Konnichiwa to the Land of the Rising Sun!

In the last company I worked for, we had an office in Tokyo, the beautiful capital of Japan. I usually got chance to interact with the Project managers, colleagues sitting in the Japan office and must say they are so beautiful people to friend up with, always warm and welcoming. That's from where I learnt the word' Konnichiwa', meaning a Hello in Japanese from one of the colleagues-cum friend. That's Japan, intelligent, intellectual, cultural, and hospitable.

But after taking a much needed off this Thursday, I reach office on Friday (March'11'2011) and google the latest news to realize that Japan has been struck by a massive earthquake measuring 8.9 on Richter scale, with a Tsunami warning. I remember just few days back also I saw a similar news saying Japan was hit by ab earthquake of some 7 richter scale(if i'm not wrong). To be honest, I couldn't frame out how intense an earthquake of almost 9 richter scale can be. By the time, I'm out for a luncheon with colleagues at 13.00 hours IST,  I watch people, stewards, all glued on the news channels streaming videos showing how Tsunami has hit Northeastern  island of Japan.

Japan - the land of the Rising Sun. Japan or as the Japanese call it - Nihon, is one of the culturally rich and one of the most wealthiest and technologically advanced countries in the world.

People of Japan have lived so much to the fact that they belong to the LAND OF THE RISING SUN, that they actually get up and defeat any event that tries to knock them down. So, true, the Land of the Rising Sun, where people actually rise to the occasion whenever there is a need. 

Today, Japan is again challenged by nature and we are all pretty confident that together can and they will again rise to the occasion and show everyone what makes them been called the people from the Land of the Rising Sun. They will rise, and get up again! That's Japan! 

And, this time they are not alone, the world is all with them, because we know what Japan can deliver and are confident that it will beat the heat it is facing post the Friday's devastating 8.8 Richter-scaled earthquake, one of the largest, that unfortunately also triggered a massive tsunami. 

Japan's geographical location has many times  been frequented with earth-quakes, and this is because the Japanese island is located in an area where many continental and oceanic plates meet. And, the people of Japan live up to this fact. They have been prepared always to defeat this natural calamity everytime it strikes them. Back in school, I used to read about the ways the people of Japan build their houses and belongings to curb the quakes. Japan's preparedness to beat this natural calamity has been outstanding. It has been in the past and many times, have faced massive earthquakes, and they have all raised themselves  to the occasion and turned life to normalcy.

Not just the natural disasters, the fact remains and the world still salutes the spirit of Japan when they actually resisted the biggest man-made disaster in the worst war ever fought on the planet. World still salutes the spirit with which Japan overcame the aftermaths of Hiroshima Nagasaki nuke bombing and made the world realize their spirit  when at once everything was thought to be over for Japan. I can bet each and every nation and the beings that know about the Hiroshima Nagasaki disaster still salutes a hats-off to the people of Japan. This island country on the pacific ocean has built themselves up as the world's one of the most powerful economy and culture. 

There are news that this unprecedented natural disaster has moved Japanese land by 8 feet. We also have been hearing the news about the blast at one of the nuclear reactors, and the leakage from them, as few generators supporting the reactors have stopped working post tsunami waves. The nuclear radiation and contamination is now a big worry for the island nation post tsunami-quake, and the nation, along with the globe is already concerned. As of now, the people  and the government's strength and courage in fighting the aftermath is amazing .

I don't know if any Japanese may be reading this, but we, the world, know and are sure of the fact, that alike past, Japan will surely defeat this unprecedented natural disaster. And please do note you're not alone, We all stand with you. the people of Japan and We support and salute your spirit to defeat any calamity that strikes you. Just like you have done in the past, everyone on this planet is  all sure of the fact that Japan will again emerge and rise more prosperous and strong nation than before. I (just another mere human being on this planet) am sure many people from  every corner of this planet have good wishes for you in their prayers, because we believe you have proved and  you are the people from the land of the Rising SUN, and will RISE just like the beautiful sun rises AFTER dark! Globe's wishes are always with you!

Making a Blunt edge!

Mood: Business Practices

Archie Andrews has always been my favorite comic strip. We have all grown up reading comic strips, watching cartoons. I still remember, my train journeys from one place to another wasn't without a comic book. But, I recently read in a journal about MBA studies abroad as how these strips can teach us Business practices. 

I wondered how funny, and then I kept thinking sipping my hot chocolate at around 3am at a wintry night all packed in my blanket  yester-night. I had in front of my eyes, all the examples, that I have learnt from people around me & known to me, including a vendor to a friend who has started his own venture. According to what i have been thinking, it's looks so damn simple fact that best Business practices can be learnt from our day to day life happenings or what we see.

If you imagine even the baddie villains we watch in a flick can also be picked up as a best example for Business practices! A wicked looking person we see in Mission Impossibles. They all carry an entrepreneurial imperatives to extremes. Ultimately, a villain (keep aside bollywood movie gentlemen) can be a person who says "Do hell with ethics, I'm gonna bend it my way." They actually start out with a good dream, but then end up with methods that are repugnant.

Example of one Anaconda movie, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid that was showing up on HBO. the guys start with a good intentions to find an orchid flower, but then one of them just goes blind and crazy, keeping aside the life of his own so called colleagues & friends. 

So, what does it says? Its simple if we actually give it a thought. It says you did start up with a good theme, but then you lost yourself in midst looking out for profits, despite the fact that you knew it wasn't the right way to get it. The Spiderman movie, where the person looses control over his own machine on his body. It's just like the way few business practices growing wrong.

Business Administration can be learned from any1 you see or are impressed with. And, we don't just need to follow just the success stories, but also the failure stories. Even the happenings in our life may be a perfect example of Business practices & administration.

Now, can you imagine, how just a thella of a vada-pav sellers, has evolved them into an entrepreneur & starting a chain of outlets!! Richard Branson, for example never started a business with a deep-strain knowledge of it. He just gave a thought & wanted to do it. Just planned a little strategy of connecting to people & there he is, way too ahead. Ratan Tata has taken an almost out of market,Tata name to every household, not only in India, but also in United Kingdom. It's all about how we learn & look at things. 

Now we do know how Apple has always evolved around one person, Steve Jobs. When not being in Apple Co., he himself started the Pixer Animation, a never-miss-name when it comes to entertainment industry. Apple just didn't exist without him. And, when he was back in Apple Co., they are for-tuning their glory.To raise on what I have been pointing, Steve Jobs himself says his idea logy of Business is actually derived from his favorite band-Beatles!He says his model for business is the Beatles- "They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people."

BPL Mobile, have been hearing this name from as long back as 7th grade, when I even didn't know about mobile phones & pagers were still in existence. This oldest Mobile operators in India unfortunately have failed to make a mark, despite being the best operator & brand in India's Commercial capital-Mumbai. It all started when Rajeev Chandrasekhar returned back from to India with his idea & started the company when he was just 27. He almost revolutionized mobile operations in Mumbai, and consecutively, India. But then, today I don't own a BPL sim card, because it probably failed to make appropriate business practices & the one time smallies at that time like Airtel ramped the mobile operations in India. They all turned a huge success, but BPL Mobile failed to capitalize on what it should be credited for in India. BPL Mobile now named as loop mobile, is searching for markets & many probably even fail to know what it is. The one time success story for mobile operations is still fighting the market with other giants.

So, how can a simple Vada-Pav seller can beat the heat of the fast-food joints in it's area whether it's McDonalds or KFC to make its presence felt, what BPL Mobile could not, despite being the starters in their own race? How simple mere common men from little known hamlets are making it big in our neighborhood streets by just selling Vada-Pavs or Pav-Bhajis.There are many such examples to watch on the suburban financial streets of Mumbai & Ahmedabad.

A lot of companies complain about factors like recession! All, what I think is, factors like this do not really govern your business practices, because even if it is a recession or it is not, people don't stop eating, people even before recession never wanted to have 2 televisions at one go. Recession can obviously a factor, but it shouldn't be the excuse, because there are businesses that still did run well even during recessions.

 It's all about how they time their entrepreneur ideas, which they have learnt from life and have actually practiced. Wooing clients is just a big bullshit. If people are not happy with what you serve, how will you woo the clients & keep increasing them? The Confectionery store from where we have been ordering our sweets in festive seasons in Ahmedabad from a decade, have slowly transformed their shop into outlets, and now I see their advertisements on national news channels. Its about the way they time, the way they consistently keep the quality of what they serve, and then, at last, the way they try to keep their 'clients' lists increasing.

Marketing a product is only possible when people actually like what you have. So, why Sacha hullaboo over marketing? Companies hire marketing professionals to woo & increase clients, and this just makes me laugh out. I mean a lady calls me from a bank & asks me to buy their credit card, she keeps trying to please me buy it, & when I deny, she just keeps the fone down in a very shrewed way. So, even if i ever agree too swapping  credit cards, that bank would not be in my list of probables for sure. Marketing is about being true to your product and your clients. Working on its drawbacks, and not about selling them in actual.

So, if companies want to define marketing as something they want for wooing clients and increasing the list, they obviously shouldn't name it as 'marketing'. Marketing was all about making your probable clients know what your product is all about, its features, how it can help them. But, this is not the way for obvious. 

With all the examples I have been seeing all these years, I certainly believe each and every business in the world reaches a phase where they can dominate a certain market and are on their highs. It does happens in every business practices. It's at that very point, that the business administrators must not play with the quality & only look for profits, by thinking that they are now on a dominating score. Nope, it's very then that you are actually & unknowingly are destining your business into doom. They may earn some marginal profits at that stage, but in a bigger scenario, they are all waving for a steep fall. 

It really shocked me, when a steel giant like Ispat group faced heavy losses & closed down their plants near Mumbai. And, now the news is, they are taken over by Jindal Steel Works. Ispat has had the best staff in the industry, they had the best mechanism, they had the required torque to sustain themselves in the market. But, still, how could they have a fall? It's more to do with the way we actually look at our business. Profits & losses are a part & parcel of any business practices, but then the attitude that you carry to towards your business is the most important phenomenon. Ratan Tata, obviously stands as a big example. Despite having a very talented team, he seems to be handpicking & looking into every venture he gets into personally. It's not a magic wound for anyone big or small, else the globe would have never seen a Gates, nor any Ambani, nor Mittals. 

Business or anything related to it, starts with the idea we actually want to do, if we are talented in it & what are our demerits. that may wound down our business at any stage. Patience & delivering to the needs 'with a smile' is main essence to be gulped down, that's what i believe. Whether. it's a person coming from a small hamlet & starting a thella or a person with an adequate financial capital to venture into one.

There was a time, when Rajasthan saw very less railways connectivity. The only option to reach quickly to even it's mega-towns like Jodhpur & Bikaner was through roads. The state roadways buses where obviously never thought to be luxurious & affordable people faced a lot of problem traveling. It was then, that a famous bus travel agency opened up with brand new  & luxurious buses. It was instantly a hit. But then, after few many years of dominance, it started losing it's market. More to do with new agencies coming up & the arrogance they were up with their services. the fares would change constantly. It soon lost a elite class bus agency tag amongst the masses to a new bus travel agency, which only had the same bus fares round the season & believed in better customer satisfaction & time-to time picking up & drop. Today, a large section of people from financial city of Ahmedabad to Udaipur prefer traveling through this agency, because of their timely services( because still the railway connectivity between Ahmedabad & Udaipur is a narrow gauge slow line & flying to 250 kms far Udaipur from Ahmedabad isn't a brilliant idea).

It's an easy saying: 'If you aim for the stars but only make it to the moon, remember there are people who have not yet made it to the moon.' Steps and steps are the only way to reach a destination. we humans obviously cannot fly.My college wasn't a pretty well known they started education, but they were smart to make a name in the elite Engineering colleges' list. They went step to step & catered the best slowly and gradually. They built the first two floors of hostel, and then started building next with growing intakes. It was far more sensible in my eyes than the other few colleges, who built a 5-star look ups, but the education staff wasn't the best ones.

So, when people talk about business and new trends that I keep reading about, all I think is what are they doing, because, the only best thing to do is work on what you have & then deliver it. If you really going well with it, market it, else let your marketing people work on it. 

IT obviously helps a hell lot in business & the way the business is driven. Their is nothing without IT these days, whether even talking to your friend. Now, you do not need to obviously ask people been to Shimla for best hotels in the hill station, if you want to back-pack, Just google or go yahoo and you have the best answers. You can look for rates, you can compare them. So, IT helps in enhancing any particular business practice. Because, in today's world wide web, if you not on the net, you don't exist. In fact, you & your business is not considered one.

Enterprise Resource Planning - I.T.'s gift to Business!

Mood: MIS

Domain: Information Technology

These days, I have this new obsession of sipping Green tea, after a friend pursuing medicals told me it's benefits! Though, not much of a Coffee-tea guy, Green tea has impressed. So, I started my usual healthy experiments with it. In kitchen, squeezing few drops of lemon and ginger into the Green-tea pot, I wondered, if I had all these together, because you may some day have ginger, sum day lemon, or some day not both around you in the kitchen. But, then when I found the Tetley tea bags with all these three at a convenience store & was glad! But, this is not where the story ends, this is where it actually starts.  I understood the need of a Enterprise solution that IT offers.

Change is inevitable, and so is I.T. It's everywhere around us, and is making our lives better and easy. We can do all blah blah blahs.  I believe that the importance of I.T. is actually a result of small challenges that we humans cannot actually solve. Like being at your friend's place when it's his Birthday. There were days when we forgot their Birthdays, but now we have so many ways to remember them. I can't buy a NY Times daily in India everyday, but now I can read them. I mean, we all know how I.T. is working for us. 

The importance of Information Technology in organization is thus also very crucial and this situation is rising with the competitions and business climate that keeps changing rapidly.

Whosoever is reading this already knows that an organization is a hierarchy structure of small entities, that is the specific departments, where each and every department is mutually dependent on each other. These all departments actually combine to make a work-flow for an organization.

So, there obviously is a need to have a single base-point where all these entities can meet and operated and monitored from. 

It can be just explained with the help of our human body. We have a central godfather for all the nervous system and that is our Brain. Here, all the nerves  of departments of our body, that have their own different functionality meets. Hands, Ears, Legs blah!

Now, just imagine if our body didn't have had this common ground called Brain.  How will our body actually work, with no organ actually knowing what the other departments are doing.  They would also not be connected and work mutually. How would we look? 

That's as similar to any business organization that works. A small organization can however, claim that they have an easy communication channel between various of it's departments. But what if you have to grow? What if you have to have branch offices apart from where you actually started? Who doesn't wants to grow, and develop, whether small or big or mid! This is where my green tea bag story comes live again. 

Isn't it good to have all the ginger, lemon green-tea in one small capsule bag? 

 In huge multi-stationed, sometimes multi-lingual industries, this demand, for a single platform for monitoring different branches and departments is high.

This is how I.T , gave birth to the idea of ERP, or the Enterprise Resource Planning. It explains the need of ERP, which is as important for an organization as it is for you or me to have extra nutrients and stuffs to keep yourself fit and going.  ERP is a gift from the ever-happening I.T. world to any business organization from any field. This gift from I.T. is even more precious than it's gift to you and your relations and social circles, where you can actually see, compliment, smile share pains, with you friends living far away from where you're. 

ERP gives organizations much flexibility and scalability. 

I shortly worked as a Product Analyst for an e-Discovery tool making U.S. software firm, where processing data for their clients from the litigation world was a very essential feature. I could notice almost everyday that the increasing market dynamics and high competitiveness presses you to demand faster result, more precise reactions leading to a higher demand of both quality and quantity.

We had legal cases running on our software, where reviewers and lawyers would review loads of data, may be millions and billions for a single case, to fight a legal battle. 

These data would be anything from a simple email to large PDF documents, or even an audio file, and we all know how a single piece of paper or data can be so very essential to turn a case in your favor. Now, a single particular document fail to show up to the reviewer as this obviously there would be millions and billions of documents in for a single case, and how in such a large chunk of data, one cannot rule out a single piece going wild.

A reviewer would obviously not love to see that particular file making him hang for long. So, the process of escalating the issue always had to be very fast and precise for us. 

It was just a small example, but these such very examples exists on large in every organization in any domain or field. So, there obviously needs to be something in the organization system that may possibly recognize, report and correct(if possible).  

Another reason which makes these ERPs more important for organizations is the number of takeovers and economic mergers that has been on a rise since the mid-1990s era, from when the local economies in different part of the earth started going global. (Thanks to the I.T. world again! )

This has led to the constant changes in the corporate structures. Well, we are still in the midst of many acquisition & merger news in India and globe, for example, there was a time few years back when Anil Agrawal led Vedanta group was looking ahead to acquire Cairns India, which may have made Anil Agrawal the Richest Indian entrepreneur, beating Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group. 

This tells us how the global economic arena is shrinking so rapidly. Honestly, I didn't ever know or could realize while crossing the HZL plant while going to the Udaipur airport, that this Vedanta Group may suddenly pop-out and make news. I probably didn't know Agrawal's first name then, or de-facto, a large number of Indian youths still don't know who he is in India

The global economic changes are rapid and are shrinking faster. One organization sitting in India may suddenly grasp a Japanese client, or a Brazilian one.  But then, it is obviously not possible for any organization to hire professionals knowing their job along with Japanese language or Tokyo's economy well. It's impractical.

 So, many many organizations. now need a system which is multi-lingual and which understands multi-currency capabilities.

And, last important factor that makes these ERPS a boon and an essential to boost their  growth and throttle success story is knowing the organization work-flow well. 

Understanding an organization from outside or over viewing it's complete work-flow is always better than seeing it as being a part from within.  That makes us understands the organization's smoothness of work-flow. 

Obviously, I or You cannot really learn or describe and feel how the Earth rotates when I'm myself a very very small part of it from within. Do you realize you and your physical body is actually rotating from the time you where born? Or which side you rotating? East to west or west to east? Do you? It's every single second happening to you. 

But, however, you and me can actually see how the planet rotates when we see it from outside. Then is when I and you can clearly define the Earth's rotation!

(Ahh!! imaginations sometimes help me so much to understand these complex business structures, Isn't it? :)) 

So, having a system where you can see the complete work-flow and functions of an organization. This will naturally help in assisting in building strategies to win this mad mad market race, which is getting big day by day. 

I received a message recently from a close friend on my cell phone where reminded me of Abraham Lincoln( a former US President and a well known personality) stating once ' Work SMART, not hard'. 

Obviously, Now, many won't really be comfortable when I put this along while defining organization, because they all are known to make you work hard out of your skin, but I better put it this way when it comes to the corporate organizations:

 'Work hard, BUT smart , such that Every BIT of your hard work is noticed and doesn't goes wasted,' because you obviously have put in your efforts and no one would love to see his/her energy flooding out to waste.

If we can think that for us individuals, just imagine how important it becomes for organizations as the competition is always there and they don't wanna waste a single work they did!