Talk about the Workshop and if the organization is coming up with new product launch.Keep the pace and excitement going in Client's mind.
2)Follow-up Newsletter to prospects.
3)You can start a Survey.Work with the PR People to generate interest on your products and firm among the prospects.Guest Speakers always helps and come as a Value Addition to the Workshops.
4)Prepare a Report and publish the Survey Findings.Invite the Prospects to the Workshops.

Its the paparazzi which works wonder. No doubt,traditional management has value in the market but glitterati always helps in attracting the masses. Its like serious film-makers like Shyam Benegal and Rituparno Ghosh have their own audience and gets accolades but the one who is always the talk of the media is KARAN JOHAR.

The idea is to do a "KJ MARKETING-KARAN JOHAR MARKETING" while placing your firm in the market or selling the products, KJ helps...

PERFORMANCE GAPS AND CAUSES

2007-09-26T16:23:00.000+05:30

Consulting process is not an easy job. A consultant should try to be in the Client shoes before approaching him with the solution. A consultant must systematically conduct performance and cause analysis prior to selecting, designing, implementing and evaluating an intervention. A friend of mine asked me the basic steps to a consulting process. So, I thought to pen down the process, which also takes care of identifying the performance gaps and causes.

Preparation. Preparation includes researching the organization and the industry as well as the client. While internal consultants have access to much more information, external consultants can use the internet to access organization and industry specific information. The external Consultants can always take the help of the Client’s organization and specifically look into the Business Units of the organization and gather information required to solve the Client’s problems.

Assessment. The next step is centered on building rapport with the client and asking open-ended questions to gain the client’s perception of the overall situation. This initial phase is necessary to build trust and begin the process of assessing the client’s situation and needs. This step should not be overlooked as the Consultants sometimes miss the basic fact as they are in a hurry to get into the problems.

Diagnosis. Once the overall situation is identified, we need to explore the client’s perception of the problem, its implications and the value of resolving that problem. This is done with direct questions that guide the discussion as we carefully diagnose the performance discrepancy. These first three steps are necessary to “earn the right” to make a recommendation as to how to improve performance.

Prescription. After identifying the overall situation, problems, implications and value of improving performance, the consultant is ready to make a recommendation as to alternative courses of action. We call this a prescription rather than a presentation to reinforce the idea from the medical community that “Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.”

Partnering. As the Consultant works with the client to decide the best course of action, he must define what roles each will play. In effect, Consultants form a partnership in which the client still owns the problem, but the consultant have a clearly defined role to play in seeking to resolve that problem. The partnership will be different for each client and problem.

Reinforcement. Before leaving, Consultant should reinforce the client’s decision to use his services. It is natural for the client to feel apprehensive about committing resources to a new course of action.

Follow-up. Consultants must make sure that they fulfill the promises made to the client and move the project ahead. All of good work would be for nothing if they didn’t meet the expectations we created.

APPROACHES of a Business Consultant

2007-09-18T18:42:00.000+05:30

How to deal with a Client? How to make sure that you are catering your client in an effective way?

1) Always check there is a match between your Client's problem and your Consultancy.The proposal should be made keeping customer's viewpoints in mind,enough details id given for a decision to be made and the relationship of the actions planned to the customer's problems and issues are explained.The Business need of the Customer should get reflected in the writing.

2)The Consultants should always make an intangible product tangible meaning the proposal should be clear and precise to the facts provided by the clients and the ones derived from the facts provided.The vague the proposal,the less tangible the service will appear to be.

3)As obvious, Intangibility brings uncertainity.While dealing with your clients,make sure to bring forward all the risks associated with the deal and proposal to your client.The customers generally do not understand the working of a consultancy and are lured by the image of the consultancy. The more the risk factor associated highlighted in the proposal,lesser will be the uncertainity and a trust factor develops.

4)Be clear and understandable not only to your Clients but everyone in the client's organization.Whether it be a written or a verbal agreement,complexities in words bring complexities in business.

5) I have always stressed in the fact that bring innovation and differentiation in the way you do your business. There cannot be change in the process everytime but yes,introducing something new and adopting a new approach always help....

FILMS in MANAGEMENT SYLLABUS… A Serious Study or Farce??

2007-09-14T14:35:00.000+05:30

Before we heard, Kkrish making news in IIMs. Reason, its inclusion as a Case Study in IIMs. And, the recent inclusion is Chak De India. Now a days, it’s becoming common for the Management Students taking movies as a Case Study. It obvious to ponder why it’s happening?? I have few questions to ask:
1) Is it a Marketing gimmick for the movies to a new way to popularize the colleges? After IIMs, there have been few B and C Grade colleges adopting to include films as a Case Study.
2) Are these movies taken as a Case Study because of their Box Office success, technical advancement in the way movies are made, inspiration provided by the movies or Management Students are giving a serious thought to be recruited by Film Makers to make Big Budget Movies.
To me it seems to be a new way of Branding. If a movie is made a Case Study in the Colleges, it means the movie is more than entertainment. An new way to understand how some film- makers are best from the herd and their movie needs to be seen by the public. If I ask a normal person, what do he know about Kkrish, well, the answer would be a
1) Hrthik Roshan Starrer
2) Rakesh Roshan’s Movie
3) A huge Box-Office Success

Now, if it’s a Case Study, few things will come into picture, like
1) What kind of special effects used? How Bollywood is using some of the best technologies in their movies?
2) What kind of marketing a movie has done to cater to its audience?
IIM Indore thought Kkrish to be a “Successful promotion of Brand India” But is Kkrish the only product in the market, which has made India felt its International Presence, or is Lagaan the only movie, which made India proud of??

Truly, Indian movies lack the seriousness in content and the movies, which are sent to International Arena, lack the message it needs to be given. People do not hear about any movie, which spreads messages on AIDS, humility faced by Indian Women. Why are we getting narrow on our thoughts?

Well, I am here to talk about Business. If we are looking a good way of marketing a film, no doubt its one of the good ways to brand your movie but what about social responsibility as far as movies are concerned. Movies are here for entertainment but Management Colleges are not. A serious thought needs to be given which movie should reach the masses and efforts should be realized that goes behind making a movie on social issue…

Lessons from the ELEPHANTS

2007-09-12T16:58:00.000+05:30

1.Customers comes first.Include Customers in all strategic decisions.
2. Understand your Business.Management must maintain Objectivity.
3.Stretch GOALS and execution of Key Success Factors is a must.
4.Reorganization should implement a Strategy.
5.Always pay Attention to Employees.
6.The Organization should focus on understanding Customer Insight, drive initiatives to achieve success.
7.Money,Advancement,Recognition,Fear,Learning,Opportunity,Success,Threat of extinction and Complelling vision of the future are levers of motivation.
8.Operate as an Entrepreneurial Organization with a minimum of Bureaucracy and a never ending focus on Productivity.
9.Think and Act with a sense of Urgency.
10.Outstanding, dedicated people make it all happen particularly when they work as a team.

The Management Philospohy defined by this Market Leader focuses on:
.Manage by Priniciples-nor Procedure.
.Marketplace dictates.
.Quality.
.Competitive Strategies and Plans.
.Pay for performance.
.Reduce Meetings and Committees.
.Straightforward communication.
.Problem solvers with focus on Team Players and not Politicians.

An evolution from a failing organization to one one of the Market LEADERS.This Organization have never failed to achieve success."The Bigger, the Better" is what I would refer them, one of the Esteemed Organization, IBM-"No one does INNOVATION better than IBM".

COMMUNICATIONS Strategy

2007-09-08T12:42:00.000+05:30

Communications Strategy is preparing a list of things which will enable us to communicate to the people in the marketplace.We can use this strategy both in our personal and professional life to make things easier and put ourselves n our organization in control.If you are planning to start an organization,product or service based, then a sensible strategy would be to build a database of customers n prospects so that building relationship will be easy.If you are selling a fast moving product, then a list of wholesalers,retailers would help you.

Its useful in an organization too.You maintain calender and address book,diary to help manage your relationships.A simple Birthday Note to your colleague or senior can work wonder in employee relationship in the company.Even the organizations understand the importance of professional relationship.In Chat Messengers like Lotus Sametime,there are facilities of maintaning address book.

A good database whether professional or personal helps us to manage one-to-one relationship.

VIEWS of a Business Consultant..Continued.

2007-09-04T19:04:00.000+05:30

Function View: This looks at the core business functionality, in terms of:
.Process Inputs: Location of processes and actions
.Process Triggers:Initiation of process and the output
.Conceptual Data Models:The information required for by the functions.

Technical Architecture View: It forms the basis of an IT Solution if any and the consulting required for the solution.It covers hardware,database management systems,networks and protocols,middleware and messaging architecture.

Application Architecture View: It defines the core business functionality in order to derive an application architecture that will support the business in terms of function and data distribution.This area includes the capabilities, structure and user interfaces of application software,physical database design,package selection process and criteria and business data rules of an organization.

Infrastructure View: It includes training, production support strategies,security and back-up,configuration management strategies and tools.

For first part,refer my post on A Business Consultant View

Author:Philip Sadler

Tata Crucible Quiz 2007

2007-08-28T19:29:00.000+05:30

One of the biggest Corporate Event if one can think of after Brand Equity Quiz is Tata Crucible Quiz 2007 is back with a bang.Started on 2004, it promises to bring you the excitement seen never before.Corporate honchos fighting with each other and Giri Balasubramanium,popularly known as Pickbrain will host the show.CNBC will be covering this event with a style.Keep watching this space as I bring you more news on this event.Well,even I am participating in this event!!!

A BUSINESS CONSULTANT View

2007-08-26T11:03:00.000+05:30

A Business Consultant sometimes needs to understand that its not all about Business but Technology plays a key role too.How to ensure that a Business Consultant provides a feasible solution which will help the organization measures it current and future objectives.A Business Consultant should develop a BUSINESS VIEW on an organization which will help to develop a broader and detailed picture.It consists of following elements:

1. Business Vision: As the term is self understood,Business Vision is an understanding the current position of the business in the marketplace and where it would place itself in the years to come. Its all about strategically defining the organization's business objectives and the viability and the ways to achieving the objectives.

2. Organization and role:The Business is always mapped in terms of organizational hierarchy and the roles performed.

3.Location and Culture: The geographical location of the company and the staff function and role is also covered.

4.Change Management: Whether the organization and the employees on a whole are ready for a change.The change could be pertaining to the Business, Mergers and Acquisition or a new Role.

Along withe the Business View, a Business Consultant should take care of FUNCTION VIEW, TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE VIEW,APPLICATION ARCHITECTURE VIEW AND INFRASTRUCTURE VIEW which we will discuss in the next posting.Keep checking the space for more information on the views that a Business Consultant should keep it in mind while arriving at a solution.

3 PLAYERS of Business Strategy

2007-08-21T18:56:00.000+05:30

While formulating Business Strategies,its essential to take account of the three key players or commonly known as 3Cs, Customer,Corporation and Competitors.The three Cs can be related. The strengths of the corporation should match the needs and the objectives of the customers and the competition should be healthy enough to give a clear distinction so that a superior performance could be achieved.How to ensure that a business strategy is successful keeping in mind the three Cs:
1.Its essential to focus on KSFs(Key Success Factors. It will help to understand the strengths and the factors of success which could be later exploited accordingly keeping customers and competitors in mind.
2.The success of a strategy depends on the relative superiority.Relative superiority could be defined as exploiting the differences in the competitive conditions.It might not be possible to find the KSFs putting customers in mind for every organization.So,the best way is to find an innovative approach in a process and gain superiority.
3.Initiatives is the key to differentiation.Competitive advantage could be achieved either by introduing new KSFs or making the existing KSFs redundant.Innovation could be used to introduce a trend in the industry.

PROFILE or SKILLS??

2007-08-10T11:52:00.000+05:30

Today I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues on the necessity of profile or functional skills while working in an organization. After reading an article on Economic Times, we had a hot debate. It’s very true that at the top level, the person’s profile that counts, not his functional skills. While recruiting senior managers, the organization always looks his work experience in various domains. Working in different domains gives an insight on the business and working of an organization as a whole in a better way. The functional skills can be developed later but profile is very important especially at the initial point of the career. The employees are always expected to be loyal to their team and company. And, if you perform well, you are expected to continue doing well for your team. The aspirations of an employee are ignored by most of the companies. Organizations talks of job rotation but the question is whether the rotation occurs at the right time. If my manager comes to me and say that to work for a certain department, I need to have 4years of experience and till then I have no choice, then I have lost my 4 years of knowledge and compromised with my career. Do the organization thinks that skills are inborn and it will come with experience. If that is the case, why the companies have training department for? If I have the right education with me, then it is the responsibility of my organization to train me to acquire necessary skills and contribute to the organization. Today, Training Department itself is a critical factor. The people in the training department and the sessions that are conducted are nothing less than passing time. The sessions have become monotonous. If there is a training on Risk Management. I have to attend a 4 hours training which means listening to some person for continuously four hours. Is that sufficient? The answer is No. It is always recommended to carry workshops and give the trainees hand-on-experience while training them. It should come with proper handbook, 2-3 hours of hands-on working session and obviously a test to complete the formalities.

If the profile of a person is strong, he is confident to measure himself in the market and decide on his abilities well in the later stage of his careers. But, if a person is expected to build on his profile and in the journey, he loses 10 years of his career just building his profile. Knowledge Management is essential for an organization to improve. An organization driven by knowledge survives or else dies soon. KM workshops can also help employees to build profile. A certificate could be given by the organization at the end of each knowledge workshop sessions and if they are given an opportunity to work on small projects during the workshop, it can add value to their profile.

Profile helps you to acquire functional skills.

Sincere THANKS

2007-08-09T10:12:00.000+05:30

I sincerely thank my readers for taking interest in STRATEGYAAN because of which I was able to post 50 articles. Since its inception, I have tried to post article on interesting subjects and your participation in the journey is highly appreciated.Looking forward to improve my blog.Your suggestions are welcomed.Keep visiting, reading my blog and posting your comments....

Regards
Ashutosh Bose

BLOG your Business

2007-08-07T11:35:00.000+05:30

Blogging has been important in the business arena. Its not seen just as a weblog where you post your articles for fun. Blogging has been a true value addition to the business. Blogging is often viewed as a tool for business networking. The best way to network is visit other’s blogs, put your comments and in turn increase the traffic in your blog. The question arises, why to blog when you already have a reputation in the market? Well, blogging can be used as a centralized source of information for all your customers, shareholders, vendors etc. It’s always good to enlighten your customers on the latest happenings in the business domain. Consider, THINKFLAT, a blog of Infosys by Nandan Nilekani, where the focus is mainly on outsourcing, economy and various business domains like Banking. Prominent writers of the Corporate Arena like Romil Bahl, Stepehen Lane and Nandan Nilekani himself enlighten readers with some serious thoughts. Even, Capgemini CTO believes in Blogging. Capgemini’s thought leaders and advisors bring the spicy happenings in the world of business and Technology. A company like Accenture too believes in Blogging. The Blog is categorized into Experienced Consultant’s Blog, Consulting Analyst’s Blog, Some of the high profile employees like Ed Gottsman and Andy Zimmerman run their blogs on Accenture.

Thoughtworks provides platforms to all its employees to run their individual blogs in Thoughtworks Blog. It is seen as a way to communicate and exchange ideas freely among the employees. Some of the bloggers like Sanjeev Bikhchandani’s Blog “Wisdom in hindsight” helps readers to discuss on various subjects and truly enlightening.

Blogs have come a long way as a contributor to increase knowledge. Sometimes, it can be used as a potential Knowledge Management Tool.

I recommend the blogs below:

http://thinkflat.infosys.com/
http://origin.capgemini.com/ctoblog/
http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Accenture_Blogs/default.htm
http://bikhchandani.blogspot.com/

STRATEGIC Choice

2007-08-02T13:43:00.000+05:30

How do I go about solving a problem? Shall I follow Top-Down Approach or Bottom-Up Approach for a better solution. What do I need to increase the sales of my product? Do I need to spend more money on Advertising or can I adopt other forms of marketing? Well, every single day, we are faced with some situations where we need to take some decisions. There are choices infront of us and we need to select the best one so that it could be beneficial for our organization as a whole. Strategic Choice is one of the important elements of Strategy Formulation Process. Whether you plan for your budgets, take decisions to improve your sales, think to stop attrition rate, strategic choice plays a key role.

The Strategic choice starts with finding the available options. The options can be about market, products and services, options to improve resources and capabilities or on improving processes. Once the individual options are found on various areas, the next step is to integrate all the available strategic options. The integrations is based on the relationship of those options, impact of options on each other and the after effect of the options on the organization. The most important step is to make the strategic option now. It depends on assessment criteria of the options using various theoretical frameworks and strategic tools. It is also essential to understand whom to involve while making strategic choice. Wrong people make wrong choices. Taking all these into consideration, a strategic choice are made.

Here, I would like to highlight generic strategies used to assess the strategic options. The focus is on Cost Leadership and Differentiation Strategies, which are the basis of competitive advantage in the market. While making strategic choice, the implementation is of utmost importance. The organization can look into improving the internal processes, keeping a quality check and training the employees. Mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances have become a common decision for the organizations as it involves sharing of knowledge and expertise.

A strategic choice leads to a strategic direction for the organization. Should we compromise?? No…

Using BALANCED SCORE CARD

2007-07-31T10:43:00.000+05:30

Balanced Score Card is a management tool to align all the resources of an organization to its strategy. It takes four perspectives into account i.e. Internal Aspect, Financial Aspect, Customer Aspect and Learning and Growth for an organization

As far as Financial Perspective is concerned, the aim is to Improve shareholder value. The financial perspective contains productivity strategy, which aims at improving cost structure, and increase asset utilization and revenue growth strategy, which aims at customer profitability and identifying new revenue sources.

The Customer Perspective aims at differentiating value proposition. It adds value to the product/service, relationship and creating a brand image.

The Internal Perspective focuses on how to create and sustain value. It can be achieved by improving the processes that produce or deliver products and services, enhance customer value, create new products or services and improve the environment and community.

The Learning and Growth Perspective focuses on how to use the intangible assets like people, system, and culture to the benefit of the organization.

There have been various Balanced Scorecards, which have evolved like Strategy Card, Stakeholder Card and KPI Card. A typical Balanced Score Card schedule starts with defining strategic architecture, drafting balanced scorecard, developing measures and high level targets and initiatives, and developing implementation plan.

Process of INNOVATION

2007-07-23T13:40:00.000+05:30

What’s the basic model of innovation? How can organizations ensure that innovations give them a competitive edge in the market? Innovation mean different for different organization. Product innovation for a supplier can be a process innovation for a user. We will focus on the basic process and highlight some examples to know more about Innovation. Generally, in an organization, Marketing, R&D and operation can combine to generate innovation. But, the crucial part is to understand how the vendors that supply outsourced services and technology can play a part in the innovation process. Along with that, it is essential to differentiate whether the innovation is a radical or incremental one and how the resources in these departments can be used to make the process a success. There has to be an integrator who not only integrates the three areas but also manages the portfolio of innovation. As far as the R&D is concerned, the success of innovation depends on the number of researchers and their lab/machinery endowments. As far as the Marketing department is concerned, Knowledge Management plays a key role. Interaction with users and the implicit knowledge in the marketing departments often play a crucial role for innovation. Education, learning and social rules are key determinants both in innovation and the diffusion phase. The Integrator must ensure that the process takes place smoothly and the deliverables are properly measured. Ensuring quality in the innovation process is of utmost importance.

Noone does innovation better than IBM. If we consider the IBM, the vision is to collaborate more with the clients to apply technology while delivering innovation. According to Paul Horn, Senior Vice President, IBM Research, the trends in the future decades are as follows:

1) More than ever before, innovation will become critical for businesses of the future to differentiate themselves. I/T will facilitate this innovation by allowing for new channels for the delivery of products and services, and novel business models.

2) I/T suppliers will evolve into innovation suppliers through services scenarios, with innovation coming from "open" collaborations with customers, partners and suppliers, as well as academia, government and other parties.

3) This will demand new skills, driving academia to adapt to ensure competitiveness.

IBM manages Innovation through

·Joint Programs Model where the focus is on funding mechanism, team integration and fresh approaches to projects.

·Exploratory vs Applied Research where the key areas are Nanotechnology, Autonomic Computing, Millepede and Webfountain.

·Treating clients as partners in the innovation process.

·Changing the culture of innovation by organizing research partnerships, talent plan, w3Jams

Some of the things, which IBM believes can add a value to the innovation process is to hire smart people, ensure a variety of thinking with a critical mass, set milestones, maintain flexibility, embrace risk and creating a fluid community.

Lets INNOVATE

The BRAND Behind HCL: Case in Focus

2007-07-20T16:02:00.001+05:30

Next time if you see “Our Numbers do the talking”, do not get perplexed because you are banking on HCL. A lot of interesting ads reflect HCL’s brand image and brand value. When it comes to HCL, it just does not talk about the product HCL but also the most important aspect of HCL i.e. its employees. When it comes to the ad, the “tell-the-world” focus actually began, when HCL initiated Project Heartbeat to create a unified HCL brand. Four months into Project Heartbeat, HCL launched its "Fearless" campaign, focusing on the heritage of the company. The company has also been implementing internal changes to drive home the new brand architecture. The HCL logo has been cleaned up and streamlined; it's now a deep blue name minus the earlier sidebar. All business cards now say HCL. HCL believes in delivering its brand to its employee in a fashioned way. As HCL recruits near about 10,000 people every year, it makes it a point to tell its employees what HCL do? The highly visible 0 and 1 ad of HCL has already created a lot of positive reactions in the ad atmosphere.

As I said, behind the Brand Building exercise of HCL, employees also play a major role. HCL believes in creating employee delight rather than creating employee satisfaction. Employer branding reflects the work culture in an organization. Therefore, it is of much significance. Through right branding, the company can recruit the best talent and reinforce its positioning amongst its employees. HCL’s brand value signifies “exuberance” and they are in the making of “Force of One” campaign that signifies innovative attitude and the ability to individually make a difference.

Next time, if you think to create a BRAND, well think of HCL.

Lets DO IT

2007-07-17T14:45:00.001+05:30

I had a meeting with my BU Head and Manager. The thing I liked about him is his “attitude to do”. Its not surprising that most of the meeting rooms and boardrooms are always filled with people and discussions takes most of the time. After an elaborated discussion followed by “high-profile” analysis, the end result comes out to be a failure means the proposal cannot be accepted and it’s not possible to implement. My BU Head was at his best when he said, “ I am tired off these meetings. I have been hearing this PPT again and again but we have not shown enough interest to go ahead with it. Issues will come and they are bound to come. Rather than standing 200 feet away from the sea and thinking about the challenges, have enough courage to get into the sea. The implementation cannot be 100% but we can surely achieve a 80% accuracy and then ponder on the ways to achieve the other 20%”. This is what I call Attitude blended with Professionalism.

Some of the documents prepared in the organization do not answer the issue. It just talks about the proposal and what exists currently in the system. The point is to illustrate everything with diagrams and flow charts how the system should behave in the future, the implications on the current application both positive and negative and the benefits that could be withdrawn. Rather than just giving a presentation and speaking volumes on it until and unless the blueprint to the solution exists on the paper. What I mean to say is document every possible requirements and solutions.

The implementation should always be carried in stages. A distinct line should clearly demarcate the implementation stages. The success or failure of one stage should not affect the next stage. That’s why I stressed on the fact to document. When you have everything infront of your eyes, there is a very little chance of failure.

Time is a major factor whenever there is a proposal implementation needs to be done. The meeting/discussion time should be cut off to 70% of what it is done now. Rather than just saying “ WE CAN DO”, it’s always better to say “HOW TO DO”.

When we talk of How to do, its always better to do a Comparative Analysis if some major tools are involved for the implementation or management practices. Comparative Analysis always helps us in better understanding of the problems, which might arise in the future.

Must Read: http://www.strategy-business.com/

Create an IDEA FACTORY coz an IDEA can change your life

2007-07-12T17:41:00.000+05:30

Enough of Java and C++ programming, bugged up testing bugs, irritated appearing tests. hold on. There’s something new we can think of. Creating an IDEA FACTORY in an organization. In a competitive world, to sustain in the market, we need right kind of people or people with right attitude who can align their vision to the company’s objectives. The challenge is to create a pool of knowledge workers. How to create? Simple.. Go ahead with creating an IDEA FACTORY.

To start with IDEA FACTORY would be kind of a game, or an assignment open for your employees in your organization. The challenge would be to create a group of your own and select the participants of your choice. There would be one group per department and the Management would select the leader.

Now, it’s the responsibility of the leader to choose right kind of people and select the correct number. Once done, they need to come up with an idea, which can be beneficial to the organization. This plan would be first in a blueprint. The viability, implementation, timeframe needs to be decided among the members.

The important thing is to get an approval of the plan from the Management. Once done, a pool of knowledge workers and an IDEA FACTORY is created. What’s next?? Obviously, Implementation of the idea. Here, each and every member should care of few things:
1.Knowing the Business Delivery Model
2.Understanding the strategic objectives of the organization
3.The financials of the organization
4.And, understanding of management tools

These should be mandatory. The purpose behind it is to make your employees involved in the organization rather than making them think just about their regular job. The execution of the plan should take care of all the above factors. While working out the plan, it is necessary to do a Cost Benefit Analysis and its impact on the organization both positive and negative.

So, what are you waiting for?? Lets start IDEA FACTORY….

My Tryst with FAILURE

2007-07-10T10:21:00.001+05:30

1 year of effort, 30 mins performance and your career decision is made. As usual, I again met failure yesterday. But, this time I didn’t have any fear of meeting him. I put my more than 100% to achieve something, which I dreamt 1 year back. I performed without thinking about my personal benefits, took initiatives, set a benchmark but my dreams were dashed.

I have read a lot of Robin Sharma’s books on Megaliving, Who will cry after you die etc. but wonder how practically we can put those theories in our lives. Ask a person who is struggling to get a job of his choice. In a city like Mumbai, everyday, he starts his day wasting his 2 hours in the bus, reaches office sweating. Completes his work and again waste 2 hours in the bus, reaches home to find food which is not worth eating because he cannot afford good food as his company is unable to pay him for the work he does. When do he has time to nurture his dreams? He has wasted his 4 hours seeing failures of other people. If you question his capability, I will answer that capability does not come appearing tests or scoring in exams, it comes with the determination. If Richard Branson can think of starting a magazine “STUDENT” and then go on becoming face of VIRGIN, if Narayan Murthy can dream of Infosys without having a Management Degree, why cannot we? Why our future is decided without our consent. Its easy to write books on life, give lectures on positivism, but do we have the energy at the end of the day struggling with failures to dream? Even, I have posted an article called “Working on your Mind” but what if your mind stops programming. Every time, I think of achieving success, I see the shadow of Failure behind it. But, being a consultant, I will not end this article with a negative note. The purpose of writing this article was not to make you feel negative but to give a thought process on how to be really practical with life.

I might have lost the battle,but the war is still on.One of my dearest friend said on my unsuccessful attempt to enter Mc Kinsey, that “IF YOU CANNOT ENTER Mc KINSEY, CREATE A COMPANY LIKE Mc KINSEY…” and I am determined to show people that even I can build an empire that everyone could dream of.

My sincere thanks to my friend for being a constant force of inspiration to me..

COMPETITOR Analysis

2007-07-04T10:24:00.000+05:30

In the market, someone creates a benchmark and the other try to outperform and set a new benchmark. Every game has its own rules. In a competition, either you try to create an image of your competitor’s product in a negative way or show your product in the most positive way. To highlight a small example, Coca Cola shows Pepsi as a drink for Children because it is sweet and the their product something for people who have a courageous heart with the tagline “Taste the Thunder”. To sustain, the most important move is to study the competitor. While formulating strategy for your own firm, you need to take a keen interest in your competitor’s strategies. In doing so, Competitor Analysis can be used as a method to gather information and understand the moves and behaviour of your competitor.

The most important aspect of Competitor Analysis is to understand your right competitors. In the market, a small start up software firm cannot decide to compete with Microsoft in the initial stages. While identifying your competitors, you need to understand your organizations and the objectives, which have been set for the organization in the coming five years. For example, if the organizations want to create a base in the Indian Market, then may be the particular software firm can see a company, which is existing in the market for 10years or so as a competitor. The point of discussion is to challenge the competitors who have a similar kind of organization like yours and caters the same kind of clients. And, if you decide to diverse then rather than competing its better to understand your competitors in a better way and learn from them. Remember, competition is not the first thing for survival. The thing, which is necessary, is to create a base, which means make the foundation strong and then attack your enemies. It’s also necessary to study how the strategic decisions of your companies affect your competitor. The parameters could be whether there is a fall in the market share of your competitor, or there is an increase or decrease in the brand value or there is no influence at all. It’s true that Intelligent Information can help in taking Intelligent Decisions. The Competitor’s current moves can be understood through its annual reports, press releases, and statement by the management, interview with analysts. The competitor’s moves can be understood by mergers and acquisitions, hiring activities, promotional campaigns, investments etc. The result of the Competitor Analysis should be used as an effective tool to influence your competitor to your firm’s advantage.

i-Fetch a Rocking Application

2007-07-02T12:35:00.000+05:30

Although the focus of this blog is not technology I've been always a fun of new apps and services which make life better.
One such killer application is i-Fetch by Ideafarms. I've been trying out this free RSS Reader and from what it appears it is quite handy. It comes loaded with powerful features like archiving of articles, filtering, OPML support etc and integrated browser support. You can use i-Fetch for reading your favorite articles, news items, blog posting and even podcasts.
Quite amazing as now there's lesser pain for my windows favorite folder and I can read my feeds on the move. Moreover, even when I am not connected to internet as it offers offline feed reading support.
Check out the cool application right now Give it a go at http://www.ideafarms.com/products/ims.htm
An easier way is to google "i-Fetch + ideafarms" (minus quotes).

Basics to reach the TOP

2007-06-26T15:47:00.000+05:30

To succeed is not waiving a magical wand, but strategizing your moves. When you are in a big organization, and counted just as a normal resource, you need to decide whether to stay as you are or create an identity on the top. People take 7-8 years to reach there but if you have just started your career, there are ways to reach the Top soon. To survive as a King in the Chessboard is very difficult when there are hundreds waiting to kill you and win. So, how to get there??

1.Business Networking: The most important thing to decide in an organization is your target audience. Audience, I mean, those who will take you to the Top. Business Networking just does not mean talking to each and every people but making a move to the right people. When you know who are your audience, the next question is how to make contacts?? Well, the next point talks about that.

2.Showcase your Talent: Showcasing does not mean proving yourself the best, but differentiating yourself from the rest. Best is relative and has no proper definition to it. In a big organization, it’s very difficult to find the people who show interest in their organization. They are happy with the 9-5 jobs, salary and the events conducted by their organization. If you think sitting idle and doing your regular job perfectly, the company is going to shower you with more money, onsite opportunities and perks, forget it. It’s never going to happen. What’s needed then? Well, that’s what the third point talks about.

3.Initiatives: This is where more than 97% of the employees in a big organization lack. Try to participate and give suggestions and views every time your organization comes up with some future plans or initiatives. Interact with the management, if not anything, mail at least to the Management congratulating them of their initiatives. A well-documented mail can work wonder for you. Every time something new comes up in the team, try to involve yourself. This is not the only thing you need to do. There is something magical word associated with Initiatives…. Well…the next point

4.Feedback: Feedback, positive or negative helps in improving a lot. Mails to the people sitting on the top on the initiatives you have taken. Make yourself known to them. I am sure they will never say a NO in helping you with your work. Treat them as your mentor.

5.Communication Skills: This is the most important thing in an organization. A best communicator can only help himself in achieving what he wants. Sometimes, the receiver does not get the message. The same sentence can be said in a number of ways. You need to decide which is the best way to communicate yourself.

There is always a choice, whether to sit on a bench for whole life or to taste sweet success at the early stages of your career. The decision is yours……

TALK About

2007-06-22T19:48:00.000+05:30

I have decided to introduce a section called "TALK ABOUT" for you. the aim of introducing the section is to talk about the latest happenings in the field of Technology and Business. We will talk about gadgets, practices,theories,people,persona,companies and more..It will be the most happening section of STRATEGYAAN.Do let me know your opinions on this idea and we can go ahead with it.

WORKFORCE Architecture

2007-06-15T15:06:00.000+05:30

We had a lot of discussion on Employee Retention, Employee Satisfaction. HRs planning strategies to give employees a sense of satisfaction and make the organization a best place to stay. We have discussed about Performance Based Approach, Variable Pay Approach etc. Lets talk something new today. It’s a term which is discussed less and is still unheard, “Workforce Architecture”.

Workforce architecture is a detailed blueprint for an organization's talent structure. This blueprint defines employee roles, competencies, accountabilities, performance expectations and development opportunities across the enterprise and clearly articulates how work should be accomplished.

Workforce architecture gives employers a better grasp of their overall workforce composition and capabilities - their "talent inventory" - in relation to their current and future business needs by identifying what skills are needed in various roles and who has those competencies now. This information allows senior leaders and managers to make better, more objective decisions about how best to build and deploy the workforce in pursuit of business goals. On an organizational level, it helps them answer critical questions such as:
·How are our workforces needs changing? What kinds of employees should we be recruiting?
·What are the development needs of our workforce?
·Where are our talent gaps and how do we fill them?
·Which specific roles or job families create the greatest value for our organization?
·Where do our top performers reside and are we rewarding them appropriately?

On a managerial level, managers gain the ability to answer practical, day-to-day questions such as: Does a particular employee have the right skills, competencies and experiences for this role? If not, who within the organization does?

Four key applications of workforce architecture are:

1.Integrated Workforce Architecture.
2.Functional Excellence
3.Global Harmonization
4.Emerging Markets

Keep watching the space, as we will discuss on this applications separately.

Courtesy: Mercer

Please Note that the article is taken from Mercer. The idea is to make ourselves aware of something, which we do not know.

EVERYTHING EXISTS, THE POINT IS TO DISCOVER THE CONCEPT AND SELL IT AS AN IDEA

Corporate ENLIGHTENMENT

2007-06-07T12:19:00.000+05:30

I would highlight two genres of organization who believe that employees can be retained in two ways:

1.Give them challenging roles. Understand their interest and give an opportunity to prove themselves.
2.Engross them in other activities. Conduct Fashion shows, sports tournaments organize frequent events.

The question is which one interests more to the generation now? Most of the companies have a high attrition rate. Some of the organization has a bench rate of 52%. Are the employees more concerned about the fun part of the Corporate or the work of Corporate or the employers are failing to understand the needs to their employees. The organizations have become more like a product which packages itself well so that some priced customers’ takes it but the reality peeps out soon. The thinking quotient has surely changed. Now, a person believes in working in a firm, which can give him more independence in terms of decision making and challenging roles. A career-focused individual is certainly broadening his vision to work for a small firm rather than working for an MNC and get lost in the crowd. The most important thing to understand is an organization can hook its employees in the corporate events for some time but in the long run the feeling of being in a monotonous job creeps. The organizations should come out from the long followed policy and take a drastic step to change it. The change is to make the employees feel home in the office where the employee should have the rights to take decisions upto a certain limit and given challenging job role. There can be ways through which this can be achieved.

1.Remember, hiring new employees cost more than retaining old one. So, make sure, job rotation is followed as a policy and every employee should be given a chance to change his/her profile within a year if not interested.

2.Make the maximum use of Benchees. Rather than looking outside, the benchees can be asked to jump on the roles depending on their interest whenever certain employee needs a change which can best be termed as Replacement.

3.Not to forget, Marketing is not ahead of Performance. If marketing is good but the product fails to deliver then nothing can save the product from dieing. Its necessary to organize the corporate events but it should not be regular thing. The employees get diverted more towards to it rather than his job. Employee interaction should be frequent with the HRs. Workshops is certainly helpful in a month where the Manager along with the employees and HRs can discuss on how to make the best use of the employees.

Vinayak Kamat Named 2007 PRM Candidate of the Year

2007-06-01T11:16:00.001+05:30

Vinayak was chosen from those nominated for this award based on his excellent exam scores, top ranking among candidates who answered five essay questions and his performance during a telephone interview of five finalists. The nominees spanned from all across the globe.

"This is a highly prestigious award, identifying the best of the best among our PRM holders," said David R. Koenig, Executive Director of PRMIA. "We were highly impressed by Vinayak and congratulate him on this international recognition."

When contacted, Vinayak said that he was thrilled at receiving such a highly prestigious award and it felt great to get achievement at an international level. The senior management team at HSBC GLT has lauded Vinayak for carving his niche at the PRMIA and placing GLT on the global map.

PRMIA is the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association with more than 60 chapters around the world and over 40,000 members from more than 175 countries. A non-profit, member-led association of professionals, PRMIA is dedicated to advancing the standards of the profession worldwide through the free exchange of ideas. PRMIA offers the only globally endorsed Professional Risk Manager (PRM) certification program, pursued by over 2,000 active candidates in more than 90 countries, more than any other risk certification program the PRM is the higher standard in risk certification.

VINAYAK KAMAT WORKS IN BUSINESS SOLUTION AND CONSULTING GROUP OF HSBC.

Need to BRAND..Why?

2007-05-29T11:39:00.000+05:30

Well, Branding and Advertising have become key focus area for organizations. A lot of it depends on the target market, budget, and the influence it can create on the minds of the customer. Today, we will discuss what are on the biggies minds when they advertise for branding their brand. IBM, one of the most sought after organizations comes with innovative ads, which require a lot of thought process to understand the message IBM wants to convey to its customers. According to IBM, The key to differentiation is innovation. Not the innovation that sparks new inventions per se, but innovation that reinvents how businesses do business at every level of the enterprise. No one does innovation better than IBM. The ads are very much thought provoking. It can be a water cooler in the middle of the desert serves as a metaphor for a meeting place where your organization's best minds can come together to create innovative new ideas. And, Accenture, one of the best Consulting firms believes in high performance and when we think of high performance, Accenture thinks of Tiger Woods who serves as a metaphor for their commitment to helping companies become high-performance businesses. Their advertising theme united their ethos and position: "Go on. Be a Tiger." Similarly, in HSBC commercials, a ring can signify a marriage or a group composed of people from different ethnic backgrounds. The important thing to notice is the sustainability in the market and the continuity to remain the market leader through continuous positive re-enforcement about the brand.

Better STRATEGY through ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN

2007-05-22T21:52:00.000+05:30

Executives have a golden opportunity to orient strategy around organizational design and thus to make companies thrive no matter how market and competitive conditions change.Organizational-design work is hard and time consuming, but its payback—in profits, costs, and risks—surpasses that of investments in product design and other traditional strategic initiatives.Building strategy around organizational design represents an evolution away from the organizational structures of the 20th-century industrial age, when capital was the scarce resource and vertical, hierarchical structures were the key to efficient performance.The key ingredients of progressive corporate strategy in the 21st century are “one-company” governance structures, knowledge and talent markets, and organizational designs intended to maximize collaboration among the talented workers who create today’s wealth.

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_abstract_visitor.aspx?ar=1991&l2=18&l3=30&srid=17&gp=0

Courtesy: McKinsey

REQUIREMENTS Specifications

2007-05-11T12:08:00.000+05:30

Requirements Specification is a description of what you want the system to do. This document may also be called a Business Needs Specification. The Requirements Specification should generally not be written in computer terms or contain assumptions about how the system should be written (unless these are part of the requirements). Requirements Specification should cover topics like:

1.Introduction: Your introduction, location, your market and target customers, contact details and the service your offer.
2.System Overview: Potential users of the system, number of users, kind of users according to their work, the problems they face, hardware and environmental constraints etc. This also includes the deliverables, business rules that needs to be included in the system, back up for the system, security needed for the system, technical support required.
3.Functional Requirement: This includes your requirements, importance of the requirements, design or implementation issues.
4.Data to be held: The kind of data that the system should held
5.Operational Scenario: The kind of scenarios that an user might face while using the system.
6.Budget and Schedule: Timescale required, management constraints, critical deadlines and the budget.
7.Appendices and Contact Number: Any acronyms or abbreviations.

Forming a CLIENT CONSULTANT Relationship

2007-04-30T11:55:00.000+05:30

In consultancy, understanding the Client- Consultant relationship is very important. It forms the basis of the Consulting process. Generally, there are three major form of relationship exists between a Client and a Consultant
1)Contractual Relationship: It’s a kind of social agreement where rules of engagement and firm boundaries are defined and formed.
2)Idealized Relationship: It’s a kind of abstract or imaginary level of engagement where each person transfers in prior learning and desires and proceeds to act these out.
3)Authentic Relationship: It’s a level ahead of Contractual Relationship where you witness yourself, very clear about your stance and share your stance with others where appropriate.

The focus is more on Management Consulting as it involves a lot of aspects to it like economical, financial, marketing, IT, People Management and the list goes on. The expertise of the consultants depends on either the task or the process. Task centered Consultants focus more on the problem and minimize the people aspect whereas the Process centered consultant tend to focus more on people and relationship and the leave the problem to the client to solve.

Well, we will discuss the phases of Consulting in the next post. Keep watching the space.

Working on your MIND

2007-04-24T14:11:00.001+05:30

Mind is the driver of your persona. It allows you to visualize, think, analyze and take decisions. An individual’s level of success or failures depends on his mind. How to make your mind work to your benefits? Yogis and Sadhus have shown us the path of meditation to control the mind and make your mind work in sync with the body. Even science asserts the benefits of meditation. Here are some ways which you can help you to condition your mind and achieve success.

The first and foremost thing is to NURTURE your mind. Fill your mind with things, which influences you a lot. It could be a motivating book, a dance form or a mere jogging. Relaxing body sometimes relaxes your mind. Make a habit of doing something everyday that you feel can relax your body and mind.

Stay away from NEGATIVE. Negativities can make your mind work in a way, which can be harmful to you. Do not think negatives. Be positive and Stay positive is the ultimate mantra. Make a practice of saying to yourself something, which you want to do infront of the mirror. If you want to achieve something, make sure you repeat it as many times as you can so that it makes your mind think accordingly and you take appropriate actions to achieve that.

MEDITATION is always the key to increase your concentration.

Stay ALONE with yourself everyday and make a note of the things, which you did in that day which you feel relevant and whether it was good or bad. Again, there is nothing good or bad in this world. It’s all in your perception. So, it’s always better to justify why the things done by you is good or bad. That will help your mind take decisions in an appropriate way.

Watch CARTOONS. It seems funny but it helps your mind to relax and also to be imaginative and creative. It could be a reason why children like cartoons to watch. Its because its at this stage they start to be creative and desire to do things which might seem impossible to others.

MERGERS and ACQUISITIONS

2007-04-12T10:30:00.000+05:30

Mergers and Acquisitions are the most strategic decisions taken by the organizations and it requires a lot of understanding and expertise before a firm decided to acquire another firm. There are some crucial points that a firm needs to focus before going for the deal as a single wrong decision may make or mar the M&A.

1)Be clear about the transaction structure. Whether a firm is interested in Asset purchase, Stocks purchase or Merger. And, if it’s a merger, whether it’s a Direct, forward or triangular. Direct merger is one where the acquirer acquires the firm and the asset id transferred to the acquirer by the operation of law. Forward is one where the subsidiary of acquirer acquires the firm and Triangular is one where the firm, which is acquired by the subsidiary of the acquirer, gets wholly merged in the subsidiary.
2)Clear understanding of the mechanisms of value creation process in Mergers and Acquisitions. Over-valuation of costs and under-valuation of costs and risks should be avoided. The similarities and the differences of the two firms should be analyzed properly so that it would help in clearly understanding the aftereffects of M&A.
3)Employee Stock Options and Valuation is one area which the acquirer and the firm getting acquired should look at before going for a M&A deal.
4)Paying premium if the synergies not realized can turn to be a major turn off for the acquirer.
5)Two companies should properly get integrated with high level planning and design, which will help in successful implementation.
6)Due diligence is the most important factor or rather defined as the watchdog of a successful M&A.

The Crux of Marketing: PRICING

2007-04-03T11:34:00.001+05:30

Wondering how to price a product or service? How much to charge from your customers? It’s easy to price a product by analyzing the existing similar products in the market but what about a new product or a service. Though there are some industry accepted figures but still it’s your business and pricing plays an important role in your business. Not everytime RFPs will help you in deciding the pricing. Sometimes we literally get a big idea written down on a small pice of paper. While other times we may get 30-page RFPs that provide excruciating detail.
Regardless of how the client writes down what they need, they often only know the rough strokes of the how to reach their goal, not the specific nitty-gritty details, which are often where the majority of costs lie. But why should they? That should be what they are hiring us for, to help them find what they want, and more importantly, what their users want.
Budgeting plays a major role in deciding the price. Vendors always want them, clients never want to reveal them. We ask every client if they have a budget that they need us to work within, every agency I’ve ever worked on the other side of the fence with has asked the same. Very very few clients ever reveal this crucial detail. The budget reveals a lot about the client and the project. We use it as a barometer of how serious the client is, if they have given their project serious consideration, how much they understand about the project, to evaluate possible return on investment scenarios, to help define scope, whether it is cost-efficient for us to pursue, and to see if we can even do the project within their budget. When we price out a project we not only price out what we know about the project, but also detail what we don’t know. We come up with worst-case scenarios, address risks, point out all the things we think could impact meeting the goals of the project. There are two major methods of billing for projects, Per Project, Hourly. Traditionally most projects are charged on a Per Project rate. The idea here is that the vendor can accurately guess the scope and attach a fixed price at the beginning of the project. This in invariably never the case, so scope and price is often padded and margin added to protect the vendor from additional scope.The problem is one way or another somebody loses, either the client pays too much, meaning paying more than it’s market value, or the vendor eats into their profit. One benefits to hourly billing is the client is responsible for increases of scope, protecting the vendor and the customer. If the project is completed early the client pays less, protecting the client. This puts the onus on both parties to communicate regularly and work more effectively. Rather, budgets and requirements should be defined, watched and met. If the hours start to go over, this should be called as soon as possible, ideally before the hours are committed. Regardless of billing per project or per hour, we believe that any project is a partnership between client and vendor. That in order to mutually achieve a goal we must work together every step of the way. Communicating expectations of scope and cost is always crucial.

Courtesy: BlueFlavour

Know your Market: Conduct Research

2007-04-02T10:38:00.000+05:30

To know your market, research is essential. And, there is a lot to talk about research. The research methodology generally adopted by the organizations is qualitative or quantitative. Generally, for a quantitative research, sample size is determined based on the segmentation done and for qualitative research; group or one-to-one interview is conducted and the interview guide is developed. For both the research, it is important to set the overall objectives of the research. Conducting group interviews can create problems if the participants selected are not homogeneous and the moderator is inexperienced and lack the objectives of the research. And during, quantitative research, its always advisable to avoid jargons, biased questions etc.

It’s always good to use free or low cost online survey packages like Surveymonkey.com, Zoomerang.com and Perseus.com/express. The survey length should not be more than 10mins. If the survey is more than the time frame mentioned, then the participant might lose interest. The open-ended questions should be limited.

Know your MARKET

2007-03-30T11:38:00.000+05:30

Well, are you wondering to start a firm and sell products/service? Starting a business is not easy especially when there are so many aspects to Business. And, the most important aspect to your business is your market. It’s always better to have certain facts infront of you before starting your business.

1.Is there a demand for your product/service in the market? Who are the key players in the market?

Answer: Research is the only answer to the question. The research could be primary or secondary. There are a lot of website who sell information and research reports pertaining to the business and the location. The total sales of the products in that location and the growth of the sales of the product, demand for certain services are the key figures important to you. If you think of primary research, certain websites will help you. Preparing a questionnaire and targeting potential customers will definitely add a value to the research. If you are selling a service, lets say Consulting, then it’s very important to know what kind of Consulting you are going to provide. It’s always advisable to start with Niche Consulting and then expand your services. Starting a service business needs a more prepared research. You need to know your competitors. Competitor analysis is of utmost importance. You need to research on the following:

1.Who are your competitors?
2.Kind of pricing they do for their services?
3.The list of clients of the competitors and the untapped clients in the market
4.Differentiation strategy of your services. It’s always better to add a product to your service so that you can win the clients of your competitors. The question arises, if I have a consulting firm, what kind of products I can sell? Well, products need not be tangible. It can come in the form of newsletters, white papers or industry insights.

Its also essential to know whether the market is saturated or in its infant stage. Depending on this, you will be able to know your scope and reconsider your decision to cater to the market you have decided to.

The information required can be gathered from a various of sources like Trade information, Demographic and Economic Data, Business groups, Management Universities who conducts a lot of research during their project etc.

To Be Continued...