My Views...

Hollow words

2009-11-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

When India's home minister threaten Pakistan with dire consequences of any more attacks on India's soil, it tells Pakistan how desperate and weak a nation's govt has become that it has to come up with some sound bites for domestic consumption and to make people believe that we are some how the nation of strong an brave, when actually our action belies bravery and fortitude completely.

To simply put we since last 40 yrs every time in face of a terror attack we have acted like impotent, soft and gutless nation that has no stomach for a fight. We have made it abundantly clear to the world that we are vulnerable and do not have the power and conviction to protect what is important to us from external or internal enemies. As a nation we are a bunch of cowards looking for an escape route and as long as we can get one and get to make a brave speech now and then we are happy with that

The chronology of some important events should help put mirror on our face

(1940 - 1990) - Hazratbal, Kashmir, Rubiya Sayeed and all the other incidents where we let terrorists walk away....

- 1992 Bombay bomb blast, no one is convicted and Dawood is living a luxrious life in Pakistan and mid east while running his empire in Mumbai. Small crooks like Sanjay Dutt are caught and then left off the hook as he has gained stature as a henchman of "bhai". The nation looks on as no one is brought to book

- 1999, Kandhar, we respectfully escort terrorists to Afganistan to their handlers to secure release of prisoners

- 2002, Parlimant attack, one person is convicted and he is left off the hook. One professor is deeply involved but gets off on technicality, we look on and no one dares to attack actual culprits sitting in Pakistan

- 2002 - 2008, series of bomb blasts in Mumbai, Jaipur, Bangalore and all the other places in India and no one gets punished...

- 26/11, we are attacked in media glare and we have a sissy HM telling Pakistan that it is ok this time but we will not tolerate next time..

WHAT A SHAME

Nation's character

2009-08-06T18:55:00.000-07:00

"Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike"
— Theodore Roosevelt, American adventurer and 26th president (1858-1919)

Manmohan Singh's recent statement has generated lot of debate on PM's weakness and India's response to terror and Pakistan in general. Most of what has been published and spoken at different forums have not addressed the core of the issue and have largely remained confined to spine of an individual and his diplomatic and political acumen, which we all know does not amount to much.
What has been largely ignored is the fact that statement itself does not count for much, you can make most pacifist statement and still aggressively pursue your interest and you may give most daring and outrageous statement and bend over when faced with a challenge.

I believe that any Indian politician or leader would essentially tow a predictable line when it comes to taking any challenge to India's security head on - they will seek a safe and soft escape route and try to save face with some strong words and actions lacking conviction and certitude to carry them out to the end and feverishly hope that people forget the outrage till other one happens, hopefully when they are not in the hot seat - for some other bugger to face the devil.

Weather it is BJP or Congress or any other national and regional party we can actually predict what will happen when our people are taken hostage, our cities are bombed and our neighbour violiates our security. If we look at the cronology of events in last 60 years we see a pattern of weakness, leaders and people want to be happy putting outrage behind them and moving on..

India as a nation does not have spine - we have lacked national character since 300 BC when Greeks invaded us and ruled a large part of the nation, since then we made our rear available for the pleasure of invaders, marauders and aggressors.

Since then India's character (mainly Hindu character) has been defined by defeatism, delusion, pettiness and narrow mindedness. Nothing much has changed from 3 century BC till now! We lack the courage to overcome our own prejudices and weaknesses so we lack courage to face adversity and give in to the weakest of adversaries. Bangladesh killed and maimed and dragged our security forces all the way to the border and dumped them right on our face and we caved in - if we do not have the balls to defend ourselves and seek vengeance against Bangladesh we send out a strong signal to the world that we are same vulnerable and soft state that we have been for last 5000 years and nothing much has changed

Unless there is transformation in national character there is not much hope that we will prevent another 26/11 or collapse of Indian (Hindu) civilization in the long run. If we have to take some lessons we can look at Jews and how they transformed from a defeatist community to a small but strong and assertive force in the world, but the price they paid to realize their folly was holocaust - annihilation of 6 million of their brethren in Europe (50% of their community). We will be foolish to pay that kind of price to learn a simple but critical lesson - national character is the only defense against extinction as a community and country!

The Great Chasm

2009-04-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

Organized retail in India which got off a very promising start some years back is now fighting for survival.

Today we see a "great chasm" between what constitutes a fully operational and organized retail sector and what we have in India currently - a fractured, disorganized and bruised industry running like a headless chicken. The pundits have come up with diverse reasons for this debacle of an entire sector, some of the reasons are core and many are symptomatic.

Some such popular myths are

- Inability to compete with mom and pop stores, who have very strong ties with local community and customers (where family ties with micro short term credit are the bonding agents) and are well entrenched

- Lack of supply chain infrastructure

- In case of stores which ran into financial trouble, high debt and low gross margins

- Govt regulation to freely let foreign players enter the market that constrained easy capital - a key to starting and running large chains

I would like to dispel some of these widely held beliefs before presenting what I believe may be the key reasons why organized retail has largely fared badly

Inability to compete with mom and pop stores
Customers switch for value, the switching is sustainable when the value is real and not just perceived. Consumers may flock a store if it represents novelty but will not stick to it. I believe lack of competitiveness of organized retail store has been their inability to create distinct and differentiated value for customers. This is more relevant in case of grocery retail than in other categories.

For retail consumers value is price, quality, ease, experience, customer service, no hassle purchase and return. Low price, high quality is something that is always a "work in progress" and chains need to make it a central factor in their operations. Ease is something that chains overlook - ease of buying, selecting, returning, replacing etc increases customer satisfaction. Mom and Pop stores will not be able to compete if chains can deliver on overall value.

Lack of supply chain infrastructure
This belief is reinforced when we tend to compare India to retail sectors in other developed countries where superior infrastructure strengthens the supply chain components and makes operations more efficient. But retail is a local phenomenon and stores compete locally not globally. Presence of infrastructure or lack thereof impacts all players equally. So its impact on competitiveness is minimal. Most of the chains have failed in India not because the infrastructure was not present to make them operate like an American or a European store, but because they tried to operate like one in absence of it!

US stores operating model is based on local factors like sprawling and cheap developed real estate and hence large parking space, distributed population, cheap and big cars, cheap gas, extensive road network where people do not mind driving 20 miles for a bargain.

Indian stores cannot operate on the same model and must take into consideration local conditions and realities. They cannot operate like a loss leader for initial years and then turn in profit (when the supply chain is in place), for the operating model and core assumptions are flawed. Stores in India have to face some tough realities
- lack of space and expensive real estate
- lack of road infrastructure and expensive fuel - so if you open a store in wilderness no one will come driving because there is a deal on marshmallows!
This is a classic paradox since there has to be a fine balance in cost of real estate vs. the location. Many chains failed because they focused on only one factor at a time. While it is essential to open store with critical mass of target demography, it does not make sense to open up a store on most expensive real estate just because it draws lot of crowd (or footfall). Chains should not just focus on "who comes" to the location but also on "why they come". I am sure most of the families when they visit a multiplex for watching a movie or a family dinner will hardly want to club an evening of entertainment with grocery shopping. On the other hand they would like to buy groceries from locations near their residence. Hence a grocery retail chain ought to be located in thick residential areas where real estate is not so expensive while fashion and high end departmental stores can be located in malls etc, where high cost of real estate is justified by high margins.

High cost of debt/capital
Though India has higher cost of capital than other countries but there are many indigenous businesses catering to the local market that have done well, by creating the value and by running on a model that helps them make money without eroding the intrinsic value (what ever that may be). Most of the retailers failed as their unit margins, gross margins and store level operating margins were out of whack, coupled with heavy investment in things like real estate and store interiors, which left less money for investments in areas like technology, supply chain etc that can help them outsmart the local mom and pop stores.

The holy grail for Indian retailers was, "number". Large number of stores will create brand and pull, which subsequently will increase leverage over supplier and hence better prices etc etc.

Having more number of stores do not necessarily create value for the consumer, intuitively it seems like the more stores you have better you will be, but it is not actually true.

The fact is that more stores you have with a bad operating model, the higher the risk of going belly up - which eventually many Indian retailers did. The money that retailers raised by debt or by equity was largely to expand the number of stores and thereby invested in their own doom. The money was not spent in investing in IT and systems to understand consumer buying behavior and cater to them more intelligently, it was not spent in introducing innovative products and delivery mechanisms - but just lifted ideas, concepts and models from west, which was like a double whammy!

Does anyone recall that Walmart failed big time in Mexico? It is a B School case study!

They did not fail because they lacked capital (or raised capital at high cost), or that they did not have as many stores, or for that matter that supply chain was not in place (Mexico is like another state south of Texas/California). They failed because they did not catch consumer fancy!

Which brings us to the last falsely perceived factor

Govt regulation on FDI

Let me start with a disclaimer - I inherently and thoroughly despise anything to do with the government!

Yet I believe in case of failure of Indian retail chains, it would be unfair to single out the government. Though they have contributed to the overall misery in the country in terms of abdicating responsibility to govern and protect, yet in case of Indian retail story they may not be the "1000 pound Gorilla" in the room. They may have tried to level the playing field in some way and protect the small and medium traders in a myopic way that it always see the reality, via prism of votes and popularity, but essentially that is not what contributed to the decline of the retail hype.

I believe the presumption that organized and large players hurts smaller and mid sized players in the industry and cannibalize their share of business is flawed.

Yes, they do create competitive pressure and weaker players exit faster than they would otherwise but smaller need not be weaker! McDonald does not kill business of small family owned restaurants, serving burgers as long as the burgers they serve are better (even if pricier) than McDonald. If an entity is able to attract customers and give them tangible value it will be profitable, however small it is. Any entity that forget the customer will close its shop eventually however big it is.

You cannot protect yourself by wishing away competition. Consumer may stick to you for lack of alternatives but this state is neither desirable nor permanent.

Having said that in case of Indian retail the small guys (mom and pop stores) took the big guys to the cleaners. I do not see in all this how entry of foreign players or direct investment from them would have helped our already limping friend to get ahead in the race.

When Subhiksha fell, some people in media woke up from the slumber but I am sure its customers or an everyday consumer who look out for best deals would have sensed the fall long back (definitely much before Premji could smell it) and had abandoned the much hyped retailer months before the hell broke loose.

You cannot restructure a company by negotiating with suppliers and injecting new funds - you cannot resurrect a corpse that way. Injecting funds and keeping suppliers at bay may buy you some time but it will not make customers buy from you.

As one of my friend said that businesses that run on strategy might fail but the ones run on principle never fail, I believe the failure of the sector and lack of success for many of its players stems from the fact that customer is not central to their core principles and hence planning. When you go shopping for your kid or spouse, don't you have their picture, preference and lack of it before you buy the stuff? How many buyers at retailers have the same approach when procuring from suppliers?

The chasm that exist today in the sector is not because of govt regulation or millions of mom and pop stores that operate at lower cost. The chasm is the metaphoric distance that the key strategist in these organizations have created between the way they run the business and what the customer really values.

Rationale of Failure

2009-04-24T19:49:00.001-07:00

Many people are really puzzled that Manmohan Singh, so called architect of India's economic reforms as the finance minister failed so miserably next time around as the PM and actually worked against the core ideas that he promoted as the finance minister.

Actually it is not difficult to understand why he acted the way he acted if one can see what kind of person is Manmohan Singh.

He is not a politician - that everyone knows but he is also not a leader very few could discern.

India's position as an economic superpower was vision of leaders like Narsimha Rao and Vajpayee, they were no expert in economics and need not be. They delegated the task of drawing up the roadmap to subject matter experts like Manmohan Singh. They ensured that they created the political will, challenged detractors and won over opposition to realize the vision. In short they had what it took to drive their agendas for growth and development.

Manmohan Singh has no such skills and attributes, nor an iota of passion (since he does not have any dream), he has been a seasoned bureaucrat and only knows to swim with the political current, which he has successfully done all his life. Since he has no agenda and dream he has no equity and works like a 9-5 employee. He gives a damn to which way the country goes till he can keep his master happy and keep his job.

He has done bidding for his masters and has never exhibited any signs of vision, leadership or spine. He brought these very qualities to the office of Prime Minister and reduced himself and the office to level of Sonia Gandhi's PA. He has not only violated the spirit of the office but also defiled it.

Sonia was no fool when she selected him as "her" PM. Though it seemed counter intuitive why she would opt for a person who was supposedly close to Narsimha Rao, but it proved to be a master stroke.

She got a PM who looked great on paper was very marketable to media and public, owing to his image as a scholar and honest person. He was weak and servile enough never to challenge the real power and was always available on her beck and call - like a proverbial civil servant. She is sure that Manmohan Singh is a trusted person who will babysit the office till Rahul comes of age and can ascend to the office.

This is a win win for both but unfortunately the people of India are the eventual losers!

It doesn't feel good to be vindicated

2009-04-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

Sometimes it doesnt feel too good when your statements are vindicated and proven right

An article in Financial Times by Razeen Sally, (Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy) has hit the nail on the head by stating that the current economic mess in India should be squarely blamed on Manmohan Singh, who plunged Indian economy into a chasm largely on account of political expediency. It has rightly criticized his lack of political leadership (despite excellent academic credentials) as being largely responsible for failure of Indian economy and end of India hype that was peddled around the world.

I had posted a blog in July 2007, a short comment on how govt headed by Manmohan Singh will lead India to an economic catastrophe. I am no expert of economics but a common sense and idea of right and wrong was good enough for anyone to see where India was headed since 2004. That many sections of corporate India did not see it coming only tell 2 things

A. most of Indian corporate honchos lack common sense
B. they were also part of the team peddling Chindia story at Davos and all other forums for raking short term gains

Media has been largely trying to deflect blame of economic chaos from Manmohan Singh, projecting it as part of global economic downturn (now media has as much vested interest as Congress party in propagating this myth).

Nothing can be far from the truth. The crisis faced by global financial institutions in west owing to toxic assets (worth more than USD2 trillion) did not impact financial institutions in India. It just acted as a trigger to expose and jolt already fragile economic super-structure, which had weakened since 2004 (actually the process of strengthening which was less than a decade old stopped and the decay started) failed under the impact of a seemingly distant crisis.

During last 5 yrs Manmohan Singh's so called dream team was busy marketing and branding themselves as harbingers of economic reforms and liberalization, while their govt was undermining the very spirit of free market economy by:

a. stopping all reforms (now Sonia Gandhi, who is surely no expert in economics have enough galls to say that lack of reforms actually helped India avert the global crisis and her mother in law, Indira Gandhi was a visionary who saw this coming 40 yrs, way back in 1970s and hence she had the bright idea to nationalize every institution in the country)

b. wasting money and creating a huge fiscal deficit by unimaginative but populist acts like employment guarantee scheme (like Soviet Union had)

c. halting all major infrastructure development projects (while PM projected himself as messiah of development and media cheered on when he staked his govt on a nuclear pact with US, commercial impact of which can be felt only 25 yrs from now - which is also doubtful as some other renewable energy source may very well replace nuclear energy)

d. weakening all good professional educational institutions by curbing their autonomy and destroying them by forcing reservation at cost of merit, where everyone will loose other than politicians who can claim they did all this for lower caste people. Who can forget what havoc this govt created for IITs, IIMs and AIIMS

e. pushing entrepreneurs to the edge by arm twisting them on affirmative action, while abdicating govt responsibility to provide a secure and stable environment and reliable infrastructure to do business

All this and many more acts, primarily for political gains have eroded the competitiveness of the country. India unlike US and other western countries has been largely playing a catching up game, trying to come out of years of poverty and stupid economic policies which had rendered country and its business establishment in abysmal state. No one should be under illusion that next 2 decades of back breaking work would be needed to extricate country out of poverty and wretchedness completely and build a society that is at par with developed world

Manmohon Singh (who is an eminent economist) knew very well the cost the country would pay by abandoning the pursuit of creating a workable free market economy and prosperous society (unlike people like Lalu and Mulayam who are also ignorant not just crooks). That he did all this with the knowledge of what it will lead to makes it more un-pardonable and repugnant.

In the globalized world every country with a meaningful leadership is seriously seeking to expand its market, acquire best resources and be competitive. Those who aspire for position of leadership are not complacent but critical of their short comings and try to offset them. India unfortunately had a weak Prime Minister who had no equity in India's growth, he was just carrying out instructions of his boss, whose family's vested interest has always been in India that is fragmented, poor and underdeveloped where the they can rule like a medieval clan over a servile and weak populace.

Anyone who rejoice and celebrate after completing first 100 mts ahead of the pack in a marathon is not just a fool but also delusional. A leader who makes the country believe that we have achieved when we have hardly begun is trecherous.

Every politician and industrialist and bureaucrat who helped contributed towards creating the illusion while turning a blind eye to the reality played into Manmohan Singh's hand.

The country needed (and needs it more now) a leader who has the passion and obsession to realize the vision of a strong and prosperous country, which evidently Manmohan Singh does not have. He is a go-fetch person for Sonia Gandhi and her family and who can hardly think on his own.

And anyone who wants to absolve Manmohan Singh and his govt of the blame is ignorant or a partner in the crime.

Is India Democratic?

2009-04-18T23:25:00.000-07:00

The big question is - Can a country be democratic if the very organizations that form the political landscape are NOT?

Before you read any further, pl visit this link.

Here is a senior cabinet Minister in India publicly and on record stating that he is devotee of Sonia Gandhi and in future anyone who is in position of head of Gandhi family. He further goes on to say that practically every Congress party worker (for there are no leaders) has the same servile attitude, from PM of India Manmohan Singh (who refers to Sonia as his Guarding Angel) to every low life in the Congress party, who feeds on morsels thrown by party bosses.

It will actually be waste of space to be rhetorical about something that is a common knowledge and something which has never been contended by Congress party itself, rather I believe that almost all the parties (major ones that matter at national/state level) are more (not less) the same - undemocratic, ruled by an individual like a family holding, opportunist and filled with crooks and back-kissers; except may be 2 political organizations; ironically on two opposite side of spectrum.

All others SP,LJP,BSP,DMK,Shiv Sena,RLD,BJD,AIADMK,TDP (you can name any that I might have missed and they will all pass litums test of being run by individual/family writ)

BJP and Left are the only 2 political establishments where the individual whims do not steer the organization and some form of structure and decision making process exist (however crude it is - in case of left parties which still run like Communist party in Soviet Union). Left as everyone knows is comprised of bunch of fools who live in denial that world has moved on and that communism will never revive as it revolts against the very spirit of humanity - individual enterprise, competitiveness, a spirit to grow and excel. So that necessarily leaves only one organization that actually befits a democratic nation and that's BJP. With all its flaws - real and media created, it is the best amongst the worst that we have. To be very honest there seems no viable alternative to an uncomplicated mind.

But elections are won and lost not by logic of an uncomplicated mind but by successfully maneuvering the million currents (religious, social, regional, linguistic etc etc) that flows in all directions. It is this complexity that does not make Indian election a "no brainer" and actually makes it a "rocket science".

This brings us to another aspect, which undermines democracy in India and that is importance of political arithmetic and lack of representation, in some other form it is also called "first past the post"

Some shrewd politician who can strike on a strategy to leverage one current and get 10% of the vote in some clusters can actually be a king maker (or king himself). Unfortunaltely we do not have too many bright people, since for last 15 yrs practically every non-BJP party has been largely trying to attract muslim votes and lower caste Hindu votes by some very-very un-imaginative ways. Muslims never vote for BJP and will continue in the same way, but hyper-competitiveness of non-BJP parties actually create a very big dilemma for them to select which way they should turn around. Traditionally they have voted en-block for candidates that have best chance to defeat BJP, but this time around since the landscape is so murky they have no clue where to cast their lot with.

Now where does this leave major issues and agendas that are must for development and growth of a nation? I believe no one actually bothers or talks about it since these factors are not part of the equations that help candidates and parties win election.

Elections are won and lost in India on basis of individuals winning and loosing seats on very localized issues (or national level issues that are easily deconstructed at local levels by cunning politicians) that hardly adds up to a significant national level movement and hence issues like economic reforms and lack thereof, will never become a winner. Every individual or formation that wins are then out in open market for trade and trade offs to form the government.

This brings us to the third most important aspect that renders govt formation in India as undemocratic - the "post election bazaar".

Who had voted for Manmohan Singh as PM, no one I am sure, since he was not in picture till Sonia decided to play the "Christ"! For that matter who had voted for Deve Gowda or ChandraSekar or IK Gujral - who all evenetually became PMs and then there are scores of others like Lalu, Paswan, Mayawati, Jyoti Basu (used to think he can spring from CM to PM without effort), Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukherjee and many others whose name I do not even know, who suddenly become hopeful of filling the top spot as a "compromise candidate". It is a shame that a PM of the country has to be a "compromise candidate" rather than "Best Candidate". Healthy democracy has no space for mediocrity.

It is not just the office of PM that is compromised but every democratic institution that is controlled directly or in-directly by executive. So we have had ministers like Taslimuddin from RJD, who has numerous cases of murder, extortion etc and runs an organized mafia. Shibu Soren - who actually got convicted of murder etc. Arms of govt that should inspire confidence in people by impartiality and propriety like CBI, Judiciary, EC etc, becomes slave to their political masters. There are endless number of components in the chain that have become junk over the years because of abuse by the govt in power and have become appandages or are largely ineffective.

When international media hails India as the largest democracy - there is something that stirs inside all of us, for we know that nothing can be further from truth. If something does not stir then we are actually living in denial or are as un-connected with India as the foreign press.

We cannot excuse all this as part of evolving democracy, when we know that all the politicians are conniving to weaken it further, rather than trying to strengthen it.

How can something get better if all the constituents are trying their best to destroy it! How can a family prosper when the head of household is an alcoholic maniac who is selling family silver for carnal pleasure?

Coalition politics actually represent the worst form of democracy since it represents lack of leadership, absence of vision and visionaries and no cohesion in the society.

India does not show signs of an evolving democracy working hard to overcome teething challenges, rather represents a decaying one, on last stages of a terminal illness. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling oneself.

IT Industry - Changing Dynamics

2009-04-14T22:32:00.001-07:00

IT outsourcing and BPO Industry that has rapidly grown and evolved in last 10 years is poised for another major transformation. Some of the outstanding aspects of the transformation are

- Billion plus club (companies with billion plus revenue) market share will shrink and they will try to consolidate to counter the decline

- Traditional business models and operating models are not suitable for the new market dynamics, where customers will demand better economics (than what is provided by labor arbitrage)

- Global companies like HP, IBM and Accenture will increase the gap further from Indian outsourcing companies that will find it hard to penetrate emerging markets like Eastern Europe, South America and Asia, where currency and labor arbitrage does not translate into economic benefit for customers

- Mid sized companies will either consolidate with large ones or transform into niche players, as competing as an end to end service provider will render them uncompetitive

- Product and application vendors will increase their service pie and eat into traditional IT services areas as customers will rapidly adopt to On Demand and SAS kind of applications

- American and European customers (Fortune 1000 companies) will also give ascent to expanding globally and will localize more than centralize "glocalize".

What might succeed..

- Companies will need to be decentralized and should be able to cater to local markets more effectively (specially true for non American/European locations)

- Global delivery model will no longer be the holy grail and can only be applied selectively

- Companies will have to deconstruct the centralized operations, which rely heavily on expensive infrastructure etc and will need to invest more in technologies that facilitate mobile workforce and virtual teams

- Companies that can change the rules of engagement and create significant customer value will do better than others

- Acquisition and mergers will not add much value and will erode shareholder value in long term, companies that rely on acquisition will largely be the ones that are looking for a band-aid solution to more serious ailments

- Companies will need to be more global and transnational in operations and mindset. Diversity will be a key factor

- Large capital investments on infrastructure and operations will lead to negative ROA

A good article

2009-04-13T20:17:00.001-07:00

http://www.dailypioneer.com/DisplayContent.aspx?ContentID=169479&URLName=When-a-big-tree-fell

Indian Media - Diabolic Role

2009-04-12T04:26:00.001-07:00

Consider this -

Vir Sanghvi, a very articulate journalist who poses as a neutral has been diabolically spinning every story against BJP. This time around he wrote about Congress role in 84 roits and somehow used it as a pretext to absolve Congress of 84 riots stating that since then it has won elections in Punjab two times and have a Sikh PM and Sonia has apologized to Sikhs many times over. He then trains his gun against BJP and Modi and also blame it for 84 as well as for all other communal conflagrations in the country. This is a typical case of media bias where the so called liberal journalist are relentlessly and shamelessly twisting facts and spinning the yarn. For your reference I am pasting the link (though I hate to increase the traffic on this pathetic site) View article

HT is not the only publication which has outrightly come out in favor of Congress, TOI and Indian Express are also eating out of "hand". TOI has been too eager to position Congress as eventual winners in its headline news, referring to some tangential opinion polls. Indian Express has been coming up with stories that show BJP in poor light while going very very soft on Congress and the rag tag UPA.

The paradox is that the english media derives its core subscriber base from middle class Indians (which by the way is mostly Hindu) is bent upon weaning them away. The reader anguish is evident in the comments section posted on online editions of these publications. Most of the comments are sarcastic and critical of media's role. The only credible and sensible english publication seems to be "The Pioneer" (www.dailypioneer.com). I sincerely hope that the readership of these papers and TRP rankings of biased news channels fall to such an alarming level that the money man who are now running these papers for their political bosses for some crumbs of favor comes to their senses with rapidly falling revenue, or get buried - not a very bad idea after all!

IT Sector - Where is it headed?

2009-01-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

The economic currents are fast transforming the IT service provider landscape. In next 2 years we will see a transformed and altered industry structure. There will be a new set of industry leaders, challengers and laggards, some of the existing players would trade their current positions in the new order and some new will emerge from nowhere.

The biggest threat as anyone could imagine is faced by Indian IT outsourcing giants, the billion plus dollar club - companies with more than billion dollar inannual revenue.

Past few years saw exponential growth of these IT majors, winning multi-million multi-year deals, moving upward in the value chain, expanding their portfolio of offerings, acquiring competencies organically and by M&A, diversifying their delivery locations globally and outside of India, rapid expansion in employee base and frenzied hiring to meet up with projected/futuristic demands based on simplified extrapoliation and assuming linearity in growth, market size and in some cases market share. Not to miss out hyper-competitiveness witnessed among billion dollar club members on metrics like quarter on qarter/year on year growth in sales, profitabilty, emloyee base etc.

All this led to :

- Huge blind spot for associated risk

- Investment in Capital assets with long term view of absurd growth rate (something like 40% growth)

- Massive increase in operating cost for purpose of scalability (to prepare for futuristic demand)

- Hasty and stupid M&A delas to gain comptencies and edge out rivals (fall out of hypercompetitiveness)

- In some cases accounting malpractices to beef up the numbers to ensure stock gains

- Failure to exert pressure on govt to improve infrastucture to sustain competitive advantage, keep operating costs low and ensure that the value of offshore is not eroded (which has very much eroded in terms of cost arbitrage)

Mid sized companies fared a bit better by virtue of being left out of this mad race and had to contend with moderate and below average growth, cost pressures and high levels of attrition, all of which forced some of them to imbibe core virtues of doing business like austerity, productivity, better utlization etc. Having lost out the race to win big deals these companies focused their energies on building competencies in some niche where they could differentiate and win projects. To impress the analysts they did not have growth in revenues so they worked on containing costs and improving margins, since they did not have scale and leverage of large players they could hardly do anything on pricing and improved margins by enhacing utilization, rationalizing their hiring and cutting down on capital spending. All these forced measures may actually help them in the weathering the storm and emerging stronger and bigger out of this turmoil.

My assessment is that 2 yrs from now we will see some of the large Indian vendors consolidate, go out of business or shrink in size and brand, while a select few mid sized companies who had got their act right (way back in 06/07/08) would actually ascend to leadership position.

Adbication of Governance

2008-07-30T16:46:00.000-07:00

That there have been bombings in 2 major cities (Bangalore and Ahmadabad) and scores of bombs found in Surat, which did not go off because the device did not work rather than vigilant security officers comes as no surprise. With a dysfunctional government and unscrupulous politicians at helm this is a natural consequence.

For last 5 yrs there has been a India hype where India was placed alongside China in world's cross hair and was lauded as the next big power. The sad part is that many in India also got blindsided by this euphoria and ignored some fundamental aspects that contribute to growth of a nation (economically as well as socially). Entrepreneurs started believing or at least posed as they believe that governance was not that important and India Inc, can fuel GDP growth and sustain it even as people's representatives in parliament are working to pull the rug from under their feet.

They underestimated the nuisance value of people like Prakash Karat and Arjun Singh and ambivalence of Manmohan Singh and the murky political landscape in all the states, and just assumed that things will get sorted out in evolutionary manner. Everyone believed that just as Indian enterprises transformed and evolved owing to effects of globalization, Indian politicians too will evolve into better statesmen or at least human beings as we ride the growth wave.

Unfortunately this evolutionary cleansing It did not happen and today we are faced with a heightened security threat from homegrown and international terror groups and reduced GDP/Industrial growth.

To create a sustainable economic model and a secure society there needs to be a vision and ability to articulate and assess opportunities and threats and act in the interest of nation, which can only happen when people governing the nation have some basic skills and attributes. It is highly unlikely that people who have bloated their assets by being career politicians with a dirty track record of divisiveness and criminality will transform overnight into statesmen and visionaries, at best they can become pretenders like Lalu (successfully). [Interestingly Lalu has been credited with turnaround in Indian Railways and have been on whirlwind lecture tours in B schools giving lessons in management, no one seem to question why same Lalu pushed Bihar in being a derilict state where there is no power, no roads, no electricity, rampant corruption, high crime rate in 15 yrs he ruled the state. The simple answer is that he always focused on Bihar as primary arena and largely ignored the Indian Railways, where seeds of transformation was sowed by his predecessor and McKinsey was already in helping the executives there. Moreover people fawning over him forget that he was actually sent to jail for blatantly looting money from state exchequer and later resorting to criminal bullying when order was passed to arrest him and send him to jail. He bartered his freedom and exoneration from all his crimes for support to the current government]

India sorely lack such politicians and is unlikely to see any major change as the source does not have stock of this kind of inventory. The process of becoming an MP or legislator itself ensures that most corrupt and criminals climb up faster and better than anyone with honest intentions and skills. This stems from the way local self governing bodies are elected where people whose life is affected most don't give a heck as to who is elected and how, as they consider themselves above such slimy process. The other supply source is the family and relative inc., where progenies jump the ladder owing to family connections, where you may not be ridden with a criminal (if you are lucky) but certainly with and incompetent fool with no ability to lead and inspire. Indian middle class, companies and the critics of the governance hardly make an effort to invest in alternative source and unless they take an initiative to farm and nurture statesmen we will continue to have unpredictable and crappy politicians. So do not wonder when the GDP growth slows and when we are attacked by terrorists, since we have created a conducive ambiance for them.

Commie Foreign Minister

2008-04-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Pranab Mukherji, India's foreign minister is a communist supported stooge in the present government. What is most disturbing is that he is allowing these politically marginalized buffoons to influence India's foreign policy at an unimaginable levels. This is as though Chinese socialist bosses have a direct authority on what India's foreign policy should be and how it should treat US, Tibet and rest of the world, all aligned to China's interest.

There is no doubt about the fact that the present govt run by an impotent PM on front an unaccountable Italian lady from back and pushed around all over the place by unholy alliance members which include regional satraps, murderers (Shibu Soren was convicted for murder), terror outfits (Muslim league etc) and communist is very weak to protect India's interest and even willingly compromise it just to remain in the stead.

India is loosing or has already lost the opportunity to strengthen its relation with US and Israel and leverage the nuclear deal it had struck with the US because Communist in India feel that it will help US and will be against China. They don't want to do anything that is against China as they revere it as the last bastion of a stinking political experiment in human slavery called "socialism" and present Indian govt supported by them easily give in to these fools.

I am sure that next 4-5 yrs we will see the ill effects on economic and international relations front of the policies pursued by this govt. GDP growth rate will slow down and infrastructure bottlenecks will further curb the growth, public sectors will continue to bleed and it will take years for the new govt (if these fools loose the elections) to get rid of the grandiose populist schemes like "employment guarantee scheme" etc that which is a way to loot the tax payers money.

Take away for ITO BPO Companies

2008-01-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

News of economic slowdown in US and all other news pertaining to economy in US and elsewhere is an indicator that wealth creation is not going to be limited to some pockets of the world but will happen in many other parts of the world like China, India, Brazil eastern European countries and erstwhile socialist/communist states which were in past shackled by inward economic policies. Growth of internet and internet economy will also spawn net-economy.

Though all businesses needs to take cognizance of the these changes but I will like to restrict this post to what these changes imply for IT/BPO companies who have till now focused on North America and to a lesser extent on Europe as their primary market.

Past to current

- All the IT/BPO companies based their business model on typical "american" customer and created delivery models and offerings around it. Ascent was given to cost reduction by leveraging labor arbitrage and taking traditional outsourcing models to offshore delivery models. Some even called this model "Global delivery model", which I believe is a flawed definition as the model was created with "American" enterprise in picture and with American labor cost as a major driver

Emerging World

- This model restricts competitiveness of traditional IT/BPO companies to provide differentiated services in emerging economies like China and India where labor arbitrage cannot be a driver. Over and above the service lines and areas of competencies of incumbent IT/BPO service firms may find very few customers in these regions

- Many other industries like automobiles and consumer and electronic products are quick to realize the market potential in these economies and have aligned their supply chain, marketing and value chain to tap the potential in these markets. Some of them have successfully realized the differences and have setup shops here. IT/BPO companies are still grappling with fundamental question of what value proposition to offer to customers in this region and have either adopted a cookie cutter approach or have completely ignored these markets, I should say at their own peril.

- It will be a challenge for these companies to de-construct their existing business framework to come up with a viable value proposition. The current model is about large campuses housing thousands of people to operate huge back offices. Labor arbitrage (even now) provides enough margin for these players to invest on expensive infrastructure and huge salaries for people doing simple tasks. This model will never offer a viable service option to businesses in emerging economies and they are better off keeping their value chain in-sourced

Taslima and Indian Govt

2008-01-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

It seems that there is no distinction between Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, all being held in sway by Islamic fundamentalist. It would make sense for Pak and Bangladesh, given that after systematic “cleansing” there are just muslims left in those 2 countries, but India with a majority “kafir” population acting like a radicalized Islamic state would baffle many.

This opinion has been further consolidated after Indian govt’s (headed by Manmohan Singh symbolically but run by Sonia in reality) decision to oppose French Govt’s decision to honour Taslima Nasreem for her literary achievements.

It is utterly disgusting and insulting for Indians and specially non muslim Indians that they have to tolerate Islamic fundamentalism practiced by state. I strongly believe that Singh and his govt is paving way for “Talibanization” of India state supported enthusiastically by communist cohorts.

I believe every Indian worth their salt should come out strongly against this and as a starting point vote these proxy “taliban” out of power next time round and bring in more stable and balanced party back in power

Indian govt's antipathy towards economic growth will result in slow down

2007-07-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

Despite what Indian finance minister will want us to believe, largely the present govt in last 3 years have pursued regressive policies, that will not only erode the gains of reforms initiated by last govt but will also create new bottlenecks in future.

Public sector reforms have come to a stand still. Infrastructure development is no longer a priority. Political impact of inflation guides the monetary policies and pressure on private enterprise to tow govt's populist social agenda is on rise (compulsory affirmative action, push to regulate executive pay packages etc.).