Check the pulse everywhere
I am happy to share the outcome of the year-long research done by McKinsey Global Institute. The findings are important in the context of Covid-19’s effect on health and economy. Though people have not returned to work at the levels that existed before Covid, it has been steadily recovering. Covid and lockdowns have taken a […]
India’s Turning Point – Challenges & Opportunities — Archives
The 2nd wave of Covid is still hitting us hard in some parts of India but it appears to be receding in most parts of India as per published data. We will come out of it strongly like we did in the first wave. Self Discipline is the key.
There is a hectic movement of IT professionals across companies. All top IT majors in India are hiring big time, mostly due to attrition and a renewed technology focus. They are indirectly feeding each other in resource fulfillment but at a higher cost. Start-ups and mid tier companies are feeling the heat from cost perspective but they don’t want to let go new opportunities after a dull year.
Healthcare, Retail and Consumer goods industries are continuing to do well and manufacturing, other than auto, service and infra companies are generating revenues that look good.
As per a survey, key economic Indicators are at 140-192% of 2020 levels and 45- 110% of 2019 levels, not withstanding May 2021 being a wash-out with 23 states under lockdown, thus robbing off 90% of GDP.
Indices at Indian stock exchanges look encouraging with better annual results from top companies, though it is a roller coaster ride. But recovery and GROWTH are steadily & surely happening. It is the resilient people who make all the difference, not technology.
#hiring
#healthcare #opportunities2021
Acquired knowledge is an illusion, developed wisdom is real!
Don’t you agree?
If you are asked to write a few lines on how a zipper in your dress works, you may think how simple it is, but when you try to put it in words, you struggle. We know how a refrigerator or Microwave oven works and do we really know their mechanisms and write in detail about these machines.
We think we can write about anything – health, economics, politics, Justice, education, sports etc but rarely we go deep into them to exhibit our expertise unlike those who specialise in them. Sometime I wonder how those editors of newspapers or magazines write prescriptions for anything on the earth to showcase their prowess. They are supposed to quote experts’ views and present the readers a balanced view of people and matters but they hardly do it. Anchors of TV Channels resort to similar method and indulge in propagating their own version of truth and get their panelists to support their views. Sensationalism, anti-government stand, attempt to present your own country and people in poor light, not prioritising news feeds are major flaws that deny the real picture of issues surrounding us.
World famous scientists knew what they are known for. Renowned story writers knew how to write a good story and not on economics. Economists know the world economy but not on health or sports.
The illusion that we know and understand things better than we actually do is the main reason that impacts the relationships between people, society, political parties and countries.
Lets us get enlightened on things that we don’t know fully yet!
How could an organization be creative? How creative ideas of both a start-up or established one be put into practice to stay ahead of the curve and survive? Both consume a lot of energy and resources of varying degrees yet both want to be leaders in their own area of expertise.
Institutionalizing a culture of creativity and excellence in an organization is the first step of the leader at the helm. This requires an enormous understanding of its people and their behaviour and their quest to do something different, adding value to the work they do everyday. There needs to be constant motivation and inspiration from the top to unleash a sense of creativity in people, showing them the avenues they could let their creative thinking to take shape and be nurtured. Many large organizations that exist today were not created overnight but were built brick by brick to realise the creativity and skills of its people.
The likes of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Walmart, Toyota or those Oil giants have allowed their people to think big and creative to add many revenue streams that increased their top lines. On the other hand, we have also seen many large corporations that had failed to innovate – Polaroid, Pan AM, Compaq, General Motors, Kodak, Yahoo, Toy’R’Us are great examples of how lack of ideas could cripple their growth and business. Inertia of being larger companies drag them into becoming a soulless organizations inimical to change.
It is necessary to encourage nerve and spunk, inject a spirit of fanaticism among the employees of organizations, simultaneously dismantling the layers of hierarchical hurdles at the same time. This will help to cope with today’s bewildering complexity created by global competition, mergers, acquisitions and cross cultural alliances. Eliminating hierarchy is not about doing away with titles and designations but instilling the entrepreneurship in employees, recognising the need for equality among the superiors and subordinates , removing the fear and barriers of communications and embolden them to speak up on flaws in strategies affecting the business and offering creative solutions to address them. Acknowledging their creative ideas is not enough but rewarding them to contribute more that add value to company’s operations.
Growth is impossible without systematically correcting past errors and continuously executing new ideas to become leaders.
All of us, at some point in time, had a mentor or two or still have one. What makes us to consider a person as a mentor? Leadership traits, uncluttered views in matters, success in profession, role modelling, sticking to a righteous path or counselling attitude during difficult times – some or all of these qualities in them had helped us to choose our mentor.
We have heard mentees saying their lives were greatly influenced or impacted by their mentors which is good if positive things happen but in a professional career, is it entirely true ? We cannot have an autocratic leader or boss as a mentor; we cannot have one who is good in manoeuvring office politics and has grabbed power or someone who employs dubious ways to achieve goals and results . It is important that youngsters choose more than one mentor along their professional journeys because people long for newer things at various stages in life and they meet persons who help them to realise these new aspirations.
This route will help us not to become a fanatic or feel strong about a leader or faith or belief in our community too. Hero worship or Patronising a leader is harmful if it is taken to a level that blunts our views and approach for our own good as well our families and society. It was considered a right step in a progressing society many decades ago during the era of Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Swami Vivekananda or Mother Terasa but today we do not have persons of their stature with us.
Having said the above, we also realise that digital mentor is taking over human mentor these days but there is none to guide the youngsters to appreciate what is right or wrong in a physical world. Society for many generations, had learnt to lead a good life from the teachings of Gurus / Teachers and perhaps it is wiser for us to continue the same way, because this is how we enrich our knowledge and be good to our society and environment.
I look back those 40 years since my first days in an office….
The best part of career life for any individual is mid and late 20’s when you get introduced to a factory, a corporate set-up, an art world or a field work that provide you with loads of experience in understanding your customers, aligning your daily work to keep them happy, manoeuvring the challenges at work place and importantly, keeping pace with learning newer skills. I am no exception to this phase of life and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed working for corporates that were well known in the industry and at the same time learnt how one had to be always customer focussed to enjoy success. These corporate giants are still the leaders in their own industry having gone through a phenomenal growth.
Travel and work constituted a major part of my early work life, trying to find new customers and the good part of it was I could visit new places and befriend good people. Selling a varied product line was as exciting as a new recipe from your spouse’s kitchen and it gave an insight to industries, their customers and their success factors. Over these years I learnt the importance of improving the product or services to always keep your customers within your fold and later on when I had ventured into an entrepreneurial role, this aspect helped me to be always mindful of emerging customer trends and their expectations. In my late 30’s, I had an opportunity to indulge in social service and develop my public speaking and communication skills while serving a world wide service organization. That was also an important phase in my career when I had to take a few risks and seek a different career path. With income on a steady decline, I chose a new field, Information Technology in late 1990’s. In the beginning this was considered to be not a wise decision and there was every chance that I would be starting as an entry level programmer or junior business analyst at that age.
Thanks to the organization that had trained me to be an ERP Consultant, I was able to bring in all my functional experience into consulting and I could start my new career at a comparatively advantageous position than many of my colleagues. This move also had its own share of problems with dot.com bubble exploding at the dawn of the century. After a struggle for a year or two, I had to grab a new lease of life in moving out of the country for assignments. This gave me the required exposure to be on a firmer ground and there was no going back since then. The organizations that I had worked for in the first 10 years of this century, presented me ample opportunities to hone my skills in acquiring and retaining new customers with quality deliverables and be responsible to hire and mentor hundreds of budding and aspiring youngsters to take to Process and Business consulting as their professions. What is most satisfying in this stint was that I was able to take care of my family reasonably well, raise my children with good education / comfort and to build new homes as it offered me a much needed financial stability.
My decision to move to a well known global IT leader with an impeccable brand recall, certainly helped me to learn the pseudo- entrepreneurial side of running a business, provided me with a global exposure to different work ethics across geographies and to sharpen my consulting and people skills. It was indeed an fascinating experience to work with these multi-nationals and this has come handy TODAY to be able to continue my journey as an independent consultant after I bid adieu to a satisfied corporate life.
Successful organizations have always thrived and grown, and employees are a good reason, for their experience enhances the ambience at work, improves their productivity and creates positive vibes all around. A happy work force results in employee retention, breeds innovation and lower operating costs. But the arrival of the pandemic and its impact on the business environment, disrupting the employer-employee engagement, has made HR organization to think a newer way to gain insights into the minds of employees.
In a competitive marketplace, how do organizations keep the morale of the employees high to achieve their business outcomes, especially when we are seeing lower level of personal interaction with leadership or peers during the period of WFH. Longer work hours, coping with both work and family pressures at the same time and absence of leisure activities when they are struck indoors, they all contribute to stressed up individuals and do a great harm to the well-being of employees besides drop in productivity and lack of active participation in new business initiatives that their organizations plan to execute.
Data that are available to HR team in an organization, from its employees – Pay-roll, medical, Finance, feedback on surveys etc – all these helps to analyse, and gain insights using AI tools and take a decision concerning an employee or a group of employees as to what would they need to do to keep them happier. A huge volume of data is available to top leaders of the organization but inaccessibility of the data by functional managers or HR, handicaps them to devise methods to increase the level of engagement with their teams.
Most of the organizations focus only on leadership team and their well-being but little thought is being given to lower layers of work force. The requirements for 25-year-olds in an organization are different that of employees who are past 40. The challenge lies in tailoring their perquisites and support to meet their expectations and that is where the data on hand comes handy. This challenge may be even insurmountable when the organization has grown over new acquisitions or mergers involving different cultures and practices. The commitment level of individuals with respect to meeting their needs towards house mortgage, health and well ness, career advancement, Children education, leisure and social do vary. Most organizations do not have the culture to share the data of their employees within its hierarchy, but it must be done to help improvise programs that enhance employees’ involvement in organizational growth initiatives. However, the usage or leveraging data to align with corporate objectives, may require consent from employees as per local laws of the country.
Understanding employee behaviour is of great importance to an organization and collecting and analysing their behavioural / psychological data for a better employee experience, and a more productive individual are important. HR teams should spend more time and resources to achieve them.
#happyemployee
#HR
Peter Drucker had said that the purpose of business is to create a consumer. How true is this statement with the Start-ups and the Unicorns of the past decade creating new consumers of products and services?
What drives the efforts of a business to create a consumer? Is it a strategy or a structure? what drives what? Some say Strategy drives structure and some say the reverse. There will be a point when we realise that the reverse- structure driving a strategy – is ineffective because the outcome of the strategy – what you want – is not exactly what you had intended when the structure was created. It is always prudent to let the strategy drive the structure because the structure can be modified when adjustments are needed to execute a strategy in reaching consumers. What we exactly want is achieved only after many iterations and alterations in execution. There are of course exceptions due to environmental hurdles such as trade barriers, local laws or limitations in organizational resources that make the structure rigid and consequently the outcome in the form a product or service that was envisioned is impacted.
Let us understand more about strategy- where does it come from? We do many SWOT analyses of strengths and weaknesses of the little sparks of ideas that can change the world or create value additions to a product or service. People’s psychological impulses lead to strategies, but they get conditioned by an external environment. In a real term, strategy gets evolved from an environment which has multiple layers – macro forces like technology, economics, politico – and micro socio -cultural aspects. Sneakers for example are classic example of how simple foot wears have taken shapes in terms of materials and comfort – fabric, size, weight, Safety, sole, or contour- for manufacturers like Nike, Adidas, Reebok who constantly engaged with people’s emotional and comfort needs and have been innovating for several decades to make newer models just to serve a single purpose of covering our feet. Further creating a baby-sitter job comes out of both husband and wife becoming income earners or a home medical attendant is hired to look after aging, sick parents while you are away for work.
Starting or nurturing a business is always done with a creation of a consumer in mind, duly acknowledging macro environmental factors and matching the opportunities / threats with the internal strengths / weaknesses of the organization.
#strategy
#createconsumer
Business today is all about the focus on customer touch points and adding incremental values to an organisation’s offerings to address the pain areas in a business engagement. The concept of a business in a steady state has given way to an alternating scenario of deep change and stability in a cyclical loop. That’s how the business is being compelled to be always in an agile mode, breaking the barriers of hierarchy and a traditional structure but to breath in delivering innovations and newer experiences all the time. Any business that fails to recognise this shift in a static business model to an intense change in execution, will face an accelerated decline.
Embracing a digital transformation is the best way to address the new business challenges. Cloud shift, Artificial Intelligence, Automation are gaining momentum in both mid sized and large enterprises and they help to recalibrate the business offerings to add exponential value to a customer engagement and by effectively leveraging the eco-system, they drive the changing personalisation needs of target customers.
Whilst on the topic of personalisation, it is interesting and revealing to learn that by 2030 business will look completely different than what we see today, according to the expert views of Mauro Guillen, Professor of Wharton Business School. He goes on to say in his best selling book ‘2030’ – How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything that businesses will move from a target group of syoungsters to the groups of elders and women to reshape their marketing strategies to address a new set of consumer behaviours. He cites the successful business concept of Airbnb that cater to two different target groups – the owners who are mostly 50+ as investors in properties and the travellers in mid 30’s as the group preferring to stay in such accommodation and explore the cities and locations.
Entrepreneurs of this decade is besieged with opportunities that will make them think out of the box to create products or services that capture the imagination of a new set of consumers.
Start-up Entrepreneurship is about being practical and aware of what works and what does not. The spark in someone with an idea alone is not enough to go an Entrepreneurial way. It is about expanding that idea, checking if a similar one is already in the market, which market segment will be receptive to that idea and also soliciting views of experts to know if that idea will be alive for a span of 3-5 years down the road. On-line education, Share rides, Home food delivery and vacation homes etc are great examples of ideas that have stayed on with amazing success.
Entrepreneurs innovate afresh or create incremental values to existing products or services. While doing so, they need to be careful that their offerings or ideas don’t suffer premature death due to their inefficient commercial methods or lack of funds to sustain those ideas in operation after a successful test marketing. If promoters are not good enough in this area it is no shame to invite an expert to provide a helping hand. Most of the ideas die an early death because of changing market preferences, lack of good marketing techniques or a competition rejigs similar idea to a mass scale at a rapid pace.
An entrepreneurial mind needs to be always on the vigil of what adaptations are needed to keep the idea alive with a working product or service, closely following the market trends in different segments and knowing the early reviews on the performance of the product.
Focus has to be a key trait for the start-up entrepreneurs and spending too much time on day to day activities retard their business growth. They need to live and sleep with their ideas or creative sparks till they hit the growth graph. The most important thing an entrepreneur needs to do is to protect his creation with IP rights, ensuring it does not infringe on an already existing IP. The decision to commit more funds should happen only after this is done.
There are living legends that created huge business empires and their stories are not inspirations alone but a guide to be successful entrepreneurs.
Innovate, Create or Adapt!
#entrepreneurship#entrepreneurs
THE PULSE by Sivakumar Gopal