Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Responsibility Capability and Capacity and how to change the DNA of an organisation.

On my previous post there were some typical questions on building up responsible managers. Dilemma of a manager to use the words/actions like Task, Targets and Responsibility. How to make an individual more responsible where the targets can be automatically achieved.
There is an acute shortage of manager’s leave aside responsible. There is a whole lot of paradigm shift on the management scenario in recent years.
Change is becoming an integral part of business and goes hand in hand with the business.
The Human element in an organization is becoming very critical capital on whom the whole responsibility lies right from business goal setting and achieving the goals.
Here apart from responsibility of an individual Capability and Capacity also matters which is equally important.
Here is a Hyperlink from IBM Global Business Services on Capability, Capacity and Responsibility approach and restructuring the DNA of an organization.
Please click this:
http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/pdf/g510-6304-01.pdf
Post your comments if you feel like.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Are Managers are afraid of giving responsibility to their juniours and making them leaders?

It is seen that in all organization employees are given Targets, be it in Sales, Production, Project Dead lines, etc and we are living in a result-oriented world and Quarterly Results are driving the firm's management mad.

If targets are not fulfilled the firms objectives will not be fulfilled and in turn it lands up in problems.

From Management's view point it is absolutely right no doubts about it.
But sometimes to get these targets the managers becomes Task Masters and in turn the relationship between the manager and subordinates get strained, the management all the employees including the managers are in a pressure cooker environment.

Instead of using the word like Task, Targets, why do they don't use the word
RESPONSIBILITY.
Do you agree Responsibility leads to Delegations?
Delegation leads to Empowerment.
When you empower a person he/she can unleash the latent potential that he has inside him.
Empowerment leads to Maturity.
Empowerment+ Maturity=Leadership
Leadership leads to Interprenuals activities.

Drucker said Leadership is the amount of Responsibility that you can carry on your shoulder not how many people reporting to you.
But in the real world of management it is seen that the manager’s always give Task leading to Targets.

It has been found 90% of the Managers gives task and targets and it toggles between task and targets instead of responsibility

Do you agree with me, and management can remove the word called task and targets and instead give responsibility, so in turn employee enjoys the work, it doesn’t become a pressure on him to perform. The employee enjoys the work and pro activeness starts, result automatically starts coming in.
Three QUESTIONS?
1.Do you find the responsibility is a heavy word, which managers shy away from using because they are all great believers of McGregor’s X Theory?
2.Responsibility is a superset and Task and Targets are subsets of responsibility?
3.Do you think management/Managers wants to keep employees/subordinates as soldiers don’t want to promote them to Generals/Leaders, which lacks professional attitude?
Please give your views on this.
Regards,

Friday, October 12, 2007

Reinvertors of Management

If you go back to the prehistoric ages like the Stone Age, Iron Age, Copper Age all humanity tried and is still trying to tackle one thing i.e. SURVIVAL.
In the quest off survival against wild animals, enemies, climatic and natural calamities, catastrophic situations like epidemic disease even imperialism.
They have invented the defense mechanism with all their brains and master minds.

Management to Profitability Chain.

Management is Problem solving.
Problem is Survival.
Survival requires Strategy.
Strategy needs Administration.
Administration needs proper Planning.
Planning needs Execution.
Execution needs ability to Perform.
Performance needs Productivity.
Productivity leads to Profitability.

If you start from Alex The Great, Sun Tzu, Prof Blacket, Collin Powell all great generals were great Strategist, and all have done management in marshalling their resources and used them optimally in reaping the maximum benefits. Sandhurst and West Point academy may be the best management schools in the world apart from military academy. They have gone from Management to Profitability Chain.
Today’s Management Science to a great extent is indebted to Military Science.

Now take for example Medical Science, right from the discovery of Penicillin to Anti Cancer, Anti HIV, Repairing of damaged brain cell, it is matter of management to profitability chain. Back to back DNA structure has been adopted by many management experts in defining culture of a firm.
Today’s Management Science to a great extent is indebted to Biological Science..

If you take Engg Science, James Watt, Bill Gates to Larry Page, from Steam Engine to Nanotechnology all have gone through Management to Profitability Chain.
Today’s Management Science is indebted to Engg Science. They have enhanced productivity.

In the field of Economics from Adam Smith to Md Younis they have gone through the
Management to Profitability Chain. Economics is a part of Management science. Management can not ignore them.

In Politics, Gandhi, Mandela, Washington has all gone from Management to Profitability.
Management Science is indebted to all great political leaders like Mandela, Washington, Gandhi and many more as they showed us leadership.


Profitability does not mean only mean money but in greater term the profitability in a broader way can be used to the society as a whole freedom from poverty, decease, freedom from imperialism. I think the management science is universal, it is always getting rediscovered and reinvented in different ways. Every body is rediscovering and reinventing management in their own way and solving problems in their own ways and own problem ultimately leading to greater profitability.
Management is nobody’s monopoly, rather it is a dependent and adopting things from others.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Incredible global marketplace-Prepearing for the future.

If you go to the basics of classical marketing of 4P’s one
P=Place is no more local or any region/country centric for survival and satisfying the stakeholders it is becoming global to get the maximum leverage.
Some points are to mentioned.

Point No 1 Uniformity: Recently Vodafone in launching its product in the Vodafone Brand in India, Vodafone wants to bring its USP’s to all the Indian customers at a very affordable price fighting against existing players like Airtel, BSNL, Reliance. If you go by the statistics it has got 35-Million customer base( Hutch) in India 16-17% market share and catering the market thru 400000 retail outlets. The Indian telecom market is growing at an Approx CARG of 40%+(One of the fastest in the world). All the existing customers and the so-called potential customers wants excellent service and at a specific price point. Typically an India Telecom market like China is a very price elastic market. At US$25 you get a mobile handset and one year incoming free calls and some talk time free, in 7-8 months time they want to increase the share to 45% and get in to RMAG (Rural, Micro, Agricultural) segments and it may further drop the price US$20 for capturing the market share. Strategically it may kill many small players and as Vodafone has got huge reserves it can get the chunk of the big market of India which is an emerging market and the payback period may be in 5-6 years with full of uncertainties both political and market.
Is it really possible to adopt this practice in any small country with small population?
It is matter of pick and choose of countries. So here is not uniformity of the Brand but uniformity in technology and services of CDMA or GSM.

2. Statelessness: Firms generally will not get into areas where the political instability is there and govt is not investor friendly and more often Joint Ventures are requested for in countries like China, where technology has to be shared.
Products, which are manufactures in Israel, are not sold in the pan Islamic countries. So we find global political harmony in extremely necessary for effective and successful globaloney. We are in a semiglobalisation state as you rightly mention. So glabalmania is yet to come or even it may not come at all because of politcal differences, which continued for past thousands of years.

3.Industries will become more concentrated and consolidation will happen: New opportunities will come up and consolidations will come, and region specific maturity and concentration will come in.
China for example has done wonderful achievements and has become the manufacturing hub as you said in your AAA formula of globalization.
India will be the next destinations for sub US$ 3000 small car manufacturing hub, and also in forging business where Fiat, Renault, Nissan all global players will play along with Indian conglomerate. As India is still trying to consolidate its positions in IT & ITes sector.

4. Endless Growth: Perfectly right here the world is really flat, a limitless growth in all sectors not only the U.S, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and of late Indian companies are going global and taking the advantages and unleashing the tremendous potential of R&D, production facilities, trained cheap manpower, financial strength, electronically enabled marketing, and global drop shipment by very smart logistic, supply chain companies. Dell and Wal-Mart are the classic examples. Telemedicine cannot be ignored in this case also.

5 Act Of Faith: Faith has to be there in order to benifit from the technological and service benifits.Semiglobalisation is going to stay and slowly as comon benifits and common interest matures where political hegemony may come to an end then only the full form of Globalisation will set in.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Question required to be asked by the management for it's peak performance

Intoday’s competitive world the business performance measurement has become a buzzword. In all the facets of managemts, HR, Sales & Marketing, Finance, R&D,
Production & Manufacturing has to be synchronies in such an excellent way that
the firm in a position to outsmart its competitors in the industry.

Business Strategist has been toying with new concepts and brilliant ideas to come out with excellent thoughts to cope up with this complex market scenario.

MBO, Benchmarking, Balance Score Cards, EVA are some effective tools by which every day business are trying to introspects and soul search in business activities for excellence.

Some of the so called above systems have been very effective and with the on line
(Internet & Intranet) systems remarkable achievement has been made.

Firms with Global operations employing in thousands have leveraged their operations
and have satisfied their stake holders in different ways.

As change in an inevitable part in today’s business process and all these process has to be taken into considerations or put in to practice by the management in order to achieve their
respective goals. Focus and canalizing forces has become an important component in today’s firm for performance excellence.

Please find this hyperlink http://pmn.net/library/refocus.html which gives an excellent
overview how present firms are working on these questions and answering these questions.
Debashish Brahma

Sunday, October 7, 2007

India the next destination for all global knowledge centric companies

India the next destination for the best talent hunting ground for all MNCs Consulting/Tech organizations.

Her demographic advantage and a good educational system will enable her to club her to the global economy and reap the benifits of the global economic exposure.

Consulting companies are flocking in to India for all the best talents available in India at
a dirt cheap price. Obviously things are looking up in India but a robust quality education system is needed in India, where slowly private players are also coming in
India .

Globalization has made the world smaller and there is talent (Knowledge Manpower scarcity) shortage round the world, and is going to increase by leaps and bound.
If India can maintain her education systems that will be great wealth for India and that will never deplete.

Here comes the serious question of quality control in the case of education. At no cost the standard of the education can be diluted and it should be kept per global standard.
It can be global hub for knowledge and in tomorrow’s knowledge driven economies
India can play a pivotal role.

Microsoft, Dell, Oracle, Accenture, PWC, IBM etc, all major global player in knowledge
centric business has chosen India to new their favored destination.
Businessweek.com in April 2007 has given this report about Accenture http://businessweek.com/pdf/270499bwEprint.pdf .

A great time ahead of India in knowledge business if she can manage the education system properly.

Debashish Brahma.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Coca-Cola Its Globalisation and Capturing India's Market.

One very interesting thing about Coca Coal, which I read recently about the India and China’s, are as follows:
1.As you all know Coke reentered in the India’s market in 1993 after being booted out from India for about a decade. As it reentered the massive India’s Market it had masterminded the marketing strategies in beverage market by buying out Ramesh Cahuhan’s Thums Ups Brand. It did not cannibalize the brand of Thums Up it kept it alive in it’s portfolio and still it is very much alive in India. It got over the bottling plants of Thums Up and gave the licensing for making Coke along with Thums Up. It was a mastermind decision, as it knew that Pepsi its archrival has all ready made an in road in India in early nineties. Buying Thums Up was to kill the Indian competition but not killing the brand. Billion Of US$ were poured in advertisements and campaigns to win the confidence in the mind of the people after the allegations rocked both Pepsi and Coke that’s its products had abnormally high traces of unacceptable chemicals. In recent years it is doing good in India’s Market. Interestingly the market in India grew ( CAGR) of only1 % between 1999 and 2006 from $1.31 billion to $1.32 billion. It is said 30% of all beverages sold in emerging markets are ready- to-drink. That number is 70% in the western world and in developed world, this will happen in only one decade time period in the case of emerging markets. Very smartly it did up sale and Cross Sale getting into the (Brand: KINLAY) potable drinking water market in India (this is a major segment) where the MNCs are also coming in along with Indian players.
2.Where as in the case of China it found its difficult and a very complex market and had to struggle.
3.Coke introspects and takes corrective decisions and actions in adjusting to different countries complex market, politics and sentiments of the customers as Global MNC’s professional do.
4.It is focusing on markets with favorable demographic, for that it is rightly repackaging and rightly pricing its products so that it can reach to the critical mass when the market will mature and ROI’s will be favorable in coming years.
5.Globalization in this Darwinian world is only meant for smart players. Survival Of The Fittest, and only the Fits have the right to survive. Even if you make any mistake you have to come up very fast and take corrective decisions for turn around. As rightly said globaloney is the only solution in todays world.

Regards,
Debashish Brahma