India's four greatest defrauders..

Nirav Modi - Modi is accused of defrauding the Punjab National Bank (PNB) for millions, destroying evidence and witness tampering.

Mehul Choksi - Mehul Choksi, owner of the Gitanjani Group of jewellery retailers, was arrested in Dominica over his alleged involvement in the above-mentioned PNB heist with his nephew Nirav Modi.

Nirav Modi

Mehul Choksi

Ramalinga Raju - Satyam - In 2009, Raju admitted to falsifying the company’s accounts to the tune of US$1.5 billion, and resigned.

Ramalinga Raju

Subrata Roy - Sahara group, The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has also accused Roy of violating securities laws. SEBI petitioned India’s Supreme Court to have Roy pay US$8.43 billion or return to jail, insisting the amount was his outstanding liability.

How to tackle the global food waste ..

Food waste is one of the most cruel and wasteful activities in the world, because daily millions go to bad hungry and the food that could have been take by them is now being wasted. Why does food waste happen and what are the steps that can be taken to avoid this food wastage. We carried out an interesting case discussion at Alliance School of Business Bangalore in the MBA third semester classroom.

According to the Guardian, approximately 45% of all fruits and vegetables, 35% of fish and seafood, 30% of cereals, and 20% of meat and dairy products are wasted by suppliers, retailers, and consumers every year. : Unquote

Click here to read the HBR article How large food retailers can help solve the food waste crisis by Yasemin, Jaideep and Mark, HBR December 2017.

The main points in the above article are given here. Helping retailers tackle the food wastage problem involves the four points as given here.

#1. Upgrade inventory systems with the latest technology.

       Software are programmed input systems in the order in which they are in kept in the shelves.

#2. Partner with farmers in the supply chain.

      Treat farmers as partners.

#3. Modify or eliminate traditional store practices that increase waste.

      Centralised storage does it result in wastage or helps in costs savings

      Product labeling Best by dates are misleading.

#4. Team up with consumers. 

      Higher disposable income with youngsters has resulted in high food waste. 

In the Guardian article on the UN report (click here) of 2017, and quoted in the HBR article, it was mentioned about the stark difference in the food waste pattern between the rich developed and the poor developing and less developed countries. While the rich countries wasted almost 78-95 kgs per head, in the developing countries it was only about 6-11 kgs per head.

The latest Guardian article in 2021 pains a still grim picture. (click here)  It says we inhabitants of planet earth waste almost a billion tonnes of food a year and it is almost 78 kgs of food per person per year.

Based on the above HBR article at Alliance University, Bangalore we had a class discussion. The students have work experience, have finished their internship in top industrial and retail groups.

The students were very much interested in discussing why and how food waste occurs. Why does food waste occur - 

CAUSES : 

1. Consumerism - people tend to buy more than what they need and the excess is wasted, youngsters generally tend to over estimate their needs. Youngsters have more choice of food and tend to splurge on food.

2. Poor infrastructure for preservation - the poor availability of food preservation equipment like deep freezers, refrigerators, refrigerated containers (reefers) and refrigerated transport vehicles leads to food wastage

3. Agricultural management - Planning the growth area, use of good seeds, modern equipments for tilling, harvesting etc.

4. Poor warehousing capability

5. Buffets are a major source of waste unless it be a hotel where the excess food could be reused. Public place buffets result in food wastage.

6. Expensive food portions offered by superior hotel chains tend to waste lot of food items in order to prepare the best and expensive food portions

7. Hoarding is resorted to by the traders, middlemen and consumers anticipating either an increase in prices or fall in supply

8. Arrival of privatisation of agriculture by corporate giants like Reliance, ITC, Tata etc dictates the planting and cropping pattern based on market needs than natural cycle s

9. Non optimised and mismanaged supply chains lead to frequent shortages and excesses at different parts of the supply chain leading to bull whip effect and consequences

10. Mismanaged Warehouses leads to wastage due to climatic disturbances, rodents etc.

REMEDIES

1. Local produce should be consumed locally and excess can be exported leading to low supply chain costs

2. beginning cooperative movements in agriculture like what we have in dairy sector 9the AMUL model)

3. Have a list of items to purchase before going to super markets, do not get influenced by the looks and colours inside the shop

4. Keep a focused mind not to waste  food, waste not, want not ..

The discussion has helped students to understand the problems caused due to food waste, the reasons and the basic steps to prevent it. 

George.

HBR Webinar- Transformation to a post covid world, 21/9/21, 9.30 PM IST

Harvard Business Review

Webinar Details

Accelerating Transformation for a Post-Covid-19 World

Date: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 

Time:  4:00 PM GMT / 9.30 PM IST

Duration: 30 minutes 

Complimentary Video Webinar  (click here for the registration ) 

Executive Summary 

The phrase “digital transformation” often evokes skepticism. That’s because digital transformation strategies can be interpreted as vague and are often misunderstood. For many executives, one of their biggest organizational challenges is lack of a clearly defined digital transformation strategy.

Yet the turbulence of Covid-19 has only increased the need for digital transformation. A recent HBR-AS survey of 522 business executives found that 95% say digital transformation has grown in importance over the past 12 months, and 90% say Covid-19 has accelerated their transformation efforts. Still, only 58% say their transformation strategies have been effective.

On September 21, in a live, interactive HBR-AS video webinar, Alex Clemente will share the results of this recent survey about digital transformation in a post-Covid-19 world.

He will then lead a discussion with Michael Walker of Red Hat and Melissa Swift of Mercer on the impact of Covid-19 on digital transformation. The panelists will share their perspectives on these survey results and will discuss:

• Why Covid-19 has exacerbated lingering transformation challenges
• How to gauge the impact of the pandemic on digital transformation projects
• How companies can learn transformation lessons and turn them into updated strategies
• Why building a collaborative culture is more important than ever in enabling digital transformation

The pandemic’s disruption will leave a lasting impact, but leaders must embrace new ideas to adapt to future transformation challenges.

For insights on how your organization can modernize its digital transformation strategy to accelerate transformation, join Red Hat’s Michael Walker, Mercer’s Melissa Swift, and HBR-AS’s Alex Clemente on September 21 for Accelerating Transformation for a Post-Covid-19 World.

Participants in the webinar : 

Alex Clemente
Managing Director, Harvard Business Review Analytic Services

Michael Walker
Head of Open Innovation Labs and Transformation Services, Red Hat

Melissa Swift
US Transformation Leader, Mercer

Todd Pruzan
Senior Editor of Research and Special Projects, Harvard Business Review

Study visit to a Nandini milk collection centre in Anekal, Bangalore, India.

It was a great visit this morning, 15 Sept, MBA sem 3 Operations students with Prof. Sajan and myself, to the Nandini milk collection centre in Anekal. Nandini, Amul, Aavin, Aarey, Milma and other Operation White Revolution initiatives are the products of the milk revolution initiated by Dr Verghese Kurien and Sardar Vallabhai Patel from Anand in Gujarat.

In this modern fast world where IT and systems are controlling our daily lives, how many of us have thought of the pain people working in the dairy industry are taking for us, so that we can live comfortably in luxury and comfort. Day in and day out they carry these tasks without fail and ensure we continue getting our supply of milk daily. The cows have sadly entered an age where they are only supposed to produce milk mechanically daily, eat food, sleep, take rest etc and be at the mercy of humans. Imagine the plight of the animals. 

 

It was interesting yet painful visiting the milk collection unit in Anekal, one among the seven milk collection points for Bangalore city. There are 7 milk packaging units like the one at Dairy circle, though not as big, in Karnataka. In a day in the morning shift around 40,000 litres of milk and around 35000 litres of milk in the evening shift reach the collection centre from the different dairy farming cooperatives, properly sealed in 40-litre cans. The cans after unloading from the lorries are manually checked for any contamination, bad smell, odour, by a master checker. This is the first level of checking that happens. 

The second checking happens when the cans are emptied, one sample is taken from each cooperative lot. Milk is usually tested for many constituents (click here for an FAO document) but mainly at Nandini, it is tested for the quantity, organoleptic (taste, smell etc) and quality (fat, protein etc.) characteristics. The test results for organoleptic and quality characteristics are computerised and logged in. Students were eagerly looking for possible areas of digital transformation at the collection centre. 

 

 The milk from each cooperative is strained, not yet homogenised, it may contain buffalo and cow milk combined, weighed and sent to the chiller for cooling purposes at 4 deg Celsius. Based on the weight and fat content, the final remuneration to each cooperative union is calculated and disbursed.

 

Prevention of contamination of the milk cans is a very important part of the milk collection process. The cans are cleaned using chemical reagents to such a great extent using steam from the boilers inside the plant, that there is no way the cans can get contaminated.

 

The wastewater from the plant is treated in the in-house treatment plants to a safe standard before disposal. Getting them to potable quality is an expensive process and is avoided. The discharge is ensured to be not dangerous to human, animal or plant life.  

 

The milk collected, sieved, measured, tested for quality in the morning by 9 am is stored in the chiller at 4 deg Celsius and is usually sent to the Dairy circle Nandini plant for homogenization, pasteurization and packaging by afternoon. BTW, the west German designed and installed Dairy circle plant of Nandini is the second largest in the country after the one at Anand in Gujarat.

 

The milk collection is a process that is happening every day of the year continuously without a break. Milk supply cannot stop. The dedication and efforts of the workers at the collection plant are applaudable and need special mention, the employees are very committed to ensuring that we get the best, hygienic milk in our homes and hostels daily. All the employees were wearing headcovers too ensuring the highest hygienic standards in operation.

 

Milk fat and Solids-Not-Fat (SNF) are important constituents of milk that determine its price. www.nddb.coop

 

Being a highly perishable item, the collection, handling, processing, packing and distribution of milk has to be under the strictest standards of hygiene and quality standards, which were seen in the centre. 

 

The visit has exposed the students to understand the possible avenues of digital transformation and the difference between the people participating in the dairy farmer cooperative milk movement and the private entrepreneurship milk movement in the private sector. It has also helped them get an idea of the need for quality, on-time processing effective material handling and inward and outward logistics processes.

george

Resource scarcity in the green economy

 Consider these scenarios

1. by the year 2025, only 45% of the expected rPET (recycled poly ethylene terephthalate) output will be available in the world

2. By 2030, the world will just have one third of the resources of Nickel, Cadmium, manganese, Lithium etc needed for the battery market

3. Green hydrogen which can be used as an unlimited resource for energy for heavy industries in the future, the requirement for which will multiply by 100x to 300x over the next thirty years

4. Major global fashion brands have promised the world that they will move to 100% sustainable cotton by 2025, but have attained only 20% of that target now.

By our wholehearted embrace of the green economy and sustainability initiatives are we staring at a resource constrained world soon ?

 Click here for the article Green economy resource scarcity problems article in HBR (click here) by Dave Young, Hutchinson and Reeves July '21. 

What can we do to ensure that our march to green freedom goes unhindered ?

The industry can undertake these positive steps that can avoid such a crisis situation

1. have contracts of these resources into the future

2. getting the source of the resources

3. nurturing innovation in the process or eliminating the function 

4. extracting value by producing other products that rely on sustainable products

5. playing around with the scarcity and availability dynamics across different geographies

6. investing in technologies and organisations to help overcome resource scarcities

7. advocating public policy and statements for technologies and incentives

8. promoting industry and cross sector collaboration

These steps can help solve the resource bottlenecks and avoid any hiccups to the sustainability movement.

Defining new productivity in the hybrid era ..

I always used to think with the impact of Covid prolonging whether we would ever be able to have normal classroom sessions at least for the next two three years. 

In the post Covid age, managers need to focus more on well being, social connections, collaboration and innovation as the four major factors they need to focus on to improve productivity. 

Going thru the article  Lets redefine productivity for the hybrid era, Jaime Teevan HBR, September, 2021 (digital edition) click here. was good reading. 

Manufacturing industries like Toyota have been insisting on their manufacturing employees coming to the factory while only 25% of staff come to factory at any point of time with proper Covid precations in place. 

For the intelligent working community like IT professionals, work from home has been greatly possible as it requires repetitive work and not much collaboration and interaction. The IT employees whom I have come across invariably spend from 12 to 14 hours daily at work and this is the cost they pay for the comfort of WFH. How can we measure the new norms of productivity from these IT professionals or similar employees enjoying a hybrid work environment, some of them attending office and some WFH ?

The above research shows that productivity in the modern sense post covid has the following dimensions.

Well being - the physical and mental well being of the employees, some of them at office and others at home in the hybrid mode, must be ensured to raise employee productivity.

Social Connections -  more work gets completed while most of us are at work than WFH. This is because we keep meeting our colleagues at lunch place or in the bus, in the verandah etc and the points of collaboration gets discussed and reinforced, with proper explanation and clarification possible

Collaboration - both between office coming employees and between office and  WFH employees must be promoted to ensure successful completion of tasks and giving job satisfaction for both groups.

Innovation - is possible when the employees start thinking outside the box, be it on solving a flexing problem or understanding a policy statement or discussing a professional practice. Frequent meeting of the offline and WFH employees to promote brainstorming can help come up with exciting and innovative ideas to promote employee well being and organisational growth.

This thought will enable productivity measurement of iT employes much better.

George

The impending global chip shortage ..

 I was engaging the class on Sustainability for the sem 3 MBA students of Alliance School of Business today. We were discussing the impact of microprocessor chip on modern society. (click here for my write up.)

The case explains pretty well how in the modern world our dependence on the microprocessor chip is only going to increase the coming years and the highly water intensive manufacturing processes are a strain on the global water resources.

Semiconductor chip Fabrication plants are one of the modern day factories where the brains of the future are manufactured. With each passing day, humans need more and more of these brains to assist in a comfortable, advanced, hassle free life for human beings.

The sad part of the semiconductor chips is that they consume lot of water for processing. Water in it's purest form, called ultra pure water, almost 10x purer than drinking water, is needed for wafer cleaning and processing. A average sized fab uses approximately two to four million gallons of ultra pure water per day. Ultra pure water is considered to be almost 10x more cleaner than ordinary drinking water. That will give an estimate of the fresh water resources we need to tap to just run a fab facility. 

To add to the fire, our usage of these chips are only increasing day by day. Moore's law tells us about the miniaturisation happening, that the number of chips that can be accomodated on a silicon chip doubles every two years. So with increase in speeds, there should be a fall in the use of chips. But humans find more and more creative uses for these chips that our present global demand for chips is almost a trillion annually and it is increasing by leaps and bounds..

When I asked the class tosuggest some means by which the water consumption by these fabs could be reduced they came up with a couple of interesting points

1. try for an alternate for the modern day microprocessor chips. 

2, develop effective cleaning processes that can use pure streams of air than water

3. with increased capacity of thee modern microprocessor chips, the need for chip manufacturing will reduce, resulting in water savings.

India does not as yet have any semiconductor manufacturing Farbrication facility yet. How soon will one come, to what extent and will be manufacturing chips to what accuracy, on 6 nano metre technology or lesser ? Do we have enough manpower and freshwater resources for setting up such a facility ?

George..