Supply chains and sustainability ..

These days any talk of supply chins is no complete with some discussions on the sustainability of these supply chains. More frequently than not, we tend to talk of supply chain practices only by the main player, but do we insist the suppliers to these main manufacturers or service providers also follow the same practices ? We fail in checking these practices and that is the main failure of the upply chain.

Recently while going through an article by Veronica and Dennis in March '20 issue of HBR, (click here) this issue was very much highlighted.

The authors did a study on how the suppliers of 3 MNCs were following sustainability practices mandated by the same MNCs in the supply side of the supply chain. Unfortunately it was found that the sustainability practices mandated by the main cos. on their first tier and second tier suppliers were not being followed. An example was how major companies like Apple, Dell and HP had to incur the wrath of the public due to financial, environmental and social sustainability risks from their first level (nine suppliers) and second level suppliers (twenty two).

Even though first level suppliers do try their best to stick to sustainability concerns, the second and third level suppliers fail very much. It is attributed to the low levels of control and check exercised on the lower level suppliers (the riskiest elements) due to the very uncommon demands on cost optimisation and faster delivery enforced on these low level suppliers. 

Effective strategies practiced by these high level; suppliers on their low level supplier fall into basically four classes, 

direct 

    ensure min 7% of procurement spending by top level suppliers on low                 level suppliers

`  ensure annual checks to ensure that lower level suppliers do stick to these         standards

    Mapping the connections and inter dependencies of these lower level                 suppliers to asses the possible risk of these lower level players

indirect

collective and 

global

 

A Design Thinking (Reverse Innovation) exercise to enable mobility ..

As part of Reverse Engineering of a movable chair for the physically handicapped, paraplegics, Prof. Vijay Govindarajan of Tuck School of Business has reported a very innovative wheelchair for the paraplegics. As part of HBR;s offering on Design Thinking this product was discussed in great detail in the book. 

Developed by the Global Research  Innovation Technology (GRIT) from MIT and Continuum, the wheelchair  is a great example of Design Thinking.

Click here for the HBR article by Amos Winter and Prof. Govindarajan, HBR, July '15.

A very revolutionary and cheap wheelchair design has been proposed by the MIT Design Lab to enable wheel chair patients around the world. There are about 40 million paraplegic patients around the world who do not have access to wheelchairs and of these 70% are from rural areas who do not have access to the expensive wheelchairs in the market, costing about $400 apiece..

A paraplegic is one who is affected with paralysis of the torso, legs and pelvic organs ..

Paraplegia can occur after a spinal cord injury. It's caused by damage to the vertebrae, ligaments or disks of the spinal column. Paraplegia is the loss of muscle function in the lower half of the body, including both legs. Rehabilitation, medication and medical devices allow many people with spinal cord injuries to lead productive, independent lives.  Source : Appollo hospitals, Chennai. 

Click here for more details from the World Design Organisation (WDO) .. 

 

 

Some of the advantages of the Leveraged Freedom chair are given below.

 

1. Safety - long wheelbase, cheststrap, seatbelt and footstrap

 

2. Cheap to make and repair - the cycle is made from parts that are found in any village cycle shop

 

3. Less tiring - energy required to get the wheelchair moving is not very high as the tyres are made of rubber

 

4. Faster and all-terrain - the chain and sprocket drive train of a standard bicycle and the hand levers help users generate 38% more speed on flat terrain and 53% more torque to cover rough roads

 

5. Versatility - the levers can be removed, thus making it comfortable for indoor use.

 

6. Supportive backrest - helps users to bench press the levers adding more power to the lever movement

 

This wheelchair has been  designed with the final customer in mind, his physical and economic limitations. This makes the wheelchair design a Design Thinking exercise where the ideation phase has given the great possibilities and features in the wheelchair, all at a lower cost.

Recently in the Design Thinking class which we have at our school, I discussed the Freedom chair exercise in the class. I encouraged the students  to empathise with the paraplegics of the world and to come up with additions / enhancements to the Freedom Chair with cost constraints.

I am enclosing the relevant top ten suggestions which may be included in the product in future.

1. Elevation adjustment
2. hooks on the body to hang bags for patiients
3. to ensure stability two wheels at the front
4. mostly women enter with kids. Addition of a barrier / body rest for the baby too
5. chain with hand pedal
6. accupressure points on the foot and hand pedal to ensure better health for patients
7. replace chains with wires as chain can corrode and fail
8. design rear pockets on the chair for patients
9. front and rear light reflector
10. dynamo based lights that can burn with movement of wheels

These suggestions have come from Tejus, Niharika, Greeshma and Ankit, students of the MBA sem 4 Operations class.

George..

 

Design Thinking in startups, Uber Eats ..

Design Thinking has been successfully implemented in startups and Uber Eats is one such application. 

Design Thinking involves five steps

1. Empathising - sitting with customers, users, parters etc will help give one an idea of how the present product or servicve offering is not helping meet the customer needs and preferences
2. Defining the problem - there is no better way to define the problem than by living and trying to understand the customer's problem. It helps to understand each step of the food ordering and food preparation process from different perspectives. In the process, the different visible and invisible actions in the process are understood.
   
3. Ideating - Uber Eats encourages all internal and external stakeholders to take part in the ideation process, to look from different perspectives and angles, trying to come up with alternate methods and processes for carrying out the tasks. Virtual Restaurants and Pooled deliveries were outcome of such ideation proces.
4. Prototype rapidly - Most Popular Items was first proposed by Toronto unit of Uber Eats. They believe in the principle to fail fast and improve rapidly from those failures
5. Test and Validate - if the testing done does not actually show the necessary results, it is the time for cross checking and revalidation. If it is not successful in spite of rechecking, start again.

Click here for the Forbes paper on Design Thinking ..

 

What we can learn from Tesla ?

 Tesla is the world leader in Electric vehicles. It not only did EV but before it started selling EVs, they actually built charging stations across the US and the world. How did that strategy help Tesla ?

It went ahead of the competition. 

Now other EV manufacturers are trying⁰ to partner with conventional gas stations asking them to put up their chargers. In US there are 1,60,000 of these conventional fuel charging stations while only 4000 EV charging stations. 

By 2022, global EV manufacturers plan to roll  out 500 EV models, do all of them have the needed charging stations ?

When a customer buys an EV, the first thought that passes through his/her mind is does the co. have enough charging stations across US or the world ? It is called Range Anxiety. 

For EV manufacturers it is a chicken and egg story, customers do not buy EVs unless there are enough charging stations across the country and companies do not want to build charging stations across the country unless there are enough EVs moving around. 

With each EV having it's own charging instrumentation and protocols, the race ahead for the EV manufacturers is going to be pretty dim, unless they come up with common charging protocols and instrumentation that would benefit the industry as a whole. Will the leader Tesla, agree to a common charging protocol and infrastructure for the sake of the sector or will it try to dominate the market. At present the second largest player in the US EV market has only one tenth the number of charging stations as Tesla.   

Can all other EV manufacturers gang up against Tesla and start their accepted standardised charging platforms? 

Hemant Bhargava et al , Jan 21 HBR (click here) mentions of the strategic advantage Tesla has over EV manufacturers of the world in terms of the charging infrastructure. 

Will this advantage take Tesla to great heights, we need to wait and watch. Will the other competitors gang up and force Tesla to a cornet in terms of coming up with a standard charging infrastructure and battery sizes and capacities.

george.

Are governments giving enough attention to ESG norms ..?

World over we find over the three month from April to June '20, about $80 billion have flown into funds that care for the preservation of the environment. About $30 trillion assets  across the world are defined and directed by Environmental Social Governance standards. It no doubt tells us that across the world, corporates and organisations are re-looking at sustainability and governance standards and guidelines to ensure a brighter future for the future generations that will inherit planet earth. 

While going through the article in HBR of Jan '21 by Jennifer Grenville titled "ESG Impact is hard to measure, but it's not impossible" (click here), the author is trying to tell us how global interest and attention is bring directed to environment and sustainability aspects and how investors are putting their money into those ventures that care for the environment.

But what should we really do in this case ?

1. Need to have measurable metrics - Anything that gets measured, gets managed. For example measuring the Carbon footprint was an effective way for countries to raise awareness of carbon pollution and measures to contain CO2 emissions are being carried out across the world with the help of International organisations like UN. . Even if we can list them there is a chance that it can get managed, eg. checklists. But if we do not list or measure the outcome, we are bound to fail miserable the war against environmental pollution.

2. Measuring the easily monetisable, but missing the valued - like reducing Carbon footprints and Carbon emissions but missing the more important dangerous impact of the manmade emissions on the ecosystem, the pollination enabling bees, the earthworms that aerate the ground, the algae that oxygenate the water and so on. 

3. Announcement of global recognition - Elon Musk a week back came out with an all important announcement of a prize money of $100 million ( a Nobel Prize is just $2-3 million) for anyone who develops the best Carbon capture technology. This is bound to improve global research across academic institutions and research labs to find efficient ways of Carbon capture.

4. Zoom in closely in areas where concerns are being raised - For example, Nike violations of environment and employee welfare measures across the world led to Nike taking proactive action to save its reputation and at the same time the immediate environment and the lives of its employees across the world.

5. Zoom out for the bigger picture - As an illustration, HBR research shows that by 2030, world fresh water usage will increase by 40% due to increased urbanisation and population. By looking at the bigger picture we should be looking at new research that can reduce the usage of fresh water or increase availability of fresh potable water. Desalination or moisture capture technologies can definitely help in this regard. Similarly renewable energy generation, Carbon capture, effective waste treatment, responsible urbanisation etc are interesting areas to work on.    

6. Looking beyond profit maximization to serving society - Most businesses globally are only concentrating on maximising profits unmindful of the environmental impacts of their actions. Instead organisations should look at the bigger socio-economic environmental impact to assess the situation well. 

George..

Carbon capture technology prize from Elon Musk for $100 million ..

Elon Musk, the world's richest person, tech-preneur, founder of Tesla, SpaceX, Hyperloop etc has announced this $100 million prize to anyone who can bring an effective technology to capture the atmospheric Carbon that can reduce or help contain Climate change. . 

The next threat facing humanity is scarcity of pure drinking water, potable water, expanding urban spaces, waste disposal, increasing traffic congestion in urban spaces, controlling growing global population etc.. 

If humanity can think of ways by which we can clear just the air we breathe and water we drink and use for our daily purposes, the world would be a better place to live. 

Alex Rau et al writing in HBR Jan, Feb 2010, Can Technology really save us from climate change, (click here) mentions that Clean tech has from 1996 to 2007 followed essentially a path as given in the picture. There has been a clear lag of three years from innovation to implementation stage. From about 160 patents in 1996, the number of patents has increased to 1600 in a span of 10 - 11 years, ie. almost 10x growth. In the same time span we find, the implementation or installation of new wind energy installations also increased to 25000 MW from 2500 MW, this happened with a time lag of approximately three years.

The above data shows when a surge in innovation happens, there will be a successful implementation phase with a lag of 3 years. Also every 30 months, ie. 2.5 years, there has been a doubling on clean energy implementations in the wind energy sector. It may be too early to comment on something like a Moore's law for Green technologies (Gordon Moore, '65, the no. of Transistors on a Silicon chip doubles eighteen months), but the trend shows that very soon we can propose something similar. 

Considering the pace at which clean technolgies are growing, very soon some organisation or individual will be able to collect the $100 million prize money (which is just one in 200th of his wealth as of Jan '21) from Elon musk and thus make the world a better place to live. 

George..

Creating a Kaizen culture - of Continuous Improvement ..

While being busy with our daily chores where ever we are working, most of us forget the fact that in the rut of daily decision making and performance issues, we forget to keep tab of improvements that need to happen at our workplace. The Japanese and specially Toyota brought this to the fore with the concept of Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement. 

We need to make Continuous Improvement part of the DNA of organisations. 

Managers mostly talk about it but fail to practice and implement it on the shop floor. Managers generally lack the commitment to implement Continuous Improvement on the shop floor.

What greater way to promote this concept than by practicing it on the shop floor. At Alliance University, Bangalore, we have the good practice of getting interested Professors research and present initial findings of their research study with their colleagues in the department for the feedback. We do this activity once in a fortnight in the Operations area in Alliance School of Business and shortly plan to get this working in other areas as well. Just a small step, but we are sure in the long run, it will help improve the teaching and research output from the area. 

Arvind Chandrasekhar of the Ohio State Fisher College of Business and John Touisant in their HBR article of May, '19 speak (click here) of the 5 steps that can help organisations sustain a culture of Continuous Improvement in the organisation. 

1. Include TPS in succession planning - this is done so that lean practices are not forgotten once the initiators leave the organisation. Ensure that the successors are well aware of TPS and Lean principles

2. Installing lean behaviours in managers at all levels - leading with humility and putting them through training frequently, insisting on managers or doctors in hospitals practicing Genchi Genbutsu, as front line warriors going to the problem area and seeing problems and issues for themselves to come up with effective long term solutions identifying the root causes, engage in huddles to solicit discussion of problems seeking solutions etc.. Implementing 5S or orderly work place management and implementing policy of reducing wastes etc can be very effectively implemented o the shop floor.

3. Practicing and creating one's own success stories -  very frequently, instead of mentioning about other success stories, it creates better impression if one has their own success or failure stories of lean practices and continuous improvement to highlight. 

4. Finally establishing a Lean TPS operating system in the organisation by institutionalising Lean Implementation and Continuous Improvement across the organisation, giving frequent training to employees and motivating even small successes and dissecting failures to understand what can be avoided can result in establishing systems that last and bring value. 

Not being complacent and not resting on one's laurels is the guiding light to ensure success for Continuous Improvement in the organisation. 

George

How to be more effective and productive - the power of To-Do-lists ..

In Total Quality Management, keeping a list of activities and tick marking each of the completed activity as and when it is done is a high potential quality improvement activity that has been accepted by management experts around the world. 

Keeping a list of all activities to be completed for the day has always been a big hit with me as I tend to accomplish more things daily when I have the list of activities ready at hand and try to accomplish them step by step.

When all the actions used to hit our heads, I first started maintaining list of daily activities to be done that day;. I was exposed to this idea for the first time by my b-i-law Jiji Thomson IAS when I used to visit his residence in Alleppey.  I asked him how he could do so many things in a day, he replied that he maintained list of activities.

Later on I finished Engineering at Trivandrum, went  to MRF Arakkonam, MRF Goa for jobs, and Goa Engg College, got immersed in jobs, that I forgot about it. 

I noticed the power of keeping lists of activities and checking each of them out as a very effective habit when I used to do it regularly at Goa Engineering College. Before we used to go out for the long vacation, may be for a week or a month, there were lot of official and domestic tasks that needed to be completed before we could go ahead. 

Whenever I have specific time limits to accomplish tasks, like Friday evening or start of vacation period atCollege, I started maintaining the to-do-lists. 

Click here for an interesting HBR article of August '20 "Conquer your to-do-list with this simple hack" on how to prioritise between activities in your to-do-list. It talks of dividing the activities as being important and urgent into four quadrants and attacking them systematically. 

Total Quality Management mentions Check lists as an essential ingredient of the 7 most important TQM tools. 

I am reminded of an article by Eric Larson in HBR in March '16, "A check list for making faster better decisions" (click here) wherein he mentions that decision making and target setting are the two important tasks managers do, day in and day out. 

Eric Larson in his above article mentions that managers on an average make about 3 billion decisions every year while they also do goal-setting. Using to-do lists helped managers make be more effective in decision making 90% of the time while goal-setting helped only 30% of the time. The study on about 500 managers, showed that only 2% of Managers around the world make use of tools like to-do-list for making effective decisions, of which 90% do turn out to be really effective decisions. 

We have heard of the moderately effective and popular 250 year old decision making tool, Writing Pros and Cons, popularised by US President Benjamin Franklin, which has got its own limitations as most of the time one does not get to know all the required information to help make a decision. . 

The human tendency while carrying out decision making in situations of high uncertainty tend to be predictably irrational, exercising cognitive bias that prevent us from making the best decisions most of the time. Though technology in the form of Enterprise software has come to our help with the right processed information in some of the cases, most of the time, Managers have to make decisions with incomplete information. The article stresses the great importance and impact of check lists or to-do lists in managerial decision making. 

George.

Can software be a competitive edge ?

 In the Digital Economy, is software a competitive edge ?

Mostly in this digital economy, we believe, it is the hardware and people that make a difference. But Jeff Bezos of amazon holds a different view. He believes that more than the technology, hardware or the people, the ability to make changes into your system and how you can get these changes fast to the customer that can actually differentiate the winner and the loser.

While referring to HBR of Jan ‘21 the article by Jeff Lawson, “In the digital economy, your software is your competitive advantage” (click here), made interesting reading.

“Our business is not what’s in the brown boxes. It’s the software that sends the brown boxes on their way,” he told us. “Our ability to win is based on our ability to arrange magnetic particles on hard drives better than our competition.” - Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.

Most of the companies but software from software developers like TCS, Infosys etc, but the advantage these companies will have if they start developing software themselves can be tremendous.

Building software in-house means programs can be perfectly tailored to the unique needs of your organization. Instead of begging Giant Software Co. for a new feature and then waiting months or even years to get it, you spin up a team of in-house engineers who get code into production in a matter of weeks, or even days.

1. Involve engineers in strategic problem solving and decision-making. Give them a voice in shaping the future of the company, and the freedom and autonomy to be creative.
2. Instead of giving ideas or tasks to developers, assign practical problems to work on ..
3. Develop an atmosphere of accommodating and encouraging failures before success can happen
4. Save time from writing code to execution ie. helping in execution of working production code. Be fast in writing, checking and implementing codes and putting it into work.
5. Keep software developers in close touch with customers to know the customer pulse, that can help them write excellent codes.

What additional steps can great product or process companies do to keep their organisations world class ??

The Digitally Transformed world ..

Most of us get confused by the various digital terms Digitization, Digitalization, Digital Evolution, Digital Revolution and Digital Transformation. (I am engaging a class on Digital Transformation for MBA students and am particularly concerned on the differentiation of these terms).

• Digitization is the movement from the analog world to digital world, as to when I started using digital calculators instead of the slide rule around early eighties.
  
• Digitalisation is about applying digital technology to existing processes, for example using Google pay to pay my milk and vegetable vendor.
• Digital Evolution is the intentional choice of a business to rapidly accelerate their organizational rate of digital adoption and change measured over time, through the simultaneous creation, renovation, and marshaling of digital products, alongside the creation, flexible reinforcement, and agile maturation of their platforms and infrastructure.- endava.com
• Digital Revolution is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to digital electronics which began in the latter half of the 20th century, with the adoption and proliferation of digital computers and digital record-keeping, that continues to the present day. - Wikipedia
• Digital Transformation is the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology. - Wikipedia

While carrying out my research to understand the concept of digital transformation, the work done by Prof. Bhaskar Chakravarthy of the Fletcher School of Business Tufts University and colleagues particularly caught my attention. This work was published in Harvard Business Review in Dec '20 (click here).

Prof. Bhaskar and team have plotted about 90 countries of the world on a 2 D chart with Digital Evolution momentum on the x axis and Digital evolution state on y axis, each measured on a scale from 1 to 100. They divided the 90 global countries into 4 groups - Stand Out, Break out , Stall out and Watch out.

Stand out countries have shown good growth of digital technology adoption and have also shown good growth of digital technology acceptance (includes countries from North America, Far east and middle east) while the Break out countries included countries mainly from Asia and South America who exhibited limited infrastructure but great commitment of political leadership to bring in massive change in the coming decades. India and China are included here.

Stall Out countries on the other hand have established digital infrastructure already in place but not the commitment to bring in traction in growth over the coming decades,probably due to a phase of maturity and saturation having been reached. The Watch out countries are the digitally backward nations who are both poorly placed in their present digital infrastructure as well as the commitment to improve the infrastructure in the coming decades. 

While the Standout countries constituted 15% of the total 90 countries studied, Break out countries constituted 35%, by far the largest, Stall out countries were about 21% and Watch out countries constituted the remaining 29%.

Nigeria < Digital Evolution Momentum  < China - a measure of the societal and (political) commitment to Digital Transformation over time.

Ethiopia < Digital Evolution State < Singapore - a measure of the existing digital infrastructure to promote Digital Transformation over time.

The author wishes to bring in a new term called Digital Evolution Index which is a reflection of the strength of the present digital infrastructure of the country and the willingness and passion to continue in the same path. It is the product of the Digital Evolution Momentum (measured on a scale from 1 to 100) and the Digital Evolution State (measured on a scale from 1 to 100).

Accordingly the extreme points on this index are 

Singapore        5194    (53 x 98)

China               5332    (86 x 62)

United States  4320    (48 x 90)

India                2961   (63 x 47)

Ethiopia            882    (42 x 21)

Nigeria             784    (28 x 28)

This measure of the Digital Evolution and hence Digital Transformation is a quantitative measure of the commitment and resolve of countries towards Digital Commitment in the long run. This index could be used by International Financial Agencies to finance countries for their Digital Transformation and to rate nations internationally for their commitment to future growth.

George..

Collaborating with competition ..

Usually when we have competition in the area we work, everybody tend to be secretive about it, doing things behind the scene so that the competition is not aware of your actions and plans. We take extra care in snooping on what the competitor is planning to do and try to get what his immediate and long term plans are. If it is a product  company we tend to look at the new product releases in the market by competitors and see how it affects our position in the market.

But in some sectors the competitors can collaborate or cooperate, help to build the market and within the market, compete with the same players with whom one has collaborated in setting up the market. We call this process Coopetition. 

An article in HBR When should you collaborate with the competition (click here) by Graham Kenny Jan 2021, speaks about this coopetition process in Australia, how the wine growers and Avocado growers collaborated in the initial stages decades back to educate the consumers about the benefits of wine and Avocado and later with an increasing aware customer base, compete in the same market to get a share of the market.

This strategic move can help create new markets, till now unknown and unexplored.

A similar exercise was undertaken by Amazon with the introduction of their Personal Assistant Echo dot in the India market by 2017. A customer base unaware of the product and how the AI product could change their life, underwent a series of informational campaigns by Amazon through the print and electronic media to educate the customers. 

Once the customers became aware of the technology and industry competition understood the potential of this new AI contraption that could slowly change the way humans interact with machines, Google through the Google Home, Microsoft through Cortana and Apple through Siri have also entered the market and are competing with each other to get a share of the market. 

George..

Blockchains can bring about real technology transformation ..

Don Tapscott and Ricardo Vagas (click here) have given an excellent example through an article in HBR of Jan /21 of how the Canadian Utility Alectra with IBM and Interac have used Blockchains to ensure the customers become prosumers and are able to decide their power purchase patterns to effect savings in costs. In turn Alectra also would be able to ensure there are no sudden surges in demand from customers ensuring that the energy generators are not overloaded and does not trip off frequently, thus saving money in the bargain.

Our increasing AI usage - beneficial or not ?

We all are enamored by the mention of the word AI, but are we fully in grip of the potential AI can make in our lives. Why are some of us afraid when there is a mention of AI, while others are upbeat when they hear the word AI.

I have been trying to find out the many AI apps I use in daily life and have been successful to a limited extent. 

The basic purpose of this exercise is to create better AI awareness in the society and for my students, so that they are better prepared to face AI when it hits us with all might in the next 5 - 10 years.  

Are AI apps harmful to society and humanity in general in the long run or are they beneficial to humanity in reducing boredom, strain and wasteful effort ?

To prepare oneself for the AI revolution, it makes sense to know how many AI apps are we using presently for which processes.

• Email replying - Google AI
  
• Searching to get better and relevant search results - Google search AI
• Spam filter - Google AI
  
• Email sorting (smart email categorization) - Google AI 
• Google Maps - Google AI
• Google ads - relevant to my search - Google AI
  
• Google doc - grammar check - Google AI
• Convert from speech to text - Google AI
• Translate from many languages to other languages - Google Translate
  
• Facebook photo upload - suggests friends, Facebook AI
• Image editing - Faceapp AI
• Image editing - Prisma AI
• Online shopping - products suiting my taste at Amazon - Amazon AI
  
• Chatbots at SBI, HDFC 
• Music search and playback at Amazon echo dot - Amazon Alexa AI engine
  
• Music search and playback at Google Home Mini - Google AI engine
  
• Washing machine at home - Haier, Fuzzy Logic
• Website building - Leia app
• Chat companion - Replika app
  

I am constantly trying to find different areas of AI application. Will keep updating this list. I am yet to find an AI financial app that can help me manage my finances well.

George.

Great learning from Covid for Management in the Indian context ..

It's been almost a year since we have been living with Covid virus around the world since the virus erupted from Wuhan, China on 31 December 2019. I remember how during the first week of March, we did a role play in the MBA second semester class in Alliance University Bangalore on the impact of Covid virus around the world. (click here), totally unmindful that the virus would bring global life and activity to a standstill for almost eight months..

After almost a year I happened to interact with my friend and colleague in a reputed Indian tyre manufacturing company on what has been the most interesting and important learning from Covid during the past one year. My interaction with this Plant Manager overseeing installation of a tyre plant in Western India during the Covid time has been very educative and enlightening ..

1. Productive use of time : Collaboration and meetings through MS Teams has brought down lot of unnecessary travel, meetings reducing wasteful time and expenses, leading to higher productivity of managers, engineers and field staff. 

2. Confidence Booster : The experience during this Covid period though challenging, has been a morale booster, helping improve confidence in our own staff than depending on foreign and domestic consultants.  

3. Better Digital collaboration : Project Management is not the same again. We have learnt what were the reasons for project delay and how digital collaboration and communication could effect faster decision making. 

4. Lower overall costs : Reduction of unnecessary travel, stay and avoidable interactions have brought down the incurred costs.Project execution costs have come down leading to better overall cost management  

5. Improvement in cleanliness and hygiene : Visible improvement is seen in factory cleanliness and hygiene, leading to better working conditions, appreciation and better input of effort by employees.. 

6. Better safety standards :   Covid has brought about better awareness and practice of improved employee safety standards both from health and occupational safety perspectives

7. Green standards : There is overall better appreciation and awareness of green standards related to the environment, lowering pollution levels, lowering air and water contamination and improved personnel safety.

8. Permanent changes : Changes are here to stay : whatever changes have come about over the past one year is here to stay and improve the shopfloor and overall organisational management

The industrial workers and leaders will benefit a lot from these new hygienic practices and learnings in the future ..

George        (thanks to Saji Varghese, (ex-CET ''90) Plant Manager, MRF tyres for sharing his understanding and insightful thoughts on how Covid has positively influenced the chemical industry and worked positively in improving productivity and worker efficiency in Indian industry)

Transitioning the company from product to platform ecosystem ..

Nathan Furr in the April '16 HBR article (click here) talks of how to move from a product based company to a platform company and the related steps, relevant issues and challenges.

Maintaining a product based company or moving to a platform, which is better ? Moving to a platform would naturally invite many external players and in turn increase the revenue streams for the company from the many different products that run on the platform. 

Generally tranisition from product company to a platform based company would involve three stages. 

1. internal product R&D and external complementors
   
2. internal product R & D and blended complementors and community management
3. hybrid business model management

We can take the example of Google Youtube for illustration purpose.  

Initially in the first stage, Google saw to it that the internal R&D developed the system well enough to mke it robust anbd agile to accept different formats of video  and resolutions. During this stage they also helped introduce other complementors who brought in viewership to the Youtube video hosting platform

The second stage involved Google subjecting Youtube to more R&D improving the resolution and compression technology of the videos to save on valuable bandwidth during playback. The collaborators in compression technology now become internal to the company with the free platform being opened to organisations and religious institutions to beam, their live events, making it  a community wise much accepted medium of communication.

All this while Youtube developed the revenue streams by offering ads at the beginning and between the videos at fixed time intervals. 

The third stage involved how Youtube started offering Youtube Premium that generated revenue streams for the company by charging Youtube customers and Google Home customers, for a small monthly fee, ad free viewing.

Youtube Premium like Amazon Prime generates committed customers who would not migrate to other video streaming business models. It also helped Youtube create massive first mover advantage and an unassailable lead over competitors in the video streaming ecosystem.

George..

Winning factors in a Multi sided Platform Model ..

Multi sided platform models are catching up these days.  

 

Click here for the Sloan Management Review link, Leslie Brokaw, May '14

1. Aim for volume

2. Aim for Economies of scale

3. MSPs are a chicken and egg proposition

4. Answering strategy questions are  vital to success like

•    how many sides will  be part of platform
•    what should the platform design be
•    what is the pricing / is it free to one side ?
•    what governance rules are need to ensure fairp[lay among participants ?
  

5S quiz, EPGDM sem 4, Jan 2021 batch.

 Pl click on this link and answer this quiz.  Click here..

For the answers click here ..

George.

Building and Managing AI powered organizations . .

Most large organizations talk big about their AI initiatives,  but fail in managing these initiatives well. We know of small organisations that want to implement AI, but find the AI initiatives are too expensive and hence is beyond the reach of the common industry or organisation. It is indeed a fact any organisation would need AI intervention only if it becomes unyieldy in terms of operations.

While reading an HBR July 2019 article in this regard Building the AI powered Organisation, click here, the authors Tim Fountaine, Brian and Tamim Saleh, have tried to understand why AI projects are generally not as successful as other industrial projects.  

 

The AI area as the cutting edge technology breakthrough that will influence how cognitive work gets done in future, will contribute about $ 13 trillion this decade from 2021 to 2030. The authors while working with thousands of executives in the cutting edge of technology were frank enough to admit that only 8% of them are engaged in research and applications in the AI area. 

The following three points the authors feel can help organizations running AI projects turn successful 

1. Inter-disciplinary approach : Instead of a siloed approach, promoting inter disciplinary collaboration 

2. Data driven decision making mindset : From experienced and leader based decision making to data driven decision making mindset and 

3. Agile, experimental and adaptable work environment : From a rigid and risk averse setup, moving to an agile, experimental and adaptable working environment 

The authors of the paper also feel that for successful AI launches in organizations, attention should be focused in the following areas.

1. Explaining to the stakeholders as to why the AI project is necessary 

2. Anticipating unique barriers to change, workers fearing losing jobs 

3. Budgeting equally for integration and adoption as spent on technology acquisition  

4. Balancing feasibility, time investment and value - investing in projects that are tough and time consuming initially can sabotage project success 

AI projects like any other projects need effective and refined project management skills to be successful in the long run. In the initial stages small AI projects that are easy to implement should be taken up before attempting ambitous ones.

 

Daniel Newman writing for Forbes in Feb 2020 (click here) stresses on why one needs to focus on the positives of AI adoption than on the negatives and job losses resulting from AI adoption.  

 

As we know, 

• promoting automation, 
• augmenting human based decision making and 
• enabling AI promoted improved awareness of the environmental context in which we live        are three areas where AI apps can benefit humans. 

Usually we find it hard to do repetitive tasks like washing. Using the washing machine eliminates the hard work of washing clothes for humans. The whole washing cycle is programmed in the washing machine making it easier to finish the washing without bothering humans. The advanced GE-Haier washing machine helps by telling the amount of detergent and the length of the washing cycle, all the while using optimal quantity of water. Earlier these were human based decision making processes, now replaced by the AI fuzzy logic capabilities of the washing machine. 

Future applications of AI in our normal lives will find AI assisting in helping the workers in engineering construction site or in potential hazardous environment being warned by sensors of the inherent danger, democratising healthcare making it possible for patients in remote areas have access to high quality medical care year round,  helping the aged age in their own homes safely and being reminded by alarms and sensors when to take medicines etc.

Humans while not allowing AI to have the upper hand, should incorporate AI into their daily lives that will make our daily living and business tasks more enjoyable, safe and interesting.

 

George (Image courtesy Forbes)

Impact of AI experiment on Chinese students . .

Preparing tor the management classes that are coming up from Monday 4 Jan '21, the new topic of Management of Artificial Intelligence and its varied impacts, besides being advanced is at the same time challenging too for classroom discussions. 

Placing headbands on school children's heads and monitoring their concentration levels with 3 sensors,  one on the forehead and 2 others behind the ears to help monitor concen6and attention spans is in itself a draconian exercise. Why ?

 

Wall Street Journal in October '19 came out with this very controversial video. It shows Chinese school students with headbands attending school.  Click here to watch the video ..

Watching the video, educators around the world are besides shocked, very alarmed at how Chinese school students are being made the items of experimentation. What will happen if in future these students are adversely affected out of the experiment and develop adverse negative reactions and are unable to cope up with adolescence and adult hood peacefully ? Inside the class, the willingness to concentrate or not is personal. Having a machine through sensors individually monitor each student all the time in the class is no doubt, invading student privacy.

Some questions that arise in our mind are the following : 

• Do we really need such monitors to constantly keep track of activities ? 
• Will the improvement in productivity and performance be compensated by the deterioration of mental health ? 
• Will it result in a sort of phobia for machines and AI in children that could develop into mental health problems for future generations of children  ?
• Will it cultivate a slave mentality in children compromised at the altar of high academic grades ?

Variety is the spice of life. The inherent variety and diversity in class student performance adds flavor to school performance . If all students consistently give high academic achievements and performance,  where is humanity heading to ?

Is successful life solely dependent on one's academic grades ?

Will this experiment have any long term impact on mental health of the students or into the future into adolescence? Has any initial experiment been done to assess the long term impact of this experiment on students  ?

On the face of it, the study appears very wrongly oriented, planned and timed.  The world would be very interested (if and when China discloses it), in knowing the immediate positive and negative impact of this experiment on student population and on the future personality development of these students. 

George ..