Anecdote

I have always believed in the importance of narrative, and stories in organizations. Sometimes, these narratives assume even more importance than logical/efficient decision making. A typical example is the commonly heard "this is how we do things here". I found an interesting blog that is dedicated to such stuff - Anecdote. Anecdote is a consulting firm that works in this niche area.

Here's an interesting post from Anecdote - the difference between a sound argument and a good story

Bruner called the two modes of thought ‘logico-scientific’ (or paradigmatic) and ‘narrative’, arguing that:

the types of causality implied in the two modes are palpably different. The term then functions differently in the logical proposition ‘if x, then y’ and in the narrative recit ‘The king died, and then the queen died.’ One leads to a search for universal truth conditions, the other for likely particular connections between two events – mortal grief, suicide, foul play. (pp. 11–12)

To compare the two modes, Bruner claimed, is to understand the difference between a sound argument and a good story.

What should I do with my life?

I will be posting links to interesting articles that try to answer this question that has troubled mankind for long. Will update this post over the next few days.

Steve Jobs - You've got to find what you love

Po Bronson's book - What should I do with my life?

Most attempt to answer it with one eye open, one eye closed. We let our fears govern our decisions; rather than challenging the validity of those fears, we accept the boundaries set by those fears, and end up confining our search to a narrow range of possibilities, like the guy looking for his car keys under the streetlight because he’s afraid of the dark. Some broad examples: we confine ourselves to a range that is acceptable to our parents or our spouse; we confine ourselves to places inhabited only by people "like us," meaning of our class and education level; we place too much emphasis on being respected by an imaginary audience; we shy away from avocations that take a long time to mature and pay off

Synchronicity!

On Jan 21st, I wrote this on an alumni group of XLRI

"I doubt if the i-Phone will succeed - the main reason being that for once Apple is entering into a field that already has a lot of path breaking innovation happening (in a few years phones went from being just phones to cameras to music players to e-mail clients etc).

The I-pod, on the other hand, was launched in an environment where there was hardly any innovation happening on the portable music player front. The Macintosh, and its GUI was also launched in a similar technological environment. Both these products turned into icons because of the disruptive innovation they brought in. Iconic products tend to tap into the customer's need to identify with something that is path breakingly unique unique, and not possessed by many (atleast to start off with).

My guess is that the i-Phone does not have enough disruptive innovation built into it."

On Jan 24th, Peter Fader, in an interview featured at Knowledge@Wharton said:

Fader: Apple is facing a very different market. It's a market that's far more mature than the MP3 Player market was at the time. It's a far more sophisticated customer base. Apple had the opportunity to go into the MP3 market and basically reshape that market and create the standard for customers' tastes and preferences.

Those things have already been done by the myriad players in the cell phone market. Apple can do a very limited amount of reshaping. I think that when this phone actually hits the market, some of the grand visions that Steve Jobs has as well as some of the Apple zealots are going to be rather disappointed.

Interesting to note the high degree of similarity. Talk about synchronicity!

Sanjeev Bikhchandani on Naukri's IPO

An excellent interview by Gautam.

Companies look beyond IIMs for fresh talent

Very interesting trend

Beyond a point, the rising salaries of entry level management talent from premier b-schools may actually become unsustainable, making them unaffordable for a lot of companies! Already, FMCG companies are facing the heat at premier campuses, with the financial services sector/ consulting firms offering much better pay packets. Wont be surprised if this trend becomes a full blown reality in the next few years, particularly with the small number of "premier b-school MBAs" churned out every year.

The spiritual organization

A recent article of mine which appeared inThe Hindu Business Line.

Link to the article: The spiritual organization

Full text follows:

People who work in a `nine-to-five' kind of workplace must often wonder why `work' is structured the way it is. The modern nature of work has its underpinnings in the Industrial Revolution and its many factories. These factories presented an interesting challenge in how a large number of workers were to be efficiently managed to produce a desired level of output. Frederick Taylor successfully studied and analysed work in factories, with his simple motto being reduction in variability — in other words, viewing people as mere parts of a machine that had to work together to produce a desired product. Needless to say, this view of work and human resources could not last for long.

People do not necessarily work to satisfy an economic function. People work for various other reasons including fulfilment of their potential, following their passions and so on. Such motivations are much truer of the modern knowledge worker who works more in the realm of ideas and analysis as opposed to actions and objects. Yet, I find that most organisations still largely view job roles along the lines of the `parts of a machine' model described earlier. With most modern professionals spending a significant chunk of their waking hours at work, work ends up being an important sphere to achieve a lot of life goals apart from economic goals. Work may even become a path to spiritual development (suddenly shifting the focus from the here and now to the next world if there is one!). The Industrial Revolution (and the Protestant Reformation) on the other hand, made society focus more on this world, with work being an important component in it. The Industrial Revolution and the modern knowledge economy are at opposite ends of the spectrum in the nature of work they create. And yet, very little has changed in the approach that modern organisations have towards people.

Most organisations that claim to be modern in all respects — be it technology, strategy, CRM, operations and so on — manage to be extremely archaic in their people practices. I find a huge hangover from the industrial era still permeating the hallowed corporate hallways. It appears that the `modern' knowledge worker lives in a world populated by access cards, nine to five regimes, appraisals that tend to measure performance in the way a car's performance would be measured and so on. It is thus no surprise that the very term human resources seems to convey a view of people as input-output machines (pay salary, will work).

In my view, the organisation of the future must be a spiritual one. Its goals must be closely aligned with the life goals of its stakeholders. In such an organisation, I would give people the freedom to choose what they want to do, within broad constraints. The underlying theme would be that people inherently love to work when the kind of work they do is closely linked to who they truly are. This concept finds support in the Bhagawad Gita too, where Lord Krishna commands Arjuna not to be a coward, and to be true to his dharma (the true nature of one's personality). The current approach to hiring, on the other hand, seems to be one of `filling open positions'.

Second, the spiritual organisation would pay closer attention to the non-work goals of employees. This may mean allowing employees to spend significant chunks of time pursuing these goals even during the `working day'. Career growth paths would be super-customised and not standardised. Thus, on a broad level, a spiritual organisation would place self-actualisation before profits, and this paradigm would present itself in the organisation structure, hierarchies, roles, career paths, approach towards customers, products and so on.

It is not as if organisations have been entirely oblivious to the way people view work today. A lot of new age companies — technology companies like Google, start-ups and others — do experiment with people practices to foster a culture of flexibility and openness. Hierarchies too are becoming a lot more informal. However, if one looks at the entire spectrum of organisations and not just a few nimble new-age companies, there is still a long way to go. People have progressed from being mere `resources' to `human capital', which is the most important non-substitutable resource in this knowledge economy. It's about time this change is acknowledged and capitalism turns into human capitalism!

(The writer, an alumnus of XLRI, is working with a multinational financial services company )

Some of my previously published articles:

• The networked marketplace
• Decision making in groups
• Free riding and social loafing

What's your manifesto?

Click here.

Indian b-school rankings

It's that time of the year when thousands of young Indians appear for the CAT, and a whole lot of other management exams aiming to grab that coveted seat in a top b-school. A few friends who have been appearing for these exams have been asking me for advice on which schools to apply to. So, here's my list of top Indian b-schools you would want to apply to, factoring in placements, faculty, research, industry perception, alumni network, and brand value. I am adding a few brief remarks against each b-school.

Presenting, my personal list in no particular order

IIMA- good across all parameters

IIMB - placements

IIMC - known for being the best finance campus

IIML - good placements, not so strong alumni network due to it being a relatively new school
XLRI - strong alumni network, known for its niche HR program in addition to the regular business management course.

FMS, Delhi - strong placements in BFSI, constrained by the Delhi University tag

MDI - up coming, placements seem good going by reports

SPJIMR - same as above. Still not in the big league.

This is what IMS has to say.

The difference between the top few schools, and the next set of schools is quite huge in terms of industry perception, salaries etc. Thus, if one is a serious contender (by which I mean someone who has been preparing seriously, or has been consistently doing well in all those simulated CAT tests) and doesn't make it to these schools, one may want to consider giving the GMAT and applying abroad. For someone with a lot of work experience, ISB is turning out to be a good option with it's flagship 1 year program.

Work experience versus freshers
Some years back, most b-schools took in a large number of freshers. However, the trend over the last few years has tilted in favour of people with work ex. The primary reason for this could be an increase in the number of work ex applicants, typically those with a few years in an IT company. I do not believe there is any other reason for this trend. So, if you are a fresher who has a call from an IIM, the probability of you getting through depends entirely on your performance in the selection process. I do not think you gain any points or lose any because of your lack of work ex.

Choosing a specialization
Some applicants start comparing b-schools based on specializations that they are interested in. In my view, unless you have had some sort of managerial experience, there is not much value in this exercise. Most people develop an inclination towards a specialization after they join a b-school. In my own case, I started off being very interested in marketing, and then by the end of it all had developed a stronger interest in Strategy and Organizational Behaviour.

Placements
With so much hype surrounding placements at the top b-schools, it is easy to get carried away. However, it is important to remember that the few jobs that get talked about in these news reports are just that - few. The majority of the batch does not walk away with a $200,000 salary. So keep your expectations realistic.

Academic Pressure
Initially, there is a certain amount of academic pressure at a b-school. It may appear quite unnatural compared to one's graduation degree. However, with time, one gets used to it, and learns to beat the system, and manage one's time efficiently. By the second year, life is a lot more relaxed, and one actually feels a bit bored when there is not much to do.

GD, PI preparation
In the group discussion, the main thing that one needs to focus on is 'contribution'. Nothing else matters. It does not matter whether you speak first or last. If you contribute positively to the discussion, you have done half the job. How does one contribute? There are two ways of contributing.
1. Contribute with content: This is a simple way of contributing. You bring in facts, personal experience etc. to make the discussion more fruitful. Even better than bringing in facts, is to bring in unique ideas or perspectives. This will make you stand out in the mind of the evaluator.
2. Contribute by managing the discussion: Here, you play the role of a coordinator, who directs the discussion, or atleast nudges it in a logical direction. You demonstrate skills like summarizing, logical reasoning, data consolidation and presentation etc. In addition to this you can also demonstrate critical skills such as interpersonal skills, team player skills (occassionally sacrificing your point of view for the sake of consensus) , and leadership skills.

The personal interview is your play ground to showcase your uniqueness as a candidate. Remember that you are contending with about 10 people for every seat on offer. You need to give solid, tangible reasons for the panel to pick you over the others. The interview, also offers you a fantastic opportunity to control the discussion, by leading it to your comfort areas. For instance, if you want to showcase your extra curricular accomplishments, grab the first opportunity that presents itself during the interview to steer the conversation towards extra curriculars. Remember, the interview is more of a conversation, than a quiz. You are free to speak beyond the scope of the question asked, or even initiate a discussion as and when such an opportunity presents itself. This of course does not mean that you steer every question towards your comfort zones. The key is to pick and choose.
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Finally, it seems to a be a bit of a tragedy, that over 2 lakh applicants appear for CAT for just over 1500 seats. With so much demand, I would estimate that we would need atleast 20,000 high quality seats in the top b-schools each year to satisfy the demand of both of the students, as well as the industry which is facing a shortage of quality management talent in the market.

I hope this post helps people make an informed choice. If there are specific areas that you would like to discuss in more detail, do mail me at mohit[dot]kishore[at]gmail or leave a comment.

Red!

Fantastic branding

A great example of how brands and get associated with causes.

Also visit, Blog Red.

"(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver, Chairman of DATA, to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund by teaming up with the world's most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT) RED-branded products. A percentage of each (PRODUCT) RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children with HIV/AIDS in Africa."

Live search

Though I'm an avid user of Google's portfolio of web-based products, I'm always on the lookout for non-Google applications that can give the search giant from Mountain View a run for it's money. Live search from Microsoft seems to be a step in that direction.

The interface is simple, the search results are visually elegant, the quality of results are good, and it opens up pretty fast too.

Try Live Search

Worldspace, are you listening?

I have been watching Worldspace's brand building initiatives over the last few months with some interest. First was the tie up with A.R. Rahman as brand ambassador. That was a fantastic move. Clearly Worldspace and A.R. Rahman are two brands that have a number of common characteristics - music, innovation, generation next, international etc. The tag line - 'There's so much to hear.' - also hit a home run. I expect that things should be finally looking up for Worldspace as a brand. It has probably finally made a move from the 'Awareness' stage to the 'Consideration Set' stage. However, there are some sore points that remain.

Product Placement in Lage Raho Munnabhai
This was a great move. Good product placements are inevitably those that are tied in closely to the film's script, unlike those that are in your face for no reason (Eg. Elf in Viruddh). The Worldspace guys got that much right. However, they showed actors in the movie listening to Worldspace 'on the move', in taxis, using receivers worn around the neck(!) etc. Of course, all this is not possible with a real Worldspace receiver, which needs to be stationary and aligned in a certain direction at all times. In my view this is a serious mistake. One of the biggest negative points about the product is that it is not portable. Now, covering up this exact point is not going to help. You don't want customers landing up at the retail shop, armed with their credit cards and then discovering this critical piece of information.

Subscription Fees
The second problem with Worldspace is the fact that it charges a subscription fees. I expect this to be the biggest roadblock in the way for success. When all other competing music offerings in the market - FM radio, AM radio, MP3 music(!), MTV - are free, why would a customer want to pay an annual fee to listen to music on a Worldspace. MP3 music is of a comparable quality as Worldspace, and happens to be portable too, in addition to being free. If ICICI bank suddenly comes up with a paid credit card in this era of free cards, I would consider it only if it had a USP that no other alternative provides. Worldspace has no such USP (digital quality music? that's a commodity. 40 channels? Maybe. Niche channels? Yes, but I can get the same music on mp3, I-tunes, Yahoo Launch Cast... ). With this being the case there is no choice but to be free. There are other ways to bring in revenue, such as advertising, up-selling receivers to existing customers etc.

The Iridium Story
Many years back, Motorola launched Iridium, which was supposed to be this satellite phone that you could use anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the cellular phone wave killed it (of course there were other factors too). I suspect that Worldspace too may be the wrong technology coming into the market at the wrong time. Gone are the days when customers would be in awe of 'digital cd-quality music'.

The music devotee
So, could it be that Worldspace does not care about common customers like you and me? Are they going for a very niche target group that has specialized tastes in music, and would be willing to pay for it? If that were the case, why are they going for mass market promotions like the Lage Raho Munnabhai example? Niche brands are successful when they stand for only one thing to one group of customers, not when they stand for everything under the sun. If you want to stand for everything, be a mass market brand.

What I would do
If I were the marketing manager at Worldspace, I would firstly scrap the subscription fees. It is a major nuisance factor, and a mental roadblock for any customer to seriously consider the product. Secondly, I would storm the market with receivers (probably priced a little more than what they are priced right now, so that the subcription fee can be recovered) and ensure that there is a big base of users in the first place. Once a critical mass of users is in place, I would then considering selling 'add-on' niche channels at a price. Alternatively, I would launch a plain vanilla free suite of channels, and let users add on a bouquet of other channels. It is important that the customer experience the product in the basic form first, before you do an up-sell. Worldspace seems to be entering the market directly with an up-sell (offering all channels to all people at fixed, and exorbitant subscription fee).

Yes, there's so much to hear. Worldspace, are you listening?

Summer Placements @ XLRI Jamshedpur

Great show!

Free Riding and Social Loafing [featured in The Hindu Business Line]

Today's Hindu Business Line carries the following article by me.

Link to the article: Free Riding and Social Loafing. Full text follows:

Free riding is a problem that is commonly found in almost all organisational contexts. With most tasks being accomplished by teams, it is quite common for a few members to slack off and not contribute to the team's cause, and yet not have the results suffer. As an economic phenomenon free riding has been studied for a long time.

A simple definition of a free rider is an agent who does not contribute his fair share to the cost of production of a resource, but receives an equal share of the benefits.

A simple example of this is taxation. Monies collected through taxes are deployed in various projects such as improving infrastructure, healthcare and so on.

Yet, a lot of people get away with paying no tax and still continue to reap the benefits of using those resources. The free riding problem is actually an `n-player' version of the famous `prisoner's dilemma', where `n' is greater than two. Where only two players are playing, non-fulfilment of one player's contribution would amount to the project being abandoned. However, when `n' is greater than two, it is possible for some players to not contribute, while hoping that others do.

Another interesting example of the free riding problem is the recent reservation protests in India.

Most protestors felt that while the general category of students would have to work really hard for the coveted few seats in the premier institutions, the reserved category would have it much easier without contributing enough (in terms of effort). Of course, those in favour of reservation could argue that the reserved categories have actually made up for this through the socio-economic suffering and discrimination they have faced.

Social Loafing
Related to the concept of free riding is that of social loafing. Social loafing refers to a situation where an individual holds back his contribution because he perceives that he would not be getting a fair share of the rewards in the eventuality of success, nor would he be blamed for failure. In an experiment by French engineer Maximilian Ringelmann, involving a group of people tugging on a rope, it has been seen that as the number of people increases, the total force exerted also increases, but the average force per person is seen to diminish.

The key difference between free riding and social loafing is that a free rider does not contribute to the cause at all, since his contribution is not essential for success, whereas a social loafer merely reduces his effort fully knowing that it would be impossible for an external observer to determine the same.

Dealing with free riding and social loafing
The Ringelmann experiment suggests that the size of the group may have some answers to offer us. A good manager may need to precisely identify the number of people it would require to successfully accomplish a task. Second, social loafing is seen in situations where it is impossible to identify individual contribution.

Thus, a good way to prevent it may be to clearly define the individual's role in the group task. Third, it is seen that social loafing does not present a major problem in cohesive teams (the reason being that team members value their affiliation with the group more than any benefits associated with social loafing). Thus, the choice of specific team members for a task may also help in minimising social loafing.

Task significance may also have a role to play in increasing motivation levels to perform. Task significance refers to the relevance of the task to the immediate organisation, group, society or the world at large.

One suspects that social loafing may be a less common phenomenon in an NGO, compared to other types of organisations.

Reward systems
Reward systems such as stock options and performance bonuses too increase the cost of not contributing, as non-contribution would directly lead to reduced benefits for the individual team member. Thus, each team member would at least contribute in his own self interest.

This is, in fact, not unlike Adam Smith's theory of the `invisible hand' of the economy, where each individual agent does whatever is in his self interest, and this somehow leads to a beneficial collective result, which is quite different from what the individual expects. Both free riding and social loafing are phenomena that are seen in all kinds of organisations — companies, families, communities, neighbourhoods, governments and so on. It is thus not surprising to find Glaucon arguing (many centuries ago ) in Plato's Republic that an individual need not obey the law in situations where he can escape the consequent sanctions!

(The writer, an alumnus of XLRI, is working with a multinational financial services company)

The networked marketplace [featured in The Hindu Business Line]

Today's Hindu Business Line carries the following article written by me. Link to the article on the Business Line website: The networked marketplace

Full text of the article follows:

"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter — and getting smarter faster than most companies." — The Cluetrain Manifesto

The implications are clear. Modern organisations need to be more nimble, more clued into what is happening in the external world — in the real world. They need to `talk' to their customers, not `talk down' to their customers through flashy corporate ads. They need to project a voice that is authentic and not sugar coated in marketing spiel. Companies need to start appearing genuine, human, humane and vulnerable if need be. This is the message of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a pathbreaking book, which in the true spirit of the Internet is available freely on the Web.

Very few companies, if any, have woken up to the reality of the networked world. So, one sees companies that do the market research, decide the product and brand attributes, launch the product and wonder what went wrong. What is likely to have gone wrong is that your customers have been talking to each other and spreading the `word' faster than your `advertisements'. Be it film reviews, music reviews, product and gadget reviews, people are talking, and talking like never before. Products get trashed before the first ad comes out.

Here is an insight that organisations need to pay attention to: Customers trust human voices. This explains why nothing beats word-of-mouth publicity, and today the biggest word of mouth movement is happening on the Internet.

Building Relationships

After all, every purchase made by a customer is a new relationship created with the company whose product the customer has bought. When I receive my monthly phone bill, I notice that it bears a `relationship code'. Yet companies do little to nurture a customer relationship the way a human relationship is nurtured. Strong brands like Google actively engage their customer in the `conversation'. The Google Blog for instance, is a place where customers can see what the guys at Google are up to . It's about time brick-and-mortar companies too embrace this new form of conversation. And as the manifesto says, "Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed."

Employees of organisations are also part of this new form of conversation. People are actively and virtually networking with each other to find out more about each other's organisations. Employer brands are being created and destroyed in this brand new market place as fast as thought and the strokes of a keyboard. Secondly, markets too want to talk to employees. They want the inside track on what really goes into their products. Companies need to let go and let this conversation happen freely. Robert Scoble (Microsoft' erstwhile star blogger) did more to humanise Microsoft than any ad campaign ever would have.

The way forward

As I see it, the way forward would be for companies to view `advertising' as one of the ways of talking to customers, and not the only way. All kinds of organisations need to embrace the power of the Internet as the new global market place where brands will be created and destroyed — where your multi-crore ad spend will be thrown into the bin when your customers rant about your call centre service on their blogs. The future is a world where mere brand logos and taglines wont suffice. It will be a place where brand voice (how your brand talks to your customers) will assume more significance. Brands would need to be `humble' and not mighty; brands will have to understand, rather than be understood; brands will have to listen and not talk.

It's a brand new era that is unfolding (and, indeed has been unfolding over the last few years). Blogs, social networking, Web 2.0 and so on are all going to fundamentally realign the way society is structured, and people will be netizens of the marketplace first and then citizens. The future looks exciting, and archaic institutions will need to embrace this change for their own good.

Machiavelli on Leadership

"Moreover, men are less careful how they offend him who makes himself loved than him who makes himself feared. For love is held by the tie of obligation, which, because men are a sorry breed, is broken on every whisper of private interest; but fear is bound by the apprehension of punishment which never relaxes."

From Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince

Seems to be a reference to Coercive power, which is one of the 4 sources of individual power.

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Legitimate power: From holding a formal position. Others comply because they accept the legitimacy of the position of the power holder.
Reward power: Target complies in order to obtain rewards controlled by the agent.
Coercive Power: Compliance is to avoid punishments controlled by the agent.
Expert Power: Based on a person’s expertise, competence, and information in a certain area.
Referent Power: The target person comply because they respect and like the power holder (agent).

Lessons in Positioning - Nokia n-Series Vs Reliance Infocomm

My favourite ad on television these days is the Nokia n-series ad. I cannot think of any other ad that communicates to it's target segment as precisely (like a hot knife through butter, if I may use a Sidhuism) as this one. The film opens to the shot of a guy removing rings pierced on his face, and moves on to a guy with long hair, who gets a haircut (and I presume a new Nokia n-series phone), then we move on to a guy who trades in his old tattered jeans for a new one, and similar such life situations where people make that transition from being young and rebellious, to older more mature selves. The fantastic jingle begins with 'Zindagi ki nayi mod pe, aa gaye aaj hum' - which roughly translates to -Today, we have come to a new turn in our lives. The positioning is crystal clear - the n-Series is not your first phone, it's your second phone, the one you buy when you move up in life, the one you buy when you have had enough of living your rebellious college bum life, and move on to greater things (like employment, your first car etc).The whole ad just focusses on positioning and customer segmentation (by stage of life) - no rubbish about the phone's features or the prices. Sweet.


Check out the clip below

On the other hand, we have the new and youthful 'Reliance Infocomm', which has absolutely gone berserk with colours. Their new ad celebrates 2.5 million customers (and growing). However, the positioning goes haywire. The ad features these young twenty-somethings humming the new Reliance signature tune, while facts about the company appear to their right (in colours that I can only call vulgar). The average Reliance customer is NOT trying to make a statement about his cool quotient through his brand choice. It is more likely that he is a cost conscious person who wants a basic connection.

What seems to have happened is that Anil Ambani has decided that all his brands will be 'youthful', in stark contrast to brother Mukesh's staid brands. So, suddenly Reliance Infocomm (which had, and continues to have no brand attributes associated with it except cheap) finds itself in a desperate situation trying to be young and hep, instead of being itself - a lesson that is as important for a brand as it is for us mortals.

The analytical genius of Times of India

This article (titled, Want salary hike, join financial sector) on increase in salaries in the financial sector points out:

"India Bulls was amongst the highest payers in financial sector with a 262.44 per cent increase in their staff cost. Firms like Geojit Financials, IL&FS and CRISIL also registered 82 to 85 per cent rise in their staff expenditures."

Thus TOI would have us believe that a 262% increase in staff costs, corresponds to a 262% increase in salary, thereby making Indiabulls the highest payer in the financial sector. Wow. Now, if Indiabulls doesn't hire you, I suggest you head to Balaji Telefilms , where again the staff costs went up by 251%. Needless to say, TOI would like us to believe that this means that salaries went up by 251%.

Do we need to point out that staff costs go up when you hire more people (both Indiabulls and Balaji being growing companies), and not necessarily because you are paying your people more.

"The salaries rose by over 251 per cent in Balaji Telefilms and the drop in the profits of firms like Cinevistaas, UTV, Zee Telefilms, Mid Day Multimedia and TV Today can be partly attributed to the increasing staff costs, the release added."

I can see the young journalist writing this piece as it was originally meant to be - one about salary costs going up and affecting bottom lines. But, why would an ordinary reader of TOI be interested in something like that? He would be interested if you told him that salaries (particularly his own) are going up. Now, with that marketing insight in place, all you need is to substitute the phrase 'staff cost' with 'salary' in a few places in the article, and you have a story about salaries - which can then be given a juicy title - Want salary hike, join financial sector. Subsequently, this story can be put up right in the front page of the website, where readers will keep clicking, generating more revenues for TOI (Cost per ad impression).

MBAs prepare people to manage nothing

Or so says Henry Mintzberg .

To some extent it is true, because most MBA courses focus only on functional areas, and not on true people management or leadership. An ideal MBA course should probably focus on business concepts in the first year, and pure practical management and leadership in the second (possibly through social projects, live consulting projects, startup incubation etc.), culminating with placements.

I suppose one of the main reasons why IIMs, XLRI etc produce successful business leaders could be that the input raw material itself represents the topmost performers on the entrance tests with 10s of thousands of candidates, a group of people who I suspect would succeed anyway.

Carnival of the capitalists

The lastest Carnival of the capitalists, featuring great posts from the week from business and economics blogs is out. Incidentally, this week's edition happens to feature Slow Leadership, a blog I recently wrote about.

Downtoearth.org.in - a new kind of cola war

If it wasn't enough that softdrink makers use up precious reserves of ground water (thereby depriving farmers of the same) and spend very little on it, they now wish to have no standards to be set for pesticides in soft drinks. They contend that since vegetables, milk etc already contain pesticide, what harm can a little more of it do?

Three years after releasing the findings on pesticide content in softdrinks, the CSE continues its fight.

Read this, from downtoearth.co.in : The street fight
And read this from The Frontline: Thirst for Profit

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Update: Since this post is attracting more comments, thought I should add some more views on the way the issue is being handled by the cola companies. They seem to have realized that the best way to react to any controversy in India (be it terrorism, flooding in Mumbai etc) is to just keep quiet, and hope that the issue dies a natural death in our collective consciousness.

Secondly, this is also an example of how companies view customers as 'target segments', (who can be fooled into buying a product, leading to increased revenues) instead of actual people. What I would like to see instead is an 'explanation', not a yogic meditative silence on the issue. If you believe that the pesticide content in your product is at acceptable levels, tell us why you think the CSE is wrong, and don't put your US lobbies into overtime duty by threatening that this issue could affect FDI prospects in India.

Thirdly, the argument that there should be standards for inputs in the product (water, sugar etc), but not the final product is illogical. Consumers drink the final product, and not the inputs whatever their level of purity may be. I have noticed pani puri sellers who put up little signboards that say 'Only Aquafina water used for pani puris here'. Surely, we expect better from a multi-billion dollar MNC.

And finally, I am sure other industries too use up ground water. But lets have answers from the soft drink makers first, shall we? I suppose steel and paper contribute in some manner to nation building, whereas softdrinks just corrode teeth, and make people fat. Mangola (Pepsi's mango drink) for instance, contains about 15 grams of sugar per 500 ml, and if I am not mistaken, the dietary requirement of sugar would be about 12 grams for an entire day. (I could be wrong about this last bit though.)

And yes, in case you did not read the Frontline article at the top of this post, do so now. Click here.