The Arab community: what they have and whta they dont have

Well the author has reached united kingdom for his student exchange program and beside enjoying the English autumn one very important purpose he is having is to interact with the international community and to have a first hand experience of their culture, beliefs and their strengths and weakness with respect to the global business framework. Today the author is going to write on the Arab community:-

Strengths
1> Relationship based business: In the Arab world relationships matters the most. In contrast to their European or American counterparts where two negotiation parties have the tendency to shoot directly to the main agendas, the Arabs give a lot of emphasis to relationships. Business is never discussed initially. Initial time is always devoted to relationship building and once the relationship is built business follows. In the Arab world gestures have a great importance, customs and tradition play a very important role. And it is these gestures that do help a lot in building relationships.

2> Good negotiators: Arabs have always been traders. Trade had been the life line of Arab economy, as a result of which it had been seen that they are not only good sales man but have great knack for negotiations too.

Weakness
1> Continuous hardworking ability is missing in them: in contrast to their other counterparts they do not have the ability put continuous effort. They do put a lot of effort when needed, but cannot continue it for a longer period of time and this is something that really kills there prospect as strong professionals. In the modern world of business sustained effort is really needed if one wants to succeed. For this flaw of there even the Arabs can't be blamed completely. lot of credit goes to the environmental factors of the Arab world also. The weather had always been hostile in the arab land.So it had been some how tough for them to continue putting hard work. More over economies of countries like Bahrain have relied on stuffs like Pearl, fish etc. For these things one does not need to put continuous effort. One needs to work hard only when needed and then after the harvest can rest for large time.

2> Lack of awareness in brand building activities: Though the Arab world is really growing very fast but still when it seems as if they are not yet very well versed with modern business practices. One of them is there disinterest towards long term brand building practices. When ever the Arab invests in some brand building activity they want a very quick result. But practically this is not the possible. Modern brand building takes a large amount of time. It's not something that can be done in a very small time.

(Views here are based on the authors own understanding of the Arab people, his readings on the Arab world and his interaction with people who have worked in the Arab world.)

Book review: In Search of Excellence

                                                                         
Today the author attempts to write the review of one of his best book ever. A book that escalated his
interest in the world of management like anything.

INTRODUCTION


In Search of Excellence (here after referred as ISOE) written by two management consultants Tom Peters and Thomas Waterman is among some of the best written management books ever. The book has been among the best bestsellers in the world with more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. It was written by surveying 43 best companies in America. The fundamental idea of the book was to find out what drives excellence in a company. What is that common factor which is common in all the top notch and top performing company? The story of writing the book is also very interesting. In 1977 McKinsey director Ron Daniel launched two projects; the first and major one, the Business Strategy project, was allocated to top consultants at McKinsey's New York corporate HQ and was given star billing. Nothing came of it. The second 'weak-sister' project (as Peters called it) concerned Organization - structure and people. The Organization project was seen as less important, and was allocated to Peters and Waterman at San Francisco. Peters traveled the world on an infinite budget, with license to talk to as many interesting business people he could find about teams and organizations in business. He had no particular aim or theory in mind. But after the conduction of the in depth analysis Tom tried to prove that it is not systemized philosophies, high level of no. crunching and bureaucratic systems that make a company great, it’s the so called soft sides such as culture and people that makes a company great. In a way ISOE was an attempt by Tom to refute the ducker’s principles of management that heavily relied on systematic frameworks. The essential message of In Search of Excellence is very simple:-

• People


• Customer


• Action

Main ideas of the books:

The book is based on the 7s framework of “Mckinsey”:-

• Structure


• Strategy


• Systems


• Shared values


• Skills


• Style


• Staff




The book is fundamentally divided into eight chapters. After their conclusive study the authors found that there are eight parameters that are always very important for a company’s success.

1. A bias for action, active decision making - 'getting on with it'. Facilitate quick decision making & problem solving tends to avoid bureaucratic control

2. Close to the customer - learning from the people served by the business.

3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship - fostering innovation and nurturing 'champions'.

4. Productivity through people- treating rank and file employees as a source of quality.

5. Hands-on, value-driven - management philosophy that guides everyday practice - management showing its commitment.

6. Stick to the knitting - stay with the business that you know.

7. Simple form, lean staff - some of the best companies have minimal HQ staff.

8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties - autonomy in shop-floor activities plus centralized values.

The best part of the book is that the top 43 American companies are from various backgrounds. These companies include IBM, McDonalds, Caterpillars, 3M, and Walt Disney etc.

The common theme of the book is that it is the kind of culture and shared values that are built in a company are actually responsible for its success and profitability. The book puts huge emphasis on building a culture of innovation. It strictly says that the world is changing (the world here means the business world) and to survive and constantly deliver in this chaotic world it is very important that modern companies should innovate and evolve constantly. Until unless the innovation factor is not there it is very hard to grow continuously, but innovation in itself is not very easy. It is such a dimension that needs to have a very strong culture to support. A culture that isn’t dependent on any particular but on a set of factors. It talks about giving more and more freedom to people, who are in line jobs, who are more close to customers. Because it is these people who are at the front, a CEO dressed up in a resplendent suit may not know what is happening in the field very soon, but the field worker who remains at the market for most of his time can get the glimpse of changes very soon and so it is very essential that authority and freedom must be given to him. Because until unless he will not have this he cannot deliver the message to the upper echelons. The book also has a great message to the top executives of the firm. The book suggests them that they should also try to be visit the field and rather than always getting restricted to their glass chamber they must assign some days of the year where they can directly visit the field and can have a firsthand experience of what actually happens in the field. For this the book gives the example of Walt Disney where the bosses are supposed to visit the field at least once in a year, they are supposed to be dressed as cartoon characters and they greet various customers. These kinds of experiences always make top management close to their customers and help them understand the general psychology of their customers. It also states that the most successful companies are those companies that promote their employees to innovate. Even in the entire process if the firm loses some money they really don’t care much. Additionally when it comes to innovation it’s not essential that innovation will be driven by the top team of scientists only, it can even be driven by normal workmen working in the floor. To strengthen this point the book has given example of companies like 3m which known for coming up with a very high no. of innovative products every year. The book takes a critical view on the “Bean Counters”(Bean Counter is the term used for top B-school graduates in the time of 60’s and 70’s in America, they were highly systematic in approach and used a wide range of numerical tools .) The book is not very supportive of the stands taken by the bean counters. Bean counters were known for doing a return of investment analysis for everything that was done. According to the book such an approach might look sophisticated in the beginning but hampers the qualitative aspect of a company in the long run.

Conclusion

The book is wonderful read that has its own unique flow. The best part of the book is the maverick approach followed by the authors, anyone who has a penchant to do something unique and to think of a situation with a non stereotypical approach, this book is a must read. The book is highly inspiring and very systematic in approach. It’s among the very few books of its time that had tried to consider the “people factor “and “Culture factor” in the success of a company. Another important strength of the book is that it is based on the fundamentals of solid research rather than assumptions.

Though like any other good piece of work it has its regular flaws too. The book primarily focuses on companies that have American origin. The time when the book was written lot of Japanese firms were also rising but hardly any focus is given upon them. Secondly many of the things that the book talks about are in general vague in nature and cannot be described very easily. The book also does not have any analytical tools as such.

But all in all the book is a great read and can be read by all sorts of people such as corporate, Entrepreneurs, Managers, students and general readers etc.

The martial art of marketing

As someone who has always been passionate for "marketing as an art”, author attempts to describe the martial art of marketing, the hidden skills and art which good marketers should have. Having said this the blog does not attempt to write the obvious ones like good communication skills, better negotiation power blah,blah,blah(these are the fundamental requirements & no one can be a good marketer without them)

• A marketer has to be a great "Mind Reader": A marketer has to be great in reading mind of other's. Marketing is such a profession where one is exposed to end no. of people ranging from customers, suppliers, clients, channel members etc. He is never independent in making decisions which depend heavily on the other factor mentioned above; hence he has to read the mind of others beforehand to craft his game plan.

• A marketer has to be a good actor: As discussed in the above point he has to communicate with a lot of people. Many a times his job includes a lot of negotiations, communications & other related stuffs, has to don many hats at the same time, many a times has to pretend things. For all such a good acting skill is a prerequisite.(May be that’s why all the great marketers in India such as Bharat dabholkar, Alyque Padamsee, Sohail seth etc have background in theatre)

• A marketer should be creative with his computer skills: Marketers are suppose to give lot of presentations, many a times in front of people who might not have much of the subject related knowledge. Under such situation what does matter is not content but the creative aspects of the presentation.

• Knowledge of music is an add on: Marketing requires a lot of networking with people. It had been seen that music (includes all the three parts, dancing, singing and instruments) is a great tool in helping people do networking with others.

• An indulgence with various forms of art helps one understand and evaluate alternatives: Marketing is such a profession where one needs to have the hunch of understanding and evaluating available alternatives, needs to have the insight to think beyond the obvious. Having an interest in various forms of art such as acting, music, and writing can help you hone these required skills. (Because the world of art is something that attempts to look at the world in its alternative form)

Though marketing has its own analytical and mathematical sides but the author believes primarily it’s an "ART" or rather a "Martial Art" where one needs to don many hats at the same time, use the best of the available techniques, the realm of human psychology has a very important role to play and creativity is the best weapon to attract and stimulate someone. Due to all these things marketing requires individuals to be well aware (and if possible well equipped) with different facets of art.

Blogs have edge over Books

                                                                 

The author is of the opinion that in the realm of management following a good blog might be much fruitful than reading a management book. Though there are many reasons for that but fundamentally it’s the very basic nature of blogs and books that gives advantage to the blog over the books.These can be summed as follows:-


• Blogs are always latest and books are always old:- One must understand that the realm of business management is very dynamic and changes very fast. It takes many years to write a book,hence a book can never be latest,by the time a book undergoes its idea phase and by the time it comes to publication there is always a gap of few years .Even the latest of the books will talk about something that had taken place some 4-5 years back. In contrast to this a blog is always latest,fresh and captures the present situation in a better way.

• Blogs are to the point where as books have a high degree of redundancy:- Blogs are always to the point but on the other hand books have high degree of redundancy. A book needs to be of few hundred pages, as a result of which even if the author does not want he has to repeat certain stuffs end no. of times. This makes the book boring after some time.

• Comments add value to blog:- Comments add lot of value to a blog,it helps in understanding it better,gives additional information and can also add counter views. No such facility is available in book.(Though these days stuffs like book reviews can be of some help but they cannot be as instant as comments)

• A blog has a very high degree of variability where as books are generally written on a single idea:- An author can write an end no. of posts on various issues on the same blog.Thus following such blogs give eclectic knowledge. In contrast just take any management book such as Positionong,Judo Strategy,Hard Ball etc and you will see that it’s the same central idea that keeps on repeating itself.


• Blogs are small ,books are too large:- last but not the least books are so large that one has to think twice whether to go for it or not, in contrast blogs are small enough to at least not de motivate you from reading it.

(Well having said this author will like state few facts based on his experience:-
1> One should not jump directly to blogs. Initially one should try to read few good books first
2> The given analysis is more applicable for business management related stuffs.
3> Views are personal)

Blue Ocean Strategy for BJP

This article will be a confluence of two widely divergent ideas that is, management principles and Indian politics. It attempts to design a blue ocean strategy for BJP.
(Non Indian readers please note that BJP also known as the Bhartiya Janata Party is a national political party of India that believes in Hindutava)
(Blue ocean strategy is a strategic approach that tries to capture non customers for a firm by providing them cost efficient value innovation)

Before carrying forward the analysis 1st we must understand the customers and non customers of BJP.
Customers:-
1> Any Hindu fundamentalist be it a hard core or a moderate.
2> Educated Urban class(Delhi is an exception)
3> Business class people and Brahmins(BJP is also sometimes known as Brahman Baniya party)
4> Others(that include people from various socio economic classes that cannot be categorized)

Non customers:-
1> A large amount of Indian population that is politically inactive,do not have any opinion of itself, and often rely on any crap that the media tells them(The author is of the opinion that Indian media is highly biased against the Hindutava forces of India and often portrays them in negative light( views are personal))
2> A large part of rural poor
3> people from scheduled caste and scheduled tribes(There is another tendency In Indian media of  portraying Hindutva as something anti-dalit )
4> Marxist (Both hardliners as well as moderates)
5> pseudo seculars(India has a good chunk of such people)
6> South Indians in general (baring Karnataka)
7> Muslims and Christians (Includes both hardliners as well as moderate)
8>Others (again those that cannot be categorized)

Now other than hardliners, from the red camp and from the religions of Islam and Christianity ,BJP has the potential of attracting all other class of non customers)

Presently, BJP is hugely spending its resources:-
1> Hindutava:-
a) Genuine issues:- such as terror attacks, safety concerns of people, respect of national symbols, Cow slaughter etc.
b)Not very genuine issues:- defending any crap that is related to Hinduism even that might be something like the caste system, defending a shankra charya who had been involved in murder case, or any other Hindu ritual that does not make much sense these days.
2> Opposing the incumbent central govt. for any action it takes.
3> Maintaining strong ties with other Hindutva factions such as Rss, Vishawa Hindu parishad, Ram sena,Shiv sena etc.
4>Projecting leaders like Narendra Modi & Varun gandhi as the new face of Hindutva.
5> Struggling hard to solve its internal differences.

Now the author attempts to do an ERRC analysis

(ERRC is eliminate, reduce,raise & create analysis where some of the existing parameters are reduced or eliminated where as some are raised and some new are created)

Eliminate:-
1> Anything that shows the irrational side of Hindutva should be scraped completely from the party agenda(Its good for party as well as Hinduism also)
2> Internal troubles of the party.
3> unwanted minority bashing

Reduce:-
1> Reduce, pestering the incumbent govt. for anything and every thing.It sends wrong signal to the media.
2> Reduce Strong ties with parties like Rss and ram sena(though this really does not mean that ties should be completel cut off, because provide essential force to the Hindutava movement but BJP must understand that general Hindu psyche dislikes very aggressive viewpoint)
3> Reduce activities that deals with symbolic side of Hinduism. Stuffs such as national song etc does not make much sense in the present scenario (Though the author finds them very important)

Raise:-
1> Raise activities that are focused more towards development rather than religion.

2> BJP govts (as well as allies)have done phenomenal jobs in states like Madhya Pradesh,BiharGujrat,Chattisgarh etc. BJP must try to promote strongly on these lines.

3> Karnataka:- Karnataka is the 1st South Indian state where, BJP had formed its government,so strategically it has great significance ,but unfortunately nothing substantial have been done by the govt over here. Since Karnataka can be the launching ground for spreading the influence in other south Indian states,  BJP needs to take extra care for carrying out strong development works over here.
4> Though hard-line Hindutava is dangerous but there are lot of important issues that needs to take care of, including terrorism, Kashmir crisis,conversions in the name of money etc. These issues should be raised seriously ,not only will it be good for the health of nation but will also help in garnering support of a large no. of people who in general are politically inactive but do fear such stuffs.
4> Promote Modi and Varun for their vision (also developmental activities in Modi's case),not for Hindutava

Create
1> Take initiatives for the development of the Scheduled and backward classes of India. Hindutava(moderate) cannot be a Viable idea until unless these people will remain marginalized.
2> Take strong action against illegal Immigration:- India especially its eastern and north eastern parts are infected heavily with illegal immigration. West Bengal itself has some one crore illegal immigrants(thanks to the local government).BJP must try to garner public support on such issues.

Though this alone is not sufficient and as a party BJP needs to take a lot of other steps but these steps if taken properly can surely convert a lot of non customers into customers.

(Views here are personal and attempt to see certain things with a very objective approach, the blog does not intend to hurt any one)

Disadvatanges of being too Mathematical in Approach

                                                                                                                                                                
In the present world of management there is too much of reliance on mathematical and analytical thinking. As someone who tries to observe managerial sphere with a very keen perception the author, does not find this trend very appealing. Now before doing a thorough analysis it will be good if the point be made very clear that there is no grudge against mathematics in general and the author also admits the fact that these are of extreme significance for management as an approach but the ongoing trend where it is infiltrating into each and every aspect of managerial thinking, is something that needs a revisit. The reason for this goes as follows:-

1> In Mathematics 2+2=4, in reality it is not the case. In real world business scenario 2+2 might be 4, 3,5 or even 14 or -4. Mathematical tools are too much mechanical in approach, now having a robust mechanical model in practice makes things very easy to understand and can be comprehended easily by the takers but one must understand that might be far away from what might happen in reality. Just because a mathematical model is robust enough does not guarantee that it will be correct also.

2> It kills the qualitative approach of a manager:- For a successful manager it is essential that he should be well versed with qualitative as well quantitative approaches. But relying too much on the quantitative approach and using a quantitative framework for each and every managerial situation might undermine the qualitative approach in some one.

3> Mathematical models cannot go beyond the obvious: - One must understand that any analytical or mathematical model always considers the available and existing frameworks. But is some one really wants achieve a major breakthrough he needs to think beyond the obvious which is not possible by depending on mathematical thinking approach. One must understand that something like a Ford's "T model", Southwest’s low cost aviation service, Toyota’s "Just in Time" were not the outcome of some mathematical thinking. They were purely based on the ability to think beyond the obvious, to understand the latent demand of the customers, to catch the hidden loopholes in the system and these abilities really don’t come with mathematical thinking but with experience, with the knowledge of the qualitative aspects of a problem, with systemic thinking and beyond that the guts to explore something that had been unexplored so far and to execute the findings with confidence.
Having said this will like reiterate that mathematical thinking also has end no. of advantages but will like to describe this in details in some other blog.