Are we staring at the next threat, food shortage ?

“The war against hunger is truly mankind’s war of liberation.” John F. Kennedy

This quote from John F. Kennedy, former US President, highlights the importance of providing enough food to the people of the world under the threat of a growing global population and indirectly tells us to prevent it's wastage. 

Marten and Glorian wrote an article in HBR (click here) in April 2016 discussing  whether planet earth would be able to meet the rising global demand for food. With rising incomes across countries, global consumption of food per capita has increased, especially proteins. The strange question staring at our faces is, will we be able to grow enough food on planet earth by 2050 when global population is expected to cross 10 billion from the present 7.8 billion in 30 years.

Crop yield refers to the amount of crops harvested per unit of land cultivated. Are the crop yields in our country increasing at the same rate as the increase in population, this is a major question we need to address with all urgency. 

What are the major factors that are impeding the growth in crop yields ? Lets have a basic look at some of the reasons ..

• Climate change related urbanisation
• Climate change related water scarcity
• Rise in global temperatures
• Extreme temperatures leading to extreme events
• Lack of investment from government and private agencies
• Lack of advanced logistics, storage and transportation network
• Lack of innovation to improve farm productivity
• Lack of integration among the players in the agri-supply chain

Just like many parts of the world are suffering from static or decreasing crop yields, we find there are some regions particularly in the Northern hemisphere like China, Canada and Russia where we have untapped agricultural production potential. These countries are having large crop yield gaps and large barren lands which could be turned around for agriculture, with the potential to increase the global food production.   

Deforestation-free supply chains look at sustainable modes of supply chains which aim at

• improving the cubic utilisation of present storage warehouses,
• deploying efficient and high capacity transportation modes,
• more orderly and planned distribution channels,
• effective reverse logistics networks

Sustainable Intensification refers to using precision farming tools such as

• GPS based fertiliser dispersion systems
• drone based pesticide dispensation
• environmentally optimised crop rotations
• drip-based and other advanced irrigation systems preventing over stressed utilisation of natural resources.

Investments into agriculture in our budget is way below it's contribution to the national GDP. Improving this investment in agriculture is a sure step to increase the overall impetus on agriculture in the country and be able to ensure food security till the middle of this century.

George

Is one big solution possible for Covid or many small ones ?

Basic steps in Kaizen ..

While going through an engaging article by Prof. Gary Pisano of HBS in the May '20 issue of Harvard Business Review (click here for the paper), Prof. Pisano makes a point by saying that many small hygienic practices like wearing masks, hand washing, social distancing and innovations during this Covid time would actually be better than one large innovation, ie. the vaccine. That got me thinking of the power of incremental continuous innovations or KAIZEN ..

During the Spanish flu pandemic from Jan 1918 to December 1920, the world saw almost 50 - 70 million deaths. That was a time when medial care was sparse, limited and expensive, many of the medical innovations had not been developed. Even to this day, the world has not found ways to kill a virus - we are in square one as we were in January 1918. Alexander Fleming's anti-bacterial antibiotic, Penicillin G discovered three years after the Spanish flu virus subsided, in 1923 is no good for the world now. Should we wait for the big vaccine to be discovered or start with many small innovations, like the hygiene factors, now itself ?

Can we deploy Lean Healthcare to solve this Covid pandemic ?

In any lean system, the first and most important point is to 

1. identify value and map it

2. Ensuring a flowing setup and 

3. Ensuing a system of Continuous Improvement. 

1. Identify Value : We should think of having an inexpensive means of handling the Covid virus. The existing Eastern systems of medicine like Ayurveda, Homeo, Sidha, Unani etc should be explored to address this issue. These systems of medicine are effective in some cases and at the same time very cost effective. Every medical system of the world has evolved over centuries and has been effective in some part of the world, that explains the reason for its popularity in that area. There are some situations where each medical system has been effective. 

These ancient medical systems have got their strong and weak points. In India presently a huge movement is on to see that people are administered doses of a popular Homeo medication by name Arsalb 30, 4 medicines taken twice daily for three days before the virus enters the body. This is to be repeated after a month. These medications are preventive in nature and not curative. It has to be administered before one catches the infection, it builds up antibodies in the human body that can prevent a recurrence.

2. Ensuring a flowing setup : The healthcare has to be in a flowing mode, ie. there should be no delay either in health care or health delivery, no queueing and batching, each patient is handled on a unit by unit basis. 

3. System of Continuous Improvement : The Japanese Toyota system hinges on their Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) setup, which relies on incremental innovation. Small definite, quantifiable improvements over time leads to large cost-effective, measurable, lasting innovations. Even if the Covid vaccine does not become a reality in the next 12 months or is ineffective to different strains of Covid 19 virus, the probability or which cannot be ruled out given that there are ten genetic mutations or variations of the virus already out, following the small innovations religiously like

1. effective hand washing, 
2. wearing masks and 
3. social distancing
4. avoiding social gatherings
5. avoid socialising travel, especially air travel
6. improving immunity by having good food and exercises
7. practicing alternate systems of medicine 
8. practicing yoga and breathing exercises for the lungs
9. finding dedicated spots far from human habitation and water bodies to bury dead bodies

are the many effective solutions in the long run.  In the process of continuous Improvement, we can expect many more hygienic practices to be adopted globally. 

The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 lasted for three years and even to this day, after 100 years, no effective solution to attack a virus has been developed by modern western medicine. Can we expect a similar repeat of the same this time too ?  

George

Busting the myth on Quality tools and Quality culture . .

More often than not, organisations think having a culture of quality usually translates to having quality tools in place, having a quality dept with quality inspectors and plotting QC charts on the shop floor.

What exactly is Quality Culture ??

But in reality, is this the true meaning of having a culture of quality in your organisation ? 

Quality culture is a set of group values that guide how improvements are made to everyday working practices and consequent outputs. A quality culture is, arguably, a set of taken-for-granted practices that encapsulate the ideology of the group or organisation
- www.qualityresearchinternational.com

The 7 tips to creating the right quality culture mindset are given below.

1. Define and outline company values 
2. Train employees in quality culture
3. Seriously Pursue Quality instead of chasing compliance
4. Implement document control Early On
5. Communicate Clearly With Regulators
6. Seek End-User Feedback
7. Use the right tools in the Quality Management System (QMS)
8. Ensuring continual process improvements, housekeeping and safety                                                                    - www.greenlight.guru

In recent research by Ashwin Sinivasan and Brian Kuey and reported in HBR, (click here) April 2014, based on a study on almost 60 MNCs and it's 850 employees, it was found that companies that take a grassroots, peer-driven approach, develop a culture of quality, where employees make fewer mistakes and incur less quality related costs. The distinguishing traits of such an organisation are as given below.

1. Maintaining Leadership emphasis on quality - In the study it was found that in a medium sized company with an employee base of 26,000 employees, a culture of quality results in $350 million less expenditure than a company that does not have one.  

2. Ensuring message credibility - most of the oganisations talk big about the quality culture, most often their actions are opposite to what they preach. Ensuring message credibility increases the commitment from the employees to the quality culture

3. Encouraging peer involvement - taking a leaf from the Toyota Quality revolution, this is understanding that quality is not a top-down concept, it has to come up from the workers directly involved with the work and quality aspects at the bottom, and from peers involved in the work

4. Increasing employee ownership and empowerment - leaving a small and focused set of initially approved quality guidelines, leaving the rest of quality standards adoption and implementation with the employees, helps increase the employee ownership and empowerment to ensure the success of the quality culture.

Taking cue from the Japanese Kanban in terms of continuous process improvements and ensuring high safety and environmental quality standards in the work floor and environment definitely help to instill the quality mindset in the employees.

What organisations need to understand finally is that an organisation should have the quality commitment from the top management, down to the last rung of workers, irrespective of whatever tools, exercises and people it has, it can then put a quality culture in place.  

George..

Why is Covid time the best for Change, Collaboration and Open Innovation ?

Covid time has exposed us to many novel thoughts, experiences, apprehensions, fears and anxieties.

When we experience new ideas and thoughts during this Covid time, we need to keep the following points in mind.

Open innovation is a term used to promote an information age mindset toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate research labs. Wikipedia

Click here for Viima Open Innovation blog ..

Depending on the way in which innovation happens, innovation is divided into open and closed innovation. While closed innovation happens within the closed and self-contained company environment, open innovation incorporates external knowledge into innovation management.

This Covid time is ideal or us to collaborate and overcome the harsh realities and grief of suffering and death while at the same time be able to achieve greater heights in our progress and development of humanity.

As per the Cambridge English dictionary,  Collaboration is the situation two or more people or groups working together to create or achieve the same thing.

How to collaborate : Collaboration should help benefit both the teams and hence the environment should be ideal for perfect collaboration. Some of the points that can help to have a collaborative and progressive environment are given below.

They are

1. Ignore Intellectual Property (IP ) for the time-being - The IP rights holder can share his rights with others and ensure effective utilisation of the product or process for the betterment of humanity

2. Leverage two sided innovation (open innovation) - When innovation takes inputs and ideas from the environment instead of from closed indoors an organisational confines, the benefits to humanity can indeed be great.

3. Need to embrace new partners - Earlier intense competitors can collaborate and come up with innovative products and processes.

4. Situational Urgency leads to transformation - unless humans find a real need for change, change never happens. These times of stress and grief definitely opens up more avenues for collaboration and  cooperation. Technology can help make this transition fast and effortless.

5. Looking ahead into the future - the future holds promise for the growth of humanity. So being very positive about the changes that happen in future for the betterment of humanity, in spite of the temporary setbacks, holds the key to the good future of humanity

Covid is definitely taking us back economically and socially, but it is taking us ahead in technology adoption and environmental compliance leading to safe and healthy environments around us. If organisations across the world, embrace these principles, it will make a big difference in what the world would be post-Covid.

This article has inputs from an article by Linus and Martin, Why now is the time for Open Innovation, HBR, June 2020. 

George.. 

Covid influence on human and societal behaviour . .

Been reading lot of material on how Covid is going to influence human behaviour.

The three areas where there will be significant impact and changes will be visible are

1. Work from home employees increases upto 20-30% of workforce (click here for HBR May '20 doc, 3 behavioural trends that will shape our post Covid world)

2. Growth of single person homes

3. Less personal vehicle ownership and thus less rush hour traffic

4. Less density, in traffic or passengers, customers or houses etc

The biggest beneficiary of this change in human behaviour has been the environment and the animals cohabiting with us on planet earth. The air has become cleaner and we have seen numerous pictures of the Himalayan mountain range taken from distances of more than 200 kms with clear visibility. Animals have been found walking out of the forest into the county side enjoying their new found freedom.

What this entails will be

1. less vehicles and hence less vehicular induced air pollution

 

2. higher usage of internet video and communication/telephony 

3. less spend on office infrastructure and rentals

4. less density of human habitation and hence less stress on the environment

5. faster reclamation of polluted landfills and waterbodies, helping marine life

6. all the above results in better human , marine, plant and animal health

Are these changes permanent or temporary ?

It appears permanent and let us hope it remains so....

George..

Reverse Innovation - a blessing for western nations during this Covid time ..

I have been teaching Reverse Innovation in my Operations Management classes as innovations that originate in the Eastern developing nations and which get popular and is accepted in the developed western nations as low cost effective innovations. The term Reverse Innovation has been popularised by mainly three people, Prof. Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Timble from Tuck School of Business and Jeffrey Immelt from General Electric.

While going through Covid infections and casualities, it is common knowledge how certain Asian and African countries have managed to successfully escape the Covid pandemic. Vietnam, a country of 95 million, has had zero deaths during the past seven months, while Italy, a county with just 60 million has had 35,000 Covid related deaths and a death per million population (DPMP) metric at 579 deaths. Belgium, a county with 11.5 million population in Europe has had 9800 deaths, topping  the DPMP metric for the world at 844 deaths. The DPMP metric in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, China including African countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sierra  Leonne, Uganda etc has been in single digits, while in India it is in two digits. For the developed countries of Europe and US, the DPMP metric is in three digits.  

Why is it that these developed countries of the world have failed miserably while some of the less developed countries of the world have done exceedingly well ?

Another interesting metric worth understanding is R, the Effective Reproduction Number. R signifies the average number of people that one infected person will pass the virus to. <weforum.org> If R is two, one patient passes the virus to two people, these two to four new people, four to eight and so on. 

In China the R value initially was in the range of 2 - 6.6, but they have effectively controlled it now. The city of Mumbai has, over successful containment efforts of the past four months like lockdowns, been able to get an R value of 1.1, which is considered very good, compared to a rate of 1.67 in Bangalore.  The city of London has been able to bring R to between 0.6 - 0.9 while Germany has been able to bring it down to 0.7 by late April '20. (Click here for the WEF doc on R number)

The reason for low fatality and DPMP values in Asia and Africa, cited by doctors from around the world and experts from  United Nations and World Heath Organisation Health is that the people in these developing countries have got earlier experience handling such related epidemics like SARS, MERS, EBOLA, Nile fever and the like and hence could act fast to prevent a recurrence this time.  Is there some thing the world can study from these less developed countries of the East - yes, be alert .. 

The healthcare innovations of low cost prevention and early action that have been adopted by the eastern developing economies can be emulated by developed countries of the West to fight this Covid 19 virus. The Yangji hospital in South Korea for the first time in the world introduced plastic negative pressure booths with rubber gloves inserted through the walls allowing staff to take nasal samples without direct contact with the patients inside, and with an added benefit, without having to wear any Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Plastics pollution from used and rejected PPE is a great source of pollution the wold over, as a fallout of the Covid crisis. In St. Johns Hospital Bangalore, the healthcare professionals including doctors wear a PPE on three occasions of 6 hours each before discarding it for a new set. This is found to be an economically and hygienically safe and sound practice and at the same time, less taxing on the environment through plastics pollution. 

Learning from African countries, US has been able to improve their contact tracing operations. Contact tracing aims to prevent infection spread at the source itself before it spreads to other people. Employing contract workers, US government is now able to utilise the services of 1700 contract workers who make 8000-10,000 calls daily on  quarantine and treatment patients in US in an effort to arrest the spread at the source itself. This is a standard practice bring employed across the world now. 

What are the Covid Reverse Innovation lessons for the developing world ?

1. need for a global mindset to absorb great ideas from the less developed countries of the world

2. need for an open mind to accept innovations and developments that offer simple lasting solutions to tackle daily problems

3. need for people who move regularly between developed and developing and less developed countries are very valued in reverse innovation instances

4. Use national organisations like Community Training Collaborative or local self government officials (in India), to diffuse innovations to healthcare and other organisations across the country

5. Having a central repository with United Nations or WHO of global best practices to fight global pandemics like Covid or any other which are to come in future. 

The world needs to act unitedly and learn from each other to fight this pandemic of Covid 19 and eradicate it from the planet till a safe vaccine or drug is developed to counter it. So far we have relied on forward Innovation from the developed to developing world which is a total failure, now is the time to embark on Reverse Innovation from the developing to developed world.  

George..

With inputs from Ravi Ramamurthy in Using Reverse Innovation to fight Covid 19, HBR, June '20

How has Covid changed Globalisatin ?

We hear that Covid has disrupted the world over the past four months. How has it impacted globalisation ? Have the people of the world retracted or do they still have the urge to go out and take the world head on. This short article tries to understand this aspect of the Covid 19 influence on humanity. 

I am referring to a Harvard Business Review article of May 2020 by Steven Altman, Will Covid have a lasting impact on globalisation, which said that the Covid scare has 

1. brought down global merchandise trade by 13 - 32 % 

2. it has also brought reduction in Foreign Direct investment (FDI) by as much as 30-40% and

3. it has brought down international airline passengers by as much as 44-80%. Airlines were on average flying 90% less passengers on international routes and 62 % less seats on domestic flights.

Covid has brought about some impacts on the international community as can be seen from the below 4 points.

1. Though Covid bought about initial disruption globally immediately after the Covid outbreak in China and elsewhere, of late it has contributed to the healthy growth of international cooperation between organisations. Major global organisations and MNCs like Unilever are now making faster payments to their suppliers to help ease the suppliers problems.  Urgently needed medical supplies in different parts of the world are being delivered faster.

2. There is a debate happening between the concepts of redundancy and reshoring. While international diversification and global economic politics would warrant redundancy, reshoring essentially necessitates fostering self-sufficiency through nationalistic politics.  

3. Fracturing of global economy on regional lines would essentially lead to a more regionalised world

4. During this Covid time we also see great ongoing technological shifts that have been accelerated by Covid influence. An example is the massive personal banking that has shifted to the online domain across the world. Online learning has come to stay in the world as two of the past four months have seen international and national faculty and students taking up to e-learning software like MOODLE to e-conferencing software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom etc..   

Let's hope the post Covid period would bring the world together, allow faster transition and acceptance of technological developments across the world, though the negative aspects of regional thinking and nationalistic sentiments would be a negative factor.

George..