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Showing posts from 2014

Big Billion Day by Flipkart.com

Flipkart.com announced Big Billion Day sale on 6th Oct 2014.  What followed is known to most of us. FK sent a letter of apology to all its customers.  The letter is reproduced here at the end of this post.  I am posting my reply in response to their letter which is here: ============== Dear Sachin & Binny I am really delighted getting this mail from you. This is what I was expecting when I kept receiving many messages through my FB page and twitter handle, about the unfortunate experiences of many customers, especially through my students. Some of them called Flipkart ... a FakeKart. Believe me I felt hurt as I have been experiencing excellent services by Flipkart ever since you started operations. The gesture of admission and sense of humility that your mail portrays, shall help you grow better when we look at long term perspective for the firm as a whole.  I have been using FK for last many years, rather from the very initial time when you started your operation.

Blue Ocean Entrepreneurship: an idea worth pursuing

Kim and Renee brought out the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy in 2004 through their research and writings and popularised it. That was related to the organizations that were trying to compete and were finding it difficult to sustain in the market full of related products and services and the pressures of the market in improving quality, reducing prices, designing well defended promotional schemes etc.  This is where BOS proposed to create a new market, develop a new product, convert noncustomers to customers, convey a new message, so that one does not feel the pressure of competition.  It was to kill competition and create a blue ocean where there is no competition.  And when in this blue ocean, competitors take birth, participate and compete and start hitting and eating your share it converts the blue ocean into red ocean.  This is the time one needs to come out of it and create another blue ocean. This strategy helped many companies to learn lessons and create blue oceans. Now,

Merger & Acquisitions - what happens to the companies Vision & Mission

I received following question from one of my former students: I have trying to find the answer regarding, "What happens to the Vision and Mission Statement in the case of Merger and Acquisition/Take Over", but has not been able to find precisely. In the world of business Mergers and Acquisitions are inevitable, especially today. With this I would like to ask, "What happens to the Vision Statement of the companies when they are merged? What happens to the Vision and Mission Statement of the Company which is acquired or taken over by another? Does it get diluted and the company adopts that of the parent company? So I would like to ask for your opinion in this case. My Reply to him: Merger and Acquisitions are part of routine for the companies of today. However they have to take place within the overall objectives, vision and mission of the organization. This is an ideal situation and companies should acquire or merge with such companies where there is match

General Budget 2014-15 and MSME Sector

In   June2014 issue of SME World   I had talked of some challenges that newly elected government at the centre faces. The key expectations were identified as emphasis on rural entrepreneurship, entrepreneur-friendly regulation, skill development initiatives, and initiatives for coexistence of giant and tiny units. The new government took over the reign and introduced general budget on the floor of the house of parliament on 10 th   of July 2014, for the year ending March 2015. This annual document somehow provides an overview of the intentions and priorities of the newly elected government and further it is supposed to help us understand the direction in which the government is going to take initiatives. In this brief write up I shall like to discuss the provisions for MSME sector in this budget in the light of the expectations that I identified earlier. The budget proposes for constituting a committee   to examine the financial architecture, remove bottlenecks and to suggest cr

GENDER BASED BUDGETING FOR HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT

Last month I was attending a meeting arranged by a NGO which focuses on the issues concerning women and is involved in advocating the cause of women empowerment.  They have also been involved in conducting research and disseminating it before the stakeholders and providing a platform to civil society members, policy makers, academicians, and alike.  They have played a crucial role in mustering and garnering public opinion of people in the north east India. I am sharing my learning in the meeting and my prescription for formulating effective policies to deal with issues concerning women. The United Nations general assembly adopted international bill of rights for women on 18 th   December 1979 which is popularly known as   the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women   (CEDAW).  This international treaty came into force on 3 rd   Sept 1981. CEDAW document consists of a preamble and 30 articles narrating different components of discrimination agai

'Thank you, sir'

'sir, whatever I am, it is because of you' 'It's ok' 'sir, you taught me so many things, I have totally changed' 'if you have any problem, you can come back to us, we are all here to help you people' 'sir, I came to you to thank you as it is our last day'. 'ok, thats fine' This conversation was between a student and a teacher on the last day of formal teaching. The student is going to appear in last semester exam after around 10 days. As the student entered the room, he saw few students sitting in the teacher's room, so he sought permission.  'sir, can I come' 'yeah come, how are you' As other students started leaving the room the conversation had started in the way mentioned earlier. This student who joined the university some 22 months back in the first semester of masters in commerce program, was a shy lad. He had problems dealing with friends, making presentations and many times was

Five challenges the new regime faces for the growth of MSMEs in India

Few years back while I was reading Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, a thought kept penetrating my mind as to whether the transformations that were illustrated and explained really resulted in making the world flatter. There was a feel which was somehow hindering the entry of such belief that really the world is getting flatter, whether opening up of the economy has really helped India in appropriate distribution of wealth. Isn’t it a reality that big corporate houses and huge multinational corporations are killing small businesses and the opening up of the economy is in fact resulting in consolidation? This thought kept me busy for few months till I happen to read the views, comments and research papers by Harvard scholar, Pankaj Ghemawat and the world is flat began to sound more like an illusion, a fiction well defended and attributed to the success stories. I began to read comparative literature and kept an eye on the growth of Indian industries, especially small and medium

What NER expects from the new government - for building capacity and competence

North Eastern Region (NER) of India has been on the back front so far as visible economic indicators are concerned. However it has huge potential to grow. There are several inherent limitations as well. But while these limitations pose challenge for growth, it becomes more important to concentrate on the potential that this region has and by focusing on this we can deal with the limitations in a better way. Having spent more than two decades in this region, having interacted with policy makers, stakeholders, members of the civil society, and read related literature, I would like to put forth my views as to the initiatives that the new government at the centre needs to take. These are required for capacity building and tapping the potential this region has. Need for inclusion of some chapters related to the life, people, and places of the north eastern region in the primary and secondary standard syllabus (CBSE & ICSE) so that the students of all regions are aware of this r

Challenges for Entrepreneurship in Rural India

India lives in its villages. And India’s most important characteristic on which its strength rests is ‘unity in diversity’.  We have grown with this fact.  The belief that people residing in urban areas are better off than their counterparts toiling in the villages is highly relative.  It really depends as to what really one wants to look at, in tangible form or intangible form. Whatever the case be, it is evident from the practices that the back end support to industrial power houses is provided by this strong rural working population, working hard through their lives. The thinking that standard of living in the villages in tangible terms is poor or relatively bad, is obscure.  It has given birth to an idea of focusing on developing better infrastructure in the rural areas.  It is also necessitated out of issues related to migration (from rural areas to urban areas), which is posing a great challenge to the urban development departments of the respective governments to reconsider

Education, Students and Motivation - what can be done

The other day we were discussing among ourselves the motivation of students to study.  And some of the views of friends were really surprising. One of them said,  'these students are not really students, they are individuals, the class is a group of individuals, not really group of students'.  I thought let me think in my mind what ideally a student is. A student has a drive to learn new things, a student has urge to know more, a student has desire to excel, a student want to compete with others, a student raises questions, a student prepares and participates, a student engages him/herself in studies, etc etc. And then it struck to my mind, if a student is not doing either of this activity, one can not really call a student a student.   This is what gave me questions to raise and solutions to find for the problem that we, the teachers, are facing. Our experiences may not be generalised to all students at all geographies and I also wish that it is proved wrong. There i

What makes people great...

I have been thinking about great people and their faculties.  Just thought about following and feel there are many myths about success and achieving greatness and many times we focus on the activities which may not really be as important as their counter activities.  So thought of Intelligence, Mind and Brain, Institutions, Qualification, Degrees and Diplomas, Destination, Profit, Output, Expectation, Pride, Position, Philanthropy, Rigidity, Styles, Relationships, Companionship, and Competition, Tangibles, Acceptance, Expectations, Dexterity etc.  All these are important and contribute well for attaining targets, however their counter terms as a focal points for action become more important.   Though MORE makes it highly relative and I have no intention, whatsoever to get into an exercise of measuring it.  However I am convinced about the hidden importance of counter terms which needs more concentration and concern rather then focusing on the terms mentioned above.  In my opinion

गुलाबी गैंग व महिला सशक्तीकरण

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इंडियन पैनोरमा के द्वारा   शिलांग मे आयोजित फिल्मोत्सव के अंतिम दिन (६ मार्च, २०१४) ,   यानि कल ,   निष्ठा जैन द्वारा निर्देशित   ‘ गुलाबी गैंग ’   देखी।   सम्पत पाल के प्रयासों द्वारा बनाए गए गुलाबी गैंग की प्रष्टभूमि उत्तर प्रदेश के बुंदेलखंड क्षेत्र के बांदा जिले मे स्थित ग्रामों मे महिलाओं के प्रति बड्ते अत्याचारों की कहानी है। भारतीय समाज का एक बहुत बड़ा हल्का इस मद मे लिप्त है कि पारिवारिक ,   सामाजिक व आर्थिक निर्णयों मे पुरुष की प्रधानता सार्वभौम है। इतना ही नहीं लड़कियों व महिलाओं का मानसिक व शारीरिक शोषण इस पुरुष-प्रधान समाज का एक अंग सा बन गया है। उत्तर प्रदेश ,   हरियाणा ,   राजस्थान व देश के कई अन्य स्थानो पर महिलाओं के प्रति अन्याय व उनका शोषण   आय दिन की बात हो गई है।   सबसे चौकाने वाली बात तो यह है कि शोषितों के परिवार वाले भी उनके साथ खड़े होने को तैयार नहीं हैं और इसको भगवान व प्रकृति के द्वारा किया कृत्य   मान कर संतुष्ट   हैं। शोषण कर्ता के खिलाफ आवाज उठाना असंभव सा दीखता है। ऐसी परिस्थितियों मे एक महिला ,   सम्पत पाल   खड़ी होती है और अपने गाँव की अन्य महिला

Successful Unrelated Diversification Strategy: story of a chai vala (tea vendor) in Agartala

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While I was waiting for a friend at city centre, Agartala, capital of this small state Tripura, I felt little uncomfortable. My head was getting heavy and I felt like vomiting. Something was blocking my throat. I tried locating a medicine shop and as I found one, I spotted my friend waving. It was around 7 in the evening.  I told him 'I am not feeling well' . He showed his concern and inquired the reason and diagnosed that it is gastric problem. He said we should have spicy tea at this stall (indicating the exact location of a tea vendor on a side). I avoided as I thought maybe it might spoil my stomach further. We started walking towards the other end and I started feeling better. Took a small bottle of soda and after few sips it made me little light. I was getting better. We reached back to city centre and he again suggested that better we have this tea. He had told me about this tea stall and its delicacy before. So I agreed and as we sipped tea I started admiring the t