Scientific prowess needs to take over the management mindset

Not a correct statement, one would think.

Let us think about the Indian context. We spend 0.64% of GDP on R&D. This speaks volumes of our apathy towards deep research, innovation and IP creation. We are no way comparable to China, Japan, US and Israel.

We are so engrossed in creating managers for today and tomorrow but have failed to recognise the fact that science is a fundamental factor to succeed as a nation or a super power. We have had enough of managers and let us focus / spend more on science and scientific efforts. Young minds have to be prepared towards research and innovation for the future. Academicians and parents have a responsibility to encourage students to opt for science curricula.

Thankfully the crave for Information technology engineers have vaned in the last few years at the engineering institutes and attention is turning towards more enrolment in core engineering and science subjects.

Corporates on the other hand are not spending enough on science or creating / supporting more scientific bodies that propel R&D efforts to a different level to compete with other superpowers.

We have progressed well in space and defence technologies but going slow on medical research, agricultural research, live stock research, health care research etc. Government bodies like CSIR, DRDO, ICMR, ICAR, NRDC, NIBMG have to step up on the pedal with the support of big corporates.

The whole world has moved towards AI and lacking in fundamental research and R&D initiatives will only retard our adoption to AI in every sphere of industrial automation and innovation.

Our habits are shaped by corporates

Frequently, younger generations caution us that our diets lack sufficient protein, which can compromise our muscle and bone health, causing premature aging.

Nonetheless, our eating habits are shaped by corporate entities seeking to promote their products. Surveys, often unsupported by credible health organizations, exaggerate mineral deficiencies in our diets. These findings benefit Ready-to-Eat and Food Supplement manufacturers, who exploit our concerns to boost sales.

The trend of kitchenless homes and the abundance of dining establishments threaten our tradition of home-cooked meals. Although our eating habits may seem to have changed, we are, in fact, consuming the same traditional foods.

The fashion industry has skillfully engineered our preferences, creating a cycle of consumption fueled by emotional appeals. It is vital to scrutinize advertisements and surveys, recognizing the potential for manipulation.

Surviving is not the same as Succeeding

You have been at a place for many years and always lament that you are not getting noticed. At the same time, you also see some of your colleagues who have been with you for a long time get the boot. You wonder what is this and why you are not pushed to the exit.

Managers hunt for associates who are warming the seats with no real hunger to meet the timelines and not being creative to solve problems. It is not out of sympathy you did not get pushed to the exit but inadvertently you may have shown sparkles of brilliance or hard work at times and that have helped you in good stead.

Are you happy at what you are doing and feeling you are just surviving?

This is the question that comes to the minds of many and they are at cross roads where to go and what to do.

Survival doesn’t take you anywhere in your career and it makes you to blunt all your skills. One needs to be at the top of the game to remain relevant in the organisation. Sharpening the skills, adding more to your skill set and a lot of self motivation helps you to get noticed and that is the sure way to move up. If you are finding it hard to self-motivate and mend the flaws in your system do seek a good mentor to nudge you to be always sharp and to possess a mindset to seize opportunities.

The bottom line is never be content with surviving each day. It requires a huge commitment and consistently hard work to succeed.

Survival blunts the skills, Success sharpen them!

Without ‘U’, sUccess never happens.

The Tariff Trades

A tariff negotiation is like a ping pong game. The more spin and force you use, the more will be the counter actions.

Global trade today is similar to the barter trade between countries. A country imports goods that it cannot make. The same country exports goods that it has in abundance. In olden days it used to be ‘goods for goods’ based on a notional value and that’s how trade had flourished over the centuries. Today tariff on goods of another country is used by countries as a tool to buy their goods.

Let us look at what governments want. They want the best possible landed prices for their products to make them affordable to the consuming public. In a tariff game, you want to import what is not available or could not be made within the country.

A country cannot make a product or produce an agricultural commodity overnight as many factors come into play – raw materials, skilled labour, technology or weather. No company wants to get into that segment that has high dependency on these factors and has a long period of ROI. Businesses weigh pros and cons and take decisions that are viable in their balance sheets. Nationality sentiments do not play any part unless they do business for charity.

If a country does not remain in a comfort zone of imports and exports with another country , it evaluates alternate markets for their country made products or help the local manufacturers to make their products that are competitively priced for exports.

Better sense starts prevailing when the industry bodies caution the governments on tariff rates that impact the local market and purchasing power of people.

Let us not forget that it is the people who finally determine the tariff rates because they only know how much is there in their wallets. Governments must listen to them to keep the vote bank intact.

A news item says ‘ Americans are going to pay each $ 1200 extra annually once the new tariff comes into effect’

#tariffwar

#tradewar

An Indian IT major is cutting down 12000 jobs soon

This is a major business news item that impacts the sentiments of the bourses as well as the IT outsourcing industry. We are used to seeing similar headlines from multinationals of Bay Area, NA but this news coming out of TxS is a shocker as we haven’t heard such a mass retrenchment in Indian tech / IT industry.

The impact of new emerging technologies, more so AI, is being felt in a big way across the entire industry spectrum not limited to IT industry alone. The technology is rapidly forcing organisations to have a fresh look at what would be the downside of their business with the focus now being solely on how to keep the workforce employable and billable.

Re-skilling is inevitable both for the employers and employees as they need to co-exist in an environment that is changing faster than that was anticipated a few years ago.

Bain projects that India’s AI industry will generate 2.3 million jobs by 2027. However, the talent pool is estimated to reach just 1.2 million—leaving over a million positions to be filled through upskilling and training initiatives. Specialists with 10-12 years of experience in Java or Python are no longer needed and young engineers with AI skills are much preferred.

More skills are turning out to be redundant and that’s where the IT organisations are grappled with a dilemma of whether to lay-off associates or not. The most impacted areas is Infrastructure maintenance ( due to organisations moving to cloud), BPO (more automations are happening here) and mushrooming GCCs that have taken away the work from traditional IT companies.

Well, the bell is tied around the cat by TxS and it will definitely be followed by other majors. Another interesting phenomenon is that the retrenchment is aimed at senior and middle management cadres (meaning managers and senior managers) who are always hands-off from technology. Re-skilling them is a tough call as the cost of retaining them is huge. The bottom of the workforce pyramid is going to be still broader as the salary of middle or a senior manager takes care of more new juniors.

There is also a heavy pressure on organisations relying on IT outsourcing to Indian majors especially from NA, Canada and Europe. They too have an agenda to cut IT infra, application and outsourcing costs drastically as their business is also facing the shift in tech trends.

Once the darling of the bourses is on the verge of a big shake-up and the industries’ cutting down on new hires and the serving associates will hugely impact the unemployment scenario besides those passing out of engineering colleges. The recruitment model revolves around hiring young, self-taught engineers — even before they graduate.The entire educational supply chain would need a revamp to adjust with the changing tech trends.

#techtrends

#ai

#layoff

Separation – Voluntary & Involuntary

Separation from an organisation,once served for long, is an emotional act. But it is an action of one’s own volition that is planned for many months and executed. There is no remorse or pain when such a decision is taken.

Involuntary separation, meaning termination of employment , is the most painful and scary action for an individual who is so naive in not anticipating it. He or she has been so dumb and failed to notice the clues from a reporting manager or a trusted colleague.

If that day arrives, how does one react to it?

Would you go though all job postings on portals and click ‘ Apply now’ button? It doesn’t work with most recruiters as they are always flooded with such applications.

Would you activate your known network and ask for a referral? You will be asked many questions as to why you lost the job? Embarrassing questions that you may have to answer.

Would you think of your own start-up? Yes, if you have a good bank balance and have a wet towel wrapped around your tummy for some time. High risk. Your dependents also need to survive.

Would you choose a company that is willing to take you but at a much lower salary? No, it would take years or even decade to rebalance your spends with earnings.

One of the better ways is to market ‘YOU’ as a brand rather than an individual looking for any job.

Make the best use of the time ‘ in between jobs’, to aggressively self-market your visibility, competence and credentials.
Be active in social media like LinkedIn, professional forums and groups. Contribute your worth by sharing your experiences and competencies.
Take time to attend technical and professional workshops that enhance your resume.
Work on your resume to make it more attractive by engaging a good coach.
Seek mentorship / guidance and other renowned experts who may recommend you to their contacts.
Don’t rely on your old network or colleagues for a job and it is better to work with new influential contacts. Known contacts may invariably speak not in glowing terms about you but rather lowly. More harm than good.

Don’t take up ‘a’ job in a hurry but buy your time to land on a job that is worth waiting for. Exude confidence, that is a sure shot way to create opportunities for you.

Happy job hunting! ( and not a sad job break)

#jobhunt

#involuntaryseparation

#termination

#jobsearch

Successful yet lonely

It is alright one sets his or her goal to win everything – best marriage,best spouse, best house, best children, best holidays, best job, best salary and best boss ( unfortunately you can’t choose best parents).

You may or may not have got everything you wished for.

In that pursuit you burn all the energies, health, relationships, leisure etc but feel you are alone and surrounded by emptyness. Is it worth to set these goals?

At times, it is good to fail and the failure teaches you to be grounded. Hence accept it. There are people around you to build relationships with. Millionaires and billionaires are not made only with successes. They have tasted many faliures and came back on track after rectifying the faults.

The evolution of human potential

The evolution of human potential has been huge since the Stone Age. God created the same brain on every human and of the same size and structure.

So what has been the primary reason for a human to multiply the potential of his brain many times? Was it the biological reason? Was it the cultural capabilities that increased the intelligence, creativity or adaptability over time?

Stone Age human walked leaning the body forward and who taught him to walk straight today? It is his biological change that altered his personal trait. Ancient human understood sign language as that was the main mode of communicating with others. Over many thousands of centuries, he learnt to speak languages that had meaning and his cognitive abilities increased leaps and bounds. We then learnt to adapt to different environments from sub-zero temperature to a hot humid climate and took to different life styles. Civilisations, Technological advancements, cultural beliefs and social interactions have been making huge impact on humans in the way they used their brains for a better living and peaceful co-existence.

The advent of Artificial Intelligence has made humans think of exponentially increasing the human potential through new solutions and what we see today is a human with immense creativity, tools and highly trained brain power that thinks about the impossible tasks.

There is a great interplay between biological and cultural processes that constantly alters our thoughts and develops our intelligence and capabilities.

Great leaders make great decisions

A Decision is always based on circumstancial evidence and data points.

If the evidence and data points are wrong, decision goes wrong.

An average Leader relies on available material and makes a decision that goes wrong.

A great leader looks at the probability of decision going wrong with the available data points and sources. If it is high he seeks for more data.

The buck stops at the leader and he has no one to blame but himself when decisions go wrong.

There are many examples of well known organisations winding up because of poor decisions. They were supposedly led by competent CEOs but what made them to fail the organisations they were leading well until they started taking decisions that had put the company at risks.

There is no definite formula for success and it depends on intentions, resources, risks, execution and customer goodwill.

Of all the above, good intentions are what make a CEO / Leader great. Great organisations thrive for decades and they all have had great leaders.

Ethical Corruption

Is there really a way to do it?

Industrialists or businessmen who want to get things done with a Minister or a politician or a government employee often have the dilemma of whether to bribe or not. The conscience says No to it but unless it is done there is no way of a project or a payment or a work gets approved. A delay is a cost.

As a leader or CEO, how will we handle this situation?

There is a way you can be ethical and still please the person who demands it. Look around and solicit some sane advice from people in your circle as to what may please that person instead of cash bribe. Today every politician has many businesses or activities that require incomes or facilities. One of these outfits could be the beneficiary of this largesse.

No more ethical dilemma!