Promoting Restaurants

Promoting Services is a really complicated exercise and particularly restaurant business is quite tough to operate in competitive market place. Anniversaries happen once a year, so do birthdays, dates happen across various locations, and that is why restaurateurs find it difficult to do promotions. To generate enough footfalls every day you have to have a really large clientele.
However, a reputation once created and regularly reinforced by sustained good experiences can act as a sustainable competitive advantage making a player successful in spite of the competition. A lot of new sets of ideas can be generated by focusing on the customer life cycle.

The customer Focused approach - attaching to the customer life-cycle
Touch points for various customers are different. As a person goes from age of college and dating (hopefully a lot of dates at the same place!), to jobs and marriage (and commitments along with it), the priorities change drastically. The expectations from a restaurant, as a result, changes. Some of the expectation changes could be mapped as below:
1. a hangout place
2. an exotic place for pampering your date,
3. a place where you get a meal fast during office lunchtime,
4. a place where you bring your clients to,
5. a place where you want to celebrate your anniversary,
6. place where you want to go after a movie (along with your wife)
7. a place to socialize to enhance your interpersonal relationships (for career growth)
Along these lines the strategy can evolve to attract people.

For example, as a hangout place, there may be designated days (Wednesdays / Thursdays nights, Saturday mornings, Sunday mornings - not Mondays/Tuesdays as you are not in the mood for hanging out then - No Friday/Saturday/Sunday nights as they are “primetime”). The menu should also reflect the change (out goes the wine and in comes the beer - 2 mugs against a cover charge - coffee and grub take preference over cuisine - music changes – layout changes lounge sofas come in – concentrated lights creating luminous circles on tables and dark spaces around them hiding the people - etc)

A Client Meeting place should involve telephonic reservation facility, customized menu card (with sponsor companies name and charge column left blank- chefs specialty included – can be made by any creative DTP person). As earlier the layout and arrangements should change – exotic wines – signature accessories – welcome boards at restaurant entrance (marking the guests name correctly) – company specific welcome drink branded in sponsor company name GE special banana milk shake (with a unique recipe of course not replicated on other menus - will work well with local businesses) - lights should be good enough for people to see each other clearly – small laptop stool should be made available along with notebooks and voice recorder if required. Client meetings should be available throughout weekdays.

Office time meal approach calls for pre-paid coupons – meal packages – meal cycle (set of varying menus that office goers can pick-up so that they do not get bored (same combo repeats once in two months), are well fed, meal is complete in terms of vitamins, calories, no-fat, fiber, carbohydrates, etc. Here too company sponsorship may be possible – company can sponsor dietician to customize the menu for their staff – this will be special menu – dietician has to work with restaurant menu as a superset of staff menu.

Finally a small note - care should be taken to keep tastes distinct, an ordered meal has to taste special and office-time meal has to taste homely. Restaurants are all about tastes – some in the mouth and some in the mind. Further, a lot of ideas can be developed by learning from the clubs of London of 18th and 19th century.

Killer App definitely from Microsoft!!

People who know me also know of my admiration for the one Mr. William Henry Gates III or Bill Gates as we know him. This has had a rub-off on my expectations from Microsoft. Now, after having tested the X-box 360, Vista and read the specs of Zune, is the time to upwardly revise the probability of killer app from Microsoft.

Slipping through the door - The X-box

If the X-box is a game station then why call it “X” box? Duh! It plays DVDs, channels in the HD TV, plays Dolby Sound, shows and edits pictures, networks wirelessly, has family settings apart from playing games! It is a sort of expandable functionality box! Is it the original Microsoft idea? As expected, it is not! The Sony Playstation is essentially the very same things. However, the key difference is Vista! I would bet the X-box sits on a Vista version allowing it to do significantly more things than Sony can even dream of doing.

The visionary “X” in X-box
The day I saw the X-box, I shuddered! It spells “tough times” for makers of DVD players, Music Systems, Desktop home computers, hand held MP3 players! With the X-box, Microsoft has put into your home an entertainment enabled Hub! Each of the accessories, like Music System, MP3 players, home computer, is a node (or spoke)! Whoever successfully captures the Hub will have a say in what becomes of the node. Truly Microsoft! Capture the most essential part of the value chain and then dictate the terms!

The bigger plot!
It has already started putting the nodes in place with Zune! The credits from playing on-line games can be re-deemed for Zune songs. This is an equivalent of earning and spending online! This indicates development of an “entertainment ecosystem” comprising variety of nodes connected through the net. The variety of software (Operating systems for governing these nodes, content for these) can yield further revenues.

The business genius!
Apart from this technological ingenuity, Microsoft brings superior business sense to the table. (Microsoft must have lots of brilliant strategists amongst all those who cracked the round-man-hole kind of interviews effectively!) Let us imagine Microsoft did think about all these ideas and started work on business strategy. What would have made them put these Trojans into an entertainment machine? In my opinion, luck or otherwise, “entertainment” is the best bet for entering homes. It has the right mix of emotional attachment, passion and perception of need to make it a must buy.

In sum
While we are all busy fighting Microsoft on the security issues, they have quietly built up a platform that can bring them into our homes and much closer into our pockets. Soon Microsoft will touch every part of our life in ways that are more evident. IF someone knows how to buy Microsoft stock sitting in India please let me know!

Blue Print for next Gen Political Party

Today’s political party is hardly listening to the voice of the public. The only time when the politicians ever come to the voters door step is during the election season. This lack of communication and relevance to the general public is now costing Indians a bright future. Improper regulations, election oriented policy announcements and draining of government resources have taken governance to all time lows. Reform is the need of the hour and the political power is critical to unifying, economic prosperity that young India is dreaming of. The current political system cannot deliver anything that can be even called close half-measure!

However, establishing a political party in India is a great challenge. From an industry analysis point of view the challenges are immense. There are tough entry barriers, ability to reach out to masses across classes, financing poll-rigging, ability to generate and deploy black money etc. There is a distinct lack of expertise in this area in common man thereby making it almost impossible to set-up and successfully manage a political party. Then is it possible to design a competitive strategy, for a new “clean” political party, using traditional business management principles? Of course yes!

The story so far!

There have been several attempts to work on a political party that represents the intellectual maturity and values of the Indian masses. Some of these involved IIT/IIM alumni, while some others enthusiastic college students and young IT professionals. Yet, these out-fits find it extremely difficult to counter the incumbent goons and dons who rule the political arena. There are two inter-twined reasons.
First cost of running an election is very high! The goon side often bribes the voters to vote for them. Further goons have elaborate mechanism for booth capturing, proxy voting, etc. tactics that are morally impossible to reconcile for “clean” party.
Second the prominent and ever-increasing “middle-class” does not participate in the elections. At times this is on account of impossible circumstances, like traveling for work (long travel) while other time this is simple negligence. Whatever the reason, this ends up skewing the voter mandate to favor the views of “monetarily influenced” proxy-voters.
In fact these two reasons are primary cause of failure of any credible political initiative. It means that any strategic solution needs addresses these two basic premises as a primary test of viability. Let us ponder on these issues a little more.

Understanding the “problems”

The bribe-influenced voter is basically the first part of the problem. The genesis of the problem is rooted in lack of genuine voter turnout and availability of naïve economically lower class population that can be influenced by money. Theoretically, therefore, solution to this problem will be three pronged.
First and foremost it is imperative to educate the naïve economically weaker section. Secondly, it is essential to is to involve the educated urban middle class citizen in the electoral process. Third, and quite the easiest of the lot, is to present a credible alternative to this socially aware voter.
Experience tells us people only listen when it “pays” to listen. Hence educating the naïve EWS has to entail a robust economically viable process that can contribute stable financial earnings to these people. Evolved business plans and creative financing will have major role to play here. Since the financial and business systems would have been tested against business and economic sense they are less likely to succeed. In fact a BHUMI project in Rasoolpura slum in Hyderabad is making headway along very similar lines.Involving the urban middle class is by far the biggest challenge in this scheme. Middle class has in fact fallen off the radar of the social activities in India. As a consequence, social activities have ceased to be relevant to the “elitist” middle class thereby starting a vicious circle. The job-focused middle class has lost touch with the local community. Yet hope is not lost! Middle class can be effectively converted by Reaching Regularly with Relevant offerings.

Converting the Middle Class

Urban middle class, today, interfaces with the local community primarily through local purchases (grocery, cable TV, newspaper etc), house help (maid, driver etc), for community security (typically when there is a burglary close-by) and schools for kids. The good fortune is that these are the very economic activities that can create transitionary employment that can then generate reasonably sustainable regular financial returns for economically weaker sections.
Employment can be generated by harnessing innovative business models to organize, train and professionalize host of services like

• House-help in the form of maids, drivers, etc.,
• Bill payments (concierge services),
• House-keeping services,
• Contract services (plumbing, carpenter, mechanic etc)
• Home delivery services,
• Local community security
• Daily tiffin delivery
• Computer / TV / Electronics and appliances maintenance
• Play-pen services.

Social services involving youth to deliver local community oriented civic, history, technology presentations in association with National Geographic Channel and Discovery networks can seed the young population with bright ideas for implementing in local communities.These activities establish reach to this isolated “voter” group on a regular basis through activities that are relevant to the job-focused middle class person thereby creating an influencing relationship between local community and the middle class.

Why it may work?

While the activities I have suggested may not be exhaustive, the intent behind them is to make political parties more relevant to day-to-day life of the modern Indian. Unlike in the pre-independence era, today there is no single objective that can clearly differentiated. To highlight the community goals political party sponsors, to win the voters to the path of achieving these goals requires a channel of communication. Such a channel is no-longer available today for the common man. Political party of the future cannot afford to talk to common man through the media lens!

In Sum
Finally, through whatever means, whoever’s plans, let us hope India awakens to this new reality some day when we can really say we have set forth on the road our forefathers dreamt of during our freedom struggle.

The new "Car"ma

Daimler-Chrysler recently launched the new Mercedes C and S class. The wonderful thing about it is the presence of a hard-disk on board. This sort of partly fulfils my prediction dated as far back as 1992! It was the time I just introduced to the microprocessor. I was fascinated by what it could do. I had ventured that this programmable piece of electronics was what was needed in the automobile! And along with the micro-processor, there was needed a hard-disk! It brings to one of my most favourite topic of electronics in automobiles. It also gives me confidence to un-veil some of the electronics usage in automobiles.

Pieces of the puzzle!

We observe a lot of developments in different technologies that could make an impact in this field:

1. Micro-processors are ubiquitous!
2. Memory is easily available.
3. Cellular infrastructure is in place! Also GPS systems are already being installed on vehicles.
4. Sensor technologies are well developed. We already have rain sensors, backing sensors, cameras on board, light sensors etc.
5. Short range information exchange technologies are available for example, RFID.
6. Display technologies are well developed, a case in point is the new Honda Civic!

Connecting the dots…Car as a gizmo!

To connect the dots we can look at the development of military hardware. We can hazard a few guesses.

We will see more customizable displays in dashboard. For example, the new speedometer is Civic could be customised into a tachometer! We can also expect the LCD screens on the rear passengers to read out the dashboard so that passengers can keep a check on the chauffer! It will also mean that the dashboard space can actually replace speedometer and other read-outs with camera images while backing up or parking.

Your car will be much more integrated with the manufacturer. The manufacturer can put-in a SIM card to transmit the operation data from the car back to factory test centre! In fact soon you could get a call from your manufacturer informing you that your radiator temperature is suboptimal and you need to bring in the car for repair / maintenance.

The revolution will actually happen when automobiles are integrated with traffic system. This will give a whole new meaning to traffic management systems. In fact we may even get some public announcements being relayed into the car speakers! There a possibility for vehicle to vehicle interaction as well. This will give the driver alerts on obstacles beyond the vehicle in the front giving precious seconds for response in case of accidents. Evolved safety systems depending on faster response, automatic collision avoidance etc. will make life easier and safer for passengers and pedestrians. We can very well look forward to “no overtaking” warnings and “vehicle closing-in” alerts.

We can expect vehicles to have access card system to grant access to various systems. If your card has information that you are an authorized driver for relevant vehicle type then the vehicle will work else it will not turn the ignition on.

In Sum

These developments are all a matter of time. Yet these gizmos are virus-prone. We noticed in Mumbai floods that cars with lot of electronics actually ended up worse-off than plain simple mechanical ones. Devices like power windows turned cars into death traps. So we need effective failure-proofing of these technologies before they get into our garages! All said we are looking into a fantastic future for gizmo lovers!

"Basics" In stints

As I write this Indian cricket team is playing Sri Lanka in world cup. India, as usual, have got themselves into a hole early in the tournament by losing to a minnow team. What happened in that match often happens with Indians. To put it simply, India went wrong in basics. The cricketing basics were simple; bowl straight, close to the batsman, get a little bit of swing and field well. Indians went wrong in these basics while trying more esoteric ideas and experiements.

Importance of "Basics"

While Srinath discovered this fundamental truth in final series, yours truely has discovered this a long while ago. (If only the cricket team would ask me). Yet the question remains if I have discovered the "basics" related to my work. Frankly, I am not sure! As apalling as it sounds, I am not alone. Almost everyone knows only a part of the real basics required in the job. So how can we ensure that we get out basics right everytime.

Know the basics

It is not so simple as it sounds. We almost never know what are our employers basic expectations from us. This is primarily because the expectations keep changing often and we are not informed as frequently. Unfortunately we never take the initiative to ask! Also it is important to ask often enough.

All basics Right All the time

I often found myself incorporating too many "experiments" into my project work. These take up lot of monitoring, focus and therefore energy. This induces a loss of foucs on basics. I have found an easier way by limiting "experiements" and giving adequate focus on basics.

Find an "articulate" mentor!

Often the immediate supervisors may not be able to help us. We need to find enough people who can give us the organisational view-point and explain the changes in the role expected of us. I really have never found mentors who can articulate "basics" (thats "spoon-feeding"!), but the perspective really have helped me in getting closer to what are the base level deliverables.

Finally

It has been a learning process for me till today. I believe I havent even scratched the surface. Feel free to let me know the secret if you have found it already!

A Dog named Moti!

It is funny for a dog to be named "Moti". I named him exactly that as that was one name that was not taken on my vet’s database. Yet when you find yourself searching for a generally acceptable, easily pronounceable name for more than 10 dogs it is rather difficult. Yet, I named him exactly that as that was one name that was not taken on my vet’s database. Moti came as a quiet, lean, brown pup with intelligent. This shy reluctant puppy was as small as my hands. But aggressive he definitely was! He insisted on biting any hand that touched him. None of the “cho-chweet” gang members ever got close to him ever!
This pup’s day was filled with lot of interesting things. Mornings were spent waiting for breakfast. After a heavy breakfast Moti would get his chain and absolve himself of guarding duties for his day nap! Between dreams he also had lunch! Evenings were designated for fights with yours truly! On a saner day Moti insisted on a tug of war with his rug as a rope. Usually he liked to wrestle with me. At his age it was easy for me to beat him. Nights were designated for “hunting” expeditions with coconut tree branches as targets that were usually found dragged all over the yard and often shredded and bitten. All this exercise made Moti a really big and ferocious guard dog. And he took his guarding duties seriously.
The newspaperman once found himself lying on the road under his own bicycle with Moti waiting to take a bite. The only person Moti listened to in such situations was me! I could take his food from under his nose! Occasionally some storks, pigeons and rats tested his hunting skills. My neighbors’ dogs typically liked to test Moti’s patience from behind our gate. Occasionally Moti broke free and taught them rules of the jungle.
People often found themselves face to face with Moti who liked to put his head out of the gate grill. We had to install a separate bell outside of the gate for people to ring without touching the gate. Yet, the most interesting was how is hid himself waiting for people to open the gate and come in before he confronted them with bare teeth and red eyes.
Yet for his aggressiveness Moti was a gentle dog! My cat took full advantage of this nicety. This skinny (more appropriately lean) hero used to pick fights with all the fat and plump toms in the neighborhood and then run to Moti for protection. The cat even developed the confidence to go between Moti’s legs with his tail up!
I will always remember how “angry” Moti got when my sister and I had fights. I will always remember calling his name out as soon as I returned home. I will always remember how Moti used to obey a “NO” command with dish full of meat in front of him. I will always remember how his enthusiasm for games would wane away if he sensed I had a bad day! Last week, Moti died of illness and old age. I will always remember him!

P.S. = As I console myself the memories of Moti come back to me in the form of Taggy (his son) who incidentally is exhibiting the very same traits he has inherited from his father.

Individualism and Innovation

Very recently I read an article that explained that Indians are rather individualistic and general process principles are not well adapted to mass manufacturing. This, the author deduced, manifested in higher dominance of Indian products/services in creative space. There also appears to be a lesson in this history.

This explains to a certain extent why there are no truly national parties in India. In fact, never in the history of India has there been a single leader ruling the entire Indian subcontinent. The only exception to this rule was Indian National Congress (founded by Alan Hume counting Mahatma Gandhi, Lokmanya Tilak and Subhashchandra Bose amongst its members). After the Indian National Congress (that was gratefully buried after independance; the current congress is a version used to be called Congress I), most of the current crop of political parties are essentially agglomerations of regional parties including the BJP. At one level this is the very core of democracy and possibly the single most important reason why Indians have taken to democracy like no other nation has.

This traditional Indian mindset is most apt for start-up ventures or companies that are just finding their feet on global stage. To my mind this explains the Indian successes in IT and manufacturing (in specific cases involving commodity products). Using capital better and more creatively Indian companies have created enough wealth to buy-out global giants.

Sadly, this is also the reason why Indians have not innovated most of the new path breaking products. In industry driven by creativity, like advertising, Indian companies have not been able to sustain innovation in a people-independant manner. Path breaking innovation needs the bedrock of processes. It needs standard, non-deviating operations to release the time and free the energy required to design and bring to fruition a path breaking innovation.

To a certain extent, these changes are visible in the software industry particularly in the BPO business where process orientation is a prerequisite. The next phase of Indian corporate development will essentially revolve around the way companies are able to assemble an efficient, non-deviating operational core to free up talent and resources for great more impactful innovation.

The New iPhone

In one of the most happening month for tech-crazy we had CES, Detroit Auto Show and MacWorld clamouring for attention. Amidst this innovation frenzy, Apple launched its new device, the iPhone. There is a lot to learn from the “history” Steve Jobs created at the MacWorld.
One set of learning is more about the technological aspect itself. While other, a more generic, is related to how good companies function. In both Apple showed remarkable insight, attention to detail and perseverance to do right things right.

A device to make history

I am deliberately calling it a device and not a phone. It has almost all the qualities of the device for the next digital revolution. And that it’s a phone is ancillary. To put in a full scale OS was a real clincher. This truly makes this device a platform device rather than a collection of camera, multi-media player, phone and contact-manager taped together. A platform device enables Apple to put in user’s hands a service pipe. Through this pipe Apple can supply unparalleled range of services. Apple has augmented pipe-features for this device featuring a carrier dependant pipe (EDGE) and a carrier-independent pipe (WiFi).

Intuitive Product Features

A lot of phones / multi-media devices currently function in two distinct areas, work or entertainment. However a person who works is the same one who needs to be entertained! I have never understood the reason for separate devices for each need. Apple however packs both features into their iPhone and even packs in two separate batteries for these functions.

Superior product design

Apple launched the iPhone with two memory variants 4GB and 8GB! That’s a lot of memory for a first product. Despite of this the weight of the product is quite manageable. This incorporates the learning from wide-screen Nokia phone and N‑Series. The initial demo of creating a wall-paper from a picture is also an example of smaller innovations packed into the iPhone design.

Better Interface

Apple equipped the iPhone with touch screen, no keypad! A very sensible idea indeed as most of the time PDAs are used as phones and do not need the full scale keypad. In fact when using the PDA as a phone the QWERTY keypad is a pain to use. If you have tried to use the small keys of Treo you will know what I mean. Using software innovatively, Apple has eliminated these disadvantages, giving us a QWERYT keypad when required. Further, the company who give us pointers highlighted using the ultimate pointer i.e. finger! I have no doubt Steve Jobs has made the screen smudge-proof.

Exceeding expectations

After a lot of anticipation of iPhone, when it finally came there was a fair chance that Apple might not deliver the hype really surrounding the product. Yet, Apple not only met but exceeded the user’s expectations from this product. Nothing new that’s something CFOs have to do regularly with Wall-Street analysts. But the key difference is that Apple shows this behaviour with customers! The Wall-Street analysts are automatically addressed.

Web augmenting customer communication

Being located in India, I was asleep when Steve Jobs was making history. So the first thing I did next morning was log onto Apple’s website. And there it was the iPhone page! Neatly displayed with all the details! Here is a company which knows that a lot of users will log in to their site on or after the MacWorld. Moreover here is a company that makes it “talks” to these visitors about its new products it is desperately trying to showcase. Try finding latest versions of Mustang.

In Sum

This was a perfect example of how a company should go about creating value! Give value to customers and demand value from them! This is precisely what management jargon “customer is king”, “customer first” etc. really mean. Compare this with Ford, GM and kin, which is addressing analysts rather than customers. The rest is mere detail!

Innovation inspired Services

We have seen that devices have actually evolved and are ready to serve as a launch‑pad for innovative services to takeoff. Creating innovative devices is costly. There are development costs, roll-out costs, (user) training costs and finally cost of changing user preferences. However, it is not difficult. It benefits from competitive race between device manufacturers. The nature of new devices soon becomes a standard expectation. Services, however, are a totally different ball game.

Current services
Currently services that are gaining acceptance are those that are based on the mobile phones’ ability to interface with computer (e.g. mobile phones as MP3 players) or mobile phone content being downloaded on the phone (e.g. movie ringtones, wall papers etc). This is in some way a parallel to what happened with computers.

Location-based Advertising Service through mobiles
We know that telecom providers have a database of subscribers with addresses. They also know where you are located based on the nearest tower your cell-phone connects to. Yet if I want to locate, let us say, a Petrol Pump then there is no service wherein I enter a keyword and the list of nearest Petrol pumps pops up. Now which network will people choose while roaming?
Let’s say if Airtel were to offer a service to owners of shops, hotels and other consumer establishments wherein they get themselves a business connection which will make their Airtel phone number searchable and accessible to people searching for it. Intuitively these people will pay a fee to get a connection with Airtel and pay a small yearly fee to get found!
Telecom service providers know this and hence will soon tie-up with Google, feed Google with the location details and Google will find you the list and keep the revenues too!
Let us twist this idea a little, if telecom equipment manufacturers can develop a small base station capable of covering a shopping mall and people within can be sent advertisements very specific to that location. Imagine you are shopping around 6pm and a restaurant close-by advertises a food-fest you might just be inclined to change your dinner plans.

Logistics – A device, network innovation
Have you noticed the range of devices logistics personnel carry to audit the schedules and delivery performance of delivery trucks? Now imagine a vehicle black‑box equivalent that can monitor all the vehicle details (speed, load, fuel) and send that across once it reaches the cell-phone coverage area through a cell connection embedded in it. Now do you think it will give GPS a run for money? I think so!
This can also help performance car manufacturers gather data from your car and keep car records for you. I can imagine myself receiving a call from garage telling me that my fuel efficiency seems to be dropping and I need to get a check-up! It can also call up authorities if there a crash which will be promptly relayed to the 911 / 100 number and the car garage as well.

A mobile Desktop calendar / Photoframe
Now imagine a company who wants to keep in touch with CEOs and key decision-makers regularly, every single working day. They give them desktop calendars to be on top of your mind. They sure are on top of your desk but it is not interactive. Now put a digital display with a calendar chip (these are very cheap) and a mobile device. This could be a desktop calendar or a photo frame and the message can be relayed through the SIM reaching the desktops of CEOs and decision-makers. Imagine they can change the picture on the frame by emailing to your-name-photo-frame@sponsor-company.com! They are now your partners aren’t they?

In Sum
Likewise, anything that has a battery and space can be fitted with a mobile SIM and innovations can be based around that.
Creating innovative services is not always costly, and roll-out is fairly simple. However, it has basic requirements that are not imbedded in most corporate DNAs. It needs a lot of innovation. Make that a hell lot more innovation! Add to it the very complicated “planned innovation”. Further complicate it by adding high failure rates. And the clincher, all this is easily replicable by competitors. This makes service providers lethargic to any innovation in services. So much so that telecom service providers have yet to come up with downloadable ringtones on fixed-wired phones. It will take one inspired service provider to zealously re-invent the boundaries of this space. In a nutshell, services innovation will not happen easily. What we have is a basis to dissect the possible innovation in services.

A Device for revolution

The search for next killer app is a product of two important components, the device and the service. However, real world economics drives each one independently though over a feedback loop. Consequently, we have mobile device manufacturers trying to add functionalities of popular services (like internet connectivity for email) and services are being designed taking into consideration the new devices (like m‑blogs).

I have mentioned about the components of device in my earlier post an year ago. Between that time and now we have significant developments along the lines of what I had written about. I am just going to summarize some of these developments.

Processors have gotten better

Mobile Processors are now a lot better with certain mobile devices now calling themselves computers, particularly Nokia N-Series Mobiles. These are not special processors but standard processors with stable OS with an ability to deal with text, different installable applications and their file types, streaming media etc. So now our mobile devices can identify different profiles of data like documents(Word, pdf, etc), html (xml) files, contact information files, text files, calendar entries, pictures, music files etc.

Devices have more memory
After a lot of development involving IPods and Mp3 players, we now have about 4GB of memory being stacked in a Sony Ericsson phone. The developments mini SD and micro SD cards, packing up to 2 GB in a micro SD, bring more good news.

Devices have better Human Interfaces
Human interaction with the devices has improved with touch screens, bigger screens, video conferencing cameras and full-function key boards being available on mobile phones. We also have mini USB to interface them with other devices.

Battery life is better
In spite of the famous Sony battery recall, we now have better and longer lasting batteries and devices that use power more efficiently. Put together we have more juice in our hand-held than few years back.

Network Interface
Devices are now ready to access the network in more efficient manner. Nokia phones now come with the capability of accessing 3G network and Wi-Fi networks.

Summary
All these developments have in fact set the stage for a string of developments. We should now see set of applications that can revolutionize the use of mobile devices in years to come. These applications will trigger a realization of importance of security identification that will influence further development of applications.

Next let us try and understand what killer applications can make our hand-held devices even more important to us.

The next Killer App from Microsoft!

Long after the post-dotcom era dust has settled, the search for the next killer app continues. People are looking everywhere for the application that will have as big an impact as the internet. Everything from “Web 2.0” to “ubiquitous computing” and everyone from Google to SUN is being scanned and groped for a hint of “killer app” potential. Well, not exactly everyone, no one is searching Microsoft!
Yet, Microsoft has under its hood assembled technologies that, if assembled intelligently, can deliver the next killer app! I have been loosing sleep over the next killer app till it all occurred to me. My confidence in Microsoft emanates from the fact that under all the inertia, Bill and his boys have assembled quite a bit of stuff.

Microsoft understands things others understand

Three key areas which are most definitely going to be part of the next revolution are also areas where Microsoft has established expertise. They are:

1. Devices: Microsoft understands variety of devices from servers, personal computers, Pocket computers, mobile phones, game stations, music players, clocks and what not! Microsoft knows how to make these things work, connect and share data.
   
2. Search: Window’s Live is Microsoft’s biggest bet in web search business. It might not be successful as a business but it is good enough to demonstrate Microsoft’s technical capabilities. Further the tight integration of search with Vista and Microsoft’s inherent strengths at desktop search are well known.
   
3. Security: I realize that I am treading soft ground but I trust Bill’s team to know and understand a lot about security. After all they created too numerous security holes than the entire programming world put together.

Beyond this, Microsoft also understands key skills operationally required for delivering the next revolution. Tons of cash, enviable marketing and sales engine, global reach are key enablers that can multiply Microsoft’s capability.

But the most important thing Microsoft understands…
That has to be “context”! Have you noticed a pop-up that irritates us when we start typing a letter in MS Word? Microsoft knows that you are typing a letter. Microsoft also knows who it is being addressed to and the location, email address of the person. This through a feature called “smart tags”.
Google on the other hand does not understand context. Nor can others.

Put together…
Microsoft can deliver the next revolution. This revolution will be created through a two level approach:

1. At one level will be a device connected to world through a spate of technologies including WLAN, 3G.
   
2. At Second level there will be services that will through software, social networking site technologies and other sharing enabled technologies will create unparalleled utility.

In my next posts I will detail more on each of these. Meanwhile, I just hope people at Microsoft, particularly one who is in India currently, take notice and start working on getting us into the next technology revolution!

Social Structure

Our social environment almost always defines our beliefs, our sense of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad. It shapes our aims and aspirations and hence defines our personality. Consequently it shapes the future of mankind.

After trying to expound the details of Organisation structure, I wonder what could be the structure of social environment. How can we classify and categorise the various disciplines varying from calculus to glass painting, from news reporting to nuclear physics, from astronomy to gastronomy? How do these disciplines fit into the society’s development scheme?

If you examine the different roles played by various disciplines, you will realise that each forms an important cog in the wheel of life. Each performs a key role that is not only important but also essential and critical for the development of society of tomorrow. These roles are not exclusive traits of individual’s personality rather a categorisation of traits present in each individual. When these individual traits are aggregated at social level they form the social fabric.

Typically, you can classify these roles into three main categories namely those of the reporter, the detective and the inventor.

The Reporter
The reporter role is that of an observer. Like a news reporter, we convey, broadcast or propagate a picture or assessment, true or otherwise, of the reality. Typically a salesman selling a product dons this role to convey the existence and benefits of his product. An artist “reports” his view of a landscape, people and objects through his paintings or photos. A model propagates a designer’s view of style. An accountant reports the performance of his company.

The Detective
Detectives are often souls in search of reason for an occurrence “reported” to them. Like a detective, they try to understand, comprehend, question or demystify, correctly or otherwise, the believed reality. These are scientists in search of explanation of big bang. Doctors and researchers try to “understand” reasons for obesity. Scholars “question” roles of auditors in scams like Enron. Experts “demystify” the effects of globalisation.

The Inventor
Inventors are people who design or develop products, systems, using the “understanding”. Entrepreneurs develop products to take advantage of unsatisfied needs. Christianity was “invented” to address the wrong-doings of the Romans. Democracy was “invented” to challenge the whimsical tyrants who oppressed the people they ruled.


In Sum
At a social level, it is possible that during a certain period there is a dominance of a particular role. This might explain the social behaviour, positive and negative, in that period. At a personal level, these roles seem to be like a tool that is used in everyday life. It is imperative that we not only master these roles but also understand when to use which roles. For example, in a period dominated by inventors, being a reporter or detective may be more rewarding.

I would venture a guess that past two centuries have seen dominance of inventors. Inventors from Henry Ford to Jack Welch, Steve Jobs to Versace, spiritual gurus to Communist Party of China, are so far astoundingly numerous. The dominance has been so complete that entrepreneurs have nearly run out of ideas that can be translated into inventions. These inventions have led to economic stability and enrichment fertile enough to breed a new breed of reporters.

A new Responsibility!

One of the best ways to silence an outspoken person is to give him responsibility for public relations! This is my learning and reason of my silence for the past few months. In my new job responsibility, I am supposed to be an Industry Analyst! My views will form the views of my company for the industries I track! Hence according to business conduct guidelines I rather not state my views out in the open.

That suddenly leaves a lot less to be written as I am tracking the currently hot sector "Real Estate"! But life is life and so it will be that my comments from now on will be rather less related to housing, cities, real estate and more about other issues in life.

So starts a new chapter in life!

A new ID

Recently, there was a regulation stating it was required of the telecom companies to verify the details of their subscribers. There will be a cost for verification of contact details of each subscriber. Ideally government should be the agency which should enable this activity as a part of this business infrastructure. US has the Social Security Number, in India we have the Voter ID, Passport Number, PAN, MAPIN and God knows what not. Each time the same details get verified.

Is there a need?

There is a similar requirement for identification from one set of companies like banks, credit card companies. Other set of companies would give their right arm for getting the "verified" details of individual customers so that they can engage them better. The individual on the other hand, would like to have a convenience of having updated voter records, ration-cards, automatically updated subscription addresses, a single point control on all his/her details. This single source identity is, in a latent form, one of the biggest business infrastructure need that will emerge in coming years. More so as globalization actually permeates to working population making it mobile. Thus a need for a single ubiquitous universally accessible identification.

Can we do it?

Today we have almost all the technologies needed to put together such an id. We have computing power that can manage database of 6 billion people. We have electronic cards that can be interact with various kinds of readers magnetic, optical in variety of ways (bar code reading, credit card like swipe, access control like etc).One simple idea would be to use the telephone number as the id. But it will still not sort the problem of having verified details of the person being universally acceptable. Ther reverse can be a valid suggestion though. Individual should be able to use his id as his address, telephone number, blog address, website address, credit card number, etc. This number (sort of public key) can be used by anyone who wishes to contact the person provided person's private key details will decide what he wants to receive.

What needs to be done?

A co-ordinated effort at a global level is what is necessary for tackling this issue. Why global? Because even in US there are people who do not have a social security number. These people are currently out of the purview of the governmental system though they form an important part of the economic ecosystem. There can be global level effort to ensure that each telphone number (once appended by country and city code) is unique in the world. So there can definitely be an effort to have a unique identifier globally for each person!

How will government benefit?

Taxation will be become more effective and efficient. Benefits of subsidies can be more targetted and hence effective. Such mechanisms will be great tool for countering terrorism. Population migration, data on consumption, earnings, economic activity etc on which government spends millions of dollars will be easily accessible.

In sum

A universal identification clearly is the need of the century. Just like in pre-globalisation era each country needed an identity, in the post globalisation era each individual will need an identity. Can we hasten the process is the question?

An Organisation Structure for a new-age Political Party!

I have been a keen observer of the Indian Political System. To put popular opinion in perspective, the system sucks! However, if we examine the system in context of our history and the assumptions made by the designers of the system, a whole new truth emerges. Under the stinky surface one finds how miscreants have taken advantage of good intentions and naïve assumptions of our elders. No doubt the system needs a complete overhaul!
In this context I believe we need not re-invent the wheel. We can learn from the organisation structure / functioning of corporates. While I agree that government/political party should not / need not function like a corporate, I believe that our new age political party can borrow good workable ideas from corporates and deploy them for its gains. Some of the ideas from corporate approach could be:

• Managing Efforts: Political Parties tend to take volunteer efforts for granted. How many times have we seen grass-root level worker sacrificed for son-of-incumbent in partisan politics. I often wondered why people join political parties at grass-root level when a certain Mr. Gandhi or Ms. Gandhi is heir-apparent. This concept is keeping good people away from politics. To have a workable, unbiased, “secular”, political party we need to reward all efforts “secularly”. Current system does not measure the efforts and time spent by volunteers. A strong system needs to be implemented to document through a process effort expended by each person working for our party.
• MIS (frequent – complete reporting): A CFO gets details of every effort spent across the company. Corporate managers often seek inputs from their teams about activities and projects/assignments they are working on. These inputs form critical part of plan-do-check-improve routine that corporate follows. We need to imbibe this improvement process for our political party.
• Managing Finances: One word that is common to all corporates (maybe to a varying degree) is Financial Prudence. Current political system works on un-identified, un-documented sources of funds hence this implementing this for current political parties is not feasible. They are caught in an “un-accounted funds yielding unaccounted benefits” spiral. Our political party needs to establish credibly a system to manage and audit its account in a transparent manner. I would go a step further to disclose the accounts publicly and be open to scrutiny. (One can look at open-source model for tax and financial reporting).
• Marketing and Sales (to prospective voters): My boss says at the end its all sales! And he is right; this new-age political party’s first success will finally depend on how effectively it can sell to Indian voters. Corporates have a sales plan in place wherein the sales team regularly meets, interacts and sells to the clients. A worth emulating thought I must say. Drawing parallels, can we not expect our party to have a contact plan for each of the customer?
• Recruitment: Corporates have a well defined process for recruitment. We tend to believe that Political Parties should be volunteer driven. But when we need skills we need skills and skills we will have to recruit. Recruiting for political parties can have a two pronged approach of volunteering and recruitments. This is again similar to fresh-hires and lateral placements concept in corporates. For each person it is important to know what is expected of him/her when he is recruited. Obviously when the recruit brings some skills (like event management) to the table the expectation can align to his skill for maximum advantage.
• Career Plan – Leadership program: Also one other thing we can learn from corporates is career planning and leadership development. When you have people, they come with aspiration. Aspirations can be positively channelled if performance is measured. Hence, it is essential to put in place a performance measurement and reward system that is reasonably objective and acceptable to everyone in the team. Existence of such a system drastically enhances talent retention and helps manage expectations of the new members. It makes comparing between two good performing individuals easy and avoids conflict.

These things are more must-haves rather than esoteric requirements. Don't you think a political party along these lines will actually renew India! I know of a party which is finding its feet and curiously examining these very issues. Click here to know more!

Looking for Performance?

Getting people to perform is the single biggest challenge for organizations. Of course, people in organizations work. But do they perform to their potential? Generally I don’t think so! There is huge untapped potential within people and it simply never comes out. However great leaders are somehow able to ignite a passion for performance that makes people put in that extra little bit for them. What magic potion do these leaders have that makes performers out of ordinary people? Is it a rocket science? Can I have it?

Of course you can!
Like everyone else I am too searching for that potion, but in the course of my search I have found some tidbits that I believe will be helpful. I have found that

• Everyone has a performer within them. Often the performer is sleeping. Awaken that performer in your team.
• Performers are wary of politics! But given that organizational politics is a reality, Performers see a performer who is good in organizational politics as more worthy adversary than a non-performer! If you can discourage organizational politics, at least shield your team from the pan-organisational politicking.
• Performers are not wary of other performers. In fact they love performers. Promote the performers in your team to get together, act as a team, take on bigger challenges!
• Performers are not hugely motivated by money alone. Along with money, performers need recognition. As a leader, it is your responsibility to advertise the performers in your team! Performers will love you for it! Yet remember performance love genuine appreciation and can see through fakes!
• Performers want preferential treatment over non-performers. Any indication of socialism in reward allocation is a big put-off for performers. After all there has to be enough motivation to perform. A healthy bias towards performance is a good performance initiator! Remember show the bias to performance and not to performers!

What has been your experience? Have you experience this as a leader, or as part of a team? Let me know.

Web 2.0 and New Yahoo!

Internet has revolutionised everything! How many times have you heard that phrase? By now surely a million times and you will hear more of it as we enter Web 2.0 era. Because it is true!

What is Web 2.0?

Simply put Web 2.0 is the next generation Web applications. You can look at the links (del.icio.us and Yahoo! mail) and flip through the pages in detail to know more about Web 2.0. So now with the new version Yahoo! gives me an option to right click in browser window and search through Yahoo! Search engine. Google does one bit better through Google Desktop by searching within my computer, out in the web and maintaining a record through personal search. Yet one person is still not seen. Believe me, he has aces up his sleeve. And that would be Mr. Bill Gates!

Microsoft Advantage

One wonders what he is upto these days? Where are his best programmers? What products is he thinking of through his .Net platform? How do they compare with Web 2.0? Believe me if that person is worth the operating system I am using, he is making MS Office on Web 2.0! Also I believe he will surely come up with the new innovations for browser, search engine, OS that will tightly integrate web and computer!

Web 2.0 changes the way we communicate

With the advent of the internet the modes of communication has changed considerably. We now no longer believe in snail mail, we look at computer screens more than we look at A4 sized papers, we spend as much time looking at websites as we do looking at newspapers or TV, our first stop for information is almost always the web. Yet all this has not been incorporated in our habits. One needs to question why I have to read reams and reams of paper electronically published. The website interfaces need overhauling to suit the new lifestyle. Web 2.0 will make that easier. Yahoo Mail looks like Outlook, soon word processors and other programs will be available in similar formats and then we will be totally integrated.

To conclude

I remember looking at a stand-alone computer with wonder and amazement, with even more wonder and amazement I looked at LAN in my college lab, still amazing wonder was when I signed up for email and chat program and made friends across the globe. Today I am looking at Web 2.0 with even more wonder and amazement! Now I am going to buy Microsoft shares! I welcome myself to the next tech boom!

Between Dam and Development

The Narmada Bacho Andolan (Save Narmada) has been on for a very long time. The foundation stone of the dam was laid by Nehru! The protests are from two sides, one side calls themselves pro-development and the other pro-rehabilitation.

Debate with one side!

Now the ridiculous part is that the reality is with both. Any development means that few citizens will be affected. However, it is definately the responsibility of the government to make sure each of these citizens are adequately compensated. Any person who demands adequate compensation cannot be wrong. What I feel is the point of debate is if the compensation is adequate or not.

How are the people compensated?

The Land Acquisition Act mentions about the compensation having two elements. First is the market price of the land and second is an allowance for compulsary nature of acquisition. There are also provision to allocate land in proportional terms. Typically what happens is governments try to suppress the "market price of acquired land" and inflate the "market price of allocated land". Thus for a 100 unit land before acquisition roughly equates to 20~40 units of new allocated land. Further this new land is taken from some other people and a lower amount is allocated to them. Please note that this is compulsory in nature and the farmer or land owner does not have any option to reject the offer.

Imagine tomorrow someone compulsarily takes up your 4 Bedroom penthouse and allocates you a 1 bedroom apartment across the street with a note that the price of new house is same as your penthouse because the development (like new road, electricity and water etc) that they hope to undertake in your land!

Further try and get the compensation through the courts and you will end up spending more than 30 years trying to get a reasonable deal for your land. Even at the end of 30 years all they get is a "simple interest" on their asset prices. They are not even given a standard recurring deposit interest rate! Generations after generations are forced into poverty despite their lands being very valuable! Is it fair is my question?

What is adequate compensation?

Beyond the amounts, it is the timing of the compensation that is critical. In this sense the NBA is critical. First compensation then development must be the mantra. It is only because of the stopping of the dam that the rehabilitation work is in focus. Had the dam been completed the matter would have gone out of public interest.

Medha Patkar is wrong in fasting!

Medha Patkar leads the protest through non-violent means by Fasting like Gandhi. Someone should let her know that no amount of fasting will help the NBA cause. This war has to be waged on basis of information. In information world information is the weapon.

Now I am wondering what would be possible tactics Medha Patkar can use in this war. Any suggestions?

Dis-incentivising Prostitution

From a brief scan across all the proposals and demands from the industry one gets a feeling that government is out to dis-incentivise their particular industry and government is doing a damn good job of this. But look at prostitution, the world's oldest business. Many a government has tried to ban prostitution (dis-incentivising of course) to no avail. The worst affected by the ban were the prostitutes. They were exploited by various people starting from pimps to law enforcement agencies. And still there is no end to prostitution. Hence many governments have taken steps to legalise the system. Can then the government learn from its exceptional good job in other industries and use it where it matters most?

The Horns of the Devil!

If we observe this business we understand that there are three core players, prostitutes, pimps and customers. Prostitutes are the exploited ones, they are there (in most cases) because they do not have alternatives, they are helpless. The pimps are middlemen. But most critical element are the customers! At least in India they always try and catch and prosecute the "prostitutes" but customers are often let free. It the customers you have to catch if you want to eliminate prostitution!!

How do you do it?

The first way government can di-incentivise this trade is by taxing it! Simply take the details of the customers and put an additional 10% tax liability on these people. Or if I were Finance Minister I would call it a cess and channel the money into health care for these sections.

Second deals with the way British enforced law in India during their occupation. They used two major weapons. No it wasn't the baton or gun, it was information and social pressure. Lets say, if government were to take a photo and details of every person who is caught with a prostitute and publish the same on some website. Or track connected near ones like office, friends, home and supply this information across these places. Will social stigma not cause the customers' to vanish?

The Dance Bar Phenomeon

Mumbai now has another issues and its Dance Bars which government was trying to ban. The Mumbai High Court recent allowed these dance bars to operate. Using our earlier logic we can work on an effective solution to the Dance Bar problem.

First way is to simply get details of people who come to dance bars, the amounts they spend and share this information with income tax. Or simply make entry in the bar subject to swiping / scanning of PAN card! (India's equi-valent of social security number for tax purposes)

Second again will be to share the details with the friends and near ones along with details being publicly posted on some common website. Regulars should be tracked and traced across dance bars.

In sum...

Basic economic sense can be used to contain a lot of industries, often these techniques are used on legitimate industries in era of control. Same techniques may be deployed where it actually matters. What Say??

Inorganic Growth and Organisations' Risk taking ability

As students of business we understand that organisations can be classified into three types based on their growth strategy. Primarily organisations follow, Organic Growth, Inorganic growth and some use both. In many industries there are examples of players resorting to organic growth whereas some resorting to inorganic growth. I always wondered why is it that some companies cannot grow rapidly in organic way?

Growth Risk and Organisational culture

Risks associated with inorganic growth are well-understood and documented. In fact, it is easier to take "inorganic growth" risk rather than "organic growth" risk. Also the risk is taken by top management. Logically Inorganic growth requires risk taking ability at the top of the corporate hierarchy whereas Organic growth requires risk taking ability that is distributed across the hierarchy.

This leads us to a reasonable hypotheses about the organisation culture. Organisations that emphasise more on inorganic growth may be risk averse, explaining the association of risk with the top management. Conversely an organisation with high organic growth is almost always flamboyant, empowered down to the line functions.

Inherent disadvantages of Inorganically growing organisation

When you extend the logic a little further you realize the implications of both these strategies.

For One, a flamboyant organsiation has its ranks full with "risk-taking" experience across the hierarchy. Hence succession planning is not much difficult. Such orgaisations can find within its ranks potential leaders, CEOs etc. On the other hand in a risk averse organisation the ranks have no experience in taking risks. So effectively any modifications in the current top management shakes the very foundations of such a company.

Secondly, it is difficult for such an organisations to take-up new take-over/ merger options because it cannot find within its ranks leaders who can take up the integration work post the merger. A flamboyant organisation can effectively take up inorganic growth and thus be even more successful.

Finally, even in the middle of merger, a flamboyant organisation is more likely to energize the other organsiation, with its people taking up most of the challanging positions in the merged entity. The risk-averse organisation has to either find leaders capable of taking up this challange or resign to domination from the other organisation. (This is not a generally seen conditions because "risk averse" organisations do not take-over flamboyant organisations because of cultural issues)

Is your organisation risk averse?

How can one deduce if his/her organisation is "risk averse" or "flamboyant". Well, even though there is no track-record of inorganic or organic growth it is possible to decide where your organisation belongs. Of all people employees can definately decipher the actual behaviour from stated slogans. I believe these are some hypothese that will expose the true behaviour of your organisation. There are more and I havent thought of all of them so let me know if you think of any other.

Lets look at following hypotheses:

• Hypothesis 1: "If it aint broke dont fix it!" A performing function in a "risk averse" organisation is almost never challanged. Top management just lets them be. On the contrary, in a flamboyant organisation, a new wave of strategic initiatives is undertaken to improve the best performing function. Check in the best performing department, is it subject to improvement initiative? Are the processes in place?
• Hypothesis 2: New initiatives are always led by top management or identified leaders. A "risk averse" organisation never risks a new initiatives with unknown leaders. And this means new initiatives are all big initiatives. On the contrary, flamboyant organisations have smaller new initiatives manned across the ranks. Such organisations do not wait for "proven" "sizable" opportunity rather they explore every possible opportunity with the resources they have. List out the major opportunities your organisation has gone after? Do you see familliar faces manning them? Do you see enough grass-root level opportunity exploitation?
• Hypothesis 3: Flamboyant Organisations have a Fast-track program for employees. Typically, a team that takes higher risks needs higher rewards and this shows in the flamboyant organisation. A typical fallout of this is high person in-dependance in such organisation. The top performers are often moved across departments across functions to man the new initiatives. A fast track program may be a structured program or un-structured program but the key point is every employee knows how he can be selected for this program.
• Hypothesis 4: Meritocracy must for Risk taking organisation! Most of the Risk taking organisations have a mechanism to reward the best employees. GE consistently separates the extra-ordinary from the ordinary!
• Hypothesis 5: In flamboyant organisations, new Ideas get heard, financed and manned at first level where decision can be taken on them. If you have pitched for a new idea and your boss has referred it to his senior and you have not heard anything about it from then on, most likely you are in a "risk averse" organisation. In flamboyant organisations if someone is responsible he/she takes the decision and gets it implemented.