Keshava Ram's Personal Blog

Playing it my way - Sachin Tendulkar's Autobiography Review

2014-12-21T13:27:00.000+05:30

I had pre-ordered for Hard Bound copy of this book on flipkart before it was released. Was very happy to receive it and started reading immediately. Finished first 100 pages in my first sitting itself. There should have been Reading Comprehension test on topics like cricket, I would have done way better than I would otherwise do.

It is among the most anticipated cricket book ever because his playing days coincided with my watching days. He was a hero, role model for performance and god. Nation's cricketing fortunes depended on him. He was the symbol of developing India, a man from middle class background going on to achieve unimaginable things. His statistics are among the most memorable and unsurmountable figures but his impact goes beyond the numbers.

It is one book where as a reader, I knew 80% of the facts before reading. Reading therefore was a happy revision of his cricketing performance. That's why the high reading speed and comprehension. Still reading enabled me to understand the human side of Tendulkar. How he aspired to live in his own house. I felt whats the big deal, many ordinary people like us have a own house and somebody who made so many revered cricketing stadiums like his home is aspiring to have his own house? That shows like many people he is after all a human being. Similarly he always wanted to sit at home, do nothing, just spend time with family, doing ordinary things like shopping, watching movies, going on long drive, listening to music, have fancy cars, please his mother, coach or neighbors. How much he wanted to win the world cup, how happy he was to get a call from Prime Minister on getting Bharat Ratna or getting his stamp released.

He always says numbers don't matter to him but team results do. But on reading between the lines, I felt numbers matter to him a lot. But there is nothing wrong in obsession with numbers because those numbers add up to team's cause. Some instances where numbers were chased were
1. When was left stranded on 194* in Multan Test and how angry he got with captain Rahul Dravid.
2. How the monkey of 100 international 100s was affecting his performance for over a year since World Cup. How many times he came agonisingly close to it only to be disappointed.
3. How Sri Lankans deprived his ODI 100 through negative tactics and Suraj Randiv noball to Sehwag on 99 with only a winning run remaining.
4. Idea of playing the 200th test and playing it on home ground Wankhede Stadium
5. His book itself is full of match details and career records and statistics.

For a great individual performer in a team sport, he always wants to team also to do well and best way to enable it is by being a leader/captain. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't successful as captain. It again goes to show the human side of the great man. As a great performer, you set very high standards, but you also expect others to match those standards, but others don't and you get frustrated. Instead of accepting it as it is and trying best to work with it, you futilely try to bring others to those high standards. This is where Tendulkar failed. After 25 Tests he realised this and resigned from captaincy. Sometimes a hero like Tendulkar is beyond BCCI and Selection committee. He cannot be dropped as player or stripped off captaincy when is a captain or cannot be forced/eased into retirement until he takes these decisions himself.

The book though is not very well written, it is not entirely Tendulkar's fault. He is a cricket player and not a book author, but he must be congratulated for keeping up the time and releasing exactly 1 year after his retirement. His farewell speech was greatly composed, he just wrote down the names of the people whom he wanted to remember in a slip of paper and the speech came out of his mouth brilliantly despite all emotions surrounding. It had no filler words like basically, you know, actually etc. It came out as if it was prepared and rehearsed multiple times.

I also have a similar autobiography from Steve Waugh, it was pretty boring with just accounts of each match and series which we can easily find in scoreboards. I expect books from someone like Rahul Dravid to be very well written.

How I got married to Suprabha

2013-06-30T13:16:00.001+05:30

It was mid 2010 and I was 28 years old, that my parents decided it was time for me to get married. Search was mainly through references of relatives and friends in the community. We thought it would be a fairly easy task, as I was well qualified (BE & MBA from premier institutes), father is an established businessman, heading a respected middle-class family, father and brother are well connected in the local community. Everyone assured that they will work on getting me married.

Response was not very good to our liking. Many drawbacks of mine were cited as reasons for not considering me. Not smart, not handsome, bald head, not tall, don't speak well were all acceptable to me. But the following 3 reasons were very difficult to accept -

Living in Puttur. It is perceived that if someone is living in a smaller town in native place, he hasn't had a choice of working somewhere else and hence not successful. If the girl has studied (mostly Engineering), then she won't have an option to take up a job in big software companies, limiting her career prospects. While I think, if the girl is smart enough, she can work on our business. Our business provides an individual with any talent an opportunity to apply it. Or in this highly connected world, she can create her own opportunities. Unfortunately, most weren't as smart as they thought they were.
Not having a Job. Few may say it is cool/hard/great to be an entrepreneur. But very few actually support it, those who say it, don't let their daughters marry an entrepreneur. I have read/heard/knew about many hurdles an entrepreneur faces, but this was one hurdle, I was not aware off and prepared for, that my decision to be an entrepreneur would make it difficult for me to get married. My mother had warned me before, she even regrets that her husband is an entrepreneur as they had to face difficult times initially. But out of my entrepreneurial spirit, I totally ignored her. Sadly, everyone wants easy certain life, nobody is willing to sacrifice todays luxury in order to fulfill tomorrow's dreams. I really can't accept that somebody ordinary who has studied Engineering from an unknown college, ends up in Bangalore, in a known company (say Infosys) after a few job hops is considered to be successful and better than me. That's how unfair the world is
Being with Parents. We all want Parents to give birth to us, raise us, give us money and their property. But we don't want to spend time with them, take care of them in their later days. It is considered a burden to live with parents, and will hamper the couple's freedom

As days went ahead, all our self confidence came rushing down. Parents were worried, if they find it so difficult to get me married, they will have to start the process and endure all this for my younger brother too. My mother particularly used to curse, "during our times when I was a girl, boys used to chose girls. Now, when it is time to get my sons married, girls are choosing boys." I used online matrimonial sites like havyakamahasabha.com, havyakamatrimony.com, used to attend a few events that help people get married in our community. It was mostly my profile getting rejected before they even saw me or spoke to me. Oddly for 2 profiles, where I got to see the girl and talk to her, I rejected them because for one was too timid and our interests/lifestyle didn't match, for other was applying conditions that were too many for me.

Finally (I didn't know at that time that this would be final), I got to see Suprabha on 6th February 2011 at Shree Bharathi College, Nanthoor, Mangalore. I generally go to meet any girl with full preparation just like we prepare ourselves for an interview. Here preparation isn't to be looked down upon. It is an exercise where we understand about ourselves better, think through the kind of match we want. What I have to offer her in my life, what I expect from her, how we plan to lead life together. What are the points that I need to note about her when we meet. What are the questions to be asked to open herself and get to know more about her. Also, get to know more about her before I even meet her, through references and facebooks. At the same time, open myself to her and let her find out about me, let her evaluate if I am her suitable match.

While I came with so much of preparation, she also came with full preparation, not to see me but for her close friends' engagement that afternoon. I greeted her and her mother with smile and hello, while she gave me a grin face for having come in between her and her friends' engagement. We spoke for some time as a family, father, mother and I from my side, her mother and she from her side. Then I got to talk to her personally not too far away from our parents. They couldn't hear us talk but they could see our body language and lip movement fully. It bothered me initially but once I started talking to her, I completely forgot the environment.

I started off talking about the college campus that was full of trees to get to know her taste, whether she likes movies, malls, glitz and glamour or nature, greenery, peace and tranquility. I found that she likes both. With respect to education and career, she had done her MCA and planned to do her Pd.D and get into teaching profession. So, I asked about her academic project she is presently doing in her final semister MCA. As I asked a couple of questions, I could sense that it was not her cup of tea. She later (after getting engaged) told me that she had done her MCA just for the sake of a masters degree and thereby get a better husband :-). Her real aim in life is to be a great mother for her kids, supporting and caring wife and a family member. Though she didn't take academics seriously, she wanted her husband to be dedicated towards his work. I told her (really meant when I told) she is free to take up any career she wants, either get into teaching, be a housewife or work on our business. I believe, one will be happy and successful when one does what he wants. There is no profession that is better than all others. I do the same, let it be the same with my wife and children too.

I told her about the constraints I live with (the 3 mentioned above). She didn't feel they were constraints to her, in fact that was what she liked. She was clear that she wanted to live a life of luxury with own land, house, cars, jewelry and assets. She wanted to travel the world, eat and experience everything. Many would say I would like to lead a simple middle class life without really meaning it.

Before getting to meet her, we tried to match each others' horoscopes and they didn't match enough. I asked her opinion about those horoscopes, she gave an ambiguous reply saying it doesn't matter to her but her grand mother is concerned about it and she has to respect her grand mothers opinion. I don't like my partner to be dumb, just be a Yes Yes kind, without having her own opinion about anything. Until here, I thought she was Yes Yes kind of a girl, but then she made me realize she has her own opinions. I observed that she had good emotional quotient (EQ) that was a must have for my wife. I trained myself on the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) part but not enough on the EQ part.

While I asked so many things about her, I told her about me before even she could ask me explicitly as I thought girls would be shy in their first interaction. I told about my strengths and weakness, interests and hobbies, likes and dislikes, what my dreams and aspirations were, what my way of life was going to be, what kind of a girl I like to partner with. Also, separated the points into must have, negotiable and don't mind category. Thanks to my preparation, I could deliver these points in a little time without boring her. I wasn't nervous because all the time I was thinking about her and our match, not about me, how I appeared/appealed.

After talking to her for say 15 minutes, I stopped as I sensed it may get repetitive. I saw that she went back to her mother happy and sensed that she was narrating the whole conversation word to word. I as usual was emotionless. After 8 months of struggle, I took nothing for granted, allowed luck/horoscope/her decision to take its own course. I sensed that she was a lovely lady and wished I could marry her. Very next day went to a Jyothishya and sorted out the mismatches in the horoscope and asked us to perform a few pujas to set it right. She thought long and hard, was extremely confused and then accepted subject to a couple of conditions. I didn't think they were very serious conditions for me and accepted them. I had to reiterate some of the points I mentioned during our first meeting as she was not sure whether I really meant what I said.

And now here we have celebrated out 2nd wedding anniversary on June 10th. Been trying and will continue to try to take the marriage process further ?:-)

Is customer the king?

2012-07-08T22:55:00.000+05:30

In marketing classes, we generally hear “customer is the king”. He is the one who chooses which brand to buy among so many choices and pays money that brands are after. So, brand should do everything to satisfy the customer. Wish every brand in this world followed this belief and world would have been a happy place to live in. In this post I like to challenge this belief and show that "customer is at the mercy of brand."
This thought came to my mind last month when I visited an Airtel Relationship Centre after I lost my mobile. I saw so many angry consumers who were trying to blast off the customer care executives.

Competition or Monopoly
First myth for why customer is the king is because the customer is said to have choices from many offerings from competing brands. But in reality the various constraints brings the consumer choices down to a few, one or none. A few examples, I faced with choosing brands

My factory is located in a village where only Airtel network is available. BSNL is the only wired broadband service available at our town.
I need to get a uniform stitched for the employees and all the tailors are busy and have order books that will keep them occupied for next 2 months. The same can be said about any service including civil construction, steel fabrication, electrical wiring, plumbing, chartered accountancy, graphics designing, printing and so on.
I needed a seemingly common item i.e. a stainless steel ball valve and there was only one hardware retailer stocking it in Dakshina Kannada District.
There is nobody willing to do erection and commissioning of 400 kg/hr small industrial steam boiler as per IBR rules.

Just like we chose which brand to buy, even brands choose which consumer to sell. For example, I make an enquiry for a packing materials, immediate question the sales man asks me is how much quantity do I want. If it is not big enough, he will reject me and move on.

Money or Value
Brands offer value to consumers for which they pay money. Consumers want value that brands offer much more than the money they are paying. It is lot easier to pay money than to create value. Example, it is much easier for a passenger to fly from Mumbai to Delhi paying Rs. 5,000 than it is to arrange for that flight by a Jet Airways. So, it is wrong to assume that having money to spend is a big deal.

Bonded forever
Once you go with a brand, you have to live with him for a long time. Not so with a brand, he can ditch you anytime. I was casually talking to a machine manufacturer. He was talking about a customer who didn’t pay on time and how he can avenge against him by charging a high price for an add-on feature that he would definitely require in future.

People
People ultimately manage brands and they have different motivations than what the brand promises. Brand might want to give the best product or service or experience to the consumer and earn maximum profit in return. But the person acting on behalf of the brand wants to put in minimum work and earn maximum money for himself. Those people working at the Airtel Relationship centre have no sympathy for the troubles you are facing with Airtel Service. Meaning his goals are not aligned with that of the consumer. They don’t care whether you will stick with Airtel service. Meaning his goals are not even aligned with the company he is working.

Different faces during different phases
Initially when a brand is selling its offering, it is his salesman who is representing the brand. Salesmen are very nice people to its prospects because they want to pocket your money. Once the money goes into the pocket, the consumer requires product or service and then the salesman goes out of picture and support and servicemen come into picture, who are not so nice people because then the customer needs them and makes them work hard.

Consumer Protection
It is again a myth that the consumer is well protected by Law through consumer protection acts. Always businesses are more legal savvy than an average consumer. They will always have a lawyer with them, government officials are close to them. Before getting into any sort of relation with a consumer they will always get tons of signatures on agreement papers. On those papers the terms are written in a way that are only favour the brand. Consumers out of desperation of getting the service, blindly sign on them, without reading, questioning and negotiating the terms. Even in case of disputes where the brand is wrong, the consumer rarely finds time, energy and know-how to fight the brand in the court of law that mostly delays and denies justice.

How can consumers cope with this reality?
The consumer must understand his weakness, understand what motivates brands and people who work for brands, lower his expectations, not get too attached, exhibit patience while dealing and do adequate research before choosing.

Good news for consumers though is that brands are getting more friendly out of their own interest for their own good and technology is enabling them.

The 3 times I have seen Rahul Dravid

2012-03-13T00:23:00.001+05:30

This topic came to my mind as my hero Rahul Dravid just announced his retirement from Test cricket and First class cricket. Plenty of wonderfully written tributes have already been poured on him by Harsha Bhogle, Mukul Kesavan, Jason Gillespie, Sidharth Vaidhyanathan, Sambit Bal, Samir Chopra and most insightful of all by his wife Vijeetha. I am not going to write anything on those lines. But I like to share my observations when I had personally seen him 3 times in Bangalore.

1. St. Joseph College in 2002
I was going for CAT coaching classes from TIME at his alma mater St. Joseph College. He was being taken for an interview with NDTV at the college ground by the journalist. It didn't strike to me at first. But another person who came for the classes recognized. He couldn't hold back and immediately shouted Rahul, Rahul. Rahul immediately turned back, he waved and said Hi, Rahul too waved back at him respectfully. This gesture of responding to every fan showed how humble and normal he was. He was already a celebrity by then. A cursory glance at him revealed what a smart and handsome man he was. His maroon check shirt with Black formal trouser made him look elegant the man he was.

2. India vs Australia 1st Test in 2004
Those were the times Rahul Dravid was in Sublime form and India's fortunes depended heavily on him. Australia had come to India to conquer the final frontier that couldn't for 35 years. Bangalore, though his home ground isn't a very happy hunting ground for him. I went to watch the match on stadium on day 4 and 5 with India chasing an improbable target in 4th innings. So though the match was all but lost, it was an opportunity to feel how it is to watch a match at the stadium. What happens in the middle is seen much better in the stadium but what happens before and after the match is to be seen only at stadium.
I had come early at 6.30 on day 5, Dravid was the last recognized batsmen left. He was practicing at nets to some net bowler. The seriousness with which he faced the bowler left me deeply impressed about the man. He may do well in an innings or not, but it is the effort and preparation that he puts in is what I admire him the most. He didn't do much in that innings, just scored a 60, hit Shane Warne for back to back boundaries. India lost the match heavily and eventually the series. It is the last series India lost a home (8 years ago).

3. India vs Australia 2nd Test in 2010
6 years hence the fortunes have reversed, Rahul Dravid was past his best, India were the best ranked Test side. India didn't depend much on him. India had just pulled off a thriller in the 1st Test at Mohali thanks to VVS Laxman. He was just holding on to his place due to his records and statistics and not his form and future potential. He had certain weakness of poking outside off-stump off left arm seamers bowling around the wicket.
I went to stadium on day 1 and 2, it was boring as Australia batted 1st and put up a big score. I came to stadium early on 2nd day. Got to see Rahul Dravid practicing with Jaydev Unadkat bowling at the other end. No matter what efforts he put, he looked uncomfortable and got beaten a couple of times. His fortunes didn't change in the middle either, he nicked Mitchell Johnson to the wicket keeper. Here is the photo I had captured moment before he poked at it.

Since then he might have had a brilliant series in England or been the architect of the last Indian overseas win at West Indies. Those were exceptions than rule, he was clearly past his prime and should have duly retired. Overall, I am happy for the person that he is and what he has achieved in India cricket. Still I am now happy that he has retired too. Hopes he comes back to Indian cricket and serves as an administrator to change the way things function.

Why is it difficult to blog consistently?

2011-05-01T22:27:00.001+05:30

I have been rather inconsistent in coming up with new blog posts in this blog. But I admire people who are consistent more than those you exhibit flash of brilliance once in a while. I am just trying to analyse why this is happening to me.

Creative Activity - It requires one to be in best of moods, fresh mind, good amount of energy to keep the creative juices flowing. To think about something deeply enough to come out with a sizable rather meaningful post.

Micro-blogging - Advent of Micro blogging services like Twitter allows us to have half baked/shallow thoughts and yet share it within 140 characters. Then why think deep enough to come out with a full fledged blog post. To argue other way, blogs have been on a rise because of twitter as it allows people to share and converse on those blog posts better.

Changing Interests - My interest in cricket has been constant throughout, that is why majority of my blog posts have been on cricket. Though I am fundamentally passionate in business, my interest about various aspects of business have been changing. Varying from Stock Markets, Software, Marketing, Branding to now Manufacturing. Now I am setting up a factory for manufacturing coconut oil, once it is done my interest will change towards Trading (Copra Purchase and Coconut Oil Sales) and HR (hiring and managing people). One does not develop expertise in anything while his interests keep changing. To have original thoughts and write on a subject, one must be an expert in it.

Discipline - This is by far the biggest reason, why writing is so difficult.

Discipline is doing what we decided to do and not what we feel like doing. (Source).

We often feel like blogging about it when we think about something, but when we sit to organize our thoughts and write about it, we face writer's block. Then it takes discipline to write without quiting.

Writing is a work that matters, and it is our tendency to work on easy things that don't matter.

The first rule of doing work that matters. Go to work on a regular basis. - Seth Godin

Stage Fear - Though we write on the computer alone, there eventually is a large audience that will read it later. That causes fear in us as to what the reader will think about us. Will he spot our mistakes, deficiencies? We doubt our authority on the subject. Actually, what happens is the reader rarely gets into the details and he mostly believes what is written :-)

Now, should I announce that I would like to write consistently i.e. once a fortnight.

India wins the Cricket World Cup 2011

2011-04-04T12:46:00.000+05:30

Sachin Tendulkar kissing the Wold Cup India won

This post is to celebrate India's victory in The ICC Cricket World Cup, 2011. I can't control my emotions as I write this, with tears coming out all over my eyes. Though I am an ardent Test Cricket lover, this world cup victory (though in limited overs format) is my proudest moment as an Indian cricket fan.

Its my 50th post
Writing 50 posts has been a achievement for me as I have been writing blogs rather consistently for last 5 years on various aspects of cricket, business, my personal life and technology. All the posts have been about expressing my original thoughts and opinions. It was never meant to be a source of news/information about any subject. It will always be about me and that it why it is my 'personal blog'.

Dhoni - The Leader/Hero
I would like to single out Dhoni's captaincy and Kirsten's coaching as the most important factors for Team's success. While most of us try to achieve coolness in not preparing before an event. They did all the hard, dirty, uncool things like planning, preparation and practice.
Dhoni, a middle class boy from poorest state of Jharkhand, not known to have produced any cricketers before, no role model to look up to. Having ordinary aspirations like riding bikes, drinking buckets of milk, hanging out with friends. He has come a long way to be remembered as among the best sports leaders of all time.
Whatever Dhoni has been touching have been turning gold. He has taken India to No.1 in Tests for last year and half, World T20 Cup in 2007, now The World Cup, IPL 2010 and Champions League 2010. His midas touch is not just about luck, it is about his hard work, leadership, ability to deal with pressure situation with a cool head and it is basically his personality.
After this World Cup triumph, I would rate him as a bigger match winner for India even bigger than Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble. As in a team game, I believe the biggest contribution a person can make is as a leader than as a batsman, bowler or a wicket keeper. A leader who gets the best out of the team is always more valuable than a specialist who does his job well.

Dedicated to Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin, we know has achieved everything a batsmen can do in Tests and ODIs. 15000 runs and 51 tons in Tests, 18000 runs and 48 tons in ODIs at a batting average and strike rate well above par. And yeah, he hasn't scored his 100th International hundred which he will definitely score sometime. But what was missing from his cup-board was a World Cup.
Virat Kohli's famous words after the match - "Sachin has carried the burden of the nation for 21 years. It's only fair we carry him now".
He has done everything Team India had asked over the years and now the team has won him the World Cup, rather he has himself contributed by scoring 482 runs with 2 hundreds and 2 fifties all against Test playing nations in important games. Waited for 22 years and he knows its value better than anyone else. Ask an Australian player of 2000s, he will tell it very casually “Yeah, I was part of the World Cup winning team”. But to Sachin it is everything, despite having so many other things with him that nobody else have.

How we reached here
Not long ago, just 11 years back, Indian cricket had reached its nadir. Whitewashed by Australia 3-0, whitewashed by South Africa 2-0 at home, never won a Test Series abroad for 14 years and crippled by match fixing controversy. But we did have a bunch of supremely talented players.
Then came Ganguly Wright era when things started turning around. That match in Kolkata and The Series against Australia in 2001 set the tone and laid the foundation for future that we are seeing now. The players in Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan brought the team into a steep ascent. Now Gautham Gambhir and Mahendra Singh Dhoni form the core of this Champion Indian Team.

What this world cup will do for the team
Being good, talented, gifted, excellent, exceptional are all lesser when compared to being “Champions”. We have always known Indians as former, but with great leadership we have transcended to become latter i.e. Champions. Before the CB series win in Australia 2008, India has always been the best team in the tournament only to end up being runners up.
From now they get into any match as favourites, as world champions, no push overs in any conditions. They have the pressure to perform well and win games and series. More than the pressure it gives them enormous self-confidence and belief that they can win anything. Winning they say is a habit and the team will be carrying that habit.

What next?
India has some important tours coming up this year with the 4 Test series in England and a 4 Test series in Australia. India haven't won a series in Australia and South Africa but they have come close by drawing in the recent years. From a point 10 years ago where India would be happy to not get whitewashed, now they go there expecting to whitewash the opponents at their home. They won't be satisfied with just a series win with a 1 test margin.
Gary Kirsten tenure as Indian Coach is over. Ganguly and Kumble have retired. Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman may retire any time soon. Sehwag, Zaheer, Harbhajan have reached 30s. We may face a similar situation like Australians are finding now. The next generation cricketers who grow up playing limited overs cricket may find it difficult to cope with the rigours of Test cricket.

Leadership Lessons

Leader takes decisions, which may be against the popular logic, but ultimately he is responsible for his decisions. The buck stops with him. So, he should be free to take decisions based on his gut feel.
Great Leaders in Alan Border, Steve Waugh and now MS Dhoni have been the practitioners of the saying Tough times don't last but tough men do.
Don't try to avoid/escape pressure, deal with it. Indian chase had reached a point where they had things under control after a 100 run partnership between Gambhir and Dhoni, but there was still pressure with required run rate still over 6. Gambhir wanted to release pressure by completing his century quickly and also bring the required run-rate down. So, he went for a rash shot and perished. But Dhoni was willing to take the pressure and slowly pushed the game forward just 25 runs at a time. He showed his heroism of completing the game with a six only when it was absolutely sure that India would win, when they were only one hit away from glory and the ball was in the slot for that shot.
It is not about skills and power, it is about the ability to handle pressure. Sachin and Dhoni have been handling pressure of 1.21 billion people. But Sachin has loads of talent too. Dhoni, except that he can hit those helicopter shots has no special talent as such.
As a leader of my organization, whenever I am under trouble, I will always visualise Dhoni for the cool head he keeps under pressure.

Apple's Macbook Air - 13 inch - 128 GB

2011-02-23T21:47:00.000+05:30

My present HP laptop is 3.5 years old and is pretty slow with Windows Vista ;-( So, it is ripe time to buy a new laptop. Now that I am setting up a new coconut oil factory, I am planning to include the purchase as part of that project itself. For industry purpose I have 2 Dell business desktops. For me as a C-Level executive, I need a laptop that is light and travel friendly, so a Netbook is better than a Notebook.

Here are a few reasons why the Macbook Air's 13 inch, 128 GB model is appropriate to me

Adequate - Presently I use 15" monitor, I am not sacrificing by coming down to 13" as the screen resolution is better. I use this mainly for business, so no movies, videos, music and pictures that occupy most space. If required I can always store them in external hard drive. I mostly browse, email, social network, use spreadsheets and do word precessing. I only need basic softwares and Office tools. So the processor speed of 1.86 GHz, 2 GB RAM and 128 GB Flash Drive is adequate for my needs.
Travel friendly - The whole device weighs only 1.3 kg or just 1.5 times the 1 litre coconut oil pouch. Present laptop is about 3 kg, carrying it with the charger was severe on my back. High battery back up of up to 5 hours means I can be more productive while travelling.
Data is safe - MAC OS X is UNIX based and very secure. Also the fact that it enjoys much lesser OS market share, not many bother to write viruses for them. So, one need not buy a separate Antivirus software. Mechanical Hard Disk drive and Optical drives are absent, so that drastically reduces the noise levels, cooling requirements, power consumption and space. Hard disk is replaced by NAND Flash that has no moving parts and is less prone to failure. That means there is no need to constantly format the drives.
Fast - Reviews say they boot in 10 seconds and shutdown in 5 seconds. My present laptop just takes 30 times longer! Use of flash drive for secondary storage makes a major impact with speed. Reading from Flash memory is almost as fast as that from RAM. Majority of the work involves reading like loading of softwares or data files.
Experience - Based on what my friends have told me, Apple gives an ultimate user experience with simple and intuitive interface. It may take some time to get used to the system but once you get used to it, you end up being an Apple fan or an addict.
Image - Owning an Apple products takes me to a different league, the group that is different from ordinary Windows users. Apple computers start from $ 1000 onwards only, and its competitors claim that to own an apple computer one needs to pay $ 500 Apple tax, i.e. for a similar hardware configuration in Wintel (Windows on Intel) will cost $ 500 lesser than that of Apple. Apple products are considered to be innovative, simple, intuitive, classy and user friendly. It will be a great feel good factor for me to use this product and to show it off to others ;-)
Price - The price is close to Rs. 80,000 and is on the higher side. I spend a majority of my day with my computer. When I am spending so much on buying the best quality machines for the manufacturing process. Why not buy the best personal computing machine?

Significance of the number 1089

2010-12-07T21:06:00.000+05:30

Every number has something fascinating and a unique property about it. One such number that came to my mind was 1089 when I was about to write (tweet) my 1089th status message on twitter.
The message reads (The tweet has been elaborated here as there is no 140 character constraint)

Take any 3 digit number, difference between first digit and last digit should be greater than 1. Reverse the digits. Find the difference. Reverse the digits in this number (difference). Add them to get 1089 always.

For example, let the number as 109, reversing the digits gives 901, difference between them 901 - 109 = 792, reversing the digits in the difference gives 297, adding them gives 792 + 297 = 1089.

This is not something that I discovered, I just know about this property through some source long time back. But I will attempt to show why this happens.

Let the random 3 digit number be abc. Its value is 100a + 10b + c
Reversing the digits gives cba. Its value 100c + 10b + a.
Difference between them assuming that a > c (for sake of simplicity of analysis)
|abc - cba| = abc - cba = 100a + 10b + c - (100c +10b + a) = 99 x (a-c)

Let, |abc - cba| = xyz (another 3 digit number)
xyz, then is a multiple of 99 i.e. of both 11 and 9.

Properties of multiples

In multiples of 9, the sum of digits is divisible by 9
In multiples of 11, the difference between sum of all odd and even digits is divisible by 11

In this case,

Since xyz is divisible by 9, x + y + z is divisible by 9 or x + y + z = 9 or 18. It can't be 27 or more.

Since xyz is divisible by 11, x + z - y = 0 or 11. It can't be 22 or more.

If x + z - y = 0, then x + z = y, then x + y + z = 2y

2y cannot be 9, it can be 18, so 2y = 18 or y = 9

If x + z - y = 0, then x + z = y or x + z = 9, this is possible

If x + z - y = 11, then x + z = 11 + y or x + z = 20, this is not possible

So, we can conclude that, y = 9 and x + z = 9.

Reversing the digits in xyz, we get zyx.

Adding the 2 numbers, xyz + zyx = 100x + 10y + z + 100z + 10y + x

Total = 101(x + z) + 20y

Substituting for x + z = 9 and y = 9, we get,

Total = 101 x 9 + 20 x 9 = 909 + 180 = 1089!

By the way, 33 square is 1089. 99 x 11 is 1089 and 121 x 9 is 1089.

Should I change my name to 'C'eshava?

2010-08-18T10:26:00.001+05:30

While working at Tata Elxsi, we had a client manager whose name is now Chris Malakapalli. He is basically an Indian who went to US for his higher studies and settled down there. His name was Krishnakanth which was later Americanized to Chris.

Now my reason for changing (just thinking ;-) from Keshava to Ceshava is somewhat different. My uncle (@gmsbhat) in one of our twitter conversations suggested this because I have a liking for things that start with letter ‘C’.

Cricket/Cricinfo – I am a diehard fan of cricket which for me is Test Cricket and First Class Cricket. I now read and comprehend all the articles written in cricinfo. I always used to start reading the newspaper from last page where the sports section is covered, unlike others who read the 1st page headlines, political news, Page 3 etc. I wouldn’t just read all the words, I would also read between the lines, analyse, interpret and think about them. I pride myself in remembering the various statistics, records and results. During my school days, I used to play underarm tennis ball cricket from dawn to dusk. In my bid to learn overarm leg spin bowling I developed a unique Paul Adams style of delivery.

Coconut/Cocoguru – The business that I am into is about Coconuts. The brand and company name is Cocoguru. I entered this sector because of the value Coconut offers. Also it is made easy by the fact that my father has already started coconut oil manufacturing more than 30 years ago. Every part of Coconut tree is valuable and is called ‘Kalpavriksha’. Coconut oil is the most complete oil, edible, cosmetic, medicinal and industrial. In short it is simply nectar.

Computer/’C’ – I am a Computer Engineer by qualification. I used to enjoy the course because my creative juices found good opportunity while programming in it. I used to write simple game programmes, simply browse through linux source code appreciating its beauty. I used to program them in ‘C’ language though I had learnt a bit of C++, JAVA, PERL, Shell script, html etc. Somebody used to call me K&R (K&R stands for Kerninghan and Ritchie, the founders of ‘C’ language), my name being Keshava Ram also has K & R in it. People who were jealous of my programming skills used to criticise saying I was only good at ‘C’. They think it is just about knowing the language, but I think more about understanding the computer hardware, proficiency in mathematics and logic, efficient use of Data Structures and Algorithms and writing clean code using the principles of Software Engineering.

Cycling – I love cycling even if we ignore the fact that it is a good exercise, environment friendly and economical. I had written about it earlier in my blog post.

Chess – I also like Chess and I claim to be an above average chess player. It is a simple game (64 black and white squares, 6 types of pieces with simple movements) with infinite possibilities. It is a game that tests a players’ strategy, tactics and competitive/combative spirit. I pride myself at having those strengths. Game has no dependence on little externalities like weather, location, time of the day, toss etc. Luck has no role, it is all up to how one plays in the given game. My biggest moment in this game is winning the VTU championship for college in 2002 at Ranebennur. I couldn’t pursue this game deeply because of lack of partners, as it was perceived as a boring game. Now I keep getting addicted and withdraw from chess.com

CAT – Getting into business has been my dream career. Being from a Science/Engineering background, I wanted a formal education in business i.e. MBA. I always believed in studying at the best colleges hence wanted to have a shot at IIMs by appearing for CAT (Common Admission Test). CAT has 3 sections – Quantitative, Logic and English. I was very good at first two but equally poor at English. I used to prepare for 80% of the time on English, yet achieve poor results. This was because of my lack of aptitude for the subject. I had made 4 attempts at cracking CAT and failed each time. Though my score kept improving from 88 percentile in 2002 to 97.5 percentile in 2006, my below par score in English would prevent me from getting elusive IIM calls. Each year I used to prepare sincerely despite my day job. I had made a lot of sacrifices in those 4 years for this purpose. In the final year I decided that I am definitely going to do an MBA even if it is not from an IIM. Now, I have no regrets about the choices I made.

There will be many more 'C' words that I have been associated with, but the above mentioned words are the ones with which I have deepest association.

India is really the No.1 Test team

2010-08-08T19:58:00.003+05:30

Just before the final Test of the India Sri Lanka series, I had written in my facebook status that India won at least one Test in every series India played since the Pakistan tour in Jan 2006. This includes even the series we lost in South Africa (1-2), Australia (1-2) and Sri Lanka (1-2). We have shown this consistency over a sufficiently long period of 4.5 years.
Even Australia doesn't hold this record as they failed to win a test in India when they lost the series 0-2 in 2008. In the same period Australia has lost same number of series i.e. 3 to South Africa (1-2), Ashes 2009 (1-2) and India (0-2). Ashes 2005 loss though doesn't belong to the period under consideration.

India's next series is against Australia for Border-Gavaskar trophy in October. India will start the series as favorites, does it ever happen that Australia start a series as an underdog? Such has been India's form and dominance in Border Gavaskar trophy in which India won 10 and lost 10 in 26 matches, more importantly won the trophy 5 times out of 7.

Team composition-vise India has the best batting lineup that can only be imagined in dreams. Sehwag, Gambhir, Dravid, Tendulkar and Laxman are those players who complete the lineup. Need I say more about batting? Cool headed, smart, charismatic leader in Dhoni to add to his reliable wicket keeping and batting. Highest wicket taker (355 wickets) among the bowlers still playing in Harbhajan. Mature, accurate, dead wicket bowler in Zaheer Khan. Promising spinners like Prahgyan Ojha. Still bowling needs to improve to consistently get 20 wickets. But great bowlers are rare with any team in the world not just India.

I strongly believe success in Test Cricket is not about having players with great skill, India always had them. It is about how players react to pressure, their patience, concentration, intensity in the contest over 5 days, how team handles situations. India showed enough fighting qualities over the last few years.

Taking example of the last test at Colombo.

Arguably the weakest bowling lineup created enough chances at took 20 wickets not by bowling the best deliveries but by forcing errors in batsmen due to sustained pressure.
New ball spins and bounces more, but once the ball gets old it is easier to play. Indian batsmen smartly used this fact to their advantage in the run chase.
Indian batsmen have this propensity to hit boundaries to score runs but when Sangakkara spread his field, batsmen curbed their natural instincts and collected singles.
While chasing a tricky target like 250 and having lost 3 wickets, batsmen generally get into their shell, look to defend and survive, forget about scoring runs. But Tendulkar and Laxman batted positively, scored runs briskly to ease pressure.

This Indian team grabs most opportunities and doesn't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Earlier we have lost to West Indies chasing 120, lost Sydney Test with 5 minutes remaining and lost Chennai Test to Pakistan by 12 runs. Instead now, we have saved Napier test by batting for 7 sessions after following on, won Chennai Test against England chasing 387, just won Colombo Test chasing 256, drew the Lord's test with 1 wicket remaining. But we haven't been able to finish matches that should have been won - against Pakistan at Bangalore, against England at Oval and against New Zealand at Wellington.

Earlier India used to start a series as favorites, win the 1st test with ease, draw another test and somehow lose the final test to share the series that we should have won. Like at home against Pakistan in 2005 and England in 2006. Instead now reverse is true like in England in 2007, in Sri Lanka in 2010.

India does not have the best Win count or percentage as Australia does because India mostly plays in placid pitches or during rainy season when matches usually end in a draw.

Critics can say India reached the top by fluke (after winning home series against Sri Lanka) but India has stayed there for 9 months now maintaining a larger margin from the next best team.

Why VVS Laxman isn’t in the limelight?

2010-08-07T23:21:00.001+05:30

It is a good time to talk about Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman. As he has just helped India win the Colombo Test with an important unbeaten century.

He is always considered to be part of the golden Indian middle order batsmen (Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly being other) but never as an Individual great like others. To me immediate association with Laxman is his monumental 281 and his stylish wristy shots on onside. He doesn’t hold too many individual records like Tendulkar, Dravid or Sehwag. But he is a good player in crisis situations and along with Dravid form among best batting partners in world cricket.

Those who hadn’t realised his value in the team realised it when South Africa toured India for 2 tests in 2010. He missed the 1st test and India lost it, he came back for 2nd test, scored a century and India won it. It is not mere co-incidence; he was the very reason for the difference in result.

Personal records

Unlike Tendulkar, Dravid or Sehwag who have plenty of Individual batting records to their name, Laxman holds no such records. His achievements are severely dwarfed by those of his partners.

For a player who has played 113 tests, he has scored only 7415 career runs. To put that in perspective, Sehwag has accumulated 7039 runs in only 79 matches. The main reason for this difference is that Laxman bats at No. 6 while Sehwag opens.
Laxman averages only 47, used to average 43 some time back despite 29 not outs. On a stand alone basis it is a very good average an New Zealand/England batsmen would be extremely proud of it. Again putting that in perspective of his peer’s averages – Gambhir – 53, Sehwag – 54 (with 5 not outs), Dravid – 53, Tendulkar – 56.

But he is among the best difficult pitch players and man to handle crisis situation. How deep can a crisis get than trailing 1-0 in the series and being asked to follow on? How has he responded, scored 281 and turned the series from the verge of losing 3-0 to in fact winning it 2-1 and start a cricket revolution in India.

His best knocks otherwise aren’t those big hundreds, they are those short little cameos on difficult pitches. Here is an abridged list of few such match winning knocks that people don’t easily remember.

54 vs South Africa at Ahmedabad on debut in 1996
69 vs Australia at Mumbai in 2004 to setup a stiff 4th innings target of 107!
79 vs Australia at Perth in 2008 to take India’s lead past 400
73 vs South Africa at Johannesberg in 2006 to help India win its first test in South Africa
50 vs South Africa at Kanpur in 2008
69* and 74 vs West Indies at Trinidad in 2002
65 and 66 vs Australia at Chennai in 2001 where he led India to a difficult 4th innings chase of 155
72* vs Pakistan at Delhi in 2007 where his partnership with Dhoni helped India match Pakistan’s 1st innings score

None of these knocks would help in improving one’s records but are an immense benefit to team’s cause. Yet is questioned about his team play as he doesn't bat well with tail.

Test only player

He has been stereotyped as a player who can only play tests. Many don’t remember his series deciding hundred in last ODI at Pakistan in 2004. But one or two innings don’t make you a good player. His poor running between the wickets is his weakness that justifies his omission from one day squad. India plays close to 40 ODIs an year and only 8 tests hence Laxman doesn’t fall into majority of fan’s radar.

Laxman is not known for big hitting as he has hit only 4 sixes in each format his entire career!

Money and Advertisements

He had a disastrous stint in IPL, with him as captain his team Deccan Chargers finished last. He also had an ugly spat with his team-mate Shahid Afridi who no where matches Laxman’s class and stature.

He had an option to be the Iconic player for the team and get about $ 1.5 million but opted out of it for $ 450 K to allow his franchise select players like Symonds for $ 1.35 million.

His reserved nature, lack of individual identity, typical south indian accent, sporadic appearance in Team India hasn’t helped him in getting lot of endorsements too.

coco guru - more brand elements

2010-07-24T17:26:00.014+05:30

Update

The Logo for Cocoguru has changed to a simpler one.

Tagline - "Natural Goodness of Coconut"TM

Reinforces that the brand is about coconut
Coconut is good naturally for your health. We will slowly start advertising to dispel the myths about cholesterol in coconut.
Brand delivers coconut products with minimal processing to deliver its natural goodness

Logo

Colors - Only 2 colors are used, they are green and white. White represents purity, innocence and coconut meat. Green represents natural, organic and environment friendly.

Brand name in different lines - While the name appears in packaging especially bottles, there is constraint on width or horizontal space. For 8 characters in cocoguru to be in one line, the font will have to be small. Also people may have a hard time to read and remember cocoguru continuously. So, the break up into 2 lines.

Wheel - Wheel is among the best inventions by man. So, it will suggest that the brand is innovative. Spokes are so designed to show that the wheel is rotating and the brand is progressive and moving forward continuously. Circle also represents the cross-section of coconut.

Ribbon - Ribbon is used to give a platform to show the tagline. Ribbon represents silken grace.

Corporate Logo

SRI is the recursive acronym of Sri Rama Industries. Similar to OIL for Oil India Limited and GNU for GNU Not Unix. The colors brown, green and white and leaf are meant to symbolize agriculture oriented business.

Does buying pre-owned machines save investment/costs?

2010-07-21T22:17:00.004+05:30

When setting up a new factory like I am doing now, one is often confronted with a dilemma, should I buy new machines or buy pre-owned (second hand, used) machines at a lesser cost?

Used machines are ready for sale by those who have either shut down their unit or expanding/modernizing their unit. Many times they have not been used for long time, in good working condition and available at half the original price. Such offers look very attractive and is tempting for many cash strapped entrepreneurs. My dad and I visited a couple of such Oil Mills in Kochi and Kangeyam and we were pretty much convinced about buying them out because of the following reasons

1. Quick Project completion - To setup a factory with new machineries requires the lengthy procurement process i.e. Seeking quotations, selection of vendor, negotiations, payment, time for making the machine, transportation and installation. Also buying of accessories for the integration of the machineries to form a production system. For used machines, time till installation is significantly reduced because all the machines are already available at one place.

2. Investment size reduces to 50% of the budgeted investment. Extra money remaining can be used as working capital.

Within a week of this I visited Chennai for a Packaging exhibition and stayed at Raghuram's place there. While discussing my idea, he advised caution. He told me to focus on setting up a state of the art factory with latest machineries. Also he pointed towards the depreciation I can claim. His ideas then didn't affect my opinion. But later while travelling back, I started thinking deeply about what he told. And I came up with the following reasons to suggest that it is not that attractive despite the apparent attractiveness.

Investment - Assume used machineries cost 50% of that of new one.

1. Bank Loan - Banks don't easily give loans to buy used machines, they are comfortable funding machines where the supplier is a manufacturer and has quotations to back the price. Required margin money on machineries is 25% of its value or the bank funds 75% of the machine. While for used machine the buyer has to have 100% of the value or 50% of that of new one. So, initial cash outlay for new machines is 25% vs used machines is 50%.

2. Subsidies - Taking the case of my project of setting up a coconut oil mill. Coconut Board gives 25% subsidy on total investment, Directorate of Industries and Commerce (DIC) gives 15% subsidy, there are a few other incentives also. In short about 40% of total investment is subsidized by government. To get subsidy the industrialist must have gone for bank loan for funding. Both banks and government fund only for new machines. So, it is 50% for used machines vs 60% for new machines scenario. Used machine's advantage is only 10% of the total value.

3. Depreciation - Claiming depreciation on assets helps in showing the investment as an expenditure, this helps in saving tax to be paid on profits. Assuming tax rate of 30%, for new machines 30% of the cost of machines can be saved in taxes while for old machines 30% of 50% value i.e. 15% is the tax saved. So, new machines help in saving 15% more tax than old machines.

After considering Subsidies and Depreciation alone, new machines have 5% advantage (-10% subsidies + 15% depreciation) over used machines! This much is sufficient to answer the question raised in the title of the post. Wait, it is not over there are lot more things to talk about in favour of new machines.

Features - New machines have more and better features compared to the old machine. More importantly, the buyer can get those features that suites his requirements.

Efficiency - New machines would be more optimised than old ones and they will perform better, faster and with lesser power and consumables.

Maintenance - New machines are less susceptible to breakdowns as compared to old machines. Some of the problems encountered with older models would have been sorted out with later versions. That means lesser downtime, better productivity, lesser cost in buying spares and service.

Warranty - New machines come with one year warranty, few free services, installation and training.

Life - New machines have longer life and gives more time to realize value out of the machine.

New machine will give peace of mind (most precious commodity) to the businessman and allow him to concentrate on his business than on the machine. This enables him to keep him ahead of the competitors and better serve the customers.

Similarly, throughout my professional course (BE and MBA), I have always bought new text books and have never been a fan of photo copies or used books.

Does it make business sense to pay taxes?

2010-06-06T22:55:00.004+05:30

We see most businessmen do everything they can to avoid paying taxes (I don't mean tax planning as per rules). They common reasons they cite for this are

Our field is very competitive, other's don't pay, then how can we pay?
We already have very low margins, if we pay taxes we will make losses
Anyway the money we pay in taxes are wasted, then why pay?

They are right. There are also other real challenges in properly paying taxes.

Need to maintain full accounting system - requires knowledge of accounting & tax laws, paying the chartered accountant for his services, dedicate a staff for book keeping.
Tax officials still claim bribe even when you maintain 100% accounts. Problem is that the bribe amounts are higher than when you don't maintain 100% accounts.
Many customers are not willing to pay the tax.

Despite all these challenges, I contend that it makes perfect business sense to pay taxes. I will stay away from moral or ethical issues here. I won't say that we need to give back to the society/government etc. My main point is that not paying taxes gets the business into a vicious cycle and severely hampers its growth prospects.

1. Consistency and Simplicity
Maintaining full accounts gives you consistency of Data. You can show the same figures to anybody be it the bank, VAT, Sales Tax, Income Tax, Investors and Management. If somebody asks for your Sales data, you don't have to worry as to who is asking it. With this consistency comes simplcity that allows you to focus on important business issues (how to increase customer value?, how to reduce operating costs? how to get the best out of employees? etc). Instead of worrying about how to escape that government official, how to manipulate data, how do we explain this inconsistency to them etc.

2. Fund Raising and Valuation
Valuation of the business is directly proportional to the sales, profits and assets. Declaring less of them to avoid taxes undervalues your company significantly when you look to raise funds. E.g, if you profits are 1 crore and tax rate is 30%, valuation is taken as 10 x profits. When you declare 1 crore profit, you pay 30 lakhs in taxes and business is valued at 10 crores. But if you instead declare only 10 lakhs as profits, you pay only 3 lakhs in taxes (saving 27 lakhs in taxes) but getting only 1 crore in valuation. In a bid to save 27 lakhs in taxes you lost 9 crore in value.

3. Doing business boldly
When you don't pay taxes, you need to hide your assets, hide information, do only cash transactions. In a bid to hide from tax officials you importantly hide yourselves from customers/prospects. You can't advertise, you can't transport your goods, you fear government officials.

4. Use Government Incentives
Karnataka Industrial policy this time gives Subsidy on Capital Investment & Interest payments, has no tax on electricity and no APMC cess for a few years, no stamp duty, no conversion fine and so on. All these incentives can be claimed only when the records are proper and necessary licenses are obtained. The value of these incentives are much more than the money paid in taxes.

5. Paying Tax doesnot make a Profit making business into a loss making one, it only reduces the extent of profits slightly. VAT introduced in 2003 is such that you only pay tax on the 'value added' than on the 'value sold'. So the tax paid in inputs can be offset from the tax to be paid for outputs which significantly reduces your tax burden.

6. Gives you a correct picture of your business
"You can only manage what you can measure". Accounting gives you that measurement and hence a clear picture about the health of the business. Getting into the details will let you know what went wrong and how it can be corrected. Pilferage & thefts are common problems businesses have to face, inconsistency in stock date will give necessary signals. If proper
records are maintained, the owner/manager need not be physically monitoring the activity, he can delegate the responsibility and just check for accounts at the end of the day. This frees the management from day to day operational issues, allowing him to focus on strategy and growth.

I heard Bharath Goenka of Tally in a talk saying

The life of the business reduces significantly with every mal-practice it does.
You don't be ethical because it is good to be but because you are selfish

coco guru – the brand new brand name

2009-09-02T22:50:00.005+05:30

In the list of brand names, I deliberately left out a group of names that start with coco because I had decided that the final name would start with it. I didn’t disclose the brand name till now because I wanted to make sure I can register it for trademark and domain before anybody else. Now coco guruTM is a trademark of Sri Rama Industries. Just applied for registration about 20 days back and got the application number. Registration will be complete in about 18 months after which we can use ® (circled R) instead of TM signifying that it has been registered.

Reasoning behind the choice of name
Our Vision is to make coconut based products, hence the prefix coco. This gives us enough scope to grow around coconuts and also limits us or helps us focus towards opportunities of just coconuts.
We want to at the sweet part of the value chain in making coconut products. So we just want to position ourselves as experts in the field of coconuts. Not as growers, manufacturers, retailers, consultants etc. In fact we intend to not do any of them and just own the brand. It gives us flexibility to do what we want in the coconut product value chain.
Guru is a name that off course signifies expertise and leadership, also the word is universal. Guru is a valid word in Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit and all Indian Languages. It has also become an accepted word in English. Word guru resonates among Indians as traditional. Guru Bramha, Guru Vishnu, Guru Devo Maheshwara ... List of English words derived from Sanskrit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Sanskrit_origin

There are several names that start with coco like cocoraj, cococare, cocojal, cococlear, cocovita, cocovida, cocofresh etc. Similarly there are several names that end with guru like travelguru, codeguru, logodesignguru, domainguru, gadgetguru, cellguru etc. This confirms that cocoguru can be an acceptable name.
The name might look a bit long and difficult to pronounce as a whole. But when broken down in coco and guru, they are extremely simple words with same vowels repeating at even letters. When written in Kannada, it doesn’t have any othu akshara.

How I got this name
I enumerated on many names that start with coco like cocomind, cocobay, cocobazaar, cocohub, cocomaster, cocoway etc and showed it to my dad. He liked cocomaster. As a side note, he said cocoguru without much conviction. I immediately liked it. We discussed with a few people, but got varied responses. I thought it is for us to decide about the final name as we are the ones who have the vision for the brand and the ones who are going to live it. I decided on coco guru and said that is final and I don’t need anybody’s approval for it, to avoid getting into infinite loop of name searching.

Criticisms about the name
1. coco and guru are common words and everybody uses and there is nothing unique or catchy about it.
2. coco is used for not only coconuts but also chocolates because of cocoa. So while I say the brand name over phone with out any aid of picture, the receiver may likely take it as a chocolate.
3. Koka shastra in Sanskrit relates to study on sex. And coco sounds similar to that. Dr. Shreesha Kumar pointed this to me ;-) Well, I don’t think even 1 in every 10 sanskrit scholar would know this let alone normal people.

Online Identities
I registered for domains cocoguru.net and cocoguru.in. Twitter id @cocoguru. My official email id would be keshavaram@cocoguru.net. Unfortunately cocoguru.com is not available. Somebody has acquired it and is not using it.

Useful tools for hunting names
1. Sanskrit Dictionary - spokensanskrit.de
2. Kannada Dictionary - kannadakasturi.com
3. English Thesaurus - thesaurus.reference.com
4. Spreadsheet/scripts for generating names with random characters
5. Blog - businessnamingbasics.com

Why do we need an Automatic Packaging Machine?

2009-08-30T21:39:00.003+05:30

Right now we manually fill coconut oil in pouches and seal it. But with increasing demand for oil in pouches and my instinct to relook at everything we do. I thought of using an Automatic machine to pack oil in pouches. That machine is also called as F.F.S machine or Form Fill and Seal machine. Given a roll of plastic sheet, it Forms the shape of pouch, Fills it with exact quantity of oil and Seals the pouch within a matter of 2-3 seconds. I don’t claim the idea to be a stroke of genius as every big oil mill does it. But ours is a small unit and here are my reasons to still go for it -
1. Low manual labour – This is the biggest reason as lack of labour force is the biggest constraint for everybody (homes, farms and industries) in Dakshina Kannada. Manual packaging requires 8 man hours to pack 200 pouches. Automatic machine completely eliminates them. Still little work is required by somebody to just watch the machine operation and feed the inputs (oil and pouch roll) from time to time.
2. Excellent finishing – The finishing of the packets are so perfect that it gives a premium look for the product. This type of finishing helps in charging a higher price or selling more or lowering selling costs.
3. Less leakage – In manual case, there are a little chance that oil leaks even after good packaging. This leads to obvious loss of oil and presence of oil on surface of other packets. More importantly this leads to strain in trade relationships. We lost relationships with at least 3 retailers because of this and failing to acknowledge it as our problem.
4. Accurate measurement – In manual case, there is a variation in measurement of oil filled into the packet. The quantity filled is generally higher as anything lower would lead to rejection by sensitive customers. This variation can cost us maybe 2-3% of the value. Automatic machine would bring this variation down to less than 1%.
5. High speed – Even for slightly viscous liquids like coconut oil, automatic machines pack at 500 pouches per hour. The corresponding figure is 25 for manual packing. During peak season we had to pack about 2000 pouches a week. 80 man hours or 2 people need to work 5 days @ 8 hrs per day on packing. Automatic machine does it in just 4 hours flat! Because of not being able to pack in time, we had lost a few orders last year.
6. Lesser material cost – Material required for Automatic sealing is Low Density multilayered polyethylene film, that for manual is laminated 3-side sealed pouch. In manual case, because the pouch has to be sealed on 3 sides by material supplier, it costs about 35 paise more per pouch. So, automatic machine saves 35 paise per pouch.
7. Long term investment for growth – Benefit of automatic machine only increases with increased volume of packing. For the volume of packing we are currently dealing, it can be managed with a semi-automatic machine. But for the consumer demand for pouches and our growth plans it is better to invest now. It clears of this constraint that of packaging and enables us to tackle other growth constraints.

But the following are the drawbacks
1. High investment – The machine alone would cost 3-4 lakhs. The accessories like Compressor, Stabiliser, Cooler, Storage Tank and Pipeline would cost about 1-2 lakhs. Total investment of about 5 lakhs. Assuming that the machine lasts 10 years, rate of interest is 15% EMI comes to about 8,000 or Annual cash outflow of about 1 lakh. If we pack 50,000 pouches a year, machine cost is 2 Rs per pouch.
2. Risk of failure – This will be the first time we will be installing a machine of this nature. With multiple components involved and lack of experience there is a possibility of failure. If the machine fails there is no manual packaging backup as the material is not suitable for it.
3. Maintenance Cost – Any temporary failure will need a supplier company technician to repair. His charges per day are 1000 and charges for AC train to and fro and lodging.
I have anyway decided to purchase one and posted about 100 enquiries by searching on web and on B2B trade directories. I got about 15 responses within 3 days. I have tough task of now selecting a good machine for less price.

My love for bicycles

2009-08-22T23:06:00.003+05:30

To say that I love bicycles is an understatement. I am passionate about it, I am obsessed with it. It has been my best companion for 8 years. More ever, it is healthy, environment friendly, inexpensive and low maintenance. By they way, I just bought a new Hercules AXN DX cycle from Bharat Cycle Centre, Puttur for Rs. 3275. I am very excited about it.

To talk a bit about my history with cycles,
My first cycle
During my 7th standard, I was pestering my dad to get me a new cycle. My dad relented and said he will buy me one if I score more than 90% in mid-term exam. I normally scored about 85%. For this exam I worked hard and managed to score 89.17%, still 5 marks short of landmark 90%. Anyway my dad considered it only as a motivation for me to do well in exams. And he didn’t deny me a cycle for not crossing the mark. So, I got my own cycle Hercules Town N Trek for Rs. 1500 from Imperial cycle centre, Puttur.
I used to roam around every nook and corner of Puttur with my neighbour friend Sadananda. Used to go to Swimming pool at Parpunja 8 kms away along Mysore Road, go to Balnad (our ancestral home) again a village 8 kms away. I went to Philomena high school and college using this cycle except during rainy season. It was great fun.

Mysore
During my 3rd semester of Engineering, Avinash and I decided to go to an expensive gym for 3 months. Gym was about 2 kms far, Avinash had a bike and there was no problem. But 15-20 days later Avinash started showing his talent (that is laziness ;-)) and he stopped coming. I was determined, didn’t want to waste the gym fees and continuity. Avinash suggested me, “Look, our super senior Manjunath just completed his course and has thrown his cycle. So, why don’t you repair it and use it?” It was lying just outside my room at ground floor, I took it and the repair cost me 200/-.
I used it well for 3 years, went around beautiful University Campus, Kukkarahalli lake, Mysore city and everywhere. Since it was not the one I bought, I left it at the same place after I left the hostel.

Japan
I was on an onsite assignment at Japan for 5 months. My living apartment then was 6 kms from office. Monthly local train pass costs 5000 yens. I had to walk half a kilometre each from apartment to railway station and railway station to office. I didn’t like the routine. Also I wanted to cover as many places as possible over there. I didn’t waste any time and bought a new cycle for 15,000 yens, returned it to the same shop for 5,000 yens. Money was not a problem. People on overseas assignments are paid extremely well. It was that well paid period that changed me from being a thrifty spender to a spend thrift now!

I have been at Bangalore and Mumbai for long periods of time. But I didn't have cycle there as they were dusty and busy cities. It wouldn't be a pleasure there to go on a cycle at all.

Now
I need to go to our office/retail outlet, shops for research, roam around for time pass, to ice-cream shop and so on. A cycle is very handy now again. It was easy to own a cycle during teenage and abroad. But now it isn’t easy considering the social stigma attached. If somebody goes by cycle it means he is not well to do. In our family, even my younger brother has his own car apart from my dad’s car. Society asks many questions, assume things their own way. I still bought one, because I thought, if somebody thinks negatively I should give a damn to him, for others who think positively there is no problem. My dad isn’t happy that I bought but I think he will get used to it over time.

List of Brand Names

2009-08-11T11:26:00.005+05:30

The following are the initial list of names I came up with over last couple of days. Believe me, it is a very hard exercise. It is not my cup of tea, still essential. The challenge is in finding a common name which can be trademarked. Needs to be thought of from all 360 degrees customers's view. Naming could well be make or break for the brand.
Sanskrit – kairava, amala, prayata, vivikta, hamsa, jalaja, shuchi, sputam, sphatika, vajra, anagha, heera, hiya, mrinala, amiya, amoha, hita
Pure in English – crystal, diamond, lucid, limpid, lucent,
Glorify - Vastava, hallow, anoint, vital, vestal, revel, extol, wallow, rever, laksha
Edible - Delish, aliment, victual, comest, savour, nourish, sapid, esculent, khaadya
Different - Madike, kogile, kokila, tuluva, barsa, ananya, peacock, punarvasu, magnet, cocoon, compass, native

I have now sought help from Prof. Shreesha Kumar, a Sanskrit Professor and a wise man. His knowledge and opinion about this world is amazing. He was the man behind the brand name bindu for mineral water.

The list of other coconut oil brands are
Puttur Market
Aravind, Ishwara, Jeep, Kalpataru, Karavali, Mahalasa, Mangala,
Navami, P D S, Pooja, Prestige, Quality, Ranga
Soorya, Theertha, Train, Uttam, Vikram

Bangalore Market
Parachute, Vatika, Penguin, KPL Shudhi, KLF Nirmal, VVD Gold, Safal
Kera, Sahakari, Laxmi, Arun, Krishna, KV Prabhu, Prakash

International Market
Cocovida, Tropical Traditions, Nutiva, Kokonut Pacific, Tropicai, Kalau

Photo Album of all the coconut oil brands in Puttur
http://picasaweb.google.com/keshavaram/CoconutOilBrandsInPuttur
Also see HUL's Home care portfolio here.

Brand Naming Criteria

2009-08-09T11:45:00.003+05:30

Our present brand name is Santhosh, but it was never advertised and very few know it. A survey among 14 retailers at Puttur who sell our oil showed that only 8 of them or 57% of them know that our brand name is "Santhosh". They have always identified us as Sri Rama.

So, I thought of re-branding as "Sri Rama". It would also give some equity to our corporate name "Sri Rama Industries" and vice-versa. Also remove any confusion in the minds of the consumers about the source of the product. But the name is so generic, a look at our local business directory revealed about 12 business that have name SriRama and spelling variations. A search in the trademark registry showed that the name is already registered even for the business category to which we belong. Since we want to go the branded way, using a brand name that cannot be trademarked or used is not a good idea.

I am looking for a new name to brand our coconut oil product. The name should ideally represent any or combination of the following meanings :-
pure, clear, natural, health, quality, edible, tradition, different, sacred

Important criteria in which the names are evaluated with their weightage are
Trademarkeable - It is a must and there is no compromise on that - 1000
1. Simple - Easy to spell, easy to pronounce - 10
2. Memorable - A familiar name will be easy to remember - 3
3. Appropriate - Represents the meaning of the brand - 5
4. Pleasant Association - It should evoke positive emotions while a person hears it. There should not be any negative meaning in another country, language, culture, religion - 10
5. Appealing - The name should appeal to our target audience i.e. Tulu Nadu - 10
6. Extendable - It should be not be restricted to just coconut oil, but to say food products and other businesses - 10

For each name, for each criteria rating will be given as Bad, Neutral and Good. The multiplying factors being -1, 0 and 1 respectively.

Brand Vision

2009-08-08T11:28:00.003+05:30

To spread the benefits of coconut to people

People - Consumers, Suppliers and Society
Consumer Benefits - Health - Coconut Oil extracted by least amount of processing to retain maximum benefits of coconut
Supplier Benefits - Give best price for their yield, make it convenient for them to supply and provide education and inputs to improve their yield
Society Benefits - Health, Wealth, Tradition and Environment

The vision for most companies revolves around the consumer rather than product. But we base it on the product because Coconut is a truly great timeless product and its applications gives us enough scope to grow. Hailing from Coastal Karnataka we have a natural competitive advantage for coconuts.

Target Market
People of Coastal Karnataka (Tulu Nadu) origin
35-60 year old
middle income
Cooking purpose

There is no major brand selling coconut oil as a cooking oil and this market needs one.

Brand Characteristics
Coconut
Pure, Clear, Transparent, colourless
Natural, Cold pressed, as good as coconut
Healthy, good for everything, edible
Traditional

Unique Value Proposition
Our coconut oil has crystal clear appearance, this is done by cold pressed method to retain all the natural qualities of coconut to make it ideal for cooking.

Customers vs Competition, Open up or Hide information

2009-08-06T15:47:00.003+05:30

In the strategic triangle or 3C model, Customer and Competition are 2 important vertices (Cs) to the main C Corporation. So, the corporation must base its strategies on the customer in reference to that of the competitor. But too often the company fears competition so often that they loose sight of the customers. Sridhar Vembu has a very interesting take regarding this.

Why I am concerned about this is to decide how much I should disclose about our business. Whether I should open up to Customers or hide from Competitors?

Why companies hide information
1. There is nothing good to show. Showing shows only weakness.
2. It takes effort to identify and display useful information on website and marketing communications.
3. To hide secrets from competitors.
4. To keep its card close to chest while negotiations with partners/customers

It is a major cultural difference between Indian and Silicon Valey businesses.
None of the Indian FMCG companies or its honcho’s blog. This is all the official information available on a 600 crore brand parachute. Some Annual Reports of Indian public companies are so Generic that it is difficult to understand what business they do even after a careful reading of whole report. On the other hand we have a company like Zoho which is very open even when it is a privately held company.

I presently believe that companies must focus on customers and let not competition come in way of serving customers. So, if opening up is good for the customers, companies must do it.
After all letting the competitors know what we are doing doesn't mean they would execute that. If it is good and they can't do anything about it, it will only humble them. Some of the well known things like making quality product, earning customer's trust, building strong brands are the most difficult things to do.

I like competition that is healthy. But mostly it is not. It is price competition where they reduce prices by reducing quality, adulteration, reducing quantity, giving poor service and avoiding taxes. In edible Coconut Oil industry it is time the competitors ally themselves to thwart a bigger threat of refined oil and imported oil substitutes.

New phase of this blog's life

2009-08-06T11:25:00.003+05:30

This blog now enters a new phase of its blog's life as I have. It has been lifeless for last 4 months. Except for my post on Korigad Trek which has been attracting traffic from search engines during this rainy season. Till now the blog was about my personal experiences/opinion on topics within my comfort zone i.e. Cricket, Travelling, Technology and General Business. From now on I intend to write about my Business that I will be managing as a professional. It could be about the hard decisions, experiences with customers/stake holders, my tactics/strategies/philosophies, industry insights and problems.

For starters, I am working on my family's coconut oil business at Puttur that my dad started 2 decades ago. My dad will continue running the business as he has been. My brother has been helping him for last 3 years. My role will be to bring in modern best practices to help grow the business. Expecting that my fancy degrees(B.E & MBA), professional exposures and outlooks of having lived outside this town for last 10 years would help bring in fresh perspectives. The coconut oil that comes out of our factory is of very good quality and are well received by our customers. Thanks to the skilled, committed and loyal employees and my dad's hard work, perseverance and perfectionist attitude. It has survived and flourished through tough price competition, uncooperative retailers and major inroads made by cheap refined oils.

I had told few of my friends that I will update them about the business and seek their opinion during decision making. Through this blog I can sort of crowd source. My clarity on issues will improve when I write down that too with the intention of sharing with people.

As regards this blog I have 2 options

Start a new official blog and link it with business website. It will be read by my Business partners/stakeholders. It should be more in the lines of PR. Here I cannot be so casual and personal. Still it is important to give life to the official website and update both current and potential stakeholders.
Add posts to current personal blog. This lets me connect with my well wishers, write with more freedom as all opinions are that of the person and not that of its employer. I can classify these posts from other personal posts through labels (my business)

I hope to take both the options.

Why isn't there a Technology TV channel?

2009-04-24T20:25:00.006+05:30

I spend atleast an hour everyday reading technology blogs like venturebeat.com, techcrunch.com, zdnet.com, labnol.org and aggregators like google reader and techmeme.com. But all that is in text format, where one has to actively consume those content by reading. For someone like me who is passionate about technology can take effort to read and visualize what is being written. But wouldn't it be handy if there is a TV channel that broadcasts exclusively technology related programmes.

Facts about telivision and advertising in India
1) TV reaches 112 million households which is 60% of total number of households
2) TV still gets 35% of total ad spend of $ 6 billion expected to grow at 15% over next 5 years
3) Advertising Expenditure to GDP ratio of 0.65% has potential to reach 1%
4) Average time spent per viewer is 150 minutes per day
5) Audience are increasingly getting fragmented into niche channels from general channels
Source - GroupM's "This Year, Next Year", India Media Forecasts, April 2008

Tech Industry is quite large, it is not just about IT and ITES which by itself is currently $50 billion expected to be $200 billion by 2020. It includes Consumer electronics, Industrial electronics, Consumer durables, e-commerce, social media and the big one i.e. Telecom. It is not only large but also the fastest growing to make it highly attractive to a media company to dedicate a channel to it. If I had tech brand, such a TV channel would form a significant portion of my media plan/budget. The cost to reach a potential customer is lowest for TV and impact of a video is highest among other formats.

A look at the table above shows clearly the fastest growth in TV ad spends is among tech companies. Doesn't it suggest that they are missing on that perfect media channel?

It is not techies alone, even the political parties are giving are giving a lot of thrust towards technology in their agenda. America for all its economic might is because of its tech companies and other companies using technology heavily. So if India is to get developed, it has to embrace technology and what better than to use TV as a medium to reach everybody in one stroke and educate them.

Critics of this idea can say
1) In these days of youtubes and fast broadband connections, people who like to watch videos already have their means. (But TV is more attractive)
2) There are already business channels that cover any important business news from tech world. (But it is too little)
3) Tech folks mostly work in IT companies throughout the day and TV is an insignificant form of media for them as they mostly spend time on internet. (Who watches business channels then? Certainly not house-wives)
4) As of now 60% of people live on Agriculture, 70% live in rural areas. Revenues from IT companies are just 5% of GDP. (That precisely is the point. It is not going to stay this way. When we know change is going to happen for better, why not initiate change and invest now?)

Should Social Networking Sites consolidate?

2009-03-13T15:02:00.003+05:30

So many social networking sites (SNS) have come up in last 5 years and yet many of them are highly successful. In fact, it was the fastest growing category of websites in 2008. Entry barriers are pretty low but gaining critical mass through network effects and monetising them is extremely hard.

Users have been complaining about the large number of social networking sites. Every new SNS was remarked by reviewers/critics as yet another or me-too. Friends who have joined those networks keep sending new invites to join. It is annoying as there are too many sites to manage in terms of accounts, privacy, friends, messages, profile, contents, status message etc. This leads to lot of duplication of effort and more importantly inconsistency of information.

Can’t they all merge together/consolidate on a common networking platform and build special applications for each type of network niche?
1. Monopoly – Internet, World Wide Web is so successful because of its free nature, no body owns it and yet everybody uses it. Merging will create a sort of monopoly and one who controls the core platform will exercise power over others. Monopoly creates imbalance, kills innovation and is good for the business but bad for users and society.

2. Growth – Being in the early growth stage of Product Life Cycle, consolidation is unnecessary. It is done usually in the maturity and declining stages.

3. Theme – Most SNS allows user to create a profile, send messages, upload pictures and videos, write status message and so on. But the same information is filled according to a context. In facebook one tries to be cool and casual while in linkedin one needs to be professional.

4. Features – The main reason why communities or sub-networks in main networks fail is because the communities don’t have the necessary tools for sharing and collaboration. Specialised sites can create them. E.g. flickr has tools for photographers; dhingana has tools for music lovers.

5. Network – In our social life we have different network i.e. family, friends, professional and special interest. They are vastly different and we don’t get all of them together not even during marriage. We like our family, relatives and close friends to attend our marriage but we keep a separate reception for our friends and colleagues. I wouldn’t have my boss in my facebook network to let him observe what I am doing in my personal life. Or I wouldn’t want my family/relatives to know with whom I am dating ;-) So I will use geni for family/relatives only, facebook for classmates/friends, linkedin for colleagues, picasa among my photography network.

6. Just a click away – Beauty of web is any webpage is just a link away. It is normal for everybody to have a blog, orkut, facebook, twitter, linkedin and flickr accounts. Integrating them is as simple as just hosting their links.

7. Advertisements – SNS has rich information about the user’s profile which can be used by advertisers for targeting. Also there is lot of activity that takes place and time that user spends on it giving enough opportunities for advertisements. It will be better if there are specific niches where advertisements can be even more effective. I will advertise on flickr if I launch a new camera, dhingana on releasing a movie/album, apple forum if I write a new application for apple’s app store, linkedin if I want to hire somebody than on general ones like orkut/facebook.

8. Simplicity – facebook being a giant offers every thing that twitter offers. Still people use twitter because of its simplicity. Twitter does just one thing but does it well.

So, clearly consolidation is not a very good idea but opening up the network through APIs is. Instead of somebody coming up with a new sns to just add a new feature he can use the existing network itself. More than facebook, I like the way linkedin has gone about this by partnering with the best in business like amazon, slideshare, simplyhired, wordpress and many others.

Google – A human side of it

2009-02-02T17:50:00.007+05:30

Google has been a God send to earth in this new millennium. It is a brand that has created tremendous value to all its stake holders. At least, I as a user have benefited enormously from it without having to pay a single Rupee for its services. I will not discuss about the obvious value that it has created to the mankind but a more human side of it. That is the mistakes that it did with some of its products. I am writing about Google and its mistakes because they make very few of them and its impacts are huge.

Search - This site may harm your computer
It had flagged all the websites that it has indexed as malicious and wouldn’t let anyone open them. They had to come out in public to apologize. Who better to do it than its VP Marissa Mayer. Anybody will pardon if someone that beautiful comes out and says sorry, wouldn’t they? ;-)

Adsense – Exchange rate problem that assumed 1 dollar as 1 Re
Google had sent its content network partners cheques that just assumed a 1:1 exchange rate with dollar. If somebody has earned $500 in a month through adsense for his blog/website, he will get a cheque of 500 Rs instead of 25,000 Rs!

Apps email – Your account is locked for 24 hours
Rehan Yar Khan, CEO of flora2000.com (where I interned) had this frustrating experience. He had been locked for 24 hours for supposedly performing an illegal activity.

Orkut – The 3 photos that isn’t there
When I open my orkut account, I get a screen like this.

People who visit my profile would see that I have 3 photos but would be disappointed when they open to see that there aren’t any. Would they really? ;-) It is not really a serious bug but it is serious enough to a perfectionist.

Chrome – Is it the fastest web browser? Is it out of beta now?
It is the fastest browser in the market by a long margin, but not to me. For last 2 days, I had to open my gmail in html mode to negotiate slow internet connection. To make matters worse hostelites around me were browsing normally. At one point yesterday my friend and I exchanged laptops because he wanted to watch a movie while I wanted to browse internet. He casually opened firefox to check out how bad the internet speed was. To my delight/horror it was working fine. Verified with Chrome for the speed, it was bad. I couldn’t find the reason but it is true with the version (1.0.154.46) that has come out of its beta. As we do with any software problem, I uninstalled and reinstalled but the situation has not improved.

Reader – The reader that unread my posts
I have subscribed to around 60 blogs on my RSS reader. I subscribe to only those blogs that post less than 5 posts in a day, for the rest it is better to read them from browser directly. I get around 20 new posts everyday and finish reading them the same day. Reading all the posts take an hour generally. I get intimidated when I see too many unread posts. A few days back when I opened the reader I found 11 unread posts for Amit Aggarwal’s sub-blog India Inc. But 10 of them were the ones I had already read. This has happened with Zoho blog and Rajesh Jain’s blog also.

These mistakes are not complete or are the most serious. But what is important is the way they handle them. By accepting them, taking responsibility, apologizing, correcting and making sure that such mistakes doesn’t happen in future.