Product Strategy for the second decade of the millenium

Prior to the Japanese flooding the market with electronic goods in the 1970's and 1980's, consumers world over looked for durability and value for money while making purchases, of electronic goods in particular and other products in general. The marketing mantra was to provide technically durable products that were durable, relatively expensive, once or twice in a life time purchase (a radio was expected to last a life time, ditto a watch. Father bought a HMT watch for my brother, who is 8 years elder to me, in 1971 on his passing the 10th standard. This was passed down to me, and I wore it till mid 1990's!!!) and more important repairable. It was sufficient for the product to perform adequately.

The Japanese changed all these. It was also partly due to technological advances in the field of electronics and later on digitalization. Masters in the art of miniaturizing, the Japanese went ahead with the concept of focusing on high performance, quality, and less and less on durability. This had its roots in their culture and the terrain they live in, which is seismologically extremely unstable. The Japanese never wants anything to last a life time, for they are not sure when the next earth quake will strike. What they want is to enjoy high performance while it lasts, before the next quake hits them. But their emphasis on quality and performance meant that the products were technologically and performance wise far superior to those of the Western Competitors', albeit expensive. The product life cycles were also much shorter. More importantly, they were more keen on the customer replacing the product with a new one, than getting it repaired in the event of a malfunction. But these products were at least repairable.  Most products lasted 3-4 years at best. Thus, the products did not just have the high initial cost, but also had high usage per day cost, for it depreciated very fast. This was not a sustainable model, as the Japanese found out soon.

While Japanese focused on the differentiation strategy, the Chinese quickly found the achilles heel of the Japanese - the customers seething dissatisfaction as to having to pay a high usage per day cost. Using their competitive advantage of cheap labour and government controlled capital, the Chinese flooded the market with products that does work adequately, but is ridiculously cheap. They took away the concept of repair and mainternance totally out of the equation, and encouraged customers to go in for newer, cheaper, not necessarily better products every 6 months or one year, and discard it once it is used. Customer's fed up with having to pay a high price for the Japanese products, found the low usage cost per day concept very appealing, which led to high levels of initial purchase. But what about repeat purchase? This is one area which the Chinese ignored, much to their peril. Most customers of the Chinese products were one time customers, who never returned to make the repurchase, forcing them to seek out new customers as a strategy, which is very expensive as compared to retention of customers. Add to this the cost of customer dissatisfaction, and we are reaching an era of customers totally shunning chinese products. And as Nirma found out in their battle with Surf, once  you get the tag of a low priced, low quality product, it is extremely difficult to change the perception even if you come out with a high quality version. Chinese will struggle in this decade to maintain their market share, as customers will turn their face away from them.

So what is the alternative? It could be a combination of good quality, reasonable price, slightly longer product life cycle and less rapid technological changes. I suspect customers are getting tired of adjustments they have to make with rapid technological changes that lead to newer gadgets at very frequent intervals. What they would like is for a relatively frill-less product, sans unwanted features (most gadgets have features which one never uses! just go to the menu of your mobile, list down all the features you see there in a piece of paper, tick all those you have used during the past one month. I just did, and the % was less than 10!!!) which will bring the cost down, but retains the quality of the main features. Better,efficient functioning of the core functions at affordable prices with the manufacturer taking a reasonable margin will be the way forward. The add ons can be made optional and at a price.

Still skeptical? Type http://www.google.com/ and see what I mean. The home page is totally uncluttered, and it does its core function - searching - very very efficiently. Ditto with gmail or gtalk or for that matter most google products. And no one can deny that Google is very successful, both technically and commercially!

Of criticisms and meaningful debate

Problem with Indian Education System, which in turn defines the culture of the country, is its inability to introspect or to accept well meaning criticism. This is not limited to Education sector, but is almost a national trait. When one doesn't view criticism positively and introspect, one falls into the trap of mediocrity. And the negative reaction to criticism stifles intellectual debate, that can open the doors to new avenues.

Debate about the shortcomings of the existing system, and about future directions is a mark of a healthy society. We, as a nation, have become so immune to any comment that is even minutely critical. And to make the matters worse, there is section of the intelligentia and the media that rams down the throat of the nation their views on what is right, which is mainly status quo.

India gave a list of 50 wanted terrorists to Pakistan, but some of them are found to be residing in India. This embarassment should have led to a thorough debate on the effectiveness of the co-ordination amongst various intelligence organizations. Something good would have come out of it. Instead, the Home Ministry treated the matter with utmost disdain, and even refused accept the blame for the goof up. If you dont have the heart to accept your mistakes, you will never improve.

(I was fortunate to be brought up by a father who encouraged criticism. I had the right to call him an idiot. He will look at me sternly and say "Fine. Now either prove it or withdraw your statement", which means I have to defend my criticism of him. This led to two things. On the one hand, I was not restrained from criticising something which I felt need to be criticised, but on the other hand, I know I cannot get away by making wild criticisms or allegations (as Rahul Gandhi made in UP the other day) without backing it up. And he was a fair man. If he finds merit in my criticism, he will sit down and correct himself, though he will sulk for a couple of days. That was more out of vanity, for he was a proud man

It is why it is so sad that the Central Minister Jayaram Ramesh's remarks about the quality of IIT and IIM staff was met with so much derision by the academic circle. There is much merit in JR's remarks. Our top Engineering and Management faculty need to contribute much more in basic research and not just be satisfied with imparting their knowledge alone. They should look for new frontiers and in turn should inspire their students to have more social awareness and to find workable solutions to nations problems

Project Ass Kicking

There is an apocryphal (meaning 'unauthenticated') story about how the Bureaucrats in the Defence Ministry in Delhi sat on requests for Defence personnels personal equipments and accessories needed to survive in Kargil. When the new Defence Minister tood charge ( if my memory serves me correctly, it was George Fernandez), he was quietly seething about this delay, and promptly arranged a Kargil trip to the non performing bureaucrats, comfortably sitting in Delhis A/C offices. On their return from Kargil, where even breathing in the cold high altitude climate is a torture, the files were cleared lighting fast.

I was reminded of this story when I heard the laughable parameters set by the apex body Planning Commission of India to describe those who are poor.

According to the Planning Commission, any family earning Rs 20 or below in the urban areas, or Rs 15 or below in the Rural Areas only can be construed to be Below the Poverty Line!!!. If urban family earns Rs 21 or the rural family earns Rs 16 per day, then they cease to get the benefit that accrues the BPL families.

This when the UN is talking about setting the cut off for poverty as $ 2 per day or Rs 90 approx., per person!

All I can recommend is to kick Montek Singh Ahulwalia and his team, who dreamed up the new definition of poverty, to the street and ask them, with their family, to live for a month on Rs 20 per day in Delhi. When they come back, the poor will get the justice they deserve. Sometimes simple direct action makes a huge difference.

I am more than willing to finance this project ass kicking.

Who wants an enemy when we have ministers and politicians like these!

I would have laughed out loud if it were not such a serious issue.

India, with great 'care', and after 'much due diligence' and with much fanfare hands over a list of 50 most wanted terrorists who are supposed to be hiding in Pakistan, to the Pakistan Government. Then cries hoarse that Pakistan is not doing anything about it.

Now, it has come to light that at least 2 in that list is in our own country, one running a shop in Mumbai and other, hold your breath, already behind the bars, arrested by the very same agency that prepared the list !!

Pakistan has always pooh poohed our dossiers, claiming they are figments of imagination. Now, they dont even have to be defensive about it. Everytime we open our mouth on the wanted criminals being sheltered in Pakistan, they will ask us, with s snigger, to look in our own backyards.

The tragedy is that no one at the Home Ministry or External Affairs ministry feels he is responsible for this. This is being passed off as an insignificant issue. Well, the nation losing its moral advantage over Pakistan and losing face internationally is indeed insignificant for our Congressmen.

The other joke is that while the number 1 in the list is Dawood Ibrahim, his brother, a noted don, is merrily roaming around in Mumbai, as witnessed by him being shot at by other gang members recently. Surely, we can arrest him and send him to Tihar jail?

The role of Indians in the 26/11 mumbai attack was never investigated thoroughly. We are adopting an ostrich liky policy to terrorism. Blaming Pakistan is easy, but we do have home grown terror cells. Kerala is the breeding ground for many such. But there the Congress is in power with the Muslim League, which harbours many of these criminals.

God help our country from our own people.

Who wants an enemy when we have ministers and politicians like the UPA, Congress and Muslim League Ministers?

Interesting times ahead

Our 'Clown Prince' made a bizarre claim after going to Noida to empathise with the farmers. He took pictures of a heap of ashes and claimed that 70 farmers were burned by the Police. Further, he claimed that many women were raped. He gave the pictures to the media and took it up even with the Prime Minister as a proof against Mayawati Government's atrocities. Now it appears that there were no traces of human bones or flesh in the ashes, and no women has been raped. The hugely emabarassed Clown prince has gone underground, and his apologists have been trotting out the excuse that he has been 'misled' by his team. Some farmers loose talk was taken as gospels truth by the PM in waiting and tom tomed.

The whispers have been going around for quite a while that the 'Clown' Prince is not well endowed in the portion above the neck and is frankly deficient. And the rich little poor guy, who only wanted to have a good time with his South American girl friend and never too keen on doing a days hard work is finding out that he is inadequate. His father was sincere, but naive. The son is plain dumb. I dread to think what will happen to India if he were ever to become the PM. We have suffered enough with the ineffectual MMS for the last half a decade, and we deserve better.

The signs of Congress not coming back to power in 2014 is good as of now. With  Congress likely to get a drubbing in UP and AP, and having made a mess of Karnataka, lost its base and ally in TN, in power by the narrowest of margins in Kerala, which means they will have less number of MPs in the next election, and opposition in power in most of the States, there is a good chance that they will be reduced to double digits in the next Lok Sabha. Before that they will be in serious trouble in the Rajya Sabha, where they will be in a minority.

Who will be the next PM of India? It looks more and more like one of the Regional Party head will lead the country with BJP support - most likely Nitish Kumar or even Jayalalitha, unless Narendra Modi decides to enter the National stage, which doesnt look likely at this stage. And this alliance may get the support of Mamata Banerjee or a resurgent Left (Mamata will make a mess of West Bengal as she has done with the Railways Ministry. Her track record as a minister is poor. She just do not possess the administrative skill of someone like Jayalalitha. In such a scenario, the people of West Bengal will revert back to the Left) or even Mayawati (who is sure to retain UP and become much stronger).

The next few years will see lot of realignment of forces in the country and could be quite interesting.

Business - Government vs the Landholder

Globalization has not helped the Indian poor. This is evident from empirical data. In fact the concept of Globalization is being questioned after the economic meltdown in 2008. Even the champions of Globalization, the US and the rich EU countries, are looking inwards and tending to adopt protectionist policies. The Indian economy has been taken over by the big business, who in cohort with the Government, has looted the country and hit at the poor on the only thing they possess - land. What is happening in India is land grabbing of the first order. This is organized crime at its best. I fail to understand why Government should acquire land for billion dollor worth businessmen at a pittance. Government is not a real estate broker. These businessmen dont blink when they have to buy multi million dollar machinery from abroad or even million dollar yachts and private jets. But when it comes to paying market price for the land they want from the poor, they start talking about social benefits and run to the governments aid. The businessmen should negotiate directly with the landlords, agree to a price which could and should be above the market price. When the industrialists acquire a company, they do a valuation which is based on Discounted Cash Flow, taking the future cashflows in to account, and a premium over DCF. They should adopt a similar approach when they buy land. The land might be a factor input for the industrialist, but for the agriculturalist it is a recurring revenue generating asset, much like a business is to a businessman.

We need to have a national debate on the structure of the economy we should adopt. While we need industrialization, we have a problem of insufficient land to further this dream. We missed the bus on industrialization 3 decades ago. Maybe we should look at investing in LDCs, export raw materials from India along with technical labour and have the LDC as a manufacturing base. As long as we stick to the whole excercise in the realms of business, we wont be accused of colonisation. But we are not even thinking about alternate options of economic development. And therein lies the failure of our policy makers.

A Take on Assembly Elections

The results of this round of Assembly elections, and the previous ones clearly indicate that the average voter is demanding Governance and accountability. While they accept a certain level of corruption, they are not prepared to accept those who loot the country.

The latest round of election results was a test case for the Congress and the UPA. The left secular brigade of the Congress has been brainwashing Sonia and Rahul (or the other way around), that the way to win elections is to indulge in populism, giving freebies and not to bother about development. This was the mantra used by Indira Gandhi to great effect in 1970s. But 2011 is not 1970. TV, Internet and Mobile has empowered the people with information. They are hearing and seeing how good the governance in other parts of the Country and compare it with theirs. If freebies can win election, DMK should have won hands down,because frankly they have really masterd the art of giving free color TVs, LPG Stoves, rice at Rs 2 etc and 100% of the people have availed this. But still they got routed.

Many attribute corruption and bad governance to DMKs rout. This is a convenient explanation and may not be true. While no one can deny that there was a mood against the DMK, the inherent Vote Share of the AIADMK front was higher to start with, with AIADMK having 32% and DMDK of Vijayakanth 10%. As against this the Congress vote share claim of 10% was an exaggeration. It was more like 5%. With DMKs 35 % core votes, cumulatively they were always playing catch up. This is what happened to NDA in 2004 and why UPA won in 2009. The alliance vote share was higher. The only debatable point is that the DMK-Congress front did not get any of the marginal votes - votes that are not normally dedicated to either parties.

In Kerala, CPM must be wondering 'if only we had not had the infighing between the CM and the Party'. The issues took up by VS Achuthanandan struck a chord in the minds of the people. It was dear to their hearts. VS is an old communist - a dying breed that understood the aspirations of the common man and the poor. Unlike Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, Pinarai Vijayan coterie, VS knows what people want and they see in him a leader who is willing to fight their battle. He did it when he was in the opposition and when he was a CM, but was shackled by the party. The LDF had done sterling development work that targetted the poorer 40% of the society - a category that is often neglected and paid lip service by the national parties. But still LDF lost because people expected /demanded more development. But there is no disgrace in this defeat.

For Congress, these results are a huge set back. In Calcutta, Mamata dont need them any more. Nor is she keen on continuing in the centre,as she doesnt want another power centre in the Trinamool in Delhi. She will pull out at the first opportunity. DMK wanted Congress in TN as they were depending on the outside support of Congress in the State. This is not true anymore. If Congress continue to humiliate DMK and fail to protect Kanimozhi or Rajathi Ammal from the law, then they will see no benefit in continuing at the Centre. Kerala has shown that people are not enthused by Congress and Jagan smashed them in AP. Even in Karnataka, they lost all the 3 bye elections to the beleagured Yeduriappa. With Manmohans image in tatters, and Rahul Gandhi proving to be more of a liability (all the cadidates he chose personally and campaigned for lost spectacularly in Kerala and TN) this could be the beginning of the end for Congress.

Dont follow advice,traditions blindly...................

I had blogged about how one should acquire knowledge.

Achaaryaath paadam aadatthe

Paadam sishya swamedhayaa

Paadam sa brahmachaaribhya

Sesham kaala kramena cha

This is from smruthies. A loose translation is as follows,

A person can get one quarter of knowledge from Achaarya – the teacher, Another quarter by analyzing self,

One quarter by discussing with others and the last quarter during the process of living by method -addition, deletion, correction, and modification of already known aachaaraas or new aachaaraas.

Aacharaas have to be followed based on their merits available from self experience. One should not follow an aacharaa just because a teacher or elder taught you without giving a reason for it.

I have seen numerous cases of people blindly following a tradition or aachara or belief just because they were told to by elders and they never questioned why it has to be done. 

I still recall many in Tamil Nadu not venturing out to do anything on Ashtami and Navami without ever knowing why. I have seen people look at the watch to move to exactly 9 am on Monday so that they can leave the house as the inauspicious Rahukalam (7.30 -9 am on Mondays) gets over by then, without realizing the rider -Rahukalam 7.30-9 am is applicable only when the day has 12 hours, sun rises at 6 am and sets at 6 pm. The actual Rahukalam has to be adjusted pro rata depending on the actual time of sun rise and the number of hours in a day. For example, if the sun rises at 6.30 am and sets at 5.30 pm (as can happen during winter), then the Rahukalam for monday will be from 7.52 am - 9.14 am!!!

So dont follow advice, traditions blindly. Find out the real reasons and meaning of each tradition/aacharas by questioning, form your own opinion and then act accordingly.

What is in the news................................

"We did not invite Osama to Pak": Gilani - Nope. (You didn't invite Osama, but when he came uninvited, you offered him food, shelter, assistance and everything else!!)

The Supreme Court on Monday put a stay on the Allahabad high court order partitioning the disputed land in Ayodhya into three parts. The SC said it was "something strange" on the Allahabad high court's part to order partitioning of the disputed land at Ayodhya as no party had sought it. The partition of disputed land has "opened a litany of litigation", it said.- (Predictable. SC wants the issue to prolong for another three decades. Rightly or wrongly, Allahabad HC gave a verdict that was accepted by a tense country. The judgement may be legally not strong, but had lot of commonsense. But then commonsense and our legal system are quite divorced. Let the drama continue and country burn for another 30 years)


"We are playing together for Mumbai. He is a great guy and is enjoying his moment," Harbhajan said about  Symonds. When Harbhajan was asked about the newspaper report, he said, "We have always been friends. Thanks to all of you (media) for making it such a big news."- ( Birds of a feather ............... or is it 'Monkeys' (oops sorry Ma........ki..) of the same type flocking together?)

Rendamoozham

I was pleasantly surprised to read the news that the wonderful malayalam book 'Rendam Oozaham' written by the much respected M T Vasudevan Nair in 1983 is being made into a film.

It has been one of the books that has had a profound influence on my thinking. I was in the final year of my Under Graduation program, when the book hit the stands, and was an immediate best seller.

The book is about the Bheeman, the second of the Pandavas. The narration is a different take on Maharbharatha, as seen through the eyes of Bheema, who, as fate would have it, had to play second fiddle throughout his life - and hence the title ' Rendam oozham' or Second Turn.

Bheema was second in the line to become the King, but was under the shadow of Yudhishtira, considered to be the upholder of Dharma. Bheema was not less intelligent, but Yudhishtira always treated him as good only for physical valour, but deficient in thinking, much to Bheemas chagrin. Likewise he loses out to Arjuna in his quest to get Panchalis affection, who was married to all the 5 brothers. Panchali always resented Bheema, looked up at him as uncouth but prefered Arjuna. Bheemas valour knows no bounds, but it is always Arjuna who gets the credit. Thus throughout his life, Bheema came second best - An amazing take on the great epic.

But what impressed me most was the demystifying of the Mahabharatha by giving logical explanation to many events and acts considered superhuman. Thus we  have the spear given to Karna by Lord Indra, as a quid pro quo for removing his kavacha and kundala with a proviso that it can be used only once, depicted as a spear that can be launched from a mechanical gadget on a one time basis, but that cannot be refitted with another spear. Logical explanations such as this, helped me and people of my genre to get explanations for the unexplainable in the epic. The book made us think out of the box. The brilliant drawings of Artist Namboothiri depicting the various characters added to the enjoyment of the book.

And the reader would share the anguish of the Second best, as we all could identify with Bheeman, for we had been second best many a time in our life.

Rendam Oozham gave a more humane and plausible view of Mahabharatha and for that I am thankful to MT, a writer whom I admire.

Now let us await the film, which is likely to be multilingual, thus benefitting even the audience in other parts of the world.

'Deflated' Air India

The reason for Government entering a business mainly has to do with either disinterest and lack of investing capacity of the private sector, or to serve a social cause to make available essential commodities/services to the poor. And the Government makes the investment using tax payer's money.

By that account, Indian Government has no business continuing to run Air India. The Airline is a disaster, a monument to mismanagement, hated by all Indians, whome it is supposed to serve, for poor service and discriminatory treatment, and a drain on exchequer. Today, the Private Sector is more than willing to invest in the ever growing air traffic sector, and the sector anyway do not come under the category of essential commodities/services that benefit the poor. Only the upper middle class, rich, business people, governmnet servants, politicians and airline staff and family use the flights, and of course the tourists and NRIs.

Talking of Airline Staff, one fails to understand why the Airline allows this nonsense,

According to Air India, an employee’s family, entitled to travel free with him/her, includes: spouse, children, step-children, parents, brothers, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law and even grandchildren up to 12 years. Even those who have retired are entitled to passages.This has led to a situation where former Air India employees, currently employed with private airlines, avail passages on Air India!!!!

This benefit to employees who are paid one of the highest emoluments in the Country!!. This is the same Government that baulks at releasing the overflowing food grains to the needy poor, despite an instruction from the Supreme Court to do so. The privileges are not the only reason why the Airline is in trouble. Ministerial interference, poor planning of routes to favour private airlines, sheer incompetent management, horrible attitude of the employees and absolute lack of customer care are some of the others. The Airline is in red by about Rs 18,000 crores and at the rate they are losing money, all the money recovered from the 2G scam may be required to bail them out. Even then, the Airline may not turn the corner.