MyTake

Raju burst out, ‘This rock is a sign from Lord Ganesha, I want to worship it.’ Chetan raised his voice even louder and said, ‘No no, this rock is going to be used for my next sculpture.’ The merchant shouted, ‘I have invited all my friends to rest on it! It is ours!’ Ajit was giving order to remove the stone to his soldiers. Bholu now grinned and said, ‘But this rock has been there for years and years! Earlier half of it was submerged in the mud.  Now with the rains the mud has got washed off, and you are seeing more of it.  The washermen of Chitpur have been using this rock to do our washing for many, many years! There’s nothing miraculous about it.  Now off with all of you, I have work to do.’ So saying Bholu emptied his bundle of clothes and set to work.  What could the others do? They had to go away grumbling quietly to themselves. This is the last part of the story titled ‘the way you look at it’ , from the book Grandma’s bag of stories, penned by ...

It was some five years back when I visited a Mall in Gurgaon with some friends and afterwards, thought of sharing my take on their present and future.  It was put on my blog and my friends, who read it, were skeptical as to whether what I was preempting was really something that was reality of the future. In this backdrop in all these years whenever I visited a Mall, whether in NCR, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Lucknow or any other small city my belief got confirmed.  Of late I kept reading stories of empty malls and some of them closing down, it started giving me a feel that business opportunities when not defended by viable research and when it is just following herd behavior, it is bound to result in what is happening in many of the cases.  And that is the challenge before entrepreneurs of all sizes and from all geographies, to respond and work on. One of the issue raised in my earlier post on sustainability of malls was that many of them were involved...

In the month of January, the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi launched Startup India Action Plan to encourage entrepreneurship and to facilitate startups. This Action Plan consists of detailed scheme of things and addresses the issues relating to obstacles which generally entrepreneurs have been facing. The bureaucratic hassles, problems in raising finances, and availability of networks to reach out to the customers have affected the conversion of idea into reality for many new starters. The fight between big and small, old and new has also been one of the deterrent to start a new venture.  Ever since the NDA Government took the office they have been pushing the industry and inviting foreign investments to boost economic growth. It has also created a positive market perception and corporates have welcomed the initiatives, though the hassles like passing of GST Bill by the parliament has posed political challenge and discouraged industry as a whole. It was around six ...

It is about eighteen months that the new government took over the charge. The manifesto which the present government prepared and presented had a huge promise through the catchline of Achchey Din (good days). Month after month media kept writing about the gap between the promise, policies and practice. The government has been on toes for providing a boost to the economy and to send across a strong message that they are committed to bring Achchey Din . There were surging effects witnessed in the market and the steps so taken were being building positive business sentiments across different sectors of economy. Different agencies got interested in sharpening their eye towards economic growth that was projected.  The World Bank recently has put forth positively a strong scenario for Indian economy, better as compared to our mighty neighbor China. It estimates that India is going to grow at 7.5 per cent in the current fiscal so far as its GDP is concerned. It is the result...

[this letter is written by me to my daughter, Ashi, which I thought I should share with all] 1.4.15/Guwahati Airport Dear Ashi Today while reading a newspaper at Guwahati airport I read a news item that the department of posts ( India Post ), Government of India is closing down more than 100 years old money order service from 1st April 2015. I just thought since you have never seen anybody using this service today or used this service anytime yourself, you may not know its importance in the life of an individual in the yester years. So I thought to let you know this whole story and our experience and how important it used to be in our lives of which you are an important part today. Money Order was a service through which money could be sent to the addressee through hand. What was required was that you go to your nearby post office, fill up the form on both the sides on which you were suppose to put name and address of the person to whom you wanted money to be delivered, ...

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 start...

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 blu...