Meet Padmasri Jadav Payeng, India's Forest man ..

Great selfless task

Jadav Payeng, is the forest man of India. It is great to learn about this villager from Assam who on his own enterprise went on to plant 1360 acres of forest.

Click here for the news link on the Forest Man ..

 

Click here for the video on Jadav Payeng ..

 

Over 37 years he singlehandedly   planted the forest, which presently is being inhabited by elephants, tigers, deers, bisons and many species of birds and snakes .. 

george..

 

 

 

Startups and their significance ..

Imagine you are carrying out the following activities, How does it differ from a startup ?

1. Opening a MacDonamld's franchise in Ejipura area in Bangalore.
2. Opening a medical store in near NGV on Bangalore ..

3. Open a small tea shop selling snacks near Sony World, Bangalore.

4. Open a photostat shop near Canara Bank stop in Koramangala, Bangalore.

5. Setting up a small CAD/CAM design and machining centre in Koramangala

Do any of these qualify to be called a startup ? No, Why not ?

ALL processes have infinite potential for improvement

There is nothing new in the idea, people have been doing these businesses for ages and the business does not have any great scope of being scaled up. The scope of providing great value to customers is very limited.

Clock here for a Forbes article on What is a startup ?

What qualifies an initiative to be termed as a start-up ?

First of all we have to understand that it is not looking at a great, new, invention as the output. It can be as simple as a pencil that lasts longer(because of a reinforced pencil lead that does not break..) or a new fuel injector that causes the right mixing of fuel and air in the fuel injection resulting in reduced use of fuel and hence great mileage for the vehicle.

Click here for an Investopaedia article on what is a startup ..

Customers only look for VALUE ..

The first main difference between an ordinary business and a start-up is INNOVATION. Innovation in inputs like new material, innovation in the process/technology or innovation in the output .. Innovation can also be in finding a new use for the same product

The other great difference between an ordinary business and a start-up is the scope of scaling up and growth. Start-ups can be scaled up fast with minimum of inputs and resources while an ordinary business cannot scale up so fast because of limitations of demand, capacity etc..

Try new ideas, fail fast, learn and move ..

Start-ups can be setup with minimum of infrastructure and resources, since it has great scope for growth and scaling up, it will need more resources very soon.

Start-up is all about IDEAS nobody has ever thought of !!

Start-up is about generating more value for the customer ..

Start-up is about fast pace of growth.

Start-up is also about EXECUTION - hardwork and perseverence ..

Google mantra - give more value to your customer ..

With the new mega trend of sustainability picking up and soon set to be a trillion dollar business, the new wave of innovations will be looking at

1. how solid and wet wastes can be effectively reduced, treated and disposed

2. traffic management - reducing accidents and commuting time

3. effective methods for conservation of water

4. low cost, high capacity industrial desalination plants 

5. reducing the carbon footprint of industrial, residential, transportation and domestic activities

6. reducing e-wastes generation and safe disposal

7. generation of energy from renewable non-polluting sources like solar, wind, tidal etc..

8. energy conservation through innovative design and usage of products 

we only wish humanity would come up with novel and innovative ideas to handle man's greatest and pressing problem in the coming centuries, ensuring environmental sustainability ..

george..

Is Uber or Ola car riding services better in Bangalore ?

The two major taxi services in Bangalore ..

Though not quite a regular taxi user in  Bangalore, I do use taxi services by Ola and Uber occasionally, say once or twice a fortnight.

Though an Ola fan for quite some time, of late I have been seeing a slump in the quality of services from Ola. The issue with Ola was the delay in getting taxis from Ola. Though the drivers have not made any difference with me from both these companies, the quality of the service offered by the companies, I found has been wavering. 

The stake holders in the internet mediated riding services industry, though pioneered by Uber around the world, are the customers, drivers (who also are in most cases owners too), the owners, the service providers like UBER, OLA etc who connect the customer with the driver using technology, the regulatory agencies from the government, like taxes, licences, traffic regulation, violation etc, GOOGLE Maps  and the government agencies looking after the maintenance of the infrastructure like the PWD , NHAI etc. 

Of all these stakeholders, the customer and the driver are the two stakeholders who are in direct contact during the duration of the ride and hence are the most important stakeholders. As much interest should be given to the employee or driver as these companies are giving to the customers. 

Customer friendliness : Uber is more customer friendly, both in terms of technology and people. Uber makes its drivers feel more looked after. For instance, when I took a Uber vehicle yesterday, (I was forced to migrate to Uber, as the Ola app repeatedly showed that there were no cabs to take me to Yeshwanpur Railway station from Koramangala Police station area at 8 PM at night), it is my habit to get accustomed with the driver and get into a conversation with him. I feel there is something I can learn from every person in this world, how small or mighty he or she is. Immediately as I got inside the car, I got a message from Uber, introducing the driver to me, telling me of his impeccable record of safe driving, how many hours he has so far logged with UIber and so on. I could also see his personal profile. You should see the pride on the face of the driver when I congratulated him for his safe driving.  

Employee friendliness : I immediately got into a conversation with him and you should see the professional satisfaction the driver was displaying when I asked him how he could keep so high a safety profile. I also asked him a few questions when he explained that he has a family and is not interested in working 16 hour shifts, instead is satisfied with 10 hour shifts and this gives him almost 30-40 K earnings a month. He was a satisfied person. Since his father used to drink too much and cause problems at home, he knew the perils of drinking and was very careful as to how he chose his friends. Most of his friends are from Islam, though he is a Hindu. He was trying to explain to me how because of his friend circle he could keep off intoxication and lead a very peaceful life.

In the course of the discussion the beans got spilled out, why he moved out from Ola to Uber since last eight months. 

Incentives : Of the many reasons he spoke about (I am sure Ola people are keeping track of these facts and will attend to the problems with their offering and offer effective customer and employee competition to Uber), he had lot of qualms regarding the services and incentives offered by Ola in comparison to Uber. Uber offers higher incentives to drivers and has more flexible working hours in comparison to Ola. 

Were it not for GPS and Google maps, Uber and Ola would be
very ineffective ..

Technology Intervention : Both the companies and their drivers are heavily dependent on Internet based apps and Google Maps which guides them through the dense traffic chokepoints of Bangalore city. Thanks to Google, I get to the destination within +_ 5% deviation from the time forecast by Google for the ride. Both these companies should be thankful to Google for the Maps facility and also to the US Government for the providing the GPS satellite for free use by mostly the Uber and Ola drivers as also the private drivers of the world.

Inefficient Transportation Infrastructure and Leadership : As long as we have very inefficient leaders who cannot get us the best mass and rapid transportation infrastructure in Bangalore, all of us will be still dependent on these two companies at least for the next five years to say the least. 

Advanced Renewable Energy Technology : Uber may be looking to reduce its costs by offering electric cars, I hear they have introduced it in a couple of cities around the world, that will be the new technology Bangaloreans can look to experience and savour in the next couple of years, much earlier than in any other city in India.  

My son is an infrequent user of Uber and me having had the first great Uber riding erxperience, Ola needs to be on the lookout, they are on the verge of losing a faithful Ola customer to Uber. Though Ola had an edge initially in Bangalore, of late by taking care of the customers, technology and drivers, Uber has been able to create a niche for itself in the city of Bangalore. 

george..

Decathlon showroom at ETA Mall, Binnypet, Bangalore.

On 23 August 2017, I got a good opportunity to visit a grand retail showroom of the European sports goods manufacturer, Decathlon in Bangalore. The objective was to involve the students from Alliance University in getting to know about the business processes that help world class performance and to to get some ideas on how to achieve lean setup in the organisation.

The cycling section, very impressive

The French sports eqpt manufacturer  has 50 showrooms in India of which 10 are in Bangalore. When I took 60 students of first year MBA of Alliance School of Business, Bangalore for an academic study visit to know more about retail shopping and retailing layouts, little did we realize that we were witnessing a world class retailing environment ..

Shop Layout : In a 10,000 sq ft showroom the manner in which Decathlon had neatly organised the different sports equipments on shelves, fixed and movable, for different sports and pastimes like camping, trekking etc according to the sports classification was really worth observing and learning for the students. While the shelves near the walls are fixed, the shelves in all other places are fixed on castor wheels to enable quick rearrangement of the shop floor layout.

Shop lighting : The lighting across the shopfloor was ambient and nearly perfect, not too high, nor too low.

Passion : Employees display great passion for the sports area they represent - A great observation we could make out was the passion each of the showroom personnel had for his or her sports area. Working at Decathlon for these employees is their lifeline and passion. I have never seen any retail shop floor where employees have felt so much engrossed and passionate about the sports equipment they were trying to sell or explain to customers. The large showroom area also saw customers checking out the items and sports equipments on their own on the shopfloor to get a feel of the item.

Footfall : In retail environments, it is usual to have higher footfall on weekends than on weekdays. The fast-moving equipments for the popular sports of cricket, football, basketball etc are kept at the farthest end of the store to ensure customers get to see the variety of items on the shop floor before they select these items and make a purchase.

The Store Manager Ching passionately explaining to students

Low Costs and variety : The most attractive aspect of the store is the low costs for the sports equipments and sports accessories. The great variety of items catering to almost all sports, even scuba diving, cutting across different age groups, is definite to catch the attention of every customer.

Product Arrangement : The items are supposedly of good quality and are arranged very conveniently at arms reach distance to a convenient vertical height, of about 7 feet.

The shopfloor employees seemed to be quite aware of inventory management principles too. One of them was telling us how for each of the rack they have to pay rent and thus they are under constant pressure to improve the returns from the shelf space.

Click here for the video of the interaction with the cycling passionate Anubhav.

The Store manager Ching, an Alliance alumnus was very helpful explaining about the growth of Decathlon in India and its customer centric approach through many live cases. (sorry for the poor audio..)

Sales channels : When some of the students asked the store personnel as to why Decathlon products are not available either on Amazon or Flipkart or any other e-commerce website, the reply was evident of the confidence Decathlon had for the products it was selling. Decathlon wishes to make a mark for itself through its efforts and not to piggyride on either Amazon or Flipkart. The indications are that Decathlon is slowly getting successful in their endeavours to establish online presence in India. Moreover  their 52nd store coming up in the country soon.

Customer Feedback : Feedback has a great role to play in the shopfloor layout as well as in improving the customer experience. Repeat visits from existing customers who come along with friends and family is a great way Decathlon reaches out to large sections of the population.

Wishing them the best in their India operations over the coming years..

This is definitely a retail outlet management students should visit to get to know what are international standards in retailing layouts ..

george..

PS : we wish to thank the management of Decathlon for allowing the students to visit the shopfloor.

Sikka and Infosys ..

The recent Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka's exit from Infosys made great news. What prompted Sikka to take the drastic step ? Could not Narayana Murthy have handled the sitation in a more dignified manner ?

Here are few moves from Sikka (quoted in the press) which Murthy (NRN as he is popularly called) felt ran counter to the popular Infosys culture and damaged it, resulting in the quick and smooth intervention of the founders.

1. Raising personal salary or getting the board to raise his annual salary to $11 million, app INR 70 crores

2. Setting unhealthy precedence by giving a hefty separation bonus to former CFO Rajiv Bansal of app INR 17 crores

3. Traveling to meet clients in chartered planes 

These are some of the allegations raised by NRN against Sikka which NRN felt were against the initial entrepreneurial spirit that got Infy blooming to this scale from a small setup started 36 years before in Pune in 1981.

The culture of extravaganza and splurge initiated by Sikka and team with the resultant loss in social esteem and prestige, NRN felt, was divergent to the values the founders of Infosys had envisioned for the company in the long run.

While Sikka wanted everything to be seen solely though the mirror of financial performance of the organization, NRN raised the plates a lot higher, deviating from the usual run-of-the-mill type of organization, expecting the organization to be a role model for the entire  entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country, upholding high standards of fiscal discipline, fulfilling social commitments and being a global role model in corporate governance. 

NRN felt Sikka had failed completely in pulling his team up to be able to meet, even partially, the lofty goals and objectives Infosys had set for itself. 

Looking at the other side of the coin, the point which NRN completely missed was the level of commitment an employee has towards an organization as different from that of a founder. All employees cannot have the "founder mindset" and work selflessly for the growth of the organization, risking the employee's personal life. The employee is as much bothered of his well-being as he is about the organization he serves.

The case of Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon is an example NRN should try to understand. Though Bezos draws a very modest salary, he ensures that all his employees are paid a bomb. The employees are motivated to give their best to the growth of the organization.  

Bezos understands that money is what motivates his employees. In the final run, indirectly we find Bezos benefits, his employees have made him among the top ten richest people on Earth by virtue of the value of the Amazon stock he holds. The remuneration Bezos gets from Amazon is a pittance compared to the value of the Amazon stock he holds.

The other example for non-interference is from NRN's family itself. NRN's famous co-brother Gururaj Deshpande, the serial entrepreneur, who is known to start great companies in US, like Cascade Communication, Corel Networks, Sycamore networks, Tejas Networks, a123systems, airvana .. After it becomes a roaring success, he used to leave it for the professionals to manage, and set his mind on the next great entrepreneurial idea.. Click here for a detailed writeiup ..

Sikka's exit may not affect the Infosys stock value for long, it is sure to rebound, but the dent it has made in the employee minds of not being an employee friendly organization and of not being a pay master, is sure to pull down Infosys repute and impact it's growth in the long run, though NRN would differ.

It's high time founders keep off and allow professionals to run the organization .. . Is it fair to expect ordinary employees, even 36 years after starting, to have the same zeal, commitment and founding spirit attitude as the founders, especially when Infosys is very cut and dry with initial recruits and looks only for exacting professionalism in them ?

For a CEO, who came from a product based IT co, with almost $20 billion turnover to a process based company, home grown, to the HO in Bangalore, India for just 17 days in a year and prefers to spend the rest of the time with clients across the world, showed a clear disconnect with the founders philosophy and work culture.

Getting the required CEO talent (and not CTO talent as in the case of Sikka) from India or any part of the world would not be a problem at all for Infosys. But it's high time Infosys moved from a sidelined role of IT service organisation to a major IT products organisation and that is where the future and money for Infosys would lie. In future, automation of IT maintenance work would wipe out Infosys, even before any of them would be even aware of the fast developments.

Considering the remuneration of professionals in the west, could NRN have erred in his assesment of the growth of the company in the long run ?

Having quit the organisation and departed from taking active part in the day-to-day decision making processes, should NRN have interfered and made the whole Director board concerned with the fast developments in the company of late ?

The future will tell us who was right and who erred ?

George .. 

Hoysaleshwara temple rock carvings ..

Photo courtesy Alamy pjhotos

Images of rock carvings from Hoysaleshwara temple, Hassan, Karnataka.  

Exquisite, par excellence !! (zoom in for the details). 

Done during 1100 -1150 AD ..

This temple also has the famous pillars which have been exquisitely turned, (the turning process as on a lathe) .. But where on earth did they have turning / lathe technology 850 years back ? Simple marvellous and unexplainable ... Click here to watch a video on how the pillars have been turned ....

Click here for more details ..

The necklaces are not one, but indeed two, so exquisitely carved out of rock with barely 3 mm gap between the two necklaces ..

Lot of unexplained developments, either the Hoysala sculptors were far more advanced than the most advanced CNC machines or robots of today or mankind has taken a lot from knowledge gained 900 years back.

george..

Were it not for the destruction by the Muslim rulers and Mughal emperors,

Frustration and inability to add value, the impact of Lean thinking..

Simple and brilliant illustration of lean thinking..

Frustration is a state of mind when one is unable to add value to the tasks he/she is set to complete.

 
What are the factors impeding adding value to a process or product ? Though the discussion is focused mainly on manufacturing, all the concepts are equally applicable in the services context too.

James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones in 1996 propounded Lean Thinking as the absense of waste either in a product, process or technology. More often than not, waste creeps into almost all of our activities. Though Womack and Jones classified only seven wastes, an eighth waste that has been discussed and researched much is the waste of human capability, resources and skills in underemployment.

An effort is made here to classify the prioritise the wastes for removal according to the impact it has on our society.

1. Over Waiting - Some examples of waiting are given here -

• When a customer is waiting for the delivery of a service, there is a waste of time. 
• When client in a litigation has to endlessly wait for the court to deliver the verdict, there is waiting, which is a waste of time. 
• When morning commuters wait at a busy traffic junction for the lights to turn green, again it is waiting, a waste of time as there is improper matching of demand, traffic and commuters to capacity, the limitation on vehicles that can pass through a lane and speed limitations to avoid accidents. An ambulance carrying a critically injured patient to hospital waiting at a traffic signal can be fatal for the patient.

2. Excess Transport - Producing a resource at one place and consuming it at another place, (in the case of manufacturing) or trying to get the provider of a service and it's consumer at the same place (as in service organisations), is what drives the necessity of transportation across the world. If the provision of a product or service and its consumption can be brought closer, it would totally eliminate the need for transportation. Transportation according to me is the second largest generator of waste in the world.

The crux of the Lean Thinking process ..

3. Excess Inventory - inventory costs on an average almost 30% costs in a manufacturing environment and less in a service environment. Inventory can be kept in check by responding to demand almost every time.
Inventory is held to overcome uncertainties -

• uncertainty in supply, 
• uncertainty in transport, 
• uncertainty in storage, 
• uncertainty in the conversion process, 
• uncertainty in the ability of the work force to add value, 
• uncertainty in customer demand, 
• uncertainty in government policies and what not. 

All these reflect on inefficiencies of the system and are reasons for us to keep some stock of inventory in order not to disturb the value addition process. Imagine how much inventory is piled across manufacturing and service organisations around the world

4. Under utilization of human resources - More often than not we find highly skilled and qualified people occupying less challenging roles in organisations across the world. The skills of the employee are being under utilized, though for a shorter period of time, as promotions and transfers to more challenging environments do take care of such anomalies.

5. Over processing - The next major source of waste is over processing, be it products or services. Be it patients entering a hospital, as a source of revenue, hospitals do over-process or over-treat a patient in the hope of generating revenues to the hospital, though actually it is generating waste. In the process of boiling milk, the pasteurisation process has taken care of 99% of microbes in the milk, still we boil it to kills the remaining 1% bacteria, though it may be an inefficient process.

6. Defects/Reworks - due to poor quality of machines and material, poor skills of workers or improperly maintained work or storage environment, we find lot of waste being generated across the world. Controlling these defects help save raw materials, machine time, worker time etc. We find the workers are more relaxed and focused on the necessary and urgent tasks to be completed.

7. Over production - Due to improper demand forecasts or bull whip effect (amplification of demand), we find production more often exceeding actual demand, generating waste and resulting in unsold stocks forcing disposal of stocks which could turn out to be very detrimental for the profitability of the supply chain.

8. Excess Motion - Needless repetition of a process results in waste of time, effort and costs. Machine intervention works well here, but involves additional costs. For example automation is a clean substitute for needless repetition of motion but entails great costs. The ideal thing would be to do simple work study of the process and eliminate unnecessary and all non-value adding tasks.

Having identified the prioritised ranking of wastes, the study needs to look at finding the priority of wastes for different industrial sectors. Knowing the priorities for wastes it becomes easy for managers to decide where to concentrate their limited managerial and technical resources to extract the maximum benefit from deploying lean thinking in the shop floor.

george..

Ref :
1.  May, Mathew, Its time to wage an all-out war on waste, HBR, December 2012.
2.  Womack,Thomas, Daniel Jones (1996), Lean Thinking, Simon and Schuster, NY.

PS : The wastes ranking has been done with inputs from an MBA student group with limited industrial exposure but excellent practical exposure.