Parties Play The Caste Trump Card

With national political parties finding themselves out on a limb in Karnataka, it’s the caste-based regional outfits that are calling the shots. Will the political cookie in this southern state crumble the way of Uttar Pradesh?

Karnataka is gearing up for Assembly elections in April. With the fortunes of the ruling BJP and the Congress hitting the skids in the state, caste-based regional formations are likely to gain in the post-poll scenario.

Karnataka is set to go the Uttar Pradesh way. UP is India’s largest state and is accustomed to electoral fragmentation on caste and community lines. Karnataka, only one third the size of UP, is not. So, if a hung Assembly is what the April elections yield, the development would mark a paradigm shift in Karnataka politics. Congress, BJP and Janata Dal are the three parties that have traditionally jostled for seats in the Vidhana Soudha. Two new forces have lately jumped into the fray. Former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) and Badava Shramika Raitha Congress (BSR Congress), led by B Shriramulu, the right hand man of jailed mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, are likely to queer the pitch for the national parties by taking away a chunk of their votes.

While none of the five contenders are in a position to sweep the polls, KJP and BSR Congress could both wrest enough seats to give the principal parties a run for their money. But in the run-up to the elections, none of the political formations is keen to get into any alliances, preferring to wait and watch the for eventual outcome. For Congress and Janata Dal (Secular), the April polls could be just another electoral battle. But for BJP and KJP, it would be an acid test. The BJP would be out to demonstrate that it has the strength to live down Yeddyurappa’s exit. For the party leaders who have been instrumental in pushing Yeddy out of the BJP, the likes of KS Eeshwarappa, Ananth Kumar, Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar, the upcoming election would be an opportunity to prove a point.

Yeddy too, would be determined to make the BJP, a party he served for four decades, pay for the folly of neglecting a regional mass leader with the backing of the dominant Lingayat community.

The BJP will also have to contend with the BSR Congress. Yeddy’s mass support and the Reddy’s money power had catapulted BJP to power in Karnataka in 2008. With both now gone, it would be an uphill task for the party to retain power. BJP is unlikely to win more than 50 to 60 seats. In that eventuality, it would be back on the Opposition benches.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

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Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

The seven things that surprise new Chief Executives

Harvard Business School professors Michael E. Porter, Nitin Nohria and Jay W. Lorsch, write on surprises that new CEOs get at the workplace

Most new chief executives are taken aback by the unexpected and unfamiliar new roles, the time and information limitations, and the altered professional relationships they run up against. Here are the common surprises new CEOs face, and here’s how to tell when adjustments are necessary.

Surprise One: You Can’t Run the Company

Warning signs: You are in too many meetings and involved in too many tactical discussions. There are too many days when you feel as though you have lost control over your time.

Surprise Two: Giving Orders is Very Costly

Warning signs: You have become the bottleneck. Employees are overly inclined to consult you before they act. People start using your name to endorse things, as in “Frank says…”

Surprise Three: It Is Hard To Know What Is Really Going On Warning signs: You keep hearing things that surprise you. You learn about events after the fact. You hear concerns and dissenting views through the grapevine rather than directly. Surprise Four: You Are Always Sending A Message

Warning signs: Employees circulate stories about your behaviour that magnify or distort reality. People around you act in ways that indicate they’re trying to anticipate your likes and dislikes.

Surprise Five: You Are Not The Boss

Warning signs: You don’t know where you stand with board members. Roles and responsibilities of the board members and of management are not clear. The discussions in board meetings are limited mostly to reporting on results and management’s decisions.

Surprise Six: Pleasing Shareholders Is Not The Goal

Warning signs: Executives and board members judge actions by their effect on stock price. Analysts who don’t understand the business push for decisions that risk the health of the company. Management incentives are disproportionately tied to stock price.

Surprise SEven: You are still only human

Warning signs: You give interviews about you rather than about the company. Your lifestyle is more lavish or privileged than that of other top executives in the company. You have few – if any – activities not connected to the company.

Implications for CEO Leadership

Taken together, the seven surprises carry some important and subtle implications for how a new CEO should define his job.

First, the CEO must learn to manage organisational context rather than focus on daily operations. Providing leadership in this way – and not diving into the details – can be a jarring transition. One CEO said that he initially felt like the company’s “most useless executive,” despite the power inherent in the job. The CEO needs to learn how to act in indirect ways – setting and communicating strategy, putting sound processes in place, selecting and mentoring key people – to create the conditions that will help others make the right choices. At the same time, he must set the tone and define the organisation’s culture and values through words and actions – in other words, demonstrate how employees should behave.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

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The worst ceos of 2012 and why smart ceos make bad decisions

CEOs today face far greater challenges than just perfecting the art of outperforming bottomline target estimates quarter after quarter. From keeping activist shareholders at bay, to satisfying consumers who demand innovation at the blink of an eye, today’s Chief Executives have their hands full. Not surprisingly, many of these highly-regarded strategists stumble. Prof. Sydney Finkelstein, Steven Roth Professor of Management, Tuck School of Business, writes on why such business leaders fail

2012 has been an eventful year as far as business is concerned. The global economy was stuck somewhere in between managing a full blow financial crisis on one hand and dealing with its after-effects on the other. However, this year did give CEOs an opportunity to reconsider changes that had been impacting their businesses and reinvent in response. And I would say that this is one area where business leaders have faced a great deal of trouble.

For many CEOs, adapting to change – especially dramatic and technological change – is disturbing. Companies like Motorola, Research in Motion and Kodak had to deal with big changes in the recent past mostly due to technological shifts in the economy and their respective industries. What they’d been doing effortlessly in the past stopped working. And unfortunately, they continued doing what made them successful in the first place. Business model innovation is a tricky proposition because even from a psychological point-of-view, it’s difficult to stop doing something for which one has been amply rewarded – and consistently so – in the past. However, the repercussions of not adapting are evident. Motorola was acquired by Google (not for a great line-up of products but more so for the patents), Kodak filed for bankruptcy and Research in Motion is struggling to sustain operations.

Nevertheless, there have been two chief executives in particular who, despite their short tenures, have demonstrated phenomenal leadership and a strong strategic outlook. Marissa Ann Mayer of Yahoo! and Tim Cook of Apple definitely stand out this year.

If you consider Meyer, she’s really given Yahoo!! a shot in the arm. She’s given the company a sense of purpose and if you ask employees and shareholders at Yahoo! today, they’ll tell you that they have much more confidence in the future direction of the company. In recent past, she has proved herself a leader at one of the most successful Internet businesses of our times – Google. And currently, that shows in her understanding of strategy. There is clear consensus now that Yahoo! is a media company – something which previous CEOs could not clearly establish. Further, Meyer has started unlocking some value that lay dormant in Yahoo!’s assets.

On the other hand we have Tim Cook, who has put up a commendable performance at Jobs’ exit. He launched the iPad Mini (despite Steve Jobs’ belief that the market wouldn’t like a small tablet) demonstrating that he is ready to adapt and change. He also had the courage and honesty to accept that Apple Maps was a mess. Some critics have been blaming him for the loss in the stock value of the company. But I don’t see how he’s responsible for any of that. Agreed that Apple didn’t launch a freakishly great product, but the iPhone 5 still sold record units. Apple’s market capitalisation is a case study in itself. To justify such high valuations, you literally need to reinvent the world. And I think Cook has done a fairly decent job till now. He deserves a little more time to demonstrate something even better.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

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Is Wal-Mart Losing The Plot?

The US retailer has turned soft on its initial aggressive plans for India. Are infrastructure bottlenecks and a far-from-ideal FDI policy in retail thwarting its growth ambition?

The government’s decision to allow 51% FDI in multi-brand retail and 100% FDI in single-brand retailing, though subject to riders, have brought good tidings for large international retailers eagerly waiting to tap into the estimated $500 billion Indian retail market. But even three months after the announcement of the policy, the Bentonville, US-based Wal-Mart, which has been plying wholesale retail in India since 2009, has not disclosed any concrete plans about how it intends to move forward on capitalising on the new retail regime. The company currently operates only wholesale stores in India via its joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, but it has so far been the most aggressive foreign supermarket operator in India, operating 18 cash-and-carry stores, selling to smaller retailers such as vegetable vendors, hospitals, restaurants and other firms.

The company expects to open its first consumer retail store selling directly to the public in 12-18 months, aiming to turn a profit in 10 years, something it could manage in China only after 12 years, where it operates over 350 stores. As of December 31, 2011, the overall losses of Bharti Walmart totalled Rs 7.65 billion. During the year, it posted over 140% increase in sales y-o-y at Rs 18.76 billion, but its net loss rose 66% to Rs 2.77 billion. The company is targeting $1 billion in sales in India by 2013-14.

According to the Investment Commission of India, the retail sector is expected to reach almost $660 billion by 2015. But instead of seizing on this consumer retail opportunity, the American retail giant finds itself entangled in an unsavoury controversy related to alleged payment of bribes in the country, which is a violation of US anti-bribery laws. The payments involve forking out “facilitation payments”, or “speed money” – or bribes – to advance the process to obtain 40 to 50 government licenses to set up retail stores. The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it a crime for US corporations and their subsidiaries to bribe foreign officials to win or retain business abroad.

With allegations flying thick and fast, and to avoid getting sucked into this vortex deeper, the company instituted a probe, which has led to the suspension of its chief financial officer as well as its entire legal team in the country. The development comes at a challenging time for Wal-Mart in the country, with political pressure mounting against the Congress-party’s drive to open up the retail sector to foreign investment.

To compound Wal-Mart’s woes, its investment of $100 million in a domestic unit owned by its wholesale joint-venture partner Bharti Retail is also being investigated by India’s Enforcement Directorate for possible infraction of the country’s foreign exchange rules. Wal-Mart’s investment in Bharti Retail has come under the scanner amid allegations that the former may have entered India’s front-end multi-brand retail business surreptitiously two-and-a-half years before the government actually permitted foreign investors in the sector.
 

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently celebrated its 100th mission with a flawless launch of a PSLV from Sriharikota. No mean feat, as for ISRO it all began just 37 years ago when, in 1975, it launched India’s first experimental satellite – Aryabhata. In an exclusive conversation with B&E’s Kumar Buradikatti, Prof. U. R. Rao, Former Chairman of ISRO and the man behind Aryabhata, recalls how he led his team and heralded India into space age
 

B&E: Who all were there in the Aryabhata team?
URR: In Aryabhata team we had about 250 engineers and scientists. But it all started with a small group in Ahmedabad and Dr. Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan, Former Chairman of ISRO and the Space Commission, was one of them. In fact, many of them were my students. I also had a small group in Trivandrum. They all came. They just said, “We are coming with you.” Then we recruited. Everyday, we conducted six interviews. I even wrote to some institutions and requested them to send two of their best students to us. Many young students came. Some would see the place – an area without proper infrastructure in place – and ask, “Sir, are you going to build it in this shed?” I would simply reply, “Look, if you believe me, you can join me. Otherwise, go back and don’t waste my time. I only have two and a half years to build the satellite and I am bent on meeting it.” I was really changing my life. That’s why I took two years to accept Dr. Sarabhai’s proposal. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai was not only my professor, my guru, but also a wonderful person. We started building Aryabhata in August-September 1972 and had launched it by April 1975. At the time the satellite was being made, the average age of the team was 25 years, and I was the eldest at 40!

B&E: What type of support did the Aryabhata team received from the Russians and others?
URR: As far as Russians are concerned, they gave us a free launch, which was the most important thing at that time. We didn’t pay anything at all. In fact, they even launched Bhaskar-1 and Bhaskara-2 for free. Then, IRS onwards, they started charging us. But a nominal fee, much lesser than what others normally charged. Similarly, for the first experimental communication satellite, Apple, we got free launch from European Space Agency. Second time onwards, we had to pay. These free launches certainly helped us a lot.

B&E: How did you execute the project?
URR: We made a team of three, me being the Chairman. T. N. Seshan, who was the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Space at that time, was one of the members. We were completely armed and decisive. We would just discuss and place the orders. Since we had nothing, we would buy everything, from furniture to expensive machinery. However, within three months we had set up a wonderful laboratory! Everyone said that it was wonderful and they wanted to come and see the place. In fact, many internationally renowned personalities, including heads of all space agencies, visited it. Even all Prime Ministers, from Morarji Desai to Indira Gandhi, and Presidents visited the laboratory. Everybody thought that something strange is going to happen and cooperated wonderfully. I also gave a list to MIT and NASA headquarters and said, “These are the things I need and it’s up to you figure out how you can help me. But I don’t have much time.” Every evening, I would get a box! Seeing this, some would ask as to how I was going to pay them. I would simply reply, “I won’t pay them. I have friends across the globe and they are helping me.” Everything went like this.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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"Our competitors are... good people!"

Life for S. D. Shibulal, CEO & MD, Infosys Ltd., hasn’t been particularly smooth since he took over the helm. With volatility in the environment persisting and Infosys’ growth engine hitting a speed bump, Shibulal is under severe pressure to bring in numbers that cheer the market in the short term. However, as he reveals to Virat Bahri, Editor, B&E, these pressures aren’t on his priority list

B&E: The Infosys 3.0 transformation was launched some time back. Where do you stand with respect to its impact on your numbers?
S. D. Shibulal (SS): We have completed our strategic transformation. ‘Building tomorrow’s enterprise’ is a framework for innovation and co-creation. We organised ourselves completely into global industry verticals with new leadership in place. The strategy is in place, and we have a new structure and new leadership in place. We are purely in the execution mode. At the same time, where we started the transformation, we were coming out of the high of 2009; the environment was much more stable. Today, it is much more volatile. So actually, there are some delays in realising the benefits of the transformation; but we are confident that in the medium to long term, we should be fine. In any kind of transformation, you look at early indicators, but receipts are getting delayed. So we look at other early indicators. Traction is excellent with respect to our clients. We have conducted 50 plus workshops on building tomorrow’s enterprise with CXOs. Look at some of the wins we have announced like Atlas Copco & United Laboratories – some of them are driven by our workshops. Airtel and India Post are also driven through our innovation process. We have built a $380 million TCB on our products and platforms, which is a very strong booking. It is a new and different business. In a KPMG survey, we were ranked the most innovative in India. A recent Forrester report has also completely endorsed our strategy on IP & asset-based service portfolio.

B&E: There are challenges in the short term in your key verticals. What is your outlook?
SS: Retail is doing well for us. We are very well recognised in the digital market – digital commerce & social commerce. We have a SocialEdge platform for social commerce, a BrandEdge platform for marketing solutions and a TradeEdge platform for international business. We have strong service as well as IP capability in that space. Retail is growing above company average. Manufacturing is another industry where we are seeing very good traction and mostly in the business and IT operations space. Harley is a good example of that and so is Syngenta. In manufacturing, our wins are driven by the drive for efficiency in operations as well as IT. Financial services remains an area of challenge, especially capital markets. We have a higher dependence on financial services, where revenues are not going up. There are regulatory problems in a volatile situation and there is an enormous amount of focus on cost. So we continue to be challenged. In the Energy and Utility Communications Services provider space – there the segment in communication services has been an issue for us. Now we are increasing our investments in wireless and cable, where the spend is happening. So we expect medium term gains.

B&E: Critics lament your focus on margins, which make it hard to grow. How relevant is that?
SS: One thing you must remember. People link price and margin directly. Margin is a reflection of the company’s aspirations, philosophy, efficiency in operations, how do you manage, et al. So onsite-offshore ratio will impact margins. Utilisation will impact margins; the pyramid structure will impact margins. Currency will impact margins and so will portfolio. Some services have higher margins. Even client choices impact margins. We should delink the two. Everything that we do is to meet our aspirations. Our aspirations are to have above industry average growth and to have leading margins. I am having this margin conversation for the last ten years, or even longer. There is no guarantee for the future. But with our new focus areas – building tomorrow’s enterprise, balanced portfolio, global verticals, increasing consulting and system integration, products and platform strategy – it’s all going to meet our aspirations for the future.

On the price front, we are quite flexible. You have to look at your portfolio and your strategic clients. You don’t walk out of a deal with a strategic client because price does not meet by say 50 cents. Today our industry verticals have full flexibility with respect to pricing decisions.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

 

IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman

ExecutiveMBA

“There are certainly more drivers apart from price”

Dr. Manish Gupta, Director – IBM Research, India asserts that innovations for the Indian market aren’t only about bringing down the price points

B&E: IBM has been driving a lot of R&D activity from India. What is your view on reverse innovation potential from this market?
Dr. Manish Gupta (MG): I am not parochial in this regard. I am not claiming that innovation will only happen here, it will happen in all parts. I feel that cost is just one aspect, and we in India often make the mistake of equating innovation with low cost. A lot of times, people talk about how can you bring down the cost. That’s only one form. In our work, we have seen several different drivers for ‘reverse innovation’. They can be related to the scale and price point, and they may simply be linked to different needs unique to the Indian market, which does not mean they are necessarily low cost. I prefer to use the term leapfrog innovation for this kind of innovation, where you have to rethink a solution, take a different approach to solving a problem, and then you can apply the same ideas to other markets.

B&E: What drivers do you see that will enable more of such innovation coming from India?
One driver is often scale, which many other people have pointed out. Often, the scale of what you see in a country like India and China is much higher as compared to the US. One example is what our own lab colleagues have done in the context of telecom accounts. As you know, IBM provides the entire IT infrastructure for telecom companies like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone. We deployed a solution in one of the telecom accounts in India I cannot name. We developed a first of a kind solution where instead of having different kinds of analytics applications working on their own copy, of what is call detail record data, we have brought in a streaming data solution. As the data gets generated, even when the data is new, different apps start their own processing. You have the data flow through different applications. While it was driven initially by scale & price point, it delivered some real business value, as the company can now access the same day’s data rather than the four days old data it accessed earlier. It has been pitched to the likes of AT&T, et al.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2013.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

 

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

IIPM Global Exposure
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IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

BBA Institute