Learn and Let Learn

I have often started some oratory sessions with this story. least did I realise it would pave the way for what could be a business transformation to  our future.

Years ago in this village was a wise man named Mullah Moinuddin. It was an event for many  villagers to listen to him deliver wise words. It was the turn of one of the more populated village. Some key men went to the Mullah and invited him for a sunday lecture. Mullah agreed and promptly landed in the village - a large gathering indeed. After the initial courtesies, the Mullah asked." Does any of you know what I am going to speak about?". The Villagers were silenced at the question, slowly everyone said, " No Sir, we do not know". The Mullah, said," In that case there is no point for me to speak to you all, as you don't know anything", packed and left. The village was stunned to silence.

 Slowly they all recovered and approached the Mullah and persuaded him  to visit them again.  Mullah agreed and promptly landed in the village the following Sunday- a large gathering again. After the initial courtesies, the Mullah asked." Does any of you know what I am going to speak about?". The Villagers smiled at each other at the question, then everyone said, " Yes Sir, we do know". The Mullah, said," In that case there is no point for me to speak to you all, as you already know", packed and left. The village was stunned to silence. 

Slowly they all recovered and approached the Mullah  and persuaded him to visit them again. The  Mullah agreed after much reluctance and landed in the village the following Sunday- a large gathering again. After the initial courtesies, the Mullah asked." Does any of you know what I am going to speak about?". The Villagers smiled at each other at the question, but one half of them  said, " Yes Sir, we do know".  The other half said, " No Sir, We do not know". The Mullah, gently smiled at the villagers and said," In that case, those who know please tell those who do not". Thus  packed and left. 

Many a time we have encountered such attitudes in our college days and more so in our respective organisations.. A few know  and several who dont. It has lead us to situations where business decisions are based on little knowledge  for either want of information or our reluctance to approach those who know. What Mullah Moinuddin did surely brings the irony of matters to perspective and also provides a very humourous  moment. 

Most importantly, it has led to a key message of "Collaborative Learning". In a public domain we may have a wikipedia. However, what is today's requirement is a collaborative organisational learning environment.   

How would it benefit?

A culture of management and people which will assist in decision making, share knowledge, make us grow in experience and ensure transparency, colleagues  who will never hold the company to ransom, no more going  to a few individuals who are the so called "information power centres" , no more worrying that knowledge walks out with the people who exit, no more long recovery time upon employee exists, lots of multi disciplinary idea contribution, synergistic new product innovations and a lot more flatter organisational structures, processes re-engineered , the transformation of silo-ed workers to knowledge workers..

Are you  ready to be knowledge worker?

Terms of Engagement!

Throughout my  corporate career, I was honoured to be associated with some great brands and good men. However, there were some mistakes which I did and have seen many other colleagues and industry mates commit too. Today I  want to give some pointers to readers on what to look for before your next big assignment.

1. Get your Job description  right: 

Make sure you are getting complete clarity on your job role , who your report to and how you are going to be  measured for your performance. Quite possibly you will be in an environment that will be  starting from scratch or having fairly informal HR setup. Push for the job description and understand what is to be delivered.  If the companies/ HR is not able to give this , give them time to come back on this . If they do not offer it in the time limit too, put a pin on that offer.

2. Get the right break up of your components: 

It is imperative that you get the salary components right.. Take it to a Chartered accountant and get help on a comparison of your current  pay package and benefits vs the new offer. Unless that difference is significant for you to change, put a pin on the offer.

3. Check for references:

Just as the company would check your reference, you need to get across to a few individuals to know/ learn about the company. In this connected  world, its easy to get to know such people and even easier to get advised. Safeguard yourself against internal policies . You may also look into Employer surveys/ great place to work rankings etc if they are  in public domain.

4. Know your age group:

It is imperative to know how many people are there in your age group in your cadre. You can be easily left out if you have to deal with varied age groups .. you are either going to do what others say or no one is gong to do what you say if  age class differences exist. You need to be fortunate to have a consensual decision making  group.

This can be found from Linkedin again where there is a bar graph of age vs designation for organisations.  Of course this is only for those members of the organisation who are in linkedin.  ( That itself  could say what the network culture of the organisation is.)

5. Look for Plans: 

Read a lot into the companies press releases/ annual reports.. Look for how much space they devote to products and services and their progress..  If you are likely to handle a P/L , be even more aware of this.

6. Who is in the Board ?

Look for what kind of profile sit in the board. If there are a variety of people then the chances of your CEO being advised right are high. For example,  If its a bunch of Chartered accountants, then forget this place.. There will be no product approach to anything here. Cost and Cash flows are the most that will figure in your agenda most often.

7. Never rush into joining:

Serve your full notice period and complete your assignment in your current place. If you leave things midway, there is every chance that your future employer will start interaction from day one with the opinion that you will get away some day- halfway.

I am in no way advising you to join without the money objective.  Pl make your shift for that alone if its your objective.  But make sure you land in a place which makes you happy.

BTW, these could be traits that you may find in your current organisation too. Discuss with the leaders and bring about a change where needed.

Happy Careers!

PS: I will be happy for you to share this  article with many of your friends and colleagues. Pl help them if the above are relevant.

Financial freedom!

Freedom is defined in the dictionary as follows :The power to act, speak and think  as one wants without restriction ; The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved :  The quality of being independent  of fate or necessity.

What I see  and learn by observing several of my friends, colleagues and associates and my own life, the need to be free financially is more than any.  While several advisors and companies are equipped to advise on this more than me, the true need for financial freedom is not the requirement to spend as one needs to  but to be able to spend on a rainy day.

I have somewhat learnt this about 10 years  back when I had to save for a longtime before I could afford the advance payment of my home. Most individuals (and all of them are well to do ones) I have spoken to have only told, I need someone to tell me where to invest. They have all claimed to to be well aware of their cash needs; however, I have also heard them constantly talk about not being able to expend a little more each month as they have to meet their ends. ( I have been in such situations too..)


Just as many of you would run your companies or at least your respective divisions,  it is wise to work out an income and expense statement for your personal life too. Just as your would work a cash flow statement, work out a similar one for your life / family too. Just as you would expend/ hold back expenses for your company do a similar act in your life too.  Just as it helps your company it will help in your life have a great lift.

Unlike in the past there are several financial planners who one can approach to help one plan financially.  For those who would not want to, at least make a simple cash flow of your annual income and expenses.  Anticipate your expenses, plan your purchases.  Have the freedom to spend when you want to .  For which, one needs to think and act. What I am talking is  not about investing  in stocks or MFs or real estate. But being able to have the right amount of money without having to maneuver  too much when needed. Your real estate may not be able to sell on time, your stocks can tank. But your liquid cash planning will never give you wrinkles. It calls for  some time and a bit of prudent financial thinking.

This may not be relevant to those who already know everything unless its a reminder for them if they have not acted upon.  Its easy to exercise restraint to your expenses. The second approach to happiness is to have the resources to spend when you want to.  Freedom is not about restraint.. it is the state of being able to move unrestricted..


Can we say financial freedom is the quality of being independent of financial fate or financial necessity?

Happy free life!

What is your Key Message?

I have resumed  following a particular domain  that I have worked on, after a couple of years through press reports. I did a a fair bit of reading and one glaring point seems to emerge. That is the lack of Key messaging.

Companies and people have been written about and interviews galore. Results declaration are happening and celebrations of successes figure  too. However, while I see a varierty of issues being discussed and various conclusions being drawn, I am unable to see how they connect.  The real reason seems to be the lack of Key Messaging strategy. What is key messaging? Why is it so critical? Key Messaging is that which the leaders of the company determine when they decide on their goals for the year. This is reflected in all of their business approaches but communicated most in their PR/ communication strategy. This helps in being consistent to the press in your communication, when the entire organisation goes about saying the same messages there is greater impact -  beyond the growth of genuine belief in them. Each and every opportunity that the organisation and its leaders get to present their pubic face, they are perceived through the key messages . Eventually the reporters start believing and the share holders too.- thus they spiral effect of the key messages - the objective, the progress, the results, all of these are written about through the period of the messaging strategy : ALL OF THEM LINK UP.

Key messages can be on your target market, technology adoption, austerity measures, people orientation, customer satisfaction etc. It is also in parallel important to keep the no of items in key messaging limited to 2 at best 3. Else it is possible not to prioritise. Key Messaging helps in communicating consistently, helps keep the focus on the communication  when multiple faces of the organisation starts speaking etc. It helps in the press writing what you would like them to write about.

Most importantly, it builds a believable PR image for your organisation.

The aggregator is dead ! Long live the aggregator!

Its about 10 years since the emergence of players into the mobile VAS market.  Feb 2002 is when Indiatimes 8888 set the trend in this market with multiple publications and media houses doing a ditto.  The key issues then was the oblique dynamics involving the carrier and what today we would call rest of the contributors in the eco system.  In a purely text based activity,  the carrier, the gateway provider and either the aggregator or the content owner formed the eco system.  In an voice based service the gateway provider was replaced by the platform provider , and in a data service, the players in the eco system remained similar.

It is with the advent of music that the revenues started booming but at the same time the imbalance in the eco system started growing bigger. Despite the attractive top lines , I am suspecting that there was very little attention that was paid to the bottom lines of the players in the ecosystem. If one draws up a very simple profit pool for the participants in the eco system, we may realise that the histograms suggest that the lowest bottom lines are with the aggregators  followed by platform providers and the the CPs.  However, we see the maximum no of players is in this category only. Huge upfront acquisition costs and wafer thin margins have ensured profitability does not grow in these segments. Also, the platform players saw their margins too getting down from close to 25% in 2002 to 8 % and even lesser today. Still the race is here too with many entrants or at least existing ones upgrading into that space. 

Even in the gaming space, if anyone can claim the real existence of one in India, the situation has come to be one of aggregation all through with worthy original locally developed  titles being a minor amount. There is every possibility that these players too will move to a platform play to survive in future, if they already have not done by now.

Once again if we compare a profit pool of  2002 to 2005/6 to 2011 one can clearly see that it is increasingly becoming a tighter spot to be an aggregator.  While we have witnessed the dual roles performed by platform players as aggregators or CPs as direct relationships with carriers, my guess is we will witness more of these in the coming future. The CPs ( and specifically music labels will be either direct in their deployment or will acquire aggregators ( possibly those who have been major partners primarily for their logistics and distribution strengths).   While this kind of a consolidation  could  be welcomed, those who have not figured which way to progress, the tech route or the aggregator route will possibly face a  shutdown.   2011/12 will be an interesting year for the mobile VAS segment in India.

Like the assemblers and box pushers  in the PC market whose value addition is practically zero today, the role of an aggregator has gotten marginalised as time progressed.  

The situation is not very dissimilar if one were to consider profit pools within product categories in the players' portfolio. The ability to constantly evaluate where your bottom line comes from and strategise to  create a mix that is advantageous to the player is critical. CPs  riding the  MG wave and sitting in a safe house  will benefit only as long as the aggregator space will exist gainfully. 

In a domain which has come to exist and grow for 10 years there is bound to be disintegration  and consolidation. Thats only natural.  How to remain stable after the shake out is critical. There is no dearth of resources in  creating  newer products and services.  There are plenty of opportunities to be original in your services. Create IP, retain them . 

The road may be hard, but companies  will still live to see the end of it.