Tag Archives: India

Growing with Integrity

Posted on by

“You have to be in Germany to understand what Bosch means,” a friend told me recently. “They are like the Tatas in India,” he continued, “big, well-respected, old.” He was referring to the engineering and consumer goods company Robert Bosch GmbH. And comparing it to a large Indian conglomerate.

Both of them are standing testimony to what it means to grow without sacrificing values. As they grew, they would have made tradeoffs, they would have learnt the meaning of tough choices. Not all companies can do that. Many companies, at some point or another, give in to the pressure of shareholder results or top management self-aggrandisement. That is why we feel a strange sense of respect for companies that have maintained their values through thick and thin.

Related articles

Business Schools – Training for What?

Posted on by

Business schools across the world are finding themselves in a situation of introspection: what exactly is the need for their existence? More importantly, what do they teach?

Applications for this  year’s Common Admission Test (CAT) that is used as one of the key parameters for admission to the elite Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) came down to a record low of 190,000 this year. For whatever reasons, students seem to be finding b-schools less attractive compared to other options.

To the first question of what b-schools are needed for, there are a few things that business schools can teach. Firstly, there are the business subjects: marketing, finance, operations, human resources and systems, as any first year b-school student would be able to tell you.  Secondly, there is another subject that b-schools try to teach but don’t do so well: strategy. And the top strategy consulting firms end up trying to follow an apprenticeship model so that they fill the gap.

Besides the above, something that b-schools are yet to do well, is being a manager and a leader. That there is strong demand for people who can manage a good business and take all steps required to get things done is very real. Similarly, there is strong demand today for another factor that b-schools are not in the perfect position to teach: leadership.  And women’s leadership as well. Today, all of us – at least those who care enough to have a say in the matters – tend to preach the same old advice about leadership because we haven’t seen what true leadership can do. There is some hope here, though, as b-schools recognize the situation and respond to that.

As the first step, we need to realise that tomorrow’s leaders will face a completely different set of situations today. As I brought up in this thought experiment.

Related articles

Family Businesses in Transition

Posted on by

In my previous post, I had pointed out cyclical changes in economies. Here, we look at family businesses and how these are undergoing times of transition. Unlike in the Western world, India has a large set of family businesses, although we now prefer to call them promoter-driven businesses. These are essentially businesses built up by the father (often alone), brought to maturity, and then handed over to the eldest son, or divided up among the sons.

There are some promoters who realise that the handover needs to be professional in order for the company to succeed in the new world. They also realise the value of a good education — both in a good institution and in the company playground — for the son or daughter to lead the company towards success.

Yet again, there are some promoters who realise that they know how to run the business even when others have mishandled it. These are the likes of Infosys. The company was built up by a team of five or six software engineers, so it was not seen as a family business. But when push came to shove, it was the Narayana Murthy who acted as if he had his own blood in the business. And it is he who has stepped in to put things right, along with his son. It is now a matter of waiting and watching to see what happens.

*

Many thanks to the unwitting scion of a family business who talked to me all through a Mumbai-Delhi flight, rather than listen to music or play on her iPad, for helping form this post.

*

Related articles

Cyclicality in Economies

Posted on by

The imposition of custom duty on flat panel televisions last month is seen in some quarters as a signal that the government is serious about trying to reduce the current account deficit. Similarly, the increase of import duty for gold, twice in fact, during recent months is being seen as a signal that the government does care about the economy.

However, these moves have not been without negative effects. Signalling could be either ignored or misinterpreted. In either case, it might not achieve its intentions. Not all of these signals reach their aim. For instance, the higher import duty on gold has led to instances of  smuggling of gold.

At times like these, it takes guts to say that India’s crisis could be a good thing, and to take the effort to explain why. Prof. Jayanth R. Varma of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad has done exactly that in his post dated 29 Aug. The same post also points to three other links that are equally worth reading. His blog is worth following even for those who are not in the world of finance and business.

Besides this, there is also the history of other countries that we can consider in order to understand our own economy better. There is cyclicality which is seen in several economies. There are periods of booms and busts, and very often the cyclicality is something policy-makers might find difficult to act upon.

One country whose history is interesting for us to understand is Argentina. Apparently, Argentina is a country that has seen strong growth followed by political deterioration accompanied by economic decadence. For those who are even mildly interested, the Wikipedia page of the economic history of Argentina makes for very interesting reading. Many thanks to the person who pointed this out.

Related articles

The Complicated Question of Mumbai vs Delhi

Posted on by

Which city do you like best, aamchi Mumbai or saddi Dilli? Ask this question to anyone and they will have an opinion, even those who have not seen either place. Having spent time in both cities, let me be presumptuous enough to offer my take on the evergreen topic of Mumbai vs Delhi.

  1. Definition: land of business vs land of babu-dom
  2. Pace of life: quick and busy vs slow and easy
  3. Pollution: no visible dust or smoke vs “quick, I need to get a mask!”
  4. Traffic: escapable using the local train vs you’ve got no choice but to sit and curse away your time
  5. Auto rickshaws: black and yellow vs green and yellow; and the latter run on CNG
  6. Auto rickshaw drivers: charge by the meter vs fleece the passenger in direct proportion to his/ her ignorance of Hindi
  7. Capriciousness of auto wallahs: Ah, now that’s one parameter where both cities are equally exasperating. You are lucky if the place you wish to go to matches the place the auto wallah wants to go to.
  8. Temperature: uniformly comfortable throughout the year vs always hotter or colder than you’d like it to be (No wonder then that people from Delhi find Ahmedabad’s winter “pleasant”, as I complained in this post on what I dislike about winter)
  9. Rainfall: flooded roads vs desperately waiting for the rains
  10. Culture: “this city is for everyone, literally” vs “this is my city, what are you doing here?”
  11. Suburban train: dirt cheap (no pun intended) but efficient vs posh but inefficient
  12. People: mind your own business vs “I’ve got all the time in the world to stand and stare”
  13. Rent: resign yourself to the reality of effectively giving away an iPhone each month vs take comfort in the fact that you don’t give away even a smartphone each month

P.S.: The genesis for this post lies in a question: which city is better, Delhi or Mumbai?

My immediate answer was that I did not know enough to comment. For instance, I didn’t know till about three years ago that the h in Delhi was silent. And yet, my answer was not fully true. For one, you don’t need to know much about something to form an opinion. (Think of some of our dear politicians. Or some b-school graduates.) Indeed, if I could form an opinion of Istanbul without as much as stepping foot on Turkish soil, why not on two cities in India that are no longer alien to me? (In case my fairy godmother with her magic wand is reading this, Istanbul is one city I’d like to spend some time. Orhan Pamuk just has a way of weaving reality and dreams so closely that you forget to distinguish between the two.)

Moreover, I was ineffectually trying to be diplomatic because the questioner happened to be from Delhi and I am, if anything, mildly in favour of Mumbai. There, I have given away my opinion, if it wasn’t already clear! But I dare say Delhi is beginning to wield her old-world charm on me.