Sambit's World

MyLib.in closed down its operations

2015-02-15T12:16:00.002-08:00

It was shocking to see an e-mail on the 3rd Feb stating the 6 year old library is closing down operations with immediate effect. It was a bit shocking but at the same time unfortunate. It's also true that there are lots of similar options available today. When I did some searches around here are some hits.

EasyLib
Doorstepbooks
JustBooks
NOOL

Well there may be more which I may not have explored. Prices of plans are almost similar. But I think the biggest concerns I had with depth of the books. I prefer reading non-fictions and at some point I realise they really do not have that great a catalog. Even if they have you may get them late. But in any case I will still prefer this option over buying books. Actually, typical books one never buys for long term reference. You only read the book once and then it sits in your book rack for display till the content validity expired. This is particularly true with many management books. You realise some real praises on ability for financial sector to securitise the mortgage assets and one bubble burst you realise those theories may not be all relevant in the world of subprime lending. I kind of feel these libraries do a fair share of service there. They reduce the clutter and they create a critical mass of readership for you to know which books to pick up and which are not. However, sometimes when you get the book you realise a lot of water has flown below the bridge. I think that gives me time to identify a book of depth vs. a temporary fad though.

Now that MyLib and my association for past 4 years is no longer an option which one should I choose. I guess I will wait for sometime. Have got a whole series of John Grisham to finish before I look upto some new texts. It may be worthwhile to give me a library vacation for sometime before I decide on one.

I Still Know the Books You Read Two Decades Back

2013-03-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

In our childhood, Mir Publishers from Soviet Union provided a great collection of books. With closed controlled economy getting access to high quality books was a rare opportunity. There were hardly any Indian Editions of any of the well known books from USA. Even if there were some they were old editions, were significantly expensive considering the publishers had to share royalty. And worse still a modified Imperial weights and measures that even the British abandoned half a century back. As if that were not enough, printing and paper quality was nothing great to drive home about. Mir publisher books were well printed, content quality was great and had advanced study material ideally suited for the needs of the students preparing for various competitive examinations which demanded a knowledge level much higher than the regularly university / council or board curriculum. And most important was significantly cheaper than the equivalent books by Indian publishers. Only downside, the translation was more of transliteration. More over, for every great discovery in the western world there was a Russian discoverer which you will not find reference anywhere other than in the Mir books. The books were available only in book exhibitions as they never developed a great distributor network. But most serious students will get a copy of the book somehow. At least some will keep a copy of Irodov on their showcase to show how serious is their pursuit in learning physics. But then the worst came. The Union dissolved and in a rational to cut down their expenses they stopped subsidising education in developing economies like India and the Mir Publisher went belly up subsequently.

Couple of days back I was looking for some books which were popular in India in the net and found many books from the Mir Publishers are getting printed and published in India by many of the textbook publishers. They are available online to be ordered from many online retailers like Flipkart, Infibeam etc. I purchased two volumes of Piskunov's Differential and Integral Calculus. Read through them a bit. The print quality is definitely not there. But at least the books have definitely got wealth of knowledge that cannot be questioned. At least some relevant books get published and are getting circulated. That's definitely heartening to know :-).

Weekend Getaway - Yercaud (Jan 2013)

2013-01-16T08:25:00.002-08:00

Good part of being in Bangalore is there is just lots of places you can be around on weekend. Particularly, if you want to drive down. I guess being in Bangalore with its relatively nicer weather many times you realize probably weekend getaways to hill stations are not best around. Last week I decided to drive down to Yercaud over a weekend. Spend a night and come back to Bangalore. Here is what I have to share.

Yercaud is many times called a poor man's Ooty. I will probably not agree to that. It's less explored. Seriously, needs a tourism facelift. Ideally, if you are in Salem this is your perfect weekend spot I must say. Moreover, if you have driven in highways but not very comfortable with ghat roads, this is a good practice track. The 25 Kms. drive from Salem to Yercaud is a breeze of a drive. You will probably find the hairpin bends with the least amount of slope. 20 hairpin bends in all but you can mostly drive over them with a 2nd or 3rd gear with ease. Only once did I have to come down to the first gear to go over the hairpin bends.

If you are planning a trip with your car, a perfect travelogue can be found at: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/travelogues/72561-bangalore-yercaud-hogenekkal-bangalore.html. I followed it verbatim and found it very useful. However, loop road may not be the greatest option to follow as you will be probably going through Yercaud country side several times depending on where you stay. This one is one of the sleepy townships you will see. The sightseeing places are not quite spectacular. The temples have been given a modern facelift and fairly recent. I do not see any reason why do not allow photographing them though. The lake is very small and looks fairly polluted not as bad as Ooty though. There is nothing to drive home about the dear park. The most attractive creatures I found were the guinea pigs. The aquarium had about 10-12 chambers. So not a great attraction as well. So is the park and the rose garden.

There are somethings I think, we definitely missed were the Kiliyur falls. Hardly, I knew when I reached the fall trail at 8:00am in the morning there was not a single soul on the trail. I felt it was probably too risky to try and got back.

I think the only reason you will like to Yercaud is if you have plenty of time for nature walks, relaxed 4-5 days of no activity and pure relaxation away from the day-to-day grind.

On the way back from Yercaud to Bangalore you will get to see Hogenakkal. The life in Hogenakkal is just the opposite. More than a fall it may feel like an open Hamam to you. But the mad rush to Hogenakkal is just the other extreme to be appreciated.

Why Puttaparthy is so calm?

2012-09-23T11:28:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking of going to Puttaparthy for sometime now and didn't have the opportunity past one year. Finally, on Wednesday morning realising that it being a Ganesh Puja it made lots of sense to take my car out and drive down with my wife as a co-passenger. Prashanthi Nilayam the abode of peace is always a nice place to forget your worries and spend some time. Not long back Sri Sathya Sai Baba graced the place with his solemn presence. With his physical presence just not being there does not make the place desolate. But the feeling I got was people feel it that way. There was not much of traffic on the way. Again the morning prayer congregation was fairly small. I felt there was no urgency. Everyone was on there own pace. No hurry to rush for a glimpse of the Sathya Sai. It was a bit stunning as why should anything change if swamiji were there or not. This time it was setting your own life in your own pace. Feeling the calmness of the surrounding and most importantly thinking of your spiritual senses with no rush to accumulate the visual impression of swami during the visit.

If reality in Hinduism is to be believed presence of the Godhead is just situational. The very fact that we connect to our own spirituality is of utter importance. I am sure the trip helped me there more. I guess most people who go now may feel so.

Where are the young leaders?

2011-04-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

The other day, I was reading an article in Economic Times titled "Corporate India Wants Young Blood to Head Companies". There was a concern in on non-availability of business leaders in corporations in general highlighting lack of strong business leaders with multiple organizations. Here are some of my views on why the organizations are facing this in general in IT industry specifically.

Lack of Identification of Generalists

Before the IT industry became mainstream in India there was a traditional brick mortar industry which had groomed strong generalists. Every organization used to invest at least a year in its engineering talent to explore the whole of the organization projects as Graduate Engineering Trainees. The engineering talent was exposed to all functions of the organization to gather knowledge of one or more functional areas. A complete view of organization is important for someone to lead at an organization level.

Growth at Break Neck Speed

Industry growth post liberalization has been so fast that the functional leaders even have not even got enough exposure to their functional experience to move up the ladder. And most of the time the focus has been in execution rather than skill building to stratetize. Project lead in three years engineering manager in five years had become norm. While the experience has been useful in grooming early leaders there is a definite miss in helping the leaders in understanding the technology they deal in and its nuances. While managers need not have the complete technology understanding at least they should be in a position to take decisions and not pass on all decision making to the functional counterparts. When it comes to that situation the risk appetite of an individual naturally goes down. Risk necessarily is a lack of understanding of unknown and over-estimation of risk will only lead to bad resource planning.

Resource View of Organization

Business Leaders have a resource view of an organization. As strong it may sound ultimately during hard times the resource and investment decisions are the ones that gets questioned. Leadership which tend to understand this approach best tend to make the best decisions. From a systemic perspective an organization has four roles - execute, supervise, policy and strategy. Functionally an organization may constitute the following functions - plan, build, sell. And when it comes to policy and strategy the functional influences tend to blur. Thus companies need to have leaders who have the widest experience in multiple functions tend to drive better policy and strategy. But seldom you see policy makers have been part of multiple functional roles. There is a tendency of growing supervisors to policy making roles and thus creating deeper conflicts of interest in the organizations in identifying future strategists.

Forced Verticalization

Somewhere the industry has missed identifying generalists. In any IT organization today you have defined career paths leading to building, planning and selling or people management roles. At mid-level one has to choose one career from another and lateral transition is painful as a transition will mean one may lose out the experience she has gained in other functional role. With personal growth and industry growth being fast a lateral transition which otherwise would have been a positive experience for future career progress will be shunted in limited functional growth. Industry needs to understand some people are good at whatever they do and should not be limited to functional boundaries and their enterprising capabilities should be used for organization advantage. The other day I was discussing with a business leader who is establishing an India development center for a well known new generation technology company and realized he is already hiring functional silos rather than gathering multi-faceted talent which is essential for an entrepreneurial set up.

Academically Inclined

Several times, I have been criticized for being academically inclined but I guess I will still be talking about it in this context. Learning may it be through academics or through on job cannot be ruled out. Human beings have built organizations and every system that human beings build have a structure and the structure has been analyzed, understood and explained by many academicians. It's probably easier to learn it from them rather than making all the mistakes on the job. Again learning through academics may need not give you enough insight unless you know how to apply it. Organizations need to realize how important is it for the manpower they have is formally trained in aspects of the function they are executing. However, trivial it may sound for most technologists - "Finding a point inside a polygon" is not a simple problem. You can see the solution in the FAQ of comp.graphics.algorithms on the Usenet. Similarly, many of the standard HR issues discussed for hours in closed doors may have simple solution in the management literature if someone likes to spend a couple of hours with the text.

Does that mean India lacks young turks who can manage businesses? Not at all. We have some of the best innovations and lots of interesting business models are being tried out by entrepreneurs. I guess the biggest concern we have today is the people who are selecting the next generation or leaders are looking using the wrong parameters. They have increase their risk appetites and allow some new leaders and pull them out of the functional silos and assign a bigger role. There will be failures with current market situations of lowering profitability definitely that will be a concern.

Brainstorming Sessions

2011-02-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

The more I sit through Brainstorming sessions the more I realize the lack of understanding in the industry of fundamental principles of brainstorming. Brainstorming is supposed to be used as a tool to generate large number of ideas in a short span of time and not to find solutions to all issues. In fact it's not a forum to show ones knowledge or lack of it. But we all have seen how many mindless discussions in name of brainstorming that take up valuable time out of a productive day.

Here are some golden rules to follow in a brainstorming session.

1. Have a problem statement or focus around which to do brainstorming.
2. When calling for a team for brainstorming session make sure there is a specified moderator and scribe.
3. Moderator should not be participating in the discussion, the scribe can clarify what idea the person suggesting but cannot impose his/her own thoughts.
4. There is nothing like a silly idea or suggestion. However, all proposed ideas should be around the decided focus.
5. All participants should contribute. Loud mouths should not be permitted or allowed and should asked politely to sit quite.

The brainstorming session is typically made of 3 parts.

1. Idea generation.
2. Elaboration
3. Idea ranking for action

1. Idea Generation - Typically 15-20 minutes of idea generation where everyone suggests what idea they are proposing. No one is allowed to dominate the session. Moderators should make sure the ideas are listed visibly. No idea is bad or turned down unless it's not around the specific focus of the discussion.
2. Elaboration - Typically about 30-40 minutes where in everyone is allowed to speak for their ideas but not to turn it down. The intent should be particualrly here to justify their view points or group similar ideas suggested by two different people.
3. Idea ranking - This is simple voting process where in most liked ideas are prioritized over the relatively lower priority ideas as suggested by the team. This should take no more than 15 minutes.

Following these simple rules can definitely make brainstorming sessions enjoyable and converging. Wished the simple principles be understood well in corporate settings in general to be effective.

Working with your ex-boss

2010-06-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

With the industry maturing, everyone realizes the world is fairly well connected. There are lots of people you have worked in the past whom you meet in newer settings. One standard request I hear from people is their ex-boss has set up a new office and asking them to join. Everyone in life has gone through these requests several times in life but how does one judge the right opportunity from the other ones. Here are some of the characteristics of relationships one should assess before jumping on to taking decision.

Excitement of Being Important

Some people may feel excited that their ex-boss thinks them as very important person hence you are being considered for the new job. Some cases this may be true but probably not all that true if you know how to discuss or judge your ex-boss. Here are some of specific pointers to know before getting all excited about these opportunities.

Know your strengths vs. weaknesses - Although, most people get hired by their strengths some by their weaknesses as well. Interestingly, when people have some natural strengths in certain areas in most discussions their knowledge in that area gets exploited and you are put in the silos of being the person good in those departments only. Thus you do not get to expand the role where you will like to explore for yourself. In your discussion be careful if you are being exploited in a discussion on those. If you are good in technology and management skills the interviewer may focus only in technology discussion so that she can convince in you believing that you are only suited for a technologist as a career.
Look at the inner circle hiring - Look carefully at the people who have been hired by your ex-boss. Are they the same set of people who have been hired by him earlier? Do you have a similar relationship as they have with him? If not there is no need for you to feel very important. You are the cheapest search cost employee for him.
Career Level Movement of yours vs. your ex-boss - Another important factor to know is the career levels you have made vs. your manager has got in his career. In terms of a non-standard metric it's likely that both of you may have been through a different level of career movement based on how you have transitioned. Be aware of all those before you meet for the discussion.
Be respectful but deterministic with a viewpoint - Have a viewpoint on all your career decision. Many people feel they did not want to make their ex-boss unhappy and respect the relationship and in doing so felt in the receiving end of the discussion.

Interviewing your ex-Boss

Your ex-boss is not your boss yet. Hence you need to know that you have every right to evaluate him as much as he is evaluating you only being a bit discrete. Here are some of the tips of interviewing your boss.

Listen carefully - One of the standard discussions in life when you talk to someone who is at high places is there will be a reference to times when you left him and how the world had changed after your left and how the whole of the company reached moon. Just validate those with what you have read or known about the company from the press. Even if your ex-boss says we did great when you know the company balance sheet shows otherwise then there is little to believe. There is definite point in his justifying your come back but at the same time it's important to know how matured the discussion is.
Let him speak on cause of your departure - Most manager will impress upon their employees on their cause of departure no more is relevant. But assess the cause with the real reason of departure. Put forth your real reason of departure and assess his understanding (acceptance and rejection of the cause).
Appreciate a person or situation which he may not be agreement with - This is more like a viewpoint sharing session where you put forth your thoughts and try to see how much of value your ex-boss is giving to your understanding. And how is he deviating or reasonably justifying his negative viewpoint.

All these can give you a fair idea of his understanding of you as a person and your viewpoints. In no appraisal can you get direct feedback that can give you such insight. Most importantly be respectful, draw your limits and boundaries and deal at arms length.

Roles and Responsibility

It may have been sometime since you have interacted with your ex-boss. Your organization skills, dealings and organizational learning may have changed substantially over the period of time. Be focused in understanding if he is valuing those additional acquired skills. Observe of he is hiring you or a person of same years of experience as you have for a function you are undertaking. If it's the second kind there is definitely no value pursuing further considering your current role covers most of it. Unless your ex-boss sees more in you than your current role it's probably not worth pursuing further.

More over when you hire a person you know you are hiring for 1.5 persons. One for the role he is hired for and half of the role he had executed earlier of value. But if you are getting hired only for your current experience there is definitely nothing unique your ex-boss is looking beyond regular transactional work. When you are sure you are not getting evaluated for the person but for a specific role there are aspects which you can discuss that definitely can make you radically different than their mindset. After all you will like to be remembered as a person who is good but radically different that does no harm to your overall person.

My Tryst with the Cars

2010-05-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

I am not a car enthusiast as such but in last couple of months I spent in test driving a couple to check out which probably is a right car for me. keeping my budgets in mind decided to focus on the premium hatchback segment. Interestingly, there is never a perfect car as there is nothing in the world in a philosophical note. Typically, you judge a car from its driving performance (not economy although that's an important factor as well with rising gas prices) and styling. In the premium hatchback segment there is just no perfect match.

Here is how my experience has been.

1. Maruti Ritz and Swift - Excellent drive machines. You can virtually overtake anyone at any speed. It's a real killer machine when it comes to acceleration. But looks are not so attractive. Both from an interior and exterior as well. To me it has a more of a UFO look than a car look. Sorry do not mean to hurt anyone who feels very affiliated to this car but just a personal opinion.

2. Honda Jazz - Just priced 2 lakhs over and above on nearest competition. Makes you wonder is it worth paying that extra vs. buying a City and drive home the comfort of a sedan.

3. Skoda Fabia - If you want a car to drive this is probably the machine. From gear ratios to engine performance to pick up this is by far the most appealing drive you will ever get. But you hear the prices of parts and service experience in the internet it makes you feel to think twice.

4. Volkswagen Polo - Class A machine from a driving comfort as well as from internal styling perspective. But someone who is buying a car in the premium car segment assumes in the lowest segment of the car also you should have the same color options as in the higher models. The mid-model for the car is zero value add with just a bunch of color choices unless you are a person who thinks white and red are cool colors. 3 months waiting period for the car is another big no. No one knows how the service availability will be.

5. Fiat Punto - I think the car is a loser in the premium hatchback segment. It's not because the car is bad but it's how it's marketed. You cannot sell a premium hatchback in the same car showroom with the cheapest car on earth. It's rather hilarious to see the Fiat Punto test drive request was honored after 2 months of placing the request. I was too bored to even to take look at the car. Interiors look too traditional plastic like.

6. Hyundai i20 - Again another bargain between performance vs. looks and looks wins. The car beats everyone in looks. Ultra comfortable to drive to the extent that some say you may fall asleep on a highway if you are not careful. Not even you the engine sleeps as well. The car gets noise after the rev numbers cross 3500. But the engine gives power and torque in the higher rpms. The car is almost soundproof and completely noiseless. To the extent that you may wonder at times if the engine is not running. Switch on the AC the car cools pretty rapidly but you engine pick up will be dead.

What is the final verdict? Very much like management literature. It depends on personal preference. My approach is you won't get everything. Just know what you are missing when you chose one over the other.

Another part I never understood was the premium hatchback with no stereo, body color handle, power window for back or central keyless door locking. Is it not expected that in a premium car it's all kind of given? It surprises me when companies come with all these features and launch these as significant addons with a mid model and a higher model. When I saw i20 Magna I felt Hyundai was probably smart and giving just enough for a comfortable car. They have diluted real bad with launch of Era in the i20 segment. Of course the Volkswagen Polo entry model another funny thing with just two colors. Overall the car manufactures have given a car in the premium hatchback in such a way a person needs to aspire for a high-end sedan ahead.

Successful Product Management

2010-05-15T22:41:00.000-07:00

The product management is a new entity in most Indian IT companies. As product management roles are getting created there is enough confusion in at the organizations to define the product management function. The other day I sat through a workshop on product management conducted by NASSCOM to discuss the same issue among a couple of business heads of various organizations. Shockingly the discussion was heading nowhere. Rightly, expected though... I am expressing my views on product management and why I feel it is designed to be challenging for Indian IT industry at large.

Product Management is a Business Role

The first and more most thing a product manager will find it challenging in India is everyone else knows what she needs to do other than she herself :-(. The organizational roles can be seen into two different classes - functional and business roles. The functional roles are defined on what a person needs to make it a success in his / her scope of activities. For example, the developers need to write code, testers should test it so that the quality objectives are to be met. But business roles are different. Business roles are aspects where the outcome is known but the means. Lets ask a simple question, what is the CEOs role in an organization. I will be very surprised if CEOs success formula can be written in functional 10 points. Rather the CEOs objectives are written on a business outcome basis. Similarly, a product manager is a mini-CEO for her product. The product success in its defined vision and goals is the single metric for a product manager success. Does your organization understand this concept? If not I guess it's not worth investing in product management as such.

Who should Product Management Report to?

This is typical of cost center oriented management in Indian IT industry is constantly struggling with this. In a production line it's natural the information has to flow down from a manager to the reportee. However, in a matrix structure like Product Management it's natural to have an entry level Product Manager have more business information than an engineering head. At some level in Indian IT industry is struggling in accepting these facts. Interestingly, customer and revenue information is expected for Product Management to be aware of but functional management positions need not be aware of such information. Some organizations in the Indian IT industry is not comfortable sharing these information with the product management function as the managers who they report to in the organizations are not party to such information. Ideally Product Management should functionally report to a business role and not to a functional manager to avoid such influences.

Should Product Management be there where the Customer is?

There was a time in production industry the belief was that the production base must be set up where raw material is to reduce material handling costs. Today the production centers are there where the cheapest labor is and not the raw material. Product Management is a decision making function. In today's fast communication world the decision making function can be anywhere where there is availability of business decision makers. Collection of customer intelligence can be a proxy operation. Conducting market research or direct interaction with the customer are not the only means to gather intelligence. Done effectively a network can be set up which can gather functional needs of the customers and provide inroads to customer expectations. When consumer product firms set up operations in countries like India and China, they need not have to set up large decision making units in these countries but hired mostly staff to run operations.

Overall, for product management to be successful in Indian IT industries the organizations have to bring in a bit of profit center orientation. Without that thought process the organizations will define a functional role like: Systems Analyst, Business Analyst, Technical Evangelist for a product manager.

Captive Product Pricing

2010-02-15T04:43:00.000-08:00

I never knew my earlier posting on pricing will generate so much in interest from people I know or from people who have crossed my blog just as a passing interest. However, one good example I found interesting in those discussion was Captive Product Pricing. Is captive product pricing separate pricing principle or should follow the same 3 product pricing paradigm we just discussed earlier:

1. Cost based pricing
2. Value based pricing
3. Competition based pricing

To my understanding of pricing theory the pricing paradigms I talked about are fundamental principles on which every known pricing strategy should be evaluated against. No pricing model can challenge or alter these building blocks of pricing.

Lets look at the Captive Product Pricing as an example. Captive product pricing is done for a captive market where the market is fairly narrow and choice is limited to the extent of a monopoly. Some examples of these are razor blades, tyres for automobiles or cartridges for printers. And best one all of you Satellite TV customers must be facing in India on subscription pricing for various TV channels.

Couple of things to note here is who is defining the larger market. Is the captive product a standards based product (to the extent of being a commodity) or a specific supply to a product. Example can be single razor blades are standardized and you will not need to buy a razor from Gillette to use a Gillette blade. However, you may need a Mach 4 razor from Gillette to use a Mach 4 blade.

How does one price in such situations?

Well one can always lure the customer with bundling offers to make sure she gets into buying a package deal of the razor with some free blades, but charge a huge premium on the blades alone as replacement part. The strategy Gillette always employs for its innovative patent protected blades or HP for the costly cartridges for cheap inkjet printers. When it comes to competitive pricing comparisons sales people do these smarts as an example:

You can buy an HP printer but cartridge will be so expensive that you may be better of buying a Canon printer but the cartridge will be cheaper and in the long run you will be paying a lot less as an example.

or may be the other way round

The savings you make in cartridge will not be sufficient to recover the cost of the savings you make in the printer. Because in some sense in the life time of the printer you will hardly use 3 cartridges and that will not be enough saving for you anyway. So why not buy a cheaper printer and save on the initial cost. And if you buy a maintenance contract for printing 100,000 sheets of paper cartridges and printers will be free from us with necessary upgrades as necessary.

The hard thing for the seller always to keep in mind is in no circumstance a customer will plan pay a price beyond the lifetime value of what she is paying for the service or an crude estimate for the same is the basis is time based like an ARPU used in the telecom industry. If I spend Rs. 2000/- in talking over the cellphone I will try to keep my cell phone bill to that level every month as much as possible. By creating a price bundling you are trying to make it Rs. 3000/- even if you provided me a free blackberry and thus show me a lot of saving it's very unlikely I will value that free blackberry long enough. But it may still be a deterrence for me to switch as I will cease to keep my phone and thus lose all the private data I have on the mobile handset. Over a period of time as a customer my demand for more talk time will be there but I will still not like to pay more than Rs. 2000/- for it. And while pricing in the captive market this is a significant point and that is when people think of switching.

How does a buyer do in such situations?

If you are purchasing tech products or products where complexity is high and difficult in comparison I will suggest to keep 2 metrics in mind before you get into a captive product purchase scenario.

1. Total Cost of Ownership
2. Switching cost

TCO estimation will give a good understanding on where you stand on comparison with the other products in the market. Keeping a guard on switching cost will help you keep your options open for subsequent switch. While these are well known concepts for the B2B markets the B2C markets is where customers get beaten pretty badly. And particularly, when the market is in early phase of development.

Lets talk about the satellite TV market. The equipment prices are almost free in most cases or there is significant competition to keep it low. But every time there is a new channel that comes up satellite TV companies find innovative means of pricing those so that people keep buying additional packages or what in the scheme is called top up plans.

Similarly, cell phones market was fairly in the same situation and it'll be completely cease to exist once we get number portability in India. Although economic switching cost in cell phone is fairly low the inconvenience in changing the numbers is fairly hard. However, multi-SIM phones are a good options to address some of the woos there but not a complete solution though.

Pricing your Products

2009-12-13T04:04:00.000-08:00

I keep hearing people talk about pricing models are very complex and they are always hard to come up with. I think most confuse over bundling options over pricing models. In fact the pricing models are by far the simplest and quite well defined. There are three standard models.

Cost based pricing - Before pricing the product make sure your costs of manufacturing the product along with a notional economic profit is covered. Pricing below the cost + economic profits may be situational in a promotion for some but it's not sustainable and hence will get back to you in the long run. While doing cost calculations make sure to account for fixed costs and allocated overheads. In some industries where there is no competitions like state sponsored monopolies like utilities this may be the only means of coming to a negotiated pricing with the state.
Competition based pricing - Unless there is significant different in the cost structure or product differentiation try to be as close to the competition as possible. Most people may think I have to be pricing below the competition always. This is probably the biggest mistake to do. Define competition and your strategic role in the market. A cost strategy or a differentiation strategy will decide what your target market is going to be and how your product should be priced in that. Your company size may not permit you to go on high volume low cost strategy as your support department cannot scale for your sudden volume growth.
Value based Pricing - Ultimately, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and hence your product price is purely how your customer sees it to be benefiting him and thus pay you accordingly as per his limits. Pricing for value is the hardest. The biggest problems are no one really knows how the customer is going to use the product in her environment. Ideal will be to analyze the customer benefit and charge her for a percentage of the gains as a price. But in steep competition this may not always work as competitor may quote a price so low that you may lose the account in trying to gain the maximum from the customer.

So my initial comments are all wrong. Pricing is all very complex. Actually not. Pricing is easy in principle. What is hard is assessing the customer, internal assessment of costs and competition's game plan. As long as you know how you can control the quality of the data input the garbage in and garbage out can be well managed. It's your company's market intelligence and strong accounting system that's key to creating great pricing decisions.

Innovative Pricing

2009-12-13T03:38:00.001-08:00

The other day, I was reading an article in a newspaper which has stated the per second pricing by the telecom companies a real price innovation. Most people will admit or get carried away with such a statement. Of course it's a great innovation but for whom is the real question. Is it so innovative that the technologies associated to bill on per second pulse can make your bills lighter? Actually, not. It's the telecom companies who will eventually make sure they do a price modeling in such a way that there is absolutely no impact on revenue yet include a billing model that looks appealing to the consumer. This is like the old times where you had skewed plans like talk more plans or listen more plans. Eventually, however a combination you choose invariably your bills would be around the same. Every user in some ways has a notional ARPU in mind. And as it comes closer to that number we make sure our bills are within that range.

Getting back to the per second billing, why will we not see much of a difference in the per second billing for most customers. After the call rates have come down drastically most people speak in multiple of minutes. So if per second pulse is introduced statistically you will on average save about 30 seconds per call. If your calls are of 10 mins range approximately, then you save just 5% in the call time. If your calls are mostly 2-3 minutes then also your savings are within 20% of the call time. And if you are charged 20% higher for per second billing (50p / min or 1p / sec) then you actually need to make sure your calls are less than 2 mins to be able to get maximum benefit or else you will land up paying more for your calls.

The final question who is on the receiving side of the innovation as usual the customer. But there is still a gain. There are a class of people in the low-mid income group who use their cell phones to track business. Like say a taxi driver. Now he can make a call to the customer to update his availability rather than giving a missed call. Such announcements are going to be sub-minute calls and they will not mind making the actual calls rather than waiting on a missed call. After all whenever there is a new technology there are some sections who will get benefited. And it's good if it gets to the bottom of the pyramid. But may be some of that may not really make it down to the bottom if the rentals are kept different for per min vs. per sec call rate plans.

Why do we innovate?

2009-12-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

I keep hearing this from management of every organization I work for, we need to file more patents. We need to be more innovative. I never understand somehow why a small set of people end up filing patents while most do not. I also hear another set of people complaining that some people spend enormous time and energy in filing patents rather than spending time in their day to day activity.

Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be I had been bitten by the patent bug 5 times. I filed 5 patents with USPTO from 2003. And most of them were by chance than choice. Many a times I have been asked by people to suggest how to be innovative. Luckily, I have been able to defend myself without having to reply to such requests nor actually talking about it. But, I feel sometimes myself what has made me innovate if I ever did it. Here are some of my thoughts. Feel free to question them or disagree with most of them, after all these are just what I feel.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions - I filed couple of patents because there were no better way to solve the problem. Either I innovate or find something new and different or perish in front of an ever demanding boss who felt I was at my wits end in solving the problem. And you end up coming up something which looks cool and different but I am not sure how I am going to consume it. It just looks like magic.
Being rigid in doing something someway - I filed a patent because I felt the way to do something in the way I think and not the shortcuts (may be long cuts) the world is doing today. This is my way of doing and I think that's unique and hence it's a patentable idea. It works I feel.
I am too lazy - I believe a safety pin was invented when a husband got frustrated with his wife's ever demanding needs of broken buttons and devised a contraption by twisting a wire lying around. In some sense, people who innovate are lazy. They love what they want to do in life than reading to 10000 lines of additional code someone else has written than to replace with their 100 lines of alternate code. After all who does not enjoy spending the evening with a beer mug in a bar than in front of a computer monitor.
What is innovation? I think the best answer to this question is given by Philip Kotler and Fernando Trias de Bes in their book Lateral Marketing.

In short we innovate because it's different and mostly even if it's not known why is it different.

Innovation in Small Organizations - An Alternate Viewpoint

2007-10-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

For a traditional management student, when structures and processes in organizations is introduced, he is made to believe small organizations are agile while not large organizations. My personal experience with such organizations comes out with a very different viewpoint. While every start up has a potential to become Google, they seldom make it really big. The better ones find alternatives in management exits while a large number of them do not realize their inability to manage software business. Failures of small companies in my opinion can be attributed to the following reasons.

Management Hubris

In a small company many a times the management starts to believe they are providing opportunity to a set of staff they have recruited. I have seen many small organizations where they think they have provided an open environment to their employees to work and hence they are in some sense Gods. They have right to decide destiny of employees. I will not say the management does not have a right to think so. After all taking up entrepreneurial risk is no small achievement. But in a market where talent is scarce behavior of this kind can only diminish employee morale. I have seen organizations, when they reach some fixed size, the employees suddenly start leaving the organization. They never grow any big.

The Inner Circle

Bureaucracy and politics is central to existence to any human group. In larger organizations politics is considered an impediment in many activities that an employee wants to pursue. What is funny is many senior management staff in smaller organization claim there is no politics in their organizations. My understanding is quite different. Small organizations work in principles of inner circles not a balanced political set up of large organizations. In the set up of second kind people try to win over the other ideas through balance of power. In small organization every decision is taken at the inner circle. Either you are in or you are not part of it. The typical exodus of executives from a start up/small organization can provide you enough insights on the power play of the inner circle.

The Un-parallel Techno-manager

Every of these organizations normally has a classic senior member who is considered the epitome of technology. I will suggest the management of such companies to get rid of these super heroes or provide clear indicators of their boundaries. The behavior of such staff is quite different depending on whether she is an employee or one of the proprietors. In an industry, where the newer generation learns from where previous generation left, you will find these people never upgrade their skill levels. They know, people of their experience and skill levels have quietly left the technology domain. Hence they look perfect techies in their community but you look deeper they never let anyone of technical superiority survive inner circle pressures. This leads to hiring of below average engineering staff and pushing back on every project stating that every project is substantially complex. Since, they are the only people in the management who understand technology or provide an aura of the same, the company's scale of innovation tanks. Then how do you identify such people. Very simple I will say - Just provide an innovative idea about the product these managers are developing and provide a huge amount of time to execute. Invariably, in the end you will hear a complaint of scope creep or tight schedule pressure. These kind of people can be there in the board as well. They will continue to provide the same sales pitch or product differentiation statement which the whole world would have implemented years back. How do you identify cases of this kind? Look for people holding multiple CXO roles in the executive teams.

The Retired Executive

This is a typical phenomenon in a venture funded organization. The retired executive will have about twenty years experience in the industry and now decides to lead smaller companies. These people typically operate on maintaining their own MBOs and somehow try to manipulate it well enough so that it's achieved. When the MBOs are set many a times the CEO and the board keeps the immediate problem in mind and they do not focus what may be needed in the long run. These executives exploit that quite smartly. They typically keep projecting non-committed acquisition expectations and create stories around the board and the staff with these expectations. Use their networking skills in creating one or two joint development programs with companies where they see potential acquisitions. You must be wondering how to induct the right executives. One interesting way is to look at the Google Story. The recruitment of the CEO will give some definite insights into hiring the CXOs. Commitment from executive team is quite critical. Google did a smart job of that.

The Inner Circle Promotions

Last but not the least it important to track how people graduate to inner circle. Typically, employees are assessed entry into organization based on their potential and ability in the vertical they serve. But, small organizations typically follow a different strategy. You will see there is a soft inner circle promotion of some staff. The executives will be talking about these employees in more than one occasions. There are two characteristics of people I have seen who make entry too quickly.

1. Quick Starters
2. Weak Personalities

Quick starters are people we will rather call street smarts. They start but never finish any task that's expected of them. They will add their names to anything and everything the organization is into. It does not need rocket science to identify these individuals. We all know them. Every organization has some finishers who will take charge to save organization reputation. Actually the organization management never needs finishers. Of course, due to their own insecurity. The second kind, is the one who will move around their bosses and they know their only survival is with their bosses' grace. They know they will never make very big and their bosses never feel threatened with these kind of staff. If any of your organization is consistent in rewarding such people definitely it never is a place for innovation. Because, innovation is an act of courage and needs extreme dedication and persistence to finish. That can only be taken up by people with strong personalities.

Does that mean small companies never make big? Not if they nurture these characteristics. Nor is it true that all large companies do not innovate. Innovation is a state of mind that individuals build and organization can only recruit it and nurture it. Size of the organization never matters.

It's not just India Shining - The Big Nilekani and the Bigger Ambani

2007-03-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

The other day I earned my executive MBA degree from IIM, Bangalore. Long two and half years of gruelling hard work, a couple of job switches due to not so friendly acceptance to a management course by some organization I worked for. Whatever it was the convocation evening was a great occasion. One side of me felt happy that I do not have to explain what I do on a Friday mornings and Saturdays. The other side thought it must have been love but it's over now.

What made the evening more interesting was the presence of two of the biggest names in the Indian industry. Nandan Nilekani and Mukesh Ambani. Mr. Nilekani gave a long speech on how Indian services industry is shining and how everyone there in the meeting will bring in a major dent into that and all. What are the five qualities that will make a man successful in the future. Well at some point I felt I am sitting in a class room in IIMB and listening to a great professor speaking about qualities that makes a man.

Mukesh was different. A short simple speech. The most important thing Mukesh saw in the eyes of the students is a confidence to do something and that's what is the true path to success. Secondly, he suggested everyone to make their parent's proud of them. A typical Indian sentiment that every Indian feels at all ages.

The difference was clear the bonding was visible. Something the software industry lacks in general. We try to build a transactional system in software industry and talk of team work; yet, we lack how team work is to be fostered. Team work in industry is just talking nice but candid no nonsense talk is lack of respect. Individual contribution by senior staff in India is a real oxymoron. We do not know how to run a culture of innovation. Software managers typically in India spend half their time justifying how greatest technologist on earth they are (Are they technically half as good as they claim?). In software industry knowing technology is not a requirement but something geeks do for lack of anything better to do. I guess it was evident why the managers lack connection with individuals in their companies. Overall Indian software industry lacks maturity.

The most misunderstood brand - The IIT

2007-01-27T13:05:00.000-08:00

It surprises me as globally the IIT brand is picking up faster and faster, how less we understand it in our own country. The typical industry considers IITs as a supply of brains that can be given any technical challenge and they can solve it. May be one of the reasons in the software companies there are ample opportunities to IITians as such. But then I find many managers complaining IITians hard to manage, never stick longer and many a times demotivated. I agree to many of these facts. In fact to a great extent it's all true. After all I give a lot of respect to our management for identifying the metrics, but I feel they miss the true problem identification.

Belonging to the instant heroics of an IITian gang is a big cultural shock. It may not be as shocking as being a part of a MENSA club but quite similar I would say. Being local heroes in their respective localities they suddenly realize they are a bunch of mediocres in a group of geniuses around them. There is a bit of show down that goes in the initial days but soon everyone realizes all their smarts are purely situational and not quite relevant in a complete scale. The true cultural development happens within the walls of the IITs. People excel in various fields but they all know that the guy next to him is equally good in some field he chooses for himself. A meritocratic society where leadership of any individual is purely situational. Everyone in an IIT has been part of some leadership activity of her own. Being a residential campus and apolitical atmosphere makes many people highly creative in their own ways.

The next comes to many IITians is when they leave the environment and come to the real world of the job market. The first realization of a system that is not necessarily a meritocratic culture is a sheer shock to many IITians. The appreciation of credible achievement is again another factor that adds to these. A typical IITian is exposed to quite a large facts of research in the field quite early in life. Although not many of them have publications to their names the understanding and appreciation of published literature is quite high among these people. Appreciating the obvious undermine the nature of many IITians. For many IITians even awards of kinds may not even matter. Hence their expectation from award winning performance is very high. If you look at the companies the awards are fairly high in number, recognition systems are subjective and many a times driven by appeasing an employee than truely recognizing credible performance.

The second part is about difficulty or depth of the problem area. Surface level stories are considered a sheer time waste in most IITs (called as gyaan and phatta - means gas). This again means many organizational events for moral boosting may seem to many IITians pure placeholder for inactivity. The discussion levels at many IITs have high decibels strong sentiments and full of facts from various relevant literature. Many a times the thoughts are quite deep and through. In industry for most part the discussions are mere checkboxes for MBO activity not a means to justify meritocracy.

The third part is the challenge of work. Mere understanding and repeating the same activity is not meant for high performers. I guess that is where most IITians have a view called Kachda Kaam (meaning junk work). The exposure to a larger parts of the happenings in the world make them regular stuff quite boring. I had to manage quite a few IITians. The thing that has worked best for me is to call them in one-to-one and straight away confess that the work is mundane yet someone has to do this and she is the available person right now. If there is work that interest them I will consider their names for a later project. But selling the obvious as a packaged solution never goes with many IITians.

The fourth issue is of authority. IITians are averse to authority of any kind. The process of elections in IITs are fairly apolitical. IITians never have a single leadership they worship. The president of the student union has very little exercisable power over the students. Rowdism is just not their in the culture for most part. Excercising authority to justify your claims over any IITian is just going to back fire. For most part even the presence of the greatest leaders of the society may not attract any crowd in an IIT. The collective mass acceptance is fairly weak. Leadership by example or absolute delegation are the only methods I have understood to have worked with IITians.

The people who complain about IITians not being patient have to probably understand the fundamental definition of patience. An average IITian must have spent days if not weeks in solving some of the trickiest problems many times in life before giving up on it or soliciting help from the surroundings. I guess if you ask any IITian persistence will come out as one of the greatest assets in solving a JEE paper. I guess it's all about the problem definition. I feel many IITians may get bored quickly in times of inactivity but not necessarily impatient.

This being said I feel the industry needs to identify some basic structural changes if they feel they will need to accommodate these high potential people. Mere statement of status quo and exceptations of mediocrity and group sentiments will definitely have managers complain all the time. I guess if we really need them we may need to make amends in the organization systems to provision for the relevant emotions.

Note: This article is true for most high potential employees not necessarily IITians. However I have got into discussions on IITians in specific many a times. Hence I have presented here as a specific case for the IITians.

Can India create the next Ken Thompson?

2007-01-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

I have this strong feeling that it's not companies that bring new technology but some great people do. In the history of practical computer programming one name remains in the annals of computer science and that's Ken Thompson. But then why Ken Thompson? There are many turing awardees in computer science. Because Ken Thompson is not a scientist but in more sense an architect, a practitioner.

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were awarded the Turing award for their seminal work on Unix operating system. This OS is by far a parsonal effort designed to do complex things of multics simple and more so from an architectural perspective probably creating the OS that's understood most as far as kernel internals are concerned. I will describe in brief two of Ken's fundamental work here.

1. Reflections on Trusting Trust
2. The UTF-8 specification

Both are unique in some way. The first one essentially says to be able to use any basic system you have to trust at least one thing blindly that's the login code of unix or compiler or something like that. If you look at it in a higher plane this is the fundamental of the whole trust key chain concept. You are creating one blind trust. The second interpretation could be can you trust code which is hidden from you the whole open source vs. close source divide. No doubt Ken said: -

The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor's house.

As it's just as much of a moral hazard than a security hazard as you will like to protect it with.

The second interpretation is adaptability. It's an answer to distinction between representation and concept. The character is a concept and representation of character as a single byte is a mere representation. And one dinner this was made clear with one of the simplest representations of character encoding.

So how should all these seem for technologists?

It's about making simple paradigms. In Ken's words:-

"I am a programmer. On my 1040 form, that is what I put down as my occupation. As a programmer, I write programs."

In my opinions the Indian software industry is yet to understand this. It's about programs silly. I have heard many managers saying: "Coding!!! Man I have grown above it. I do manage not code". I don not know what do we manage. 80 percent of software out there is about massaging strings in various forms. A problem which have been reasonably done in the past ample number of times. There will be probably a millions forms of HTML parsers sitting in every corporate source code repository doing nothing significantly better but they are there as some developer felt understanding the standard HTML parser is essentially a hard job or did not have the patience to learn HTML. Some will nicely put it as this HTML parser is suited for our kinds of applications and similar notes. I cannot blame them. After all such codes run enterprises, I do not.

What it all means to an Indian context? I think it's about creating the environment conducive to create a great programmer like Ken Thompson. This is not hard I believe. More over as managers of software technology it's our job to learn technology and not the hype of technology and have respect for the technology and technologists. It's my earnest appeal to the community at large.

How Real is the Reality?

2007-01-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

It's surprising that the reality TV is catching up wildfire in India. The Big Boss kind of shows are making headlines. Somewhere in the world an Indian actress is getting harassed with racial remarks. I ask this simple question. Are we really keen in the reality?

There are certain aspects of reality we just do not want to see. If reality is all we are interested in in real sense. There was a wave of reality depiction that happened through a parallel cinema industry which focused on social issues and struggle of human in India, frustration of license raj and its effects. Today we do not need those any more. The number of such parallel movies are not many but slightly milder depictions of the same with movies like Mr and Mrs. Iyer, Page 3 kind are getting audience appeal. Similarly, the news channels reporting gory crime reports and talking through the issues all the time are bringing us to realism everyday. It scares me to see sometimes how unsafe is our society today. But, I will probably not like to see the details of the realism.

As humans we want to be told the reality the stark naked truth but in a milder manner. We do not want the whole truth which is too gory to stand. Similarly is true for the reality shows. Every celebrity has a role to play in the society. Confining them to that level of reality is enough. But getting to his/her bedroom and reporting what his/her internal feelings are not something that should give us pleasure. That's just too real. After all at every level the celebrities are as human as you and I are. They have same reservations, same kind of prejudices and fears. Is there any need for us to know all that? I don't how can it be entertaining to know these. Lets keep our entertainment to fiction and not mix with reality. Let human creativity still rule masking / moderating the reality in the best possible manner.

Will love to know what you think.

Gandhigiri and Bangalore Driving

2007-01-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

Bangalore Roads and atrociousness are no new entry to a blog. I always thought I can refrain from writing about it. But, I guess it was important. This morning as I was driving an auto-rickshaw suddenly cut into my straight path from the side without giving any indication of its negotiating a left turn. In total bewildered state I bumped into it. As luck could have it I left my vehicle and jumped away and had a perfect landing with a very minor scratch on my thumb. The driver got down and approached towards me. A normal me would have made a noise and god knows what. For a change, I asked him - "Are you ok?"

I do not know if that was a valid question to ask and walked towards him. I saw him speechless he picked up my scooter and brought it to standing. I could see a guilty feel in his eyes and a look that was downwards. A large group of passers by gathered around me. I just asked them to leave as there was nothing serious there. They were equally confused. A morning entertainment was averted.

A couple of weeks back a similar thing happened with a car. And just to avoid a collision I just switched off the engine and jumped out and my scooter fell on a side and no harm was done neither to the car nor my scooter collided with it. I saw a fuming car driver parking his car 15 meters ahead and giving me tips as how I was reckless and how could his car could have damaged beyond repair and how worried he was for me without helping me with my getting my scooter straight. I gave him a disgusted dirty look and told him how needless his tips were and started my scooter and left. I saw him cursing and making a noise for no good reason.

What was the basic difference between the two incident. It's the approach. One constructive and the other blame game. A simple question of "Are you ok?" did the trick. The simple act of helping someone in distress versus giving lectures as what a genius we have been and how the rest of the world was wrong.

In a world of competition we tend to find our competitor everywhere we go. Even when they do not exist. Showing that upmanship is too inherent to us. The bigger goal is what we are missing in life. The pathetic Bangalore roads is a menace. Rather than helping our fellow travelers we tend to show how a great driver we are in negotiating our way through. That makes our travel more of a competition. Similarly, in life we create unnecessary hierarchies and play power games. Many a times we do not see the real problem which is an inanimate project as we call it as our true enemy and get it straight. Accepting one's mistake and correct it if needed, is that so hard? I still believe the world provides ample opportunity to everyone to compete with oneself and be a better person in your own metric than comparing with the whole world or the person next to you.

I guess Gandhigiri is just a first step to that direction.

Financial Ratios

2006-12-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

Interestingly, after a long two and half years of studying for MBA program has not made any better understanding of the financial ratios. Most interesting thing I saw was every finance course we keep doing ratios to land up into the same discussion in the subsequent classes. Here was the classic one. The ratios on returns. RoI, RoA, RoCE, RoE and god knows what all. I use a very common sense approach to ratio determination as such.

There are stakeholders who have put in money or provided infrastructure for a company to operate and they expect some tangible gains from the company. Whatever they gain is basically return. That being said who are the stakeholders to a company?

Equity holders (Both preferential and common stocks)
Debt holders
Government

There are 3 kinds of basic gains for each of the stakeholders

Equity holders get residual profits, Debt holders interest and Government Taxes.

Hence return on asset should consider total returns on the complete asset so return definition here is PBIT. While for Return on Equity it should just be the PAT. Returns are worked on accrual basis and never on expensed basis.

In any case, after all we are MBAs and we will democratize the process of finding the obvious as well and will not know but think it might be something or in the end say well then everything is right. After all the world was there before accounting standards came into being.

Learning leadership from a train journey

2006-10-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

The more I think I should not be blogging on personal opinions, the more I am getting tempted to throw my personal views. However, the incident was interesting hence thought of a mention on my blog. There will a consistent rule on my blog. Any idea which may rouse negative thoughts will be supported with literature and analysis available and any positive thoughts will be stated as is. The reason is simple, if I feel strongly negative of something it needs to be substantiated with research and literature and not be on my mere judgement. I hope I am able to reduce the effect of judgement from my articles.

Recently, I was traveling from Bangalore to Chennai in a train. One of my co-passengers were a retired professor of accounting and control from some university in Chennai. As soon as he saw the "HBR on The Mind of the Leader" his immediate reaction was you will learn more leadership from talking to leaders than reading books. I wanted to avoid a debate in the train. It helps no one and with my schedule of job, course work for exec-MBA it's really hard for me to find time to read a book which I did not want to spoile. Yet, I decided to talk to him and be a non-contributor. There are two distinct points he made although in very crude terms we will have lots of examples in lreal life to substantiate.

Leadership is about being a good listener
To be a successful leader it's important to be a good follower in early part of your life

I found both of these viewpoints unique in someway and very nice. Of course the HBR analysis does not talk about these anywhere. Some learning which only gets to you when you grow grey hair may be :-)

Lateral Marketing and Hindu Hymns

2006-07-26T11:15:00.000-07:00

The other day I wrote a review on Lateral Marketing by Philip Kotler and Fernando Trias de Bes.

However, more interestingly I was getting some crank calls on my cell phone for last couple of months. Same number and always it would get disconnected as I pick up my phone. Finally, I decided to block the number called up my cellphone provider who asked me to register a police complaint. I realized that blocking a call in Indian phone system is next to impossible so I decided to put the number in my do not pick up list in the phone and relaxed. One day when I looked over to realize that the phone is actually flashing backlight means it was ringing again from the same number and when I picked up it got disconnected.

I called back and to my surprise a PCO (public call operator) picked up the phone. I told her if I get one more call then I am going to give their number to the police. She is doing it for a living and more over the place is some 500 miles away from where I live. And finally she admitted that some one used to call into my number because I had a nice hello tune which is basically a small piece of music that is played when you are waiting for the other person to pick up her phone. Luckily or unluckily I have the Hanuman Chalisa (Hymn for the great lord Hanuman) as my Hello Tune and there are enough people you would like to listen to this. I didn't know what to say. I cannot say no to someone's religious sentiments.

However, it definitely made me wonder all religious groups in India can start their telephone radios where people can dial in and listen to their favorite devotional songs for free. More revenue for mobile operators, for some software development companies and greater penetration for the religious community. There are some definite gaps in this mobile space where newer products can come in.

2006-06-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Manager as Problem Solver

2006-06-08T02:55:00.000-07:00

Abstract

In this article, I try to correlate the mindsets of the manager and the scientist’s problem solving abilities. A manager has to interact various different scenarios and bring in a balance to the system and environment he operates in. For example, a typical managerial problem involves the relationship of self, organization, local environment, people and results. Each brings in a fresh set of problems to operate on.

The Management Process

The manager needs to bring in a balance between the organization, self, people, local environment and results. Each of this needs a separate faculty of the mind and thus the five mindsets of the manager suggested in the shown figure. Only defined framework in a managerial process is the organization which has certain clarity and where a defined analytical mindset can be brought to place. However, other environmental forces that the manager needs to take decisions are all not so scientific problems. Thus, to a greater extent a managerial problem solving can be considered very similar to a discovery and understanding of the world as has been described in the “Scientist a problem solver”. However, many a times such problem solving can be to find the local optimality.

Laws from Data

A manager does not have any clear definition of problem. Most problems he faces needs to be analyzed from the data that is available to him as experiences. The experiences can be his or his fellow beings. A reflective mindset of a manager creates connections between the various signs that’s available to him. And, these connections may be generalized as the experience becomes firmer and clearer.

Representations

The management education is known for its 2 x 2 matrices and frameworks. Management being a subject that deals with significant alternatives needs to have representation methodologies which are simple and yet powerful enough to convey ideas. The interpretation of simple representations can be carried over to making complex decisions. However, if the problem cannot be isolated and brought into a simple framework it will be hard for a manager to keep track of the decisions which are multi-part, multi-step and can extend for longer periods of time.

Finding an Explanatory Model

Managers are known to look for frameworks which can explain the systemic nature of organization, society and environment. Psychologists and sociologists have come up with various explanatory models that explain human behavior and interaction. There may be large exceptions to the rule in such frameworks, but having a couple in one’s arsenal definitely makes the battle easier. A reflective and worldly mindsets bring in the required moderation in usage of these models.

Designing Good Experiments

Case analysis is considered an effective methodology for management education. Cases are essentially a focused definition of a real life situation. They come handy, as they bring in an analytical mindset to a real life problem which is normally hard to express in an analytical manner. As a manager, it’s important to create cases from critical real life incidents. The idea of a case should be so designed that from the look of it, it may sound an analytical exercise. However, the other faculties of a manager’s mind should be strong enough to filter such that the case looks as if it can be analytically solved. Designing cases can help a person use them in future, understand the intricacies of the situation and keep in mind what facts to use and what not to use and create problem isomorphs.

Problem Isomorphs

No two humans are the same. Hence, no two management problems are alike. Every case should be dealt with its uniqueness of characteristics. Does that necessarily mean that there can be no medical treatment as no two humans are alike in every respect? It can be seen with all their differences human beings of a same cultural upbringing have similarities. Organizations of similar sizes and domains behave alike. However complex an organization may be, certain processes in the organizations are alike. Hence, problems in one situation can be brought into another domain. A manager is a person who with his vast experiences should be able to make those correlations and identify the isomorphs. However, a worldly, collaborative and reflective mindset can make him see the differences within the isomorphs and compensate for the differences.

Experiments without Independent Variables

Most management problems have no variables known. What is known in is something needs to be achieved. An action orientation without analytical mindset would mean put more effort and results can be achieved. But, it’s also known that in a resource constrained world this is just wishful thinking. A manager can come up with manageable changes and study the effects on the output by going beyond the action mindset. Rather than identifying the input variables, changing intermediate processes can lead to better output maximization. This would mean better collaboration, people management and support of society. Searching for input variables is like finding out the cause of the problem. Many a times a satificing attitude of solving the problem with alternatives possible can be a worthwhile approach to consider.

The Manager as Satisficer

Managers are by definition satsficers. This has its positives and negatives. The benchmarks for most managerial processes are not known earlier. Hence, managers tend to propose estimates based on historical data and expected achievable margin. Once that’s met they take a satisficing attitude of making that as their
achievable target. Every re-engineering effort tends to challenge that satisficing target and achieve further. A good model and conducting right experiments backed by problem isomorphs should be well analyzed before taking a satisficing viewpoint of a management problem.

Reflections on “The Scientist as Problem Solver”

2006-06-08T02:44:00.000-07:00

Abstract

H. A. Simon has described how the scientific research, he has been conducting is very similar to problem solving in other form for example a game of chess. The process of scientific discovery according to him is a process of recognition. He describes the whole scientific discovery process in the following parts:
• Formulating Problems
• Laws from Data
• Representations
• Finding an Explanatory Model
• Designing Good Experiments
• Problem Isomorphs
• Experiments without Independent Variables
• The Scientist as Satisficer

Formulating Problems

The first and foremost part of any discovery process is identification and formulation of the problem. However, it’s the case that a person actually finds the solution of another problem while trying to solve one problem. Pasteur’s famous dictum as “Accidents happens to the prepared mind” has been cited to justify this. In explaining the failure of neo-classical economics theory in a described situation Simon could figure out how bounded rationality of human nature can overlook the rational global solution to the problem.

Laws from Data

Many a times, scientific theories are found embedded in data rather than an established theory proving the same. For example, when Kepler provided information on earth motion it was purely data driven. Newton postulated laws gravitation and proved that his laws can explain Kepler’s observed data. Similarly, Lotka’s assumptions could be solved lot later by logical arguments provided by the author. More over similar research has been found to be conducted by other researchers in parallel fields without being aware of each other’s work.

Representations

Representations are very important for any scientific experiment. Although, words can describe the problem a clearer understanding comes from imagery describing the problem at hand. Einstein and Hadamard agreed in their exchanges that words do not stimulate the process of thought significantly. Simon has shown that although mathematical models help but a physical mental picture like the room and cell example helps getting a clearer thought process.

Finding an Explanatory Model

Finding an explanatory model for a phenomenon is quite important and useful in coming up with a solution. One way is to systematic thinking in the direction as has been done Lotka’s problem case. The other approach is identifying a similar problem which has been solved. The example the author uses is of defining theory of problem solving by using digital computers as a model.

Designing Good Experiments

Designing a good experiment is very critical in a scientific problem solving exercise. Many a times experiments bring out facts that were never captured in the model thus bringing in surprises. The author tries to find out an experiment on Chinese language on STM which is a natural experiment rather than creating an artificial system.

Problem Isomorphs

Problem isomorphs are identical in task domains and legal domains yet have been described by different words. He describes two scenarios of tower of Hanoi and missionary and cannibal problem both being isomorphs may take a human being different times to solve. The idea that the solution of a problem depends
only on the size of task domain is not a valid assumption to make.

Experiments without Independent Variables

Many a times in experiments it’s hard to define exact independent variables. However, redesigning the experiment in such a way that the results are unintuitive can be a good means of coming up with results. The impossible problem formulation has provided the author existence two distinct human cognitive system in addressing the problems. Simon wants to portray that observation is far superior in solving the problem than hypothesizing and proving based on the hypothesis.

The Scientist as Satisficer

Scientist is ultimately a satisficer as well. When she is in search of something she postulates certain possibilities that may be occurring in the nature. Ultimately she provides a model of sorts and tries to validate that with the natural happenings. When the model matches with the natural occurrence within limits she concludes the completion of the experiment. However, it’s not an endless quest for finding the right answer but a relationship of matching a model definition with the expected natural occurrence.

References

[1] H. A. Simon. Models of My Life, chapter The Scientist as Problem Solver, pages 368–387. The MIT Press, October 1996.