Innovating at the top

I was just viewing a video podcast at knowledge@insead, the video was about a book Innovating at Top, published by INSEAD respected professors.

In the interview session, interviewer post series of questions to Soumitra Dutta, about why CEO required innovation, why innovation is required even in the time of crisis? How cultural differences help CEO's to tackle the issue of innovation? Out of large and small corporations, which are the running machines for innovation?

To look out for all the answers given by Mr. Dutta, go to knowledge@insead site (http://knowledge.insead.edu/home.cfm)

Thanks
Mohit

Obamamania couldnot trigger rise in stock market

On January 20th, Mr. Barack Obama took over as the 44th US president at Capitol Hill in Washington. Amid these recessionary times, or if we go by some economist terms, the depression time, the newly elected president come as a ray of hope for the Americans and for the World Economy.

But it seems that now the recession as loomed over the entire World Economy, that even the ray of hope is not able to pass it. This is what happened, during the Obama inaugural day. Most of the work market either remain flat or fall sharply. So it clearly shows that even Obamamania could not set even the short term positive sentiment in the global market, which can trigger the exchanges world wide.

Tough time ahead for Mr. Obama.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Obama oath = Costliest President Inauguration Ceremony

In November, when the Detroit Big three automaker CEO approached Fed for a bailout package on their luxurious planes, were greatly criticized by the international media for spending company money in their lavish lifestyle. They were reprimanded everywhere, and told to be more responsible in saving their company liquidity in time of Crisis.

But I think the same criticism is also applicable for President Obama Inauguration Ceremony at Capitol Hill. According to reports this is one of the Costliest Presidential Inauguration Ceremony in the American history, with total expenditure cost is approximately 75million$.

I can understand this may be the historical moment in the American presidential election, with first time an African American will taking on the high profile job. But at this time of financial crisis, when everybody is pressing on saving money and spending money more sensibly. Shouldn't be this Celebration can be delayed, till the US economy become more stabilize.

From my opinion, the Obama Inauguration and CEO spending on the lavish lifestyles, should be comparable and should be criticize equally.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Institutions falling towards Enterprise 2.0

I was just going through one of the Bankwatch blogs, in one of the blogs they have mentioned that Bank of America(BOFA) and MIT media labs have started a new initiative call as Centre of Future Banking,I went to one of their blogs http://futurebanking.bankofamerica.com, and checked one of their blogs.

In one of the blogs they have mentioned that how BOFA is leveraging Twitter to solve customer related issues. They wrote that social networking site really helped them to listen to customer need and their griefs. They can really learn about the new customer demands which call for new product development and enhancements. The social networking sites, like Twitter enable them to listen to customer needs in more real term. You can read the complet blog at adjacent link : http://futurebanking.bankofamerica.com/twitter-customer-experience-bank-america_696.

This clearly shows now the companies are falling towards enterprise or web2.0, and leveraging and merging their business concepts into their existing business model, so that they can listen to customer demands and take actions without any delay.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Citi's Split

Citigroup, once considered as the top notch financial institution of the World, is now split into to different legal entities, Citicorp and Citi Holdings. Thus, breaking the one banking or Universal Banking business operational model.

The split news came after when banking giant reported a 8.3billion$ quarterly loss. Out of two split identities Citicorp will have major chunk of business, holding private and investment banking arm. While Citi Holdings will mostly manage the non core banking part of the business.

The newly appointed CEO Vikram Pandit marked that the split will certainly help them to manage the business efficiently and also help them to serve both their clients and customers more effectively.

Lets see how these two identies work indivdually, and how they help Citi to get back on the track.

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Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Satyam failure : A sign of betrayal

Last week, when the India's fourth largest software company(based on the fake balance sheets), founder and Chairman resigned from the company and shocked the entire economy by telling that he and his key accomplices made a fraud of around 5000+ Crores, and all the figuresdescribed in the company balance sheet is completely inflationary.

Once this news was out in the market, it sent the shock waves at the BSE stock exchange and the Sensex shed more than 700 points in the intra day trade.

But Satyam failure is really a sign of betrayal from one of the key and iconic figure in the country, Mr. B Ramalinga Raju. It really hurt the trust and sentiment of not only international investors but also the small retail investors, who are always advise to go for a blue chip fund in order to safeguard their investments, and to reap good returns. But when a Blue Chip company reveals a multi billion fraud, the trust factor really seems to be void.

Besides Indian Corporates are yelling that this is one of its case, but Satyam fraud will also make global Clients to think twice to outsource their business critical applications to India. It certainly marred India's image as the global IT hub and a safe region to put once investments.

India corporated and politcal system really have to work hard on making Corporate Governance rule more stringent and transparent, and make sure that all culprit involved in this mayhem will be punished in time.

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Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Solution to Current Crisis : Responsible Leadership

The recent financial crisis, which saw meltdown of some of the mammoth banking institutions, and also saw standstill of the entire world economy. The main reason for such a enormous failure was improper decision, short term vision.

The solution for such a crisis, and to prevent such a crisis in distant future is to look out for Responsible Leadership. The main action item of the Responsible Leadership is to make long term vision for their business, invest in those business which they understand or have a strong team who understand the business very well. The leadership decision should not be a rat race decision, but decision should be made on through analysis of the situation, and safekeeping stakeholders and shareholders interest as far as possible.

Countdown begin for Mr. Obama

On January 20th, every body around the globe will be glued to all kind of available media, because on this the most awaited event will take place, when Time Person of the Year, the current US President of elect Mr. Barack Obama will take over presidentship from Mr. Bush.

The presidential countdown has already begun, and speculation has already taken place at all available field. Everybody has only one question, how Mr. Obama will keep to his slogan, We the Change. How he and his team will bail out US and World economy from the looming recession. What measures he will take to maintain peace across the globe?

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Why Indian Manufacturers Failed Again Global MNC..

In 18th Century, Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "Survival of the Fittest". This phrase suited perfectly well to Global MNC, who came without any knowledge of Indian markets and taste of Indian Customers, but within a decade they become the market leaders in their domain.

So the question is why Indian manufacturers failed again Global MNC ?

1. Lack Of Innovation products or schemes.

2. Never support after product sale support and services.

3. Lack of long term Customer Relation.

4. No investment in R&D development.

5. No investment in the market research.

6. Never wanted to develop or grow beyond their region.

7. No focus on future customers, basically rural segment.

While every Global MNC which entered the Indian market, came up with a long term vision and kept Customer relationship and focus as the top most priority, which able to them to achieve their defined targets and gave them courage to set new targets.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Economic affect due to Israel-Gaza War..

The year 2009 started at a very bad note, the main reason is the Israel -Gaza war. Israel forces had totally traumatized Gaza civilians and demolished nook and corner of the entire HAMAS establishment. Israel war on Gaza did receive a huge outcry in Arab world, and also saw huge outcry in every part of the World. The one more reason for this global outcry is that, Israel greater ally, and Security Council Prime Member USA, still did not oppose Israel attacks.

But Israel-Gaza war do have its negative economic affect, as Arab region took these strikes very seriously, which might result in the Oil production by these Oil rich countries, in order to economic repression against the Israel war. The decrease in Oil supply, may result in global inflation.

The Arab region posed a high growth region in the recent times, with no kind of opposition from the US and its ally, which might result in feeling of disregard of Arab nations towards US and its Allys, at direct economic repression by Arab countries.

Though Israel is defending the War by saying its in the benefit for their Citizens, while HAMAS also recite the same poem at their end. But this War will certainly not bring any respite to high tension region.

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Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

7% economic growth possible for India

2009 year will be a year of challenges for every economy in the World. As chiefs of some of the countries had already declared that their economy is in recession, which is also confirmed by rise in job losses, and record dip in the industrial output. The economic growth prediction of some of the countries is somewhat around 1%-2%, while for some countries its is even showing a negative growth. But even during this time the Deputy Chairman of India's Planning Commission Mr. Montek Singh predicted that India may pose an economic growth of around 7%, the prediction of 7% growth is really overwhelming. From my point of view, this time the 7% growth rate will be not be influenced by global factors, but it will be mostly driven by internal factors and consumption.
But India has to take some stringent measures in order to achieve an overwhelming growth of 7%.

Measures required :

1. Security : Investment sentiments were greatly hurt during the 26/11 mumbai attacks, India has to make sure that its citizens and who ever doing the business with it must be secure.

2. Investment in R&D : India share to global R&D is minimal, its less than 1 %. But if India has to achieve a 7% growth rate, and to sustain a high level of growth rate, it has to invest into R&D.

3. Education : India has to improve its education standards by making it more vocational oriented rather than mere a bookish language.

4. Infrastucture : India has to invest heavily on its infrastructure(Road, Rail, Air, Shipping etc.) to sustain a 7% economic growth in this turbulence team.

5. Open trade: India has to relax its policies of more open billateral trade between other countries.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Doing business in Asia

I was just watching a video from the store of INSEAD knowledge videos. The video was inducted by INSEAD professor, Franz Humer. In this video Prof. Humer talked about doing business in Asia. He mentioned that though the region do offer stupendous return in the range of 20-25 %, but its really not easy to do business in this region. The prime reason he mentioned was,

1. Corruption : According to Prof. Humer Asia suffers from great level of corruption at every level from top to bottom. So any business operating at the global level has to deal with this level of corruption to form their existence in the region.

2. Counterfeit : He also mentioned that the two biggest economies in the region, India and China, are also major manufacture of counterfeit products. If we go by statistical figure, around 8% of counterfeited Medicines in Europe are produced in China, while it goes more than 30% in case of India. This counterfeited trade will certainly affect not only the business of the global firms involved in this trade but also affect the human lives to a much greater extent.

Apart from the above two points mentioned by Prof. Hummer, I would also like to add some more points to the above topic.

1. Unstable boundaries : Unlike EU which did not see the any major conflict since World War 2, while the same is not applicable to Asia. Asia boundaries are always remained tensed, be it the India/Pakistan or china, or may be to some extent Russia. Such kind of tensed environment really harm the overall business development in this region.

2. No common law binding the region : Companies operating out of EU are often governed by some industry specific law like SEPA and MIFID, while no such common laws exist in the region. Thus with every cross of borders the global MNC have to adjust their policies existing in their region, which may increase their overall expenditure also.

So though Asia do pose as next big market for Developed economies, but its certain that doing business in Asia is not that easy as it look.

Thanks&Regards,
Mohit

Things to watch in Year 2009

Year 2008 ended, the year full of turbulence and events from US Financial meltdown to US Historical Political Elections, also saw the 60 hours gun battle of Indian NSG commandos and terrorists. But the thankfully year 2008 ended. But the aftermath of last year has to bore my current year.

So what are the things to watch in Year 2009.

1. World is watching when Obama will take over the presidency in US, and how his transition team will work to revive the ailing economy and other peace matters.

2. How will India progress itself with its arch rival Pakistan in keeping peace in the subcontinent region?

3. How Pakistan will curb terrorism originating from its soil?

4. World is waiting for the roll out of the world cheapest car, Tata's Nano?

5. How dispute between Israel and Palestine can be resolved?

6. How industry will try to avoid releasing of Greenhouse gases, and reduce the risk of global warming?

7. What measures EU and Japan will take to bring their economies back on track?

8. How US and UN will approach North Korea and Iran to dismantle its Nuclear installations?

9. How will US will handle situation in Iraq and Afghanistan ?


Thanks&Regards,
Mohit