Whose dreams do we live?

This morning I was talking to a friend and a classmate. He talked about his 7 year old daughter wanting to be a rock musician. While none in his family have had a background in music, he still sounded very enthusiastic about his daughters' dreams. His exact words were, ' Let her pursue her dreams.' This sounded such a welcome change from the generation we grew up in.

Till recently, there was a time in India where parents would have a set of dreams for their kids and the children would carry the burden of those dreams as if they were their own. Most of the parents dreams centered around making their children professionals - either engineers or doctors. If the parents themselves were in those professions then the children were more than likely to follow them. It was like a Doctors' child was destined to become a doctor. The same was true for the other professions as well. Not that it only happened in India, rather isn't this a common phenomenon around the world!! But this seemed a little more prevalent to India, at least to us. So the discussion sounded like a breath of fresh air.

I hope we let our children explore the world a little more. Let them make mistakes sometime and learn from them. This, in my opinion, would make them feel the ownership of their lives a little more. Afterall we all need to live our own lives and not that of our parents or children. Isn't it?

Google- sued

I came across this very interesting article where Google was sued by a company who had susbcribed to the Adword services.

While some may not have the patience to click on another link, I do believe one may actually find it of help in future.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html

Implementing Lean Strategy

A Japanese concept, Lean Strategy and Planning refers to the overall implementation approach to apply lean thinking to businesses. A Lean organisation continuously strives to perfect material and information flow, pulled by customer demand in a visual, self-explaining workplace.

To put it simply, Lean is about doing more from less resource, less time, space and less money.

Five areas drive lean enterprise:
a. cost
b. quality
c. delivery
d. safety, and
e. morale.


The five drivers of enabling a Lean Approach are:
a. Specify Value
b. Identify and Map the Value Stream
c. Flows
d. Pull
e. Perfection

There are various tools of implementing Lean strategy across organisations like TQM, JIT, Six Sigma, 5Ss. A large numberof organisations across the globe have successfully implemented the Lean Strategy.

I have some questions for those who have dealt with the Lean Strategy in some form or the other.

Q. Which tool was adopted to implement Lean?
Q. How successful was it ?
Q. How did it improve the organisational performance?

Business Case Factory

Have you ever noticed that 90% of the cases we study at London Business School are written by Harvard Business School. These cases study are purchased by all business schools across the world who pay a fee per copy. Obviously this is a huge revenue generating business for Harvard. What has enabled Harvard to gain this competitive advantage over other business schools.

My sister is presently considering a business idea!
Establish a case writing company. Develop cases that reflect the current business environment and provide students better tools to succeed in these turbulent times. Write cases on the developing markets of Russia, China, India and Africa where business opportunities are different, and so are the challenges.

Is there a viable business idea here or is this just one of her fancies??
What does she need to kick off the ground?? What will enable her to build a venture that gives competition to Harvard??

Role of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing has obviously been gaining significant importance more particularly during the last 10 years. Some treat it as another channel for marketing. It is true that it enables a company to increase the top line through internet marketing. But it is also used for gathering information and using the information to make an informed purchase whether they are done online or offline. This ofcourse excludes the impulse purchase. Does this mean, that internet marketing will eventually dominate the entire marketing and advertising efforts of an organisation for the simple reason that an organisation, no matter what kind of advertisement strategy they design, an educated consumer will still surf over the net to serach for the best price and the best deal ? Will this overtake other forms of marketing and advertising?

Who will take the first step?

The Pratham Club Bollywood Night is being organised on the LBS campus on 7th Feb, 2009. While it gives an opportunity to groove and dance there is a social consideration behind the show.
All money raised from ticket sales, after expenses, will be devoted to Pratham charity. It is an opportunity to support the Pratham team. Pratham is a public chariatable trust started in the slums of Mumbai in 1994 to tackle the problem of education in India. It has now spread its arm internationally with offices in various countries.

If only we could have more such organisations focussed on social issues and upliftment of backward areas. I do believe there is huge NRI community willing to support such causes, but we need more people to initiate and work on such noble causes.

The Indian Brain drain

India has one f the biggest working population, but have we ever given a thought about the quality of human capital and how much of it are we using for our own country. We have huge reservoir of engineers, scientists, managers working across the globe but how many are contributing to the Indian growth? Will India ever look at considering how to retain its talented pool? Will we ever consider doing something that contributes in our country's development? Where is our system lacking?

JOB SCENARIO

With the kind of economic recession setting in and numerous companies cutting down on recruitments, how is the scenario in your country,industry or organisation. What is your view point on how markets are going to be and when will things start improving in this domain.