My Business & Information Technology Trends Online

There cannot be more Yin and Yang then India and China

2011-10-09T15:35:00.003+08:00

My recent trip to China after a pause of nearly two years made me contemplate and mull over to write this into my diary. Some amount of reading on China blended with hearing to perspectives of a few leaders during the NASSCOM trip where in I did present on the topic related to Manufacturing and IT. I have also linked my presentation on this topic.
When I was reading on Google, I came across this interesting piece about India and China, Nathu La pass re-opening in 2012 after nearly 44 years of closure, while can be considered symbolic it only goes towards furthering the argument the two giants are bound to work together as the foundations on which they stand are more complimentary then one can imagine. The business velocity is only going up exponentially with the expectation that by 2016 nearly 40% of the world trade to be controlled by the largest (China) and third Largest (India). This takes us back to the 1800’s when nearly half of the Globe’s trade was driven by the two.
With most Multinational’s lamenting about either lack of success or slow speed of business in both India and China , they obviously continue to be present despite all the complexities mainly due to the lure of the vast population and the humongous size of the market. Now are they investing enough to reap benefits ? That would be a million dollar question? This will obviously vary from industry to industry and will require deep strategic thinking, capital, and innovation to meet local value and price points leveraging local ecosystems etc before they expect any returns. Will the same shoe fit both the emerging markets, surely not? In more than a decade of experience with China, sharing a few thoughts through this note of mine.
10 years since I first visited China to my recent trip to China, what has changed? I still do recollect during my first visit, I had an opportunity to have a fairly long discussion with a very deep strategic thinker Shiv Shankar Menon the current National adviser to the Indian Government, who was then India’s ambassador to China. His eagerness to support an Indian company setting foot in China, was very evident as I am sure he saw the amount of interest the Chinese were expressing to get into Indian market and we obviously have seen the position they have reached in India by literally dumping Chinese manufactured goods at price points which will be very tough for any of the domestic companies to match upto. Balance of trade heavily tilted in China’s favour with them dumping into India. Menon surely wanted to see India in a similar position leveraging our Supremacy in Software .
In contrast to that , while Indian Software Giants entered China with a lot of Fanfare , many of us thought we could leverage the talent in China, some of us thought we would follow our Global customers into china and very few of us thought let us go after the Domestic market in China . While all these thoughts would have been considered radical in those days. I do not think any of the companies have achieved even 1/10th of what they intended to do. It can be argued that many of us have invested a pittance in China to achieve the above objective, another school of thought would be why Should we?

In the context of the status of the Indian IT industry, if we are seeing better returns for the dollar invested in other markets and in the shortest time frame why would we want to waste our energy efforts and capital by going after the China Market. China undoubtedly will be the most difficult market to address on all counts. While we can show statistics of the availability of software manpower there usability in markets outside China is pathetically poor. The amount of training and management time investments we would need to make is humongous to even bring them to the base levels.
Added to that would be the cautious approach any company would like to take in the current context of the global economic climate. In the past decade we have been used to hearing about the Supremacy of Chinese economic climate , that surely is over now and is surrounded with the fears of the implosion and the turmoil’s they are going through internally .
While there could be a few Global Multinationals have started seeing modest returns in manufacturing investments but none would be leveraging China for building either intellectual property or anything to do with core R&D. All of us know the reasons and that is not going to change any time in the near future.
Also in addressing the domestic markets most of them or nearly all of them have failed miserably as Chinese as a race will never trust another and they do believe as a nation they can do it all and they have the resources and money now to conquer the world. Why would they want to actually develop anyone else at best they would like to plug the gaps by buying what they do not have? Also for a moment if we were to leave aside the above perspective, and we go about forging partnerships with local companies to address the domestic Chinese market , for sure Chinese partner will be one of the toughest race to negotiate and the fundamental premise we should build on needs to be “cross leverage” .
In Conclusion with the above context, while without doubt there cannot be more Yin and Yang then India and China, as both have inherent strengths and if both of us need to prosper the only way out is “ Cross Leverage “ and negotiate to reach a win – win .
At a Government level, Indian IT Industry surely has the Software supremacy to command respect and also use the same as major leverage in bilateral negotiations to get the Chinese Government to concede with favorable terms for other industries where we are challenged. Also in sticky territories like manpower movement, movement of capital between countries we will need to more firms insist on concessions which will make our software industry consider investing more.
At a Company level , we should be negotiating with the Government bodies in China and get them to invest more in terms of capital so that we can assist in building up their industry . Earlier in the last decade the investments have been coming fairly aggressively from the Chinese government in terms of training grants , real estate subsidies etc. We should expect and get them to give a lot more in terms of giving boot strap commercial projects which we could help in executing along with their local companies and manpower and our Superior project / program management which would come at a premium price.
At a Individual level, just like the Chinese exhibit enormous hunger to learn, learn and learn. Many of us who have already invested in our carriers in China or have ambitions to do so, the only way would be to be ahead in the race by equipping ourselves to the next level so that we can manage and command the Chinese resources 

Passion & Attention to detail

2011-08-28T21:20:00.003+08:00

Something i read today which made me ponder how many bosses have i had who have eexcruciating made me go through 27 versions of the same content in one presentation ... :-) But this story below is something which i would like revisit as often as i can to remind me to get into detail ....
But there's one story, perhaps, that's piercing because it portrays the exacting nature of Apple's former CEO. Vic Gundotra — the man behind Google +, the company's entree into social media — posted a story about an interaction with Steve Jobs.

He writes that on a Sunday morning in 2008, he received a call during a religious service. He didn't answer, but Jobs left a message saying he had something "urgent to discuss." Gundotra returned his call almost immediately:

"Hey Steve — this is Vic," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't answer your call earlier. I was in religious services, and the caller ID said unknown, so I didn't pick up."

Steve laughed. He said, "Vic, unless the Caller ID said 'GOD', you should never pick up during services".
I laughed nervously. After all, while it was customary for Steve to call during the week upset about something, it was unusual for him to call me on Sunday and ask me to call his home. I wondered what was so important?

"So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away. I've already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow," said Steve.

"I've been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I'm not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn't have the right yellow gradient. It's just wrong and I'm going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?"

The CEO of Apple — the tech visionary who revolutionized personal computers, the way we listen to music and the way we think of mobile devices — was worried about the yellow in the second "O" in Google. Needless to say the problem was fixed, and Gundotra says it taught him a lesson on leadership and "passion and attention to detail."

"It was a lesson I'll never forget," wrote Gundotra. "CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday."

Collaborative-innovation

2011-08-14T18:34:00.002+08:00

In today’s world, the speed of technology evolution along with its pervasiveness, morphing of the world to an inter connected human network and the ubiquity of the classic 3Cs (communication, connectivity and consumer) is a technological marvel to reckon with. This thriving, though relentless age has brought about an exponential increase of data. Data is being generated and captured at the time stamp an event occurs. The challenge now is to tap on this humungous data and sort and assimilate it into useful information which can be leveraged upon in a timely mode.
If an organization were to work in isolation, it may potentially make itself capable and efficient enough to manage this data. However no single company can survive in today’s world as an island of know-how and expertise. It works and thrives in an eco-system - and this is where the biggest challenge for data extraction, management and utilization lies. An organization cannot but depend upon its partners, suppliers, customers and other members of the supply chain for this effective data management. So how does an organization compete in such an inter-linked, fast paced and competitive market place? One of the answers to this lies in Collaborative-Innovation.
Collaborative-Innovation.is the extension of scale and scope of external collaborations, alliances and partnerships to access and exploit new technologies, markets and customers. It leverages on the niche competencies and the individual strengths of the member entities. It enhances the sum capabilities of an organization and its relevant co-innovation partners from the ecosystem through an integrated network of domain expertise, leading edge technologies and platforms.
Key benefits of Collaborative-Innovation. include
• Acceleration of technology adoption and enablement.
• Facilitation of targeting new markets – especially where trade barriers are insurmountable by any one single entity
• Cost reduction and improved efficiency
• Increases options for biz development
• Helps in better management of uncertainties – market, technology&competition
• Generation of innovative ideas, new product concepts and development and testing of prototypes
• Profitable innovation

The process of Collaborative-Innovation. involves formulating strategic intent, assessing capability for innovation, building strategic alliances and partnering agreements etc. – all with the objective of selling and delivering value to the customer.

Collaborative Innovation

2011-08-14T18:27:00.002+08:00

In today’s world, the speed of technology evolution along with its pervasiveness, morphing of the world to an inter connected human network and the ubiquity of the classic 3Cs (communication, connectivity and consumer) is a technological marvel to reckon with. This thriving, though relentless age has brought about an exponential increase of data. Data is being generated and captured at the time stamp an event occurs. The challenge now is to tap on this humungous data and sort and assimilate it into useful information which can be leveraged upon in a timely mode.
If an organization were to work in isolation, it may potentially make itself capable and efficient enough to manage this data. However no single company can survive in today’s world as an island of know-how and expertise. It works and thrives in an eco-system - and this is where the biggest challenge for data extraction, management and utilization lies. An organization cannot but depend upon its partners, suppliers, customers and other members of the supply chain for this effective data management. So how does an organization compete in such an inter-linked, fast paced and competitive market place? One of the answers to this lies in collaborative-innovation.
Collaborative-innovation is the extension of scale and scope of external collaborations, alliances and partnerships to access and exploit new technologies, markets and customers. It leverages on the niche competencies and the individual strengths of the member entities. It enhances the sum capabilities of an organization and its relevant innovation partners from the ecosystem through an integrated network of domain expertise, leading edge technologies and platforms.
Key benefits of Collaborative-innovation include
• Acceleration of technology adoption and enablement.
• Facilitation of targeting new markets – especially where trade barriers are insurmountable by any one single entity
• Cost reduction and improved efficiency
• Increases options for biz development
• Helps in better management of uncertainties – market, technology and competition
• Generation of innovative ideas, new product concepts and development and testing of prototypes
• Profitable innovation

The process of Collaborative-innovation involves formulating strategic intent, assessing capability for innovation, building strategic alliances and partnering agreements etc. – all with the objective of selling and delivering value to the customer.

Services Marketing & Social Media

2010-08-30T17:27:00.002+08:00

While it can be argued that IT Services Organizations in the current Context of highly competitive environment and extensive cost pressures tend to lean more and more towards products based philosophy . Every services organization in the quest of adding more and more value tend to focus on building packaged service offerings which at times could be actual intellectual property (IP), but most times will be nice packaging of the conventional services creating a perception of it being a IP. Many a time the recipient of the services might not be mature enough and in such cases , the neatly gift packed service offerings will be passed of as frame works , close to an IP etc.
Quintessentially Services Organizations are "People Based" Organizations and hence the quality of the value zone being created between the Service recipient and the delivery provider is highly dependent on the "ingrained DNA" of the organization. A mature recipient will be able to see through a superficial attempt or just a PR focused perception creation.
Could GE be known for Six Sigma with it out it being ingrained into every business and every part of GE ??
Leave alone the conventional marketing mechanisms being practiced in Services oriented organizations, which include targeted marketing , focus on creating one on one relationships , building mindshare , wallet share etc . Tectonic shifts are occurring in the age of Social media , which has the power to either RESET , RECREATE or "Destroy" the fallacies of the so called high level thinkers who are intent on only creating a perception and they are hardly giving any emphasis on the actual implementation and execution of the culture you want the organization to espouse. The execution and implementation of this in a "People based" Services organizations is the toughest and hardly any CEO can claim that he is close to perfection .
An example i came across was to do with Starbucks of whom i am a very Loyal fan with at least one visit per day to any of the establishments . It is a well know fact that Starbucks as a organization after the string of success it has enjoyed is going through trying times with the state of the economy and also the onslaught and proliferation of the McDonald cheaper premium coffee brand . Howard Schultz who has returned as the CEO and in his analysis of the organization brand , in his second stint talks about how the bloggers , twitterers and face bookies put holes in the brand equity of Starbucks which was carefully cultivated over decades of handwork.

A simple sensational unfounded story on "dipper well leaks" which claimed that Starbucks was insensitive and was wasting millions of liters of freshwater which had all of the conservationists up in arms . This essentially happened courtesy a huge viral campaign launched on the Social media.
Services industry is all about "People" and Social media is all about "People in Communities" which can dramatically amplify the effects both positively and negatively about the perception you are trying to build . A warning to all the so called "high level" thinkers, focus on controlling the negative and give emphasis on execution and implementation of the culture you want the organization to be known for.

2010-07-30T18:06:00.003+08:00

Building a Perception Far Ahead of Reality ! think twice ..

2010-07-29T11:41:00.000+08:00

Back after a long hiatus to the world of Blogging :-) READ as " Basic laziness to construct long sentences and paragraphs" . Being a marketer I often wonder whether building a perception far ahead of reality is the way to go. There was a time or it was often joked most American companies launch the product as soon as the design spec's are ready on a PowerPoint , let alone developing the product, beta testing etc. For instance Microsoft surely learnt a costly lesion with the disastrous results of the much hyped Windows vista platform. No wonder they were doubly sure and on the basis of the lesson learnt, came up with a much more stable and rock solid platform in Windows 7. On the mobile platform Windows 7 is still slated for late 2010 Commercial launch. They must be testing, testing and testing with the fright apple has given them with iphone platform. While the example chosen above has been more relevant to a product , this more or less holds true when a CEO is building a identity or cultural statement for an organization. For instance if Tata's stand for trustworthy brand , this has been achieved over many decades. For sure JRD meant believed the same with his heart and spent a lot of his energies in ensuring successful execution of the thought to reality amongst the thousands of employees across the conglomerate. There are stories within the Tata group about senior management being sacked for not believing in it and not going all out to execute trust worthiness and it was not just building hype and wishy washing away with flimsy execution.

Coming to the moot point of building perception which leads reality which is often driven or conceptualized by the so called Gurus or visionaries who often get carried away by the blind passion that the unique idea they have is perfect and ideal for the rest of the world or for that matter the company or division or any entity they run. The zeal with which they would want everyone else to see beyond the normal is often driven due to a few unique thoughts they have. While the thoughts per se are revolutionary they sometime fail to understand that execution of the thoughts is equally critical. Execution to the last mile and many a time it requires the masses to believe passionately the very thought you espouse. For the masses to believe with the same passion the unique idea will require perfecting the execution process to the extent it becomes a movement amongst the masses. This at times might take a complete decade. The shorter the time it takes if the great unique idea is thought through to an extent that every step is carefully managed and the original intent is maintained and passionately transmitted from one to another without any loss in the intensity original idea. The idea obviously needs to be real in all ways. "Thinking" , "doing" and " "communicating" all these three dimensions need equal amount of attention by every individual in the organization. Gone or the days of the army culture , that there is one part of the organization which will do higher level thinking another part will just be executers and another part will focus on information dissemination. Every individual / manager will have to spend nearly equal amounts of time for each of the above dimensions. In conclusion Building perception which is ahead of reality is a great idea and should be done but only to the extent it is sustainable and stands by its merit. Do not build a perception which is far ahead of reality but slightly ahead of reality is fine , so that each one of us will do the extra stretch to reach close to it or even achieve the same.

Catch-22 & The New World Order ( couple of articles from Fortune)

2008-08-15T06:48:00.004+08:00

In the precariously positioned Economic Global Bipolar world, any changes by the Central banks to either lower the interest rates to foster growth further or increase the interest rates to control the inflation which will result in higher fuel prices etc leads us to a perfect CATCH-22 .

The Global corporations would love to see the Indian and Chinese middle Class go up dramatically as it means they will buy more mobile phones, toothpaste, homes , electricity etc . It is estimated by 2020 China alone will have close to 700 million in middle class and India would go up to around 580 million . But double digit growth in especially smaller markets and even in India and China also means raising living costs. Inflation in India has doubled to 8% and China has gone up from 1% to & 7.7% since 2006.

The "New World Order" being that 54 developing markets will post a 6.7% increase in GDP ( though last year it was 7.5%) versus 1.6% from the 31 developed countries. US is no longer the spear head for growth , which also means many markets which are very heavily USA dependent need to braise up for tough times ahead. While USA will still be an enormous 13.92 trillion dollars by 2008 and while other markets coming quickly on the radar are still small but sizable. ( China at 3.7 trillion and with India , Brazil and Russia ranging from 1.14 to 1.29 trillion )

For the first time ever in over a decade , did we see a drop in American based Fortune 500 companies to 153 total in number. Less then a ten years ago India , Mexico and Russia posted just one company on F500 . This years list includes 7 from the subcontinent and five each from Mexico and Russia.

China steals the show this year by an unprecedented total of 29 companies , which is as many as from Italy , Spain and Australia combined. Lenovo entered the spot at 499. Global Giants grew a phenomenal 13% up by approx. 23.6 trillion dollars and profits of the complete F500 went up by 3.9% amounting to 1.6 trillion dollars.

Australia has around 8 Companies in the F500 list while Britain has 34 and Canada around 14. China the Non English speaking market stands at 29 while France and Germany are at 37 and 39 respectively . India's 7 , Brazil's 5 , Japan's 64 and while USA is still the largest contributer with 153 F500 corporations, there does not seem to be a doubt on where the "NEW WORLD" is going to be in the future .

Japanese Odyssey Continues

2008-07-20T08:54:00.003+08:00

Every visit to Japan you come back more humbled with the experiences you encounter in Japan about how inward focussed and complex the business environment is . The very traditional and orthodox organizations are trying to breakaway from being typecast in that mould at-least at the Leadership levels. But will the rest of the fabric support a leader with unconventional thinking is highly questionable.

Chances are that there is surely a ray of hope in organizations where substantial part of the revenues are derived from outside the domestic japanese market. Organizations such as Nissan , Sony and Toyota are prime examples of movement in the direction of becoming more Global in there mindset. My earlier post on the contradictions at Toyota delineates a similar point.

The Nuances and subtleties while conducting business are so many,that at times it is just impossible to judge and conclude with any patterns. Very often Non japanese teams get exasperated with the japanese using the word "problem" ( "mondai" in Japanese)at every step or at every discussion point.

Actually the nuance of the word "problem" is much stronger in English then the word "mondai" which they actually mean . Mondai just means it needs to be looked into .....

"Hai" or "Hai Wakarimashita" are words you can not get of japan with out hearing to a couple of hundred times. " Yes or Yes i Understand" signifies comprehension or it just means what has been communicated by you has been received but in no way can be interpreted as the idea or suggestion you have given is understood and accepted.

While conducting discussions and at times in formal gatherings it is very difficult to judge who the real leader or decision maker is . The ceremonial structure or the people with bigger titles at times might have very little to do with the decision making process. A few titles terminologies which i got to understand are "bucho" means a division manager and "Kacho" the lowest level is a section manager . Most cases the high ranking official is a director who is "toroshimariyuko", who could also be a Divisional General Manager "honbucho". Most cases the ceremonial structure could be very different from the actual power structure.

It will also be very difficult to identify the real Leader in japanese team and it is important to be able to do this because even though japanese make decisions on a group and consensus basis , the nominal leader could be some what of a "maverick" and therefore delay the progress or depending on how favorable he is to you can speeden the progress.

Another factor to take into consideration is that leadership can swing from one member to another depending on the situation and issue at hand. At times the Leader can be very silent and at other times he might do most of the talking.

Welcome to the land of Ambiguity ! "Japan"

Japan is an Exonym for "Nippon or Nihon" which means the "Land of the Rising Sun"

The Naniwabushi Strategy

2008-07-13T08:33:00.003+08:00

Naniwabushi would be the most typical Japanese way of resolving or avoiding disputes . In business it will go as follows , suppose you wish to negotiate revised payment terms for your contract due to the real sad business climate . Then you would approach your Lender or Customer by giving a "Kikkake"

Kikkake is setting the base , give a background ,how good a partner you have been through the thick and thin talk about all the good points of the relationship both of you have enjoyed etc etc.

Once the Stage is set move towards "Seme" talk about the disastrous effects the recession is doing on your business , how u have been cutting costs , how you are making your ends meet etc . But despite all the cost control , you will be able to survive only if some more leniency is given to your payment terms etc .

In the "Urei" , you will need to explain what will happen if the request is not granted ... you and your family will be on the streets .. make it as melodramatic as possible ... Pleading is ok

Naniwabushi is artful , premeditated , calculated and in Japan it will work . The more tragic and melodramatic , it is easier for Japanese listeners to forget contracts or commitments . People who do not show compassion in such circumstances will be condemned as being cold hearted or mercenary .

"Nemawashi" : This is a practice of preliminary and informal sounding out of people's ideas or course of action before a formal proposal is drawn up . Nemawashi is more akin to binding the roots before re-planting the tree. If people have strong objections to a proposal , nemawashi enables this to be discovered in advance and there by making the acceptance of the formal proposal more certain.

Do you need a Marketing Department ?

2008-07-12T17:35:00.003+08:00

Each one in a company is responsible for Marketing , a Single arrogant statement by the CEO or CFO or a person who is the touch point time to the company can create a very damaging impact for the company . More then half of all Japanese companies do not even bother to have a marketing department , because they feel everyone in the company is responsible for marketing and Marketing is not a department but it is the business. A few elements are delineated below from the book i have been recently reading about by Harry Beckwith .

Marketing Myopia : Very often we tend not to see the most obvious , asking for external help at times is the best solution. "So much of what passes for brilliant insight in helping a company is reporting what everyone in that company could see , if only they could see it clearly . It is hard to see the real scope of your business ask for help ....

Tunnel Vision : People talk about what they know and what people know is their company and hence when companies discuss there problems they talk about themselves, But what people really need to know - is your customers and prospective ones .... Get out ! Climb out , have some one pull you out of the tunnel .

Start with every Employee and review every step ... don't start a company if you do not know how to Smile is a famous saying .. and similarly every step means how does the receptionist greet to what is written at the bottom of the invoice.

Irrespective of the Business , get to the core - Know what you are good at and what you specialize ? We all thought Federal Express was a courier company and just delivered mail quickly but when there core management team put their heads together they realized they are much more then that and they could manage logistics with extreme efficiency which included procuring ,Optimizing transportation costs storing and forwarding and hence they are now known as the best in Logistics Management. Similarly Anderson consulting where always thought to be known as books auditors , but they realized very quickly that they knew the details to the core on information flow and systems which resulted in the setting up of the Management consultancy practice

What are you Selling ? Do Customers go to Star bucks for the Coffee at an exorbitant price or for the experience they can get from Star bucks .. focus on what the clients are actually buying .

If you are selling a service , you are selling a relationship and not necessarily a Expertise : how often do you go to your regular medical practitioner for expertise ?

The best Strategy in a War is to win without a Fight ! : Go to unchartered territories ! The Big Six accounting firms were only in the Metros and big cities .. the Eight largest one focused on the 2nd Tier and 3rd Tier Cities and ended up being positioned as the brand name accounting firm in that area .

Study all your touch Points : Your business card , your receptionist , your sales person , your project execution specialists who are all capable of living an impression on your customers ! Focus on all of them !!

The Adapters Edge : Have we considered innovative ways that new technology can be used to improve our service and grow our business ? Making technology a key part of our Marketing plan is crucial ... are we ahead in terms of leveraging technology and have we thought of it as we will be second to none two years ahead ?

Contradictions @ Toyota's - The Japanese Odyssey

2008-07-08T06:36:00.004+08:00

Came across this interesting article in HBR about Toyota's interesting outlook to how they look at both "Soft innovation" and "Hard Innovation" when it comes to the organization DNA . It goes without a doubt that the organization has mastered both and it seeps down to grass root levels.

"Soft" is all about the organization management style and how it breeds effectiveness at all levels despite being a huge and gives a feeling of huge mammoth which is going to come down in troubled times.

The company views employees as knowledge workers and not just a pair of hands and hence at all levels they accumulate immense amount of "Chie" -the wisdom of experience. Six major contradictory tendencies were noticed in a research by the authors of this article , which influence this organization culture.

Toyota moves slowly yet it take big leaps
Toyota grows steadily , yet it is a paranoid company
Toyota operations are efficient , but it uses employee's time in seemingly wasteful ways
Toyota is frugal but it splurges on key areas
Toyota insists on internal communications to be simple , yet it builds complex networks
Toyota has a strict hierarchy, but it gives freedom to push back

While in most organizations Goals are very clearly thought out and debated and set with an intent to achieve it with as much precision as possible , In Toyota the contradiction is the Goal is set more with an intent of direction and again most times it is fairly "impossible" to achieve . This trait could be pushing most managers to stretch as much as possible and prevents rigidity from creeping in.

Also another important aspect being when you are doing business beyond Japan the home country the culture which it has imbibed is to ensure that in each country it customizes vehicles to the extent it is required in that country . It is not about tinkering with one type fits all. In-fact this aspect led to the organization replacing " Made in Japan" label with "Made by Toyota".

Experimentation : The concept of setting near impossible goals is well mitigated with the culture of experimentation. That is break down the major Goal into smaller packets of manageable challenges and then experiment using strict routines . It has refined the Plan Do Check Act (PDCA) model into Eight stepped Toyota business process . Many a times it helps the employees to break the status Quo;

Clarify the problem
break down the problem
Set a Target
Analyze the root cause
develop the counter measures
see counter measures through
monitor both results and processes
Standardize the successful process

Similarly the A-3 report is a standard in Toyota and forces all to capture the most essential information needed to solve a problem and it is proliferated across the organization.

As Toyota expands rapidly new products new markets , challenges any organization is bound to come across is how do the ethos percolate across the organization down to root levels and across all levels . Again the when it comes to Toyota and the research done by the authors of this article clearly found patterns about the organization behavior which could be articulated by usage of the following terminologies :

Genchi Genbutsu , which essentially means "Have you seen it yourself?" Toyota encourages each of its senior executives to go down to the factory line, the dealerships etc and experience the same.

A few others like the conventional aspects like "Teamwork" , Positive mindset and Customer focus are also practiced with great deal of sincerity across the organization.

However, a few aspects which need to be admired and other organizations need to try and emulate are the ones related to how you treat under performers . The focus which is there on re-skilling people and literally having a statement etched that Toyota does not believe in Job cuts even in a poorly performing market situation.

During Evaluation ,Toyota gives lot more emphasis to process performance and learning over results. The company looks at how the person has achieved the goals rather then the goal itself. A few of the unique criteria it adopts which are very fuzzy and subjective :

Jinbo : How you command respect amongst your peers , juniors and seniors. Very difficult to judge this unless you have worked very deeply with the person
nebari tsuyosa : Adhesives strength , how resolute or persistent are you ?

Despite being a very large and mammoth Enterprise , it still functions like a small town company , there are many other subtle aspects which help in achieving the same. All about the emphasis given Human networks or what Toyota describes as the Nerve System.

Openness is manifested even in the way offices are designed which have no partitions (obeya ) and Mieruka ( Visualization ). The later means having posters on the wall for all of them to see . Let us Yokoten means open side ways ! ... share among your peers as well ....

Give freedom to to voice contrary views : Confronting your boss is acceptable , bringing bad news to boss is encouraged and ignoring the boss is often excused.

My Japanese Odyssey

2008-07-05T18:29:00.004+08:00

The art of Negotiation is vastly different in a japanese perspective to what we consider the conventional perspective or what we are normally used to . Very often the impression/mindset we have is being articulative , forceful communicator , who wins the argument with Logic as the ideal way of going about the art of Negotiation . In Japan this might not work in most cases, a person with the above skills might be mostly regarded as rude , aggressive and at times even vulgar.

Another aspect being in general you will not come across Japanese as self centered or being irrational , if you do come across then it is more of an exception. The trait of showing economic value to a buyer and being passionate about the company or its product in a non Japanese environment is a huge positive . But in Japan context unless it is tempered with a liberal dose of being sympathetic to the personal issues / organization will not yield the best results for you. The truth is that the Japanese do not like negotiation . The instinct is for agreements worked back stage with give and take , harmony and long term interest. But it is still commonly accepted that if two parties trust each other , money and other details need not be discussed. Thus to this date in most industries in japan neither contracts nor invoices nor product catalogues are used . To read the fine print of the contract is sacrilege and to do so would imply a lack of trust.

The fact that one can also meet Japanese businessmen who are manifestly self centered and cold "economic animals" is in my view, only to encounter exceptions to a still valid generalization.

The odyssey continues......

Collin Powell's Leadership Lessons

2008-07-02T19:24:00.003+08:00

Lessons	Collin Powell' Lessons on Leadership - A scintillating Talk had the opportunity to attend
Lesson 1	"Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off."
Lesson 2	"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."
Lesson 4	"Don't be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard." (if you have a yes-man working for you, one of you is redundant. Good leadership encourages everyone's evolution)
Lesson 5	"Never neglect details. When everyone's mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant."
Lesson 6	"You don't know what you can get away with until you try." Forgiveness is easier then permission
Lesson 8	"Organization doesn't really accomplish anything. Theories of management don't much matter. Endeavors succeed or fail because of the people involved. Only by attracting the best people will you accomplish great deeds."
Lesson 9	"Organization charts and fancy titles count for next to nothing."
Lesson 15	Part I: "Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired.” Part II: "Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut."[Excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds "analysis paralysis." ]
Lesson 16	"The commander in the field is always right and the rear echelon is wrong, unless proved otherwise." ….. (Too often, the reverse defines corporate culture ) `- Shift the power and the financial accountability to the folks who are bringing in the beans, not the ones who are counting or analyzing them.
Lesson 17	"Have fun in your command. Don't always run at a breakneck pace. Take leave when you've earned it:Spend time with your families.

Blending Technology buzzword called SOA with Business

2008-07-02T07:53:00.003+08:00

Thanks to the development of technologies, it is no longer processes we are talking about but the business activities which make up a process. Hence it is becoming possible to design many business activities akin to kids world of Lego blocks. What is SOA ? just a new way of designing and deploying software that supports business activities and finally a process. Each activity can be termed as a "Web Service".

What are the business Activities which can become candidates for Web Services ? This could be derived on :

Business Value : An Activity or a process which is very critical for your company so that your efficiencies , Uniqueness and gives you competitive advantage determines the Business Value.

Current Performance : If the performance of the business activity is very poor , Will investments made on the same justify the higher performance you can derive from the same

Predictability : If the performance of the business activity is highly unpredictable then neither can it be shared or shifted out.

More often then not When SOA is being applied with out rethinking the overall design of the business , then the full potential and the opportunity to create a much more focussed , efficient and flexible organization is lost.

Hence Building SOA or buying SOA should be the last step and not the first step in creating a New Operating Model which could be analyzed keeping in mind :

Primary : Should be kept In-house

Shared : Can be shared with others / divisions

Shifted : Can be outsourced to customers / specialists

Automated : If capabilities and User interface can be automated then it can be turned into a Web service

This is a summary from HBR June 2008 issue