Inauguration of the new batch of MBA....my welcome speech.

Good morning Ms.Asma Sulthana, Smt.Archana Surana ji, Dr Appaniah, my colleagues, new students, and their parents, welcome. On behalf of the faculty and staff, and your senior students, I warmly welcome the new students to Surana College. To Asma I must say welcome back, since she is an alumna.

As many of you are aware Surana College is a twenty year old college, with this centre being established 15 years ago. We were established and are managed by GDA foundation which was started by visionary businessman Sri G.C.Surana.

I want to reassure all the new students and their parents, that you have made the right choice of college for your post graduate studies. I am confident you will learn a lot here and enjoy your stay here.

There are two aspects that I want to share with all of you. First some orientation to post graduate studies and second a few important rules.

Doing a post graduate program is different from doing an undergraduate program in many ways. The two most important things are, it is mostly about your learning by yourself and secondly, the final examination has two parts one your university examination and the more important one of securing a future in the real world. The world of careers and independent thinking is quite different from the academic world you have lived in all these years. A PG course is a gateway to a career and it is important to understand the other side well.

The main purpose in attending a college is to develop to the maximum in two or three years. For the next two or three years, you will hone your skills and gain knowledge. College will be different, will create uncertainties, and offer new ways of relating to one another and offer opportunities to make your choices. No one will say write this down or wake up on time, you will be on your own and there are many opportunities to learn, it is up to you how you use it.

There are many other differences in a post graduate program and we hope you will learn about them quickly. For example how time is spent in the classroom. Greater involvement of the learner is required, greater preparation before the class is needed if it has to be meaningful class, more discussion and participation is required, there is generally more group work and it is all about independent learning without anyone telling you to learn.

Another example is the workload. Workload might not increase compared to school, however it will be different. Greater depth will be needed, more analysis and critical thinking is expected, and your original thinking and way of looking at an issue will be valuable to everyone. There are differences in group work, study habits required and even family expectations. I am not trying to scare you, all I am saying is you will need to adapt to learning on your own.

I am sure you all know that much more than knowledge attitude is what makes successful people succeed. Research indicates that people can have either a fixed mindset or a growth mind set. Those with fixed mindset believe that you are what you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you have to do something different. On the other hand those with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. Those with growth mindset love challenges and see them as opportunities to learn something new. They will put in the effort and expect to succeed. We should all have a growth mindset and work with passion. We must do something rather than complaining all the time. We need to be flexible and trust in our selves.

We must have a growth mindset of believing that we can improve with effort.

Please come to college not only to listen to some lectures, but to meet and understand new friends, discuss and work in teams, make decisions, create and take part in events, and think about the various things you are exposed to and learn on your own.

Now very quickly, important rules and suggestions, In some ways we are a conservative college, while we encourage our students in a variety of curricular, co-curricular and extra- curricular activities, discipline is important here. Attendance is expected and essential. Dress code is important.

We are in a multi-storied building and one thousand of us use this building everyday. We need to be concerned about others. Less noise, quick use of limited canteen space, being in class on time, small things will make life comfortable for everyone. At Surana College we have strict policies about ragging and sexual harassment of any kind. If at any time you feel the slightest discomfort, please contact your faculty or me immediately. We have never had any issue till date and this is a really peaceful college. You should be relaxed and comfortable to learn and we want to give you that environment. Finally if you have any doubts about rules and regulations please ask and don’t assume.

My request to the parents; Please drop in regularly and help the student by giving them enough time and space to study.

To the students I will say, be happy, have fun and learn as much as possible from everyone.

Welcome once again.

Employability of Management graduates with degrees from Indian Public Universities.....The system is the first challenge

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/493499/making-management-graduates-employable.html

Does being in a 'Market' where similar products are sold add value to the retailer or increase the intensity of competition?

The operative word is 'similar' which is very different from 'same'. A market place which offers a wider range of options to satisfy the same need among customers attracts a greater number of customers. Greater footfall obviously means greater potential for sales. A good example is the eat street

 near Sajjan Rao circle, Bangalore . Tucked behind the iconic VB Bakery, the market offers a infinite  variety of snacks. Historically the market grew out of a need for the local residents consisting of members of the arya vysya community who were the main residents of the area. This community loves vegetarian fried food and south Indian snacks and how communities have stereotypical food choices is a good subject for another post! Today a number of colleges in the vicinity and foodies from all parts of Bangalore ( and there are a very large number of them!) now frequent this short stretch of a narrow street. Business is brisk only in the evening.

After the VB Bakery came the shops targetted at the vysya community selling favourites from pakkampappu, green gram dhall chaat and  paadu. Among the early entrepreneurs was Murugan of Arya Vysya Tiffins ( pics below), the american sweet corn push cart, followed by a a large number of shops that offer every snack from gulkand butter, holige, akki roti, a number of types of idlis and dosas, fruits, icecreams.....you imagine and it is most likely there.

A market has grown from one outlet to many that similar products. While there is a competition, the market size has grown manifold. For the consumer,  Maximum choice is a wonderful thing...or is it?

My interview in the Indian Express!! :)

http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/edex/MBA-Demystified/2015/03/30/article2731643.ece


Your comments/ suggestions /feedback will be very valuable

Leadership – Multifarious dimensions and paradigms!

In business literature ‘leadership’ has always been an important topic considering that, it is what leadership envisions that the organization delivers. In recent times there have been many ways that ‘leadership’ has been looked at or defined, making the qualities or traits of a leader, both complex and a really long list.

 In ‘Your company’s history as a leadership tool’ by John T Seaman Jr& David Smith, the authors suggest that because shared history is central to group identity, past experiences can be used to unite and inspire people especially during challenging times. The leader is expected to have a sophisticated understanding of the past to take the organization into the future.I wonder if it is a contradictory argument, however, GautamMukunda proves with his research that ‘The best leaders tend to be outsiders who don’t have a great deal of experience’. His reference ‘outsiders’ and ‘experience’ refer to the organization. Many would suggest that leaders having a great visioning ability would be of great value and surely someone like Ramcharan would suggest that a grip on ‘execution’ would be really necessary not just useful.

The paradigm from which one views leadership characterizes the meaning of the term. From leading people, leading organizational thought, to leading a situation, there are many ways at looking at leadership. Taking control of the situation rather than letting the situation take control of you is one way of looking at leadership. VinayNadigauthor of the book ‘Leadership IS for everyone’ offers many tips and tools for situational leadership.

To prove the title of this article, I picked a few recent issues of the illustrious Harvard Business Review and looked for articles which had the expression ‘leadership’ or ‘leader’ in the title. Types of leaders, qualities of a leader, tools for leaders are the most common genre of articles, with ‘what is leadership?’ making an intermittent appearance.

Leadership Qualities

DanialGoleman’s 1998 article ‘What makes a leader?’ discussed that apart from other things, leaders need to have ‘emotional intelligence’, not surprising from DanialGoleman, who in his famous book uses the Sanskritword ‘samaskara’ which brings up another issue; whether leadership can be inherited with requisite brain wiring, this issue is good for another piece.

Steve Jobs was a leader who really pushed his people to their limits. His other ‘leadership’ qualities of Focus, simplify, take responsibility for end to end, Bend reality, engage face to face, combine the humanities with the sciences, and the famous stay hungry, stay foolish have all been elaborated by Walter Isaacson in his article ‘The real leadership lessons of Steve Jobs’.

The title of one column by Reymond Edwin MabusJr in the HBR is ‘To lead, you must focus’, He describes the need for leaders to narrow focus the organizations unique strength and role (Vision – my understanding). ‘Focus’ is also the bedrock of Daniel Goleman’s article ‘the focused leader’; however he identifies oneself, others and the wider world as three buckets for focus.

A skills/situations matrix for a business leader would really be quite complex. ‘Strategic Leadership: the essential skills’ by Paul.J.H. Schoemaker, Steve Krupp, and Samantha Howland, identifies anticipate, Challenge, interpret, decide, align and learn as key strategic leadership skills.

Types of leaders

Leadership style is not a function of personality, it is a strategic choice is the belief that Daniel Goleman shares in his article ‘Leadership that gets results’ which classifies leadership styles based on the extant of each of the emotional intelligence competencies needed for the situation. The coercive style, authoritative style, affiliative style, democratic style, pacesetting style, and the coaching style are different styles identified by Goleman.

In a HBR blogpost from Dec 2013 Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries writes about the eight archetypes of leadership and discusses the strategist, change-catalyst, transactor (deal maker), builder, innovator, processor (efficiency!), coach, and communicator.Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries has also written about ‘Coaching the toxic leader’. This type of leader has ruined organizations and was difficult to identify or tame in the past, thankfully today’s organizations are easily able to identify such leaders more easily.

Nick Lovegrove and Mathew Thomas in ‘Triple –Strength leadership’ discuss leaders who are able move easily among business, government and social spheres. The authors are convinced that a leader who is able to bridge the chasm between these sectors is better suited to solve large scale problems which generally encompass all these sectors. ‘Blue Ocean leadership’ by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, is not about values and qualities a good leader should have, it is about actions and activities leaders need to focus on in the particular organizational context.

Today organizations are faced with a great poverty of values. In India, a combination of the questionable undue focus on ‘market capitalization’ and the new social order of degrading morals and values, begs for ‘Authentic leadership’ more than anything else. While this was first popularised by a book by this title written by Bill George in 2003 and is the kind of leadership that is most needed, not much has been written about it in recent years, some buzz words just take a back seat even if they are towering concepts that need to be celebrated and spread every day. With the general battering ‘values’ are getting in society, authenticity is a difficult discussion. Beyond authentic leadership is ‘spiritual leadership’ which is a concept that is creating some buzz.

In NarendraModi’s famous Madison Square address he explicitly said that people repeatedly ask him for a grand vision for India and he confesses that having been a street tea vendor, he has only tasks to do and not any grand vision. This received great applause from the audience and received positive critical acclaim.

Leadership thankfully offers great diversity and offers great opportunity for creativity and being the ‘real’ oneself.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-opportunities/what-does-it-take-to-lead/article6806748.ece

Talk - Survival and Growth of Indian Retailers despite FDI

Strategies for Survival and Growth despite the entry of large foreign retailers

“Conventional retailers, especially those that are mid-sized, will be squeezed from all sides; from larger players with better economies of scale, from smaller players with more focused selection or a greater emphasis on convenience; from electronic retailers that have few physical assets but are rich in information, and from entertainment and education oriented players that offer a more vibrant consumer experience.”

Jagdish Sheth with Rajendra.S.Sisodia - “Changing Face of Retailing” Financial Times – series on Managing Marketing – Oct 19, 1998.

To survive and grow Indian retailers will need to be smart small players who will offer greater convenience, entertainment and interesting products.

The size of the retail market is forecasted to grow from rupees 23 lakh crores in 2011-12 to 47 lakh crores in 2016-17 according to an ASSOCHEM survey. We are a nation of shopkeepers with 11 shops for every 1000 people, 97% of the number of stores in the unorganized sector. Retailing has been growing at a hectic pace thanks to continuing urbanization, growing middle class, and macro-economic growth

We must first examine if it is possible to have a strategy for growth when large international retailers are capable of bringing in large investments in the form of foreign direct investments. In my view, even if FDI is allowed in multibrand retail, not all Indian retailers will shut their shops.

Going back to the very basics of strategy development, we need to look at the environment, the industry and the various firms in it, apart from the opportunity available in the market. When we examine the retail industry from the point of view of developing strategy, it is clear that for Indian firms cost leadership will be difficult, however, if they can differentiate and /or choose to focus, there are many opportunities. Differentiation strategy and Focus strategy are suitable in a situation where Indian retailers have to compete with very large firms who have already established global purchase and supply chains.

In India retailers can differentiate themselves in terms of the product range, service level or specific services, location and many such factors. With so many sub-cultures with very specific product needs and buying patterns, focus on niche segments is a very viable strategy in India.

Kenneth E. Stone, Professor of Economics, Iowa State University; Georgeanne Artz, Extension Program Specialist, Iowa State University, and Albert Myles, Extension Professor, Mississippi State University, in their 10 year study of the impact of Wal-Mart on smaller cities developed two primary conclusions.

“The entry of a new super center in a community can have dramatic implications for existing merchants. Two general rules-of-thumb summarize the economic impacts of a new super center on local merchants: Rule-of-thumb 1: Local merchants that sell merchandise different from the super center or other big box stores tend to fare well and may gain sales as the additional traffic generated by the big stores spills over into their stores. Rule-of-thumb 2 is not so pleasant: Local merchants that sell the same merchandise as the big stores will probably face a reduction in sales because of the difficulty in competing with major chains.” What this study indicates is that to succeed the merchandise strategy of Indian retailers needs to be different from the large chains.

 A couple of simple local examples may be useful. In Bangalore I find a unique format called ‘grandige angadi’ do you think large international retailers can compete with this format? There are stores like ‘subbamma stores’ in Gandhi bazar which cater to a niche target market and the turnover of this shop is only growing over the last 60 years.

Strategies for survival and growth will need to start by understanding the environment and competition very well. Retailing is changing and so is the customer, there is a great need to keep track of what is happening in the environment. For example traditional malls in the US are getting De-Malled and have to have other tenants like dentists, medical centres and clubs.  In India Smt Nirmala Sitaraman the commerce minister has issued many statements clarifying that the Government stand is not in favour of FDI in multi- brand retail for now. She has also indicated the need to regulate ownership of online retailers. Indian retailers will get some more time before we have WalMart and Carrefour all over the country. There is atleast 3-5 years to choose a strategy and work on it.

Indian retailers can get help from academics in understanding merchandise strategies, pricing, location and other components of the retail strategy of large international retailers. Based on customer requirements and competition Indian retailers will need to examine merchandising, marketing, customer service, operational efficiency, and human resources strategies. Indian retailer who accept the new reality and reinvent themselves will survive and the inefficient ones have to go. The way is through better customer service, personalized service, unique product assortment by identifying niches in the market, and most importantly improve efficiency in purchasing and managing inventory professionally.

 Finally, I do not wish to list specific survival and growth strategies for retailers as many paper presenters must have already done that. There are many opportunities in assortment planning, image development, ( one example is the Swadeshi products store in Jayanagar which does not stock MNC brands), value added services like cleaning and cutting vegetables or home delivery after 10pm, store operations including small things like cleanliness, and innovative pricing strategies. Human resources finance and management are other opportunity areas for improvement in traditional Indian retail stores. There are many tools available to traditional retailers for example jiffstores.com and kiranasales.com are Bangalore based initiatives worth looking to use the online platform without investing in it.

Many Indian retailers want to swim with the tide. They have built very visible front end retail and are hoping to be taken over by foreign companies. Building visibility and market capitalisation to make it easy to be taken over by FDI is also a strategy some larger Indian retail entrepreneurs are choosing.

Survival and growth is very much possible, however only those who have a strategy will survive.

Thank You for the opportunity.

A long and patient queue.......

Standing patiently in a queue awaiting your turn to be served is not a virtue that Indians possess as a people. From bribing priests in temples, to creating six lanes when there is space for two on the road so that we can join right in the front of the queue, we have many tricks and strategies. Raghavendra Stores near Malleshwaram Railway Station in Bangalore offered a different perspective one Sunday morning. There were many people waiting to be served their breakfast from this small self service kiosk that is very popular. All of them formed a queue and there was reasonable order with no effort from the shop.

The reasons are not difficult to fathom. The quality of the food is really excellent. We had hot Idli Vada Chutney. The cashier and counter staff were being 'FAIR' serving on a first come first serve basis. The product was offering terrific value. The service providers were visibly doing their job very efficiently and at top speed. Waiting time felt reasonable. The neighbourhood having people who cared a little bit for others must have also contributed. It was nice to see a relaxed, long line of people waiting for their breakfast a day after I had dumped my shopping bag near the till at a nearby supermarket after shopping for 45 minutes. 

Drama of Coffee!

My article about how drama is used to sell coffee. if drama be the soul of retail, play on!
It is on page 37

http://www.saffronmedia.in/eMagazines/fnb/2014/FNBNov01152014/index.html

like always, your comments not just welcome, they are necessary for my survival as a author

Types of MBA - causing confusion. My article that appeared in the afternoon despatch and courier

Employability Deconstructed

The new buzz word in Indian education is 'employability'. With slowing admissions because of both overcapacity and poor value to students, those in education are being told repeatedly that most graduates are not employable and that until the education sector is able to produce employable graduates, students will find it difficult to transition into careers. I have not checked it, however I am sure there are numerous definitions for the term 'employability'.

There seems to be no clarity at a functional level as to what 'employability' is or to put it more accurately, what it actually consists of. Industry experts opine that there is a lack of skills, many mention 'attitude' as the problem. Academic circles discuss 'knowledge, attitude, and skills' and when one tries to get to know what knowledge, attitude or skills, then either there is a long list or none at all.

To break down employability or classify the various components, it is useful to look at 'employability' as a bundle of qualities. Knowledge; about oneself,business and industry, and domain,
Skills that include life skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, active listening and monitoring ability. Attitude; to career, to life in general and other human beings. career expectations and values need also to be right for someone to be really employable.

Sudhakar model of employability at the present moment looks like the list below.

I am now hoping my friend Vijay P will use this framework to write an article worth publishing in a journal. A lot of work on life skills has been done by the United Nations which can be one good reference. While there are no references here, most of the qualities listed have been proven by research as essential for 'employability'. Based on feedback I am happy to detail each of the dimensions.
Can we provide all of this to students who do not want to learn, have great expectations based on nothing and make transformational changes in the limited time a graduate or post graduate program offers? That is a question, primary, secondary and high schools need to ponder.
Look forward to feedback, as this is a topic where clarity is urgently needed for India! We should not end up doing the half bake differently, we need to do a good job on the whole.