Republic of Animals !

Animals and humans share this universe but humans alone make fun of animals. Scorn, I would say, ridicule too. Have you ever seen any animal laughing at a human? Will that be behaving like us? Humans find it difficult to share things easily with its own species & almost impossible with others depending upon degree of unfamiliarity. Most animal species happily share most of the available bounty with their ilk and others. We humans extensively use animal metaphors to describe our fellow humans. The most common animal metaphor used is perhaps that of dog, cat & lion. Most of us think of themselves as a Lion and others as dogs? Let's see what's popular animal metaphors are there from the animal kingdom. Let me warn you that since its humans who run the show of civilization & creation of languages concepts etc therefore animals are still said to have been living in a kingdom and not in a republic with adult franchise.

Most countries want to become a world power more in military sense than economic. And therefore military has remained a major national asset of the nationalist people. Honey Badger reminds me of the elitist navy seals of USA or other professional killing machines part of military worldwide. Who won’t like the sweet badge of honour for killing in cold blood for enlightened-self-interest? 

Donkey has long been symbol of poor hard working classes who could never get out of the rut of feeding, sleeping, breeding revolving on the axis of relentless back braking hard labor. India is home to world’s largest population of poor people. Large numbers of people are willing to work on assurance of food alone without nay wages. You won’t be surprised that our Hindu nationalist politicians have long discovered that India is shining. The ‘secular’ politicians find India as incredible. Well India surely is an incredible country where vast majority conducts their life according to movement of planets in Sky.

Monkey is generally portrayed as an animal that resemble human race a lot depending upon its various species which is endowed with ability to learn or copy human behavior. You may have herd of folk tale of ‘Monkey & Cap Seller’ in which the trader uses Monkey’s behavior to get back his stolen merchandise from him. Well moral of the story is that those who copy for living would not win the game. A nation that discourages original thinking and promotes conformity by imitating, reengineering, technology, processes and concepts from others cannot become a world leader. It’s illogical to except that a blind follower to become leader, who will he follow?  Regimented society based on group dynamics than individual recognition has no future. It would soon be dead as a dodo.

Dogs are domesticated for their unconditional loyalty. Horse is said to be most loyal among all the animals. Can you recall a famous person who is known as Dog of X-country? Not pejoratively of course. Many people are called Lion of so & so place. Punjab my homeland has a fetish for the sobriquet of Lion of Punjab. CM of Gujarat also is called Lion of Gujarat.  United Kingdom is well known for having cats as pets. Cats are add charm to life by their presence but are not known for their loyalty.

Modern corporate media is like cats, it has no value except to add some color to the business of life & governance in a country. Media no longer resent any editorial control direct or indirect as long as it has healthy bottomline like that of a feline. Gone are the days when a book or story in media could affect amendments to constitution or force parliaments to enact new laws. These days’ cats keep playing around the house without disturbing anyone except those who are looking at them. 

Skill Development & India: Challenges !

Would you like to become someone who is looked down upon in society? Say an ambulance chaser? Just imagine that you have a choice to become a doctor or a fashion designer, and the society you live in accords more respect to a doctor, would you prefer the later route? Besides livelihood people work hard to earn respect of society around them. Can you say I bought a Ferrari by selling contraband? People are identified by their profession and skills so skills are important part of what a person is? Isn’t it?

Government of India has realized that no economic development is possible without inculcating critical skills in people of India. Economic growth based on capital has limitations as compared to skills the capital as resource is less impact on sustainable growth. CK Prahalad & Gary Hemel introduced the concept of Core Competencies into Management literature. Michael Porter, another strategy stalwart, advised many governments to persuade them to build a Competitive Advantage for their economy and companies.  Presence of large number people having knowledge of English language available at low cost provided  competitive advantage to India in the BPO sector for couple of decades. China took few years to scale up their assembly & manufacturing on the basis of manual skills present in the Chinese people. Indian people on the other hand don’t seem to have manual skills needed for achieving success in manufacturing space.

Ustad Ahmad Lahouri a Persian is the architect behind India’s iconic Taj Mahal built during Moghul period. Silks in India come from Karnataka as people have traditional skills in silk rearing & weaving Punjab has grey yarn spinning industry as cotton is grown in large quantities here.  Religious men from Hinduism & Islam claim to predict your future on the basis of their knowledge of astrology etc.  But skills in India have been associated with caste classification of society as per the Hindu belief system. And perhaps the caste system is the culprit for vanishing of skills among the people. Another view is that since the British ruled India for couple of centuries wanted to prepare clerical slaves for the Empire, so they manipulated the education system to produce educated people with just average communication skills rather than preparing masses for vocations as the British wanted to flood the made in UK goods into India.

Well past is past! Presently most Indians prefer to work on white collar jobs rather work with their hands. It’s rare to find a great carpenter or blacksmith in India. Why? Because when a carpenter’s child gets a clerical job then he would not be called a carpenter but a clerk. A clerk or babu is considered a more respectable profession in India as per caste system. Therefore thousands of engineers graduating from technical universities can score exceptionally high marks in written exams but hardly anyone can use hands to fix a machine.  Unless the government addresses the social stigma attached to skilled people not many would be prepared to learn the skills required by India for nation building. India can create national level competitions every month in various critical skills and honor the winners with large sum of money. Higher income can diminish the hurt involved in learning new skills in caste ridden medieval society of India. 

GOI Bans Social Media

Just half an hour ago Social Media has been banned in India. You can't access Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook but TED is still on. Today is a historical day in India when judiciary has shown the gumption to convict a Minister Dr Mayaben Kodnani for her role in massacre of 85 Muslim children & women in Naroda Patiya in Gujarat, India in 2002.Today is also a day of the SC upholds sentence of Ajmal Kasab a Pakistani terrorist involved in 26/9 attack in Mumbai. Text messages had already been under ban for the past week.

I am not sure how to react to GOI ban on social media. The govt must have its reasons for doing so as NE  India has been embroiled in communal clashes for almost a week. Indians are used to all kinds of restrictions and shortages. We take it as part of life and squeeze our-self in the continuously shrinking space for living due to over population.

Social media allows ordinary people to have a voice on issues that matter to them. It is damn empowering tool that scares the shit out of people who want to regulate information. Social media may limit an individual's  social interaction in the real space but it offers enormous opportunity for connecting virtually with global audience. So if you are the only one in your group who enjoys poetry you could go online and share your experience with the connoisseurs.

Career Planning & Corporate Orientation workshop

Career Planning & Corporate Orientation workshop!

Dear Engineering & Management students: We understand that most often you do not get industry experienced mentors to introduce you to various options available for your dream career. We would enlighten you about the job options available in corporate, train you for the interview battles & arm you with ammo required for a rewarding job hunt safari. Classes are planned for Sat-Sunday to fit your needs. Cheers. 

Day	Morning Session	Break	Post Lunch Session
1	Ice breaking & Formal Introduction		Movie on business Management
2	Identifying your personality type		Personality to Industry compatibility- which function/sector would be fit for your type
3	Effective Resume		Attractive Cover letter
3	Preparing for Interviews		Role Play
4	Prepare your Elevator speech		Prepare for war in the interview arena.
5	Professional Etiquettes		Hygiene Factors & manners - Role play and Video session
6	Winning in Group discussions		Feedback and Role Play
7	Voice Culture and impact		Recording & feedback session
8	Social Media Marketing for job search		Social media training session.
9	Contours of Global & Domestic industry		Shooting resume to suitable companies & discussions

                 

                      Course fee:       9500 only

                     Duration:         60 hours 8-10 days [Sat-Sunday]

                     Batch size:       25 participants

We welcome our students to take advantage of our customized Career Spa for selecting a suitable career & winning at the interviews. Video resumes for the fresh graduates are most desirable in the current corporate environment.

Building private self financing Higher Education

Quite a number of self financing professional education institutes are coming up all over India as per the plans of the government to expand this sector to enhance the enrolment from current 13 percent to 25 percent by 2015. Such institutes are regulated by AICTE, UGC and the afflicting universities to check the quality standards. I don’t wish to comment on the effectiveness of the mechanism in this piece as I would like to address the larger issue of institution building.

Generally most businesses, at least in India, are inspired by the success stories of the pioneers & current leaders of the sector. Therefore when private engineering colleges came up in south India they tried imitating the systems practices of the popular government run institutes. Following the south region, such activity began in North India in late 1990s peaking in the period 2000-2004. Unfortunately most new institutions did not focus on upgrading the value offer over the existing ones as is the normal practice in business but took a narrow profit seeking view of the entire process. Consequently students enrolled themselves at the nearest, cheapest institute with the objective of acquiring the degree without going through the rigor of learning process.

India has been saddled with ever new institutes that showcase work in progress campuses, relaxed classroom environment with security of getting the paper called a degree that promised to unlock the doors of high flying careers annexed through hook and crook. Each new institute had no problem of filling the allotted seats till 2009 so the process kept on uninterrupted. Scene changed after 2009 as even the established institutes faced with falling admission numbers and stagnant revenues.
Large education management groups have deep pockets that enable them to bombard media to create an impression of being a market leader in their region & domain. But the large number of single campus institutes do not have the financial muscles to factor in the media spends. Let us first investigate the reasons of fall in admission to professional higher education in India.

There is a general agreement that lack of academic excellence at new higher education institutes is the prime culprit in driving students away from higher education. It’s followed closely by the lack of new available jobs for the fresh graduates. Some institutes believe that poor branding of their institutes is also responsible for the crunch. These are the points on which there is a general agreement amongst the players. Interestingly all these point to a traditional product led approach followed by people at the helm in these education enterprises.
Most important factor responsible for decreasing admissions into higher education could be traced to stagnation of land prices across India. The spike in land prices during 2002-2007 generated large surplus incomes for the semi urban areas which allowed them to send their children to expensive higher education institutes. Post 2009 there is lull in land prices has forced the households to cut back expenditure on education leading to students preferring low cost diplomas over high cost professional degrees.

Branding an higher education organization in such a scenario requires strategic alignment to the students profile in the particular region. Mass media advertising is great source of recall but has limited value in building an education brand. An intensive institute wise analysis would be required to carve an effective branding. A general list of factors that lead to creating powerful brand is as give below;
1. Infrastructure beginning with the entrance
2. Quality of the staff & faculty
3. Proximity to the centre of industry & trade
4. Curriculum & quality contents in classroom
5. Industry interaction
6. Transport system
7. Technology base
8. Global exposure

Business Management & Ethics in the post 2G order

Most of the Business Management-MBA/PGDM- students do not study a full course in Business Ethics therefore the awareness about ethics remain limited & confined to the legal-commercial interpretations under the Competition law. But having quite a few corporate honchos inside the Tihar jail has warmed up the debate in bschools about the need to deliberate on this subject more minutely. After-all what could an executive do if the boss is looking for great results at any cost? On the other hand, lots of greedy executives take liberties with the law & established procedures even without the knowledge of their boss and end up on the wrong side of the law of the land.

Most believe that the ADA group senior execs who are in Tihar jail were completely aware of the consequences of their decisions and have taken what according to them were a calculated risk in business. Regrettably the business environment has changed leaving them with unexpected fallout of their actions. While teaching to students in MBA/PGDM the issue of business ethics & morality generally comes up and naturally you have the majority of the students on the side that is willing to take risks to attain objectives.

We must draw a line between legitimate business and the other economic activities that would result in generating huge profits. I am reminded of my mba days at Punjab University in 1990s when we had a gentleman professor who was known as reputed scholar in the business ethics area, but he was never given much attention by students as we thought that ethics has no place in business! Well how wrong we were.

In a competitive environment  people are willing to live for money & associated greed and in pursuit they are willing to take risks. Some people are forced to cross the line under pressure from the superiors in an organisation. Though putting up a hoarding or banner of your company at an authorized place may not look to be a serious illegal act but selling expired medicines in new packaging is surely criminal.

At Apeejay institute, Dwarka, New Delhi i had this particular colleague from the finance area who idolized Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parikh etc. He admired Reliance industries' actions of hobnobbing with the governments to affect policy changes that bordered on getting an unfair deal. And Marketing, my area, is generally seen as the realm of the evaporating truths.  But i have always maintained that one must abide by morality & laws to achieve our objectives without infringing any laws of the land and the society we live in. Its time we discuss Management Ethics in greater details in the bschools in India.

Online Free Marketing Management Lessons for MBA/PGDM India

Some of my students have been asking me to use the social media for study of Marketing Management for MBA students in India. Well let us begin today! But i would not not be posting any lessons unless asked particularly & also would write in brief only. But it goes without saying that you could ask me anything under the Sun on Marketing Management in India...and you would get an answer to the best of my abilities.

What would you gain from this interaction? Firstly, how many of your MM faculty has industry experience? Secondly how many of them share industry data in the class room? Do they ever go beyond Philip Kotler, wonder if most even understand that standard text book? Moreover how many are tech friendly? and have a blog? Enough said about they way i handle Marketing Management.

Firstly let me clarify that i do not agree with the general trend they way MBA students opt for specialization in Marketing Management in MBA course. You would agree that it has become a practice that students with higher grades go for Finance major whereas less bright go for Marketing. Marketing management has become the favorite course of the wimp, and thats the problem. In fact  Marketing management graduate need to know finance as well otherwise s/he would not be able to make profitable marketing moves.

How to select a proper specialization is a million dollar question for the students in the mid course. And the job is not over once you have opted for Marketing Management. Because you need to learn to appreciate that the application of Marketing would vary depending upon the product/service you wish to market. B2B marketing is whole lot different than B2C. Theory of Marketing Management may remain almost same but their would be several finer points that a student must understand. Marketing in a growing economy like India may not have an actual customer relationship focus as you would see in the mature markets. Even the way the business activity may be organised on different lines. Therefore when you select Marketing major please take the next step of gravitating your studies around your select area of work/career. Once you have decided, and you must decide, to pursue a career in consumer durables, FMCG or B2B then focus on the working of corporations in that field only. Begin with the local market and go on to the global scene.

Philip Kotler texts are very basic that you would need to supplement with regular visits to industry websites, cases, discussions and workshops. Go for Marketing so that a we could have iconic Indian brands, and home grown fmcg companies with effective distribution networks.

What you must learn in an MBA

When the name of the department of commerce & business management at Punjab University Chandigarh was changed to the University Business School it was considered an exercise in ‘marketing’. ‘Marketing’, in India particularly, is understood as an additional activity of hyperbolic nature. MBA is still taught in many [most] b-schools in India as another commerce course.

An MBA student wishes to learn about the ‘business’ scenario around her/him so that they could develop an understanding about it. Most MBA classrooms can be heard discussing myths about industry that has no relevance to the actual shop floor. You have scores of MBA graduates who have never written a business/marketing or financial plan in a class room. The first and foremost part of learning in an average MBA program is to develop skills to write a plan. Though plan writing is mentioned in the syllabus but the student never gets a chance to learn it.

Knowledge about the industry in the local & global context is very crucial. I have met many MBA students & teachers who have heard about the TATA, Reliance & Bhartis of India but have never bothered to visit their website or care to read the reports to find the crucial numbers. A student must understand how various corporations work so that they could prepare to deal with them.

The functional approach in MBA should be mixed with sectoral knowledge. What I mean is that discussions about a particular sector of industry are necessary to develop a deep understanding about it amongst students. Why should a student learn about FMCG sector if s/he is aspiring to join durables industry? Agree that all knowledge is good but let us first develop understanding about one’s own domain before spreading thin into another plane.

Generally it is seen that beyond few management institutes others places do not study about b2b and the industrial goods industries. This results in lack of appreciation amongst the students about this important sector that discourages them for joining it for a career.

MBA/PGDM course seems to be losing its attractiveness in India due to factors that are controllable if the owners, managements and faculty care to look seriously at the quality of the the content in the class room.

How to select a right b-school for management education?

When a student decides to pursue a career in the corporate world first challenge confronting her/him is to select a suitable institute/bschool. Obviously the IIMs remain the preferred choice if one could qualify the test. Though all IIM grads may not have a great career but they are the one to make it to the corner room in the corporate arena. Following IIMs are the business schools established in the reputed universities like Punjab University Chandigarh and Delhi University etc. Thereafter there are large number of private institutes & universities claiming to make you a ‘real manager’ and the student is confused about which institute is suitable for her/his career. And every year thousands of unemployable students are produced by numerous institutes.

I meet & guide several students to select a suitable place for study. First let me share with you the criteria that students follow to select an institute? Students tend to favour old established institutes as those have been tried by several people in the past. Secondly it is the location of the institute. If a b-school is located in or near a major town or industrial belt it comforts the student aspiring for placement. B-school size & infrastructure comes third in the list of factors having a bearing on student choice. Media coverage in terms of advertisement also plays a crucial part in influencing a person.

MBA/PGDM is management degree that aims to prepare a person for a career in corporate world. Therefore what you know about trade/industry and the processes would increase your chances of finding suitable employment.  Therefore first thing an aspiring MBA/PGDM should consider while opting for a particular bschool would be the expertise of the faculty. Faculties are the machines that introduce & prepare you for a truly good career. If the faculty themselves have corporate and/or research experience it would be able to transfer that skills & knowledge to the prospective managers. So when you select a school first of all meet the teachers and find out if they have significant industry experience and understanding.

It is the quality of the teachers & curriculum that prepare you for long term success rather than infra and the age of the institute.

Why MBAs lack aptitude for management ?

Despite large quantity of MBAs coming out of various institutes & b-schools the industry generally bemoans the shortfall in supply of trained professionals. Why do the new MBAs lack the industry relevant skills to enhance their employability quotient? Reasons are many fold encompassing syllabus, non-availability of teachers, lack of exposure and a general absence of aptitude.

The students who join the MBA & PGP courses are not to be blamed only; it is the manner the course curriculum is delivered. Firstly MBA cannot be taught in group settings alone as it is against the basic principle of adult learning. Students coming from different backgrounds must be taught separately. The lack of exposure of the teachers to the business complicates the matter further. Therefore the teacher ends up teaching MBA students as if they were doing some accountancy or economics studies. Lecture after lecture continue without learning about the industry and business domain.

How could a student study the marketing of passengers’ vehicles without knowing the name of major players and the product mix? Umpteen numbers of teachers discuss Coca Cola Pepsi etc in the classrooms without knowing the turnover of these companies. We, the teachers, must bring industry knowledge into the classroom if we wish to produce a student that could be employed in some industry.