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Politics of Clean Fuel - Part II

Continued from Part I The strategy of increasing domestic oil consumption worked well as the indigenous oil reserves were going well and sufficient reserves were secured in the middle east. But OPEC stepped in and soon after being formed, it caused havoc in 1970s with the oil embargo . Soon, a reverse trend was to set in - just as war had lead to increase in oil production, now oil was to lead to war. By the mid 1980s it was well clear that the encouragement of oil consumption had backfired on western governments and something had to be done to control the menace of increasing oil prices. Iraq presented a classic opportunity to the US in the early 90's by invading Kuwait and opening doors for a direct and legitimate intervention of the western politicians and regimes into the middle east. The war for oil has continued with stops and spurts thereafter well leading upto into the recent Iraq conflict. With more than a decade of war and 5 decades of politics behind it, governments in t

Politics of Clean Fuel

While travelling on the crowded Powai belt of the JVLR [ map ], a colleague exclaimed that it is surprising that rising fuel costs and pollution have not yet created enough concern for serious research and product development in the area of Alternative Fuels. This lead me to wonder as to why, just like an increase in fuel production in the mid 1900's cause an increase in automobile traffic worldwide, is an increase in fuel prices not causing a wave of alternative technologies? The reason, I think is - what it has always been - political will! Oil was discovered way back in the 9th century, however it did not find much use till the industrial age began. But even after the onset of the industrial age in the 17th century, coal remained the primary source of energy till the 1950s. And then suddenly, the consumption of oil started rising thereafter - why? Coal was a viable source of energy till it was used as a fuel for factories and other static energy consuming centers. However, earl

When I say 'Innovation' - I mean this!

Continued from: Wasn't Entreprenueship About Innovation After Mohammad Yunus received his Nobel for microcredit - so many people have thought of starting up a micro-finance institution - its a simple idea, with minimal risk (if you know how to manage money) and what's more it in line with social justice. But as I have discussed with some of you - no point entering a field unless you can bring in some innovation to it - could be technology, process or scale. And boy! there could not be a better example than this to illustrate my point ... Kiva! Source: Kiva: Improving People's Lives Like a social networking site, Kiva posts profiles of potential borrowers. Lenders then peruse the profiles and make loans to people whom they find appealing. Once a lender makes a loan, Kiva sends the money to a microfinance institution, or MFI, in the borrower's home country. The MFI disburses the funds and works with the borrower to ensure timely repayment. In the language of the banking

Wasn't entreprenueship about Innovation?

Given the economically charged environment in India - lots of people are planning to start new ventures or planning to get involved with startups - and everyone from your uncle to your cousin's friend's elder brother has an idea! And with orkut/facebook/ linkedIn - it is so much more easy to link to other people who have similar ideas and hatch business plans. However, while the story might start there, it doesn't quite end, so many 'in-progress' ventures never make it to fruition and of those which do, few survive. Why? My personal answer is - we are all too fixated with making money and too less with making a difference. Daman [fictional] works for a bank as a financial consultant, he interacts with clients day in day out and sees how he is solving their problems using a bit of Google and a bit of Bloomberg. And the next thing he realises is that, he doesn't need his company - why not join hands with his Jijaji who runs a software company, get the software whi

Business Styles

MBA's usually learn about Theory X:Theory Y methods of management. Over the last 3 years in corporate world I have seen similar two opposite styles of business development at work - I christen them "Theory A: Theory B" style of business. Theory A A manager who believes that new business is the best business and getting business is his most important priority. Such managers tend to paint a very rosy picture of their company / team / work in front of a new client. They also tend to over-commit. Though not as a rule, but as a corollary, such managers tend to pay very little attention to work (projects / deliverables etc) when its comes to delivery / execution. Thus they tend to over-commit and under perform, resulting in low repeat business. However, their future pipelines are usually so full of work that they are hardly ever bothered or worried by the lack of repeat business. Theory B A manager who believes that repeat business is the best form of business and hence his fo

Leveraging IT or electronic record keeping

As a part of my day job with KPMG, I work with many financial institutions consulting then on their Technology aspects. Indian Financial institutions – especially private banks and funds – aim to leverage Information technology to improve their operations and financial control alike. The top managements of almost all reputed institutions are quite bullish on using technology in all spheres of their work – however when one comes in close contact with the way technology is leveraged on ground, one starts questioning the efficacy of mere top management commitment. What I have observed is that for most line managers , Information Technology is simply about mapping the existing processes on the IT systems, resulting into only the record keeping process getting digitized. The process continues to operate with the same mechanics as before and in effect the process re-engineering opportunities, that an IT implementation offers, are lost. As the Harvard professor on enterprise 2.0, Andrew McAfe

Working From Home

So true for India as well - I hope corporates in India also realize it Excerpt from : The "Work From Home" Generation from Read/WriteWeb by Alex Iskold The Good Things No commute: If you live in the suburbs and work in the city ... Flexibility: Working from home likely implies flexible hours - having flexible hours is a huge benefit for example you can exercise during the time of the day which suits them best. Saving money and the environment: having no commute has another big benefit - financial savings. With the cost of gasoline going through the roof, not having to drive is important for everyone. Working from home also has a global environmental benefit. By commuting less we save energy and reduce pollution. Increased productivity: A typical office environment is noisy, people are talking, phones are ringing, co-workers are coming by to chat, and there are always crowds near the coffee and soda machines. At home, these distractions are not going to be present. But, if y

The Biggest Drivers

One of the biggest motivations which drives people towards achieving perfection in work is the (actual or illusionary) realization of the importance of their work. All other factors are merely hygienic - money, designation, working conditions - all merely ensure that one is motivated to perform 'good enough'. However, in absence of the 'work worth realization' (lets call it WWR from now on) - the extra bit of dedication is hard to come by. The best illustration of this would be in the Army. Irrespective of the designation or salary everyone - from the highest ranked officers to the foot soldier - is dedicated to the extent of his/her lives. What motivation can there be to give one's life for, if not the fact that the job is more important than your life, that winning the war is infinitely more important than the salary or benefits you will accrue as a part of your job (if you would live on!). Similarly, have you ever come across a sweeper who makes sure that not eve

Beta Wars: Part II { The Economics and Management perspective }

The reason why many popular products are in 'Beta' is because a web-based application, unlike a desktop app, can be in a state of perpetual upgradation and new features can be added seamlessly without planning for 'release cycles'. More so, users expect quick and frequent feature upgrades for these applications. But adding new features is not excuse for not releasing a final product! One could always add new features to a 'test instance' test it and then release them into the 'production' version. That's the way things work in the corporate sector, shouldn't they work similarly on Web 2.0? The reason why this cycle cannot be performed for most of these new applications is that they 'need' their users to test the new application features. Unlike corporate development environment where a dedicated team usually performs unit testing before release, some of the web based features cannot be tested by a 'small' testing team. Take for ex

Health-care vs. Medical Tourism

Government of India has set up the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals (NABH) and National Accreditation Board for Laboratories (NABL) to strengthen the regulation of healthcare industry in India but the major purpose behind the move is said to be the intent to encourage medical tourism. India is trying to break into the humungous (and growing) global market of Medical Tourism currently dominated by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. While India might be just a beginner but it has some inherent advantages of being recognized as the land of Yoga, Meditation and other parallel forms of medicine in addition to having doctors well qualified in modern medicine. While the increase of medical tourism and induction of accreditation services will improve the state of existing healthcare in India, it might not help in making up for the shortage of healthcare facilities. Accreditation will primarily be sought by large hospitals, or medium sized clinics in areas where the demand for premium

Innovation = Invention + Insight (Part II)

Prologue: Starting a series post is a risky business – if you do not get time to post the sequel fast enough, the original post conveys an incomplete meaning and starts receiving unfavorable comments. That is what happened to my previous post. Anyway – better late than never – here is the second and concluding part of Innovation = ...... As I argued in the previous post, without innovation, it is not possible to reach the echelons of global trade and difficult to oust competition. Going further, not just international competition, even domestic trade and indigenous industry is unlikely to prosper without innovation. Any new innovation, fuels a chain of many other parallel mini-innovations to be done around the central theme. For example, the 1-lakh-small-car by Tata Motors requires new initiatives in each of its ancillaries – from upholstery makers to tire makers. On the other hand, how much internal business does an Oracle implementation in the U.S. generate back home in India? One co

Innovation = Invention + Insight

Eavesdropping is crime, especially in corporate circles. I had no intention of committing this crime, but I could not ‘unlisten’ the very excited and loud description of a to-be-given presentation that this individual was narrating on the phone. “I will talk about the market scenario, then about emerging India, then how we are globalizing our business model and ……” Of late, I have got tired of the incessant chant in politico-industrial circles – knowledge superpower India, emerging India, global positioning etc. Some have already placed India on the highest pedestal in the IT industry while others are modest enough to just lay claims over the top position by 2010/2020. While it is true that, Indian companies with their Global Delivery Model, low-cost-highly-educated workforce and strong process orientation, are sure taking on the IBMs and Accentures of the world right from the front – but they are far from snatching the turf from these global majors. More so India poses no threat to Am

Less Work, More Pay

I was cruising through the Western Express highway (in Mumbai) when I noticed the road broadening work going on alongside the road. Giant excavators were cutting through the cliffs on the sides and the rubble (actually large stones) was being removed by other gigantic off-highway trucks. I could't but appreciate the 'might of man'. My thoughts moved to the wonders on the world - the pyramids of Egypt, The Great Wall of China and our own Taj Mahal. The gigantic structures made in ancient mediaeval times are a but a reflection of not only engineering skills but more so of hard labour. The city of Mumbai in fact is a wonder in itself - a group of 17 small islands being made into the most happening city of India. In fact 50% of South Mumbai ('town area' as people here call it) is built on reclamation land. It is difficult to imagine such monuments and cities to be built in the present day world. How did the ancient civilizations do it? The answer probably lies in the wo

Is the World sitting on an Economic Time-Bomb?

Well . . . World baad mein . . . I am sitting on a CGPA Time-Bomb. My exams start tomorrow; and am terribly short of reading . . so this post over I don' t hope to make any posts for the next 5 days (unless exams are that frustrating ki post maarna pade) :P OK now turning to the world . . as a part of Global Economics I learnt that a. International Trade is good for all countries and the world as a whole b. Any trade barrier may sound good for producers in an economy in the short run but is detrimental to the consumers always, and also harmful for growth of industry in the long run c. All countries need foreign capital for their progress and a trade deficit helps in increasing Current Account deficit of nations which in turn helps in faster rate of economic growth (now that's a bit tricky, won't dare to elaborate) d. The US dollar has become the world currency because US has a very very high trade deficit. US actually has been living off debt from other nations. The pu

Core Competency

One of the topics often discussed in Indian MBA classrooms is core competency; probably because the theory was given by CK Prahlad; the Business guru of Indian origin. But is core competency model really true? Let’s take a few successful firms. Wipro was primarily a FMCG products company till 1980, when it diversified into technology. Today Wipro is one of the 3 technology giants of India with Infosys and TCS. Its revenues are fully dependent on its Technology arm. The extent of restructuring is so high that Wipro's website has no mention of its FMCG business any more See More Another giant, ITC was incorporated in 1910 primarily as a cigarettes company. But soon it started diversifying. Its Packaging & Printing Business Division was set up in 1925. In 1975 the Company launched its Hotels business, and entered the Paperboards business in 1979. In 1990 ITC set up the International Business Division (IBD) for export of Agri-commodities. In 2000, ITC's Packaging &

A Techy Entrepreneur

Didn't go to office today.... and am now in a techy-entreprenuer mood... Ever since I have read "from Pepsi to Apple" I have my own analysis of it, quite contrary to what the author said in the book... Let me start by describing the book... It is about this guy (the author) called John Sculley who left an illustrious career in Pepsi to become the CEO of a then small firm Apple Computer Corp. Apple was found by Steev Jobbs a 19yr old youngster along with Mark Marculla and Steve Wozniak. After 2 yrs of its inception, both partners except Jobbs wanted to exit executive responsibility of the co. and the board was of the view that Steeve was too young to become the CEO... so they decided to hire an external CEO... mr. Scully was a potential candidate but none of the headhunters could convince him to join the co. Here Steeve came in and himself sold the idea to John Scully, who then was fascinated with Jobbs... then in course of time views of Mr. Scully and Jobbs rifted and so