The family 'Dhanvantari'

When I had a health scare recently, I had the fortune to be treated by a young doctor in Kuwait. He saw me at the appointed time, was never rushed, the ambience of his consulting room was simple, he had all the time in the world to lavish on me, which he did with considerable patience. He listened to my history when I met him the first time without once interrupting me and over a period of one and a half months met me many times over, explaining to me exactly what my present condition was, what the future beholds and how he is managing my health. More than the medicines, it was his approach that restored my health. He was a throw back to the old days of Family Physicians who were such an integral part of our life prior to all these superspeciality hospital monsters coming up in 1990's.

The first doctor who comes into mind is Dr. C V Raman, a wizened old doctor in Kalpathy, Palghat who treated a frail young boy racked by dry cough when he was in his secondary school. He was not a MBBS, but had a diploma in medicine. He had his own inhouse pharmacy, where the 'Compounder' mixed various concoctions and poured into a bottle to be given to you. The medicines where wrapped in bits of paper and I suspect, all of them were either a paracetamol or an analgesic. Anyway, they were unbranded. This was in 1970's. I still dont know how effective they were, but his soothing talk and his calm demeanour and the fact that a Doctor has attended to my illness was more than enough for me. I dont remember him ever conducting a blood test or even taking an X-ray. All he used was his Stethescope.

When I entered high school, Dr. C V Raman left the practice for his son Dr.C V K Moorthy, who was US returned. A far better physician than his father, Dr.Moorthy, unfortunately lacked the empathy of his father and just did not connect with me.

I was 15 when we moved to Chittur and that was the beginning of my association with Dr. K K Sudevan. Dr. Sudevan was not only the family doctor, but a family friend to boot. He was just a MBBS and hailed from a humble farming background, although he became a farmer with consierable landholdings later. He had a roaring clinical practice, mainly poor people. He also owned a medical shop adjacent to his clinic where I spent considerable hours assisting in its operations - my first experience of being associated with an organization. Dr. Sudevan was one of the pioneers to understand the commercialization of Medical business. He had a fully integrated set up, with a 8 bed nursing home, a medical shop and later on a clinical lab - all integrated. A very god fearing man, he was so much into Bhagawat Gita that he used to greet people with 'Hari Ohm' instead of the perfunctionary 'Good Morning'. A very conservative doctor, he knew the medical history of the entire family without having to refer to any files. He was a part of our family. He nursed me through my slip disc, my father's first heart attack, my sister's peptic ulcer and my mothers knee pain. One could discuss anything with him and one did. He had all the time in the world and even made house calls when we were too sick to visit his clinic. We could also call him anytime if required.

Once I got a job in HPCL and moved on, the link with the family physician slowly faded away. Dr.Sudevan died relatively young in his early 50's due to a cardiac problem. Perhaps it was the stress of listening and empathising with all those people and their family that killed him - one never knows.

Later on in life the health was managed by high profile doctors in super speciality hospitals, who looked more like corporate honchos than the nice and sweet neighbourhood doctor one prefered to see. But life moves on.

The quality of treatment is definitely better in these Superspeciality hospital, but somehow I miss the emotional bond I had with Dr.C V Raman or Dr. Sudevan. They were genuinely good human beings and took an interest in our welfare. The modern day doctors, I suspect, look upon us as a money making opportunity.

Dr C V Raman and Dr Sudevan were not the greatest of physicians technically, but I will choose their humaneness over technical competence any day in the long run. They were incarnations of 'Dhanwantari'.

It is why the Doctor who treated me in Kuwait was such a welcome change.

Different yardsticks for different people

Two isolated cases but the end result is same. There is one law for the ordinary man and another for the VIPs.

The 1984 Sikh Riot accused and Member of Parliament, Sajjan Kumar has Z+ security, which means that 7-8 policemen have to be with him and the control room has to know where he is all the time. There is a non bailable arrest warrant against him, but CBI has given an affidavit in the Court that 'it cant find him' and wants him to be declared an absconder. Maybe being a Congress politician and VIP means he can get away with murdering sikhs in droves.

An 'eminent' painter had cases slapped against him for hurting the sensibilities of the majority community by painting goddesses in nude. There are court cases against him for the past four years. Whatever be the merits of the case (I am not for a moment talking whether what he did was right or wrong and about artistic freedom. There is a law of the land and it should decide whether what MF Husain did was right or wrong), it was unfair for the Government to allow him to be on self imposed exile in Dubai these past 4 years. The simplest thing will be to impound his passport. Now, adding insult to injury, Qatar has given him citizenship and the Government is promising MF Husain that he will be given all the protection if he were to return to India. No mention of him having to face the courts. My question is, will the government allow such kind of an action if it were you or me?

Gone down the drain.................. for want of analysts

The Chandrayan - the moon mission of india - was initiated by A B Vajpayee, when he was PM and took almost a decade to fructify and cost the country a fortune. Though the project did not complete its mission fully, it did manage to send volumnious data while it worked. Sadly, it seems, Indians dont find any use for this data. Former ISRO chief, Dr.Madhavan Nair has told in an interview that “We have a huge volume of data running into several terrabytes. Indian scientists have to wake up and chew on that". He further stated that 80 Indian universities were approached by ISRO to respond to study grants that would have brought in the data analysis experts, but only four universities responded. “We want to encourage Indian scientists to come forward to work on this, but there is a shortage.” We can guess what will happen. The data will be archived and end up in the dustbin and a few thousand crores goes down the drain, along with it the hard work, sweat and toil of many scientists and engineers. Another dream turned sour due to our complacency.

By the way, why didnt the government 'think' of how to analyze the data in the first place. They had 10 years to plan or did they they think that the mission would never take off???

Business shift during the first decade - 3

Another major shift that has happened during the past decade is the rise in purchasing power of the consumers in the Emerging market. This has resulted in a paradigm shift. At the initial stages of globalization, the MNC's in developed countries beningly looked at emerging economies like the BRIC as a souce of natural resources, cheap labour and inexpensive manufacturing that will reduce the cost of products for the consumers back home. But rising wages, information explosion, greater global travel all led to increased consumption in the Emerging economies. Today, the consumers of emerging economies have become the cynosure of all eyes forcing the self same MNC's to shift their R&D bases to these countries and develop products that are best suited to the needs of the consumers from emerging economies. The learning accrued from that is then transfered back home. The consumers of emerging economies get the first taste of product/process development. The emerging economies no longer have to enter into deals with Firms from developed countries for product import followed by technology transfer. The technology is now developed in country at the destination.

Business shift during the first decade - 2

The decade gone by saw the era of informed customer dawning. Thanks to internet, cable tv, 24x7 news channels, news on desktop and above all Google, the customer can get as much information as he can about any product or organization. Organizations of the past used to exploit the information asymmetry, when they new more than the customer or when they deliberatively kept the customer in the dark. Today, the shoe is on the other foot. Modern day customer knows more about a company's product than the company itself, for he scours the internet discussion forums and reviews prior to making the buying decision - and the Company just doesnt have the organizational capability to track all the positive and negative reports that are available on the internet and develop the appropriate strategy. This has ensured higher quality, better processes and innovative marketing strategies, all of which augurs well for the customer. Companies are developing strategies to listen to the customers through rating scales, opinion polls, limited customization through the Web. One advantage the Companies have in conducting these research is that they are cheap to execute as putting up a poll on the website hardly costs anything to the firm. Inexpensive feedback is a goldmine.

Business shift during the first decade - 1

A decade into the millenium, it is the right time to have a look at some of the management concepts that have come into prominence post millenium.

The primary shift has been towards maximizing shareholders return and increasing the market capitalization at the expense of everything else. Of course, business has always concentrated on increasing value for the shareholder. But this was not the SOLE priority as it is now. Shorter business cycles, still shorter product life cycles can be attributed to this shift. Executives are paid to take more risks to maximize short term returns and for that they were paid huge bonuses, and damn the consequences. No cautionary word as to the impact this will have on the long term sustainability of the business. Government actively supported this, for a buoyant stock market gave them a false sense of economic security. This attitudinal change led to the Global Financial Crisis towards the end of the decade, but no lessons have been learned. The risk takers are lying low for now, till the situation improves when they will be back with a bang, for the model works well in the short term for all concerned - shareholders, executives and the government and who cares about the long term consequences? ............ to be continued

Kasparov - Man vs Machine

He was the unquestioned king of chess - perhaps the greatest chess player ever, till he decided to quit the sport and dabble in Russian Politics, where he failed. But Garry Kasparovs mind is as sharp as ever. His well articulated article on Man vs Machine controversy in Chess is worth reading. Here is the link,

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23592

A take on economy

Indian Economy is not as comfortable as many make it out to be. 6 years of Congress rule has led to inefficient social sector spending, yo-yo policies on disinvestment, burgeoning subsidies, tinkering with administered prices, spirallying fiscal deficit and lack of fiscal discipline, knee jerk monetary policies, high inflation and we have a situation which is not quite unlike 1991 when the economy was in shambles. Only saving grace is the 7% GDP growth and the comfortable Foreign Exchange Reserves. A latest UN report has revealed that an additional 34 million people in India went BELOW the poverty line in 2009 as compared to 2008. In a country of 1.1 billion people nearly 408 million people are believed to be below the poverty line, which is about 37%. And remember, the cut off point is $ 1.25 earnings per day which amounts to Rs 60. And we know what one can or cannot do with Rs 60 in India of today. There has been a hue and cry to raise the cut off point to $ 2, that would have raised the number of people below poverty line to nearly 48%. Two decades of reforms and growth has not made life easier for the poor. In fact they are worse off.

The root cause of the economic crisis in 1991 was attributed by the then Finance Minister to 'large and persistent macroeconomic imbalances and the low productivity of investment, in particular the poor rates of return on past investments. There has been an unsustainable increase in government expenditure. Budgetary subsidies, with questionable social and economic impact, have been allowed to grow to an alarming extent.' The then FM is the PM now, and the wheel has come a full circle. All the problems mentioned above which were tackled to some extend during the first decade and a half of reforms have returned with a vengeance due to vote bank politics played by Congress.

As a nation we need to improve our ROI, but we first we need to cut waste to make surplus that can be channeled for funding growth related investment. The delivery system is leaking and leaking bad. Till we, as a nation, show a collective will in building the nation by taking on the core issues of fiscal discipline, waste reduction, corruption, quality of work, purity of intentions, an understanding that the poor do not need doles but employment that allows them to lead a decent life with dignity - I am afraid we will still be having all these problems a decade or two from now. Problems cannot be wished away. They need to be faced and solved with an iron will. For that , we need a leader with a vision.

low level of blogging this week

blogging will be a bit slow this week due to personal reasons. shall be back here soon.

Chanakya gems applicable to business

Some of Chanakya's philosophy can be adopted while preparing Business Strategy.

If your Competitor is strong, then enter into a joint venture/collaborate with him. This will ensure that he becomes a stakeholder in your business apart from giving you an opportunity to study his business practices closely.

If the Competition is weak, do not associate in any way. It will end up in a lose-win situation.

Chanakya says unheated metals do not join together. This is applicable in the case of Mergers & Acquisitions. A proper climate has to be created (akin to heating the metal) in both the organizations prior to commencing the M&A talks.

Attack your competition only when you are sure they cannot retaliate and that they are weak. And never ever fight with someone equal to you, because when equals fight, both will perish.

No respite in sight for the common man

The Indian Economy is heading for troubled waters.This despite the Governments claim to the contrary. The slowdown of the reforms process and increased social sector spending done during the first term of UPA government is coming back to haunt the Government. Wasteful programs like NREGS (despite its limited success) and the defered farm loan waver scheme will have to be funded for. The increased expenditure on revised pay commission will hit the already strained finances further. Add to this the rising inflation, poor food grains production and we have a real crisis.

The alarminrg inflation, caused due to poor rains and dismal foodgrains management, has forced the RBI to tighten its monetary policy as evident in the increase of CRR recently. RBI has hit the panic button of late at the first sign of inflation and there is nothing to indicate they wont continue to do so in 2010. With the Governmnet set to increase the fuel prices at any time, the Consumer Price based inflation, which is already at a whopping 16% is likely to go north.

The Government headed by 'noted' economists like Manmohan Singh or Ahluwalia has adopted an ostrich like policy of burying their head in sand, wishing that the crisis will go away. This is a death wish.

There is no respite in sight for the common man.

An exciting prospect

iPad looks interesting. I see visions of my personal library becoming obsolete. I can visualize all my favourite books stored in iPad that I can carry anywhere. The prospect is mind boggling.

I still feel iPad is a few years ahead of its time. Poorer bandwidth across the globe might hamper us realizing the full potential of iPad. But the publishing industry must be heaving a sigh of relief. This industry has been hit by lack of readership, higher input costs and coslier distribution expenses. In one shot, the digitalized books that can be loaded to iPad will solve all the above problems.Of course one thing they cannot change is the unwillingness of the people to read in depth. This is an attitude change, but attractive multimedia books may make customers revert to reading. Another interesting possibility is embedding videos or podcasts into books that can be loaded to iPad.

I see the future now and eagerly look forward to it.