Managers vs Leaders

Interesting article , I found on the net here

Something BSchools should definitely think hard about ---

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We often talk of management and leadership as if they are the same thing. They are not.

The two are related, but their central functions are different. Managers provide leadership, and leaders perform management functions. But managers don't perform the unique functions of leaders.

Here are some key differences:

* A manager takes care of where you are; a leader takes you to a new place.
* A manager deals with complexity; a leader deals with uncertainty.
* A manager is concerned with finding the facts; a leader makes decisions.
* A manager is concerned with doing things right; a leader is concerned with doing the right things.
* A manager's critical concern is efficiency; a leader focuses on effectiveness.
* A manager creates policies; a leader establishes principles.
* A manager sees and hears what is going on; a leader hears when there is no sound and sees when there is no light.
* A manager finds answers and solutions; a leader formulates the questions and identifies the problems.
* A manager looks for similarities between current and previous problems; a leader looks for differences.
* A manager thinks that a successful solution to a management problem can be used again; a leader wonders whether the problem in a new environment might require a different solution.

Multiple functions, limited resources and conflicting demands for time and resources, require management. It involves setting priorities, establishing processes, overseeing the execution of tasks and measuring progress against expectations. Management is focused on the short term, ensuring that resources are expended and progress is made within time frames of days, weeks and months. Leadership, which deals with uncertainty, is focused on the long term. The effects of a policy decision to invest in staff development, for example, might never be objectively determined or, at best, might only be seen after many years.

Management involves looking at the facts and assessing status, which can be aided by technical tools, such as spreadsheets, PERT (program evaluation and review technique) charts, and the like. Leadership involves looking at inadequate or nonexistent information and then making a decision. Leaders must have the courage to act and the humility to listen. They must be open to new data, but at some point act with the data available.

Management's concern with efficiency means doing things right to conserve resources. Leadership is focused on effectiveness - doing the right thing. For example, the military must manage its resources well to maximize efficiency. But in waging war, the military's critical responsibility is to be effective and win the war regardless of the resources required. Getting a bargain does not reflect effective leadership if it means losing the war. Good management is important, but good leadership is essential.

The public sector develops a lot of good managers, but very few leaders. Government focuses too much on abstract or formal education, rather than experience. The Senior Executive Service has provisions for mobility and development through experience, but they are rarely used.

Developing Leaders

Developing managers and leaders involves stages of understanding, not prescriptively, but conceptually.

Phase 1 is higher education or academic training that focuses on abstract learning, in which solutions to problems are provided in textbooks.

Phase 2 applies that abstract process to the actual workplace, in which there are often no right or wrong answers. This is the critical phase in which a future manager or leader develops the confidence to make decisions without knowing the right answers. This requires attempting tasks that are challenging, so that success will demonstrate competence.

Phase 3 involves social and political dimensions, as a performer moves from working independently to working with others as a supervisor or member of a product or process team. It is no longer enough to simply know the facts, since the process now includes others and involves subjectivity.

Phase 4 replaces simpler tasks that involve teams or small groups with complex tasks that involve independent, but often interrelated, large groups. In this pivotal stage, managers accept responsibility for things outside their expertise and rely on someone else to provide the facts. The manager may have more authority, but has become more dependent upon others. This might be the time to get more formal training, such as seminars or academic programs in management, to develop skills that weren't addressed in earlier education. There is no turning back after this transition from performing objective tasks to subjective decision-making and problem solving.

Phase 5 separates leaders from managers. The management role changes from maintaining an organization's values to creating them. Leaders establish the principles upon which their subordinates formulate policies.

Building on Strengths

Becoming a leader requires understanding oneself. There are many tools available, such as the Meyers Briggs profile, to help with that assessment. Recognizing personal characteristics is important in learning how to deal with others, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, and adopting an appropriate leadership style. An extrovert must learn to listen more and talk less. An introvert must speak up more and get heard. A manager who is more comfortable knowing all the details and giving explicit orders should not adopt a participative management style, but rather recognize the limitations of an authoritative style. Adopting a style that is inconsistent with one's personality not only creates stress but it often leads to failure.

Leaders also must understand their professional traits. One useful tool is the 360-degree feedback survey, which allows managers to get the perspectives of their bosses, peers and subordinates. Such a total view is valuable because managers tend to assess their behavior in terms of their intent, not the effect.

Today the federal system, both its structure and processes, is changing. New agencies, such as the Homeland Security Department, are being formed. The federal personnel system is being modified significantly. Outsourcing has become a household word in the government. Civil servants are going to a new place, and it will take leaders - not just managers - to get them there.

The New face of Bangalore.

My city !

From "The Economist" magazine

THE arriving businessman, anxious to get to grips with India's information-technology industry in its very capital, may need a little patience. He might meet his first traffic jam just outside Bangalore's airport. He can examine the skeleton of the early stages of a planned flyover on the airport road. Construction started in February 2003 and was due to be completed in April 2004. Three-quarters of the work is still to be done, but the building site is idle. A dispute over cost escalation led to a cancellation of the contract (the rusting steel that forms the skeleton was getting more expensive by the day).

To say the least, this is bad public relations for Bangalore, the hub of the great Indian boom in software and remote services, such as call-centres (known as “business process outsourcing”, or BPO). It seems to confirm recent scare stories that the city has ground to a halt, and its government does not care. Late last year, some of the leading lights of Indian information technology (IT), such as Wipro's founder, Azim Premji, and his counterpart at Infosys, Narayana Murthy, gave warning that Bangalore was in trouble. The Indian Express, a national newspaper, took up the cause with a front-page series on “Bangalore crumbling”.

The government showed its disdain for the IT billionaires by allowing the withering of the “Bangalore Agenda Task Force”. This was an initiative led, and largely financed, by Nandan Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys, to improve governance and infrastructure in Bangalore through partnership with the private sector. Worse still, from the IT industry's point of view, the government decided to apply an “entry tax” of 13.5% on goods brought into the state—a big burden on firms relying on imported computers.

For those perennially pessimistic about India, all this was just the latest proof that its democratic structure will always end up stifling its economic prospects. Bangalore alone accounts for about one-third of India's software exports and, with 265,000 workers, nearly one-third of total employment in IT services and BPO. No other Indian city has such an “ecosystem” of mutually reinforcing strengths. So one would expect Bangalore's woes to have a nationwide impact.

Yet Wipro and Infosys are taking on nearly 1,000 new staff every month. There were jitters this month on the stockmarket after Infosys forecast a sluggish quarter ahead. But NASSCOM, the industry's lobby, expects Indian IT services to continue to grow by 25-28% annually. BPO, from a much smaller base, will grow even faster, by 35-40%. The three biggest Indian IT firms—Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro—are now among the top ten globally in terms of stockmarket capitalisation, gross profits and employees.

There are a number of explanations for this paradox. First, Bangalore's troubles, while serious, are not terminal. Second, India has plenty of other locations for IT and BPO investment. But third, and most important, these are still businesses with fantastic potential, and India's advantages are so great that, however bad its aim, it will be hard-pressed to shoot itself in the foot.

Bangalore, say officials, is the fastest-growing city in India. Its population, only 800,000 in 1951, had grown to 5.6m in 2001, and is estimated at 7m now. It appealed to the British Raj's soldiers—and then to Indian pensioners—because of its beautiful, mild climate, the finest in India, and the lush greenery of its many parks and gardens.

That still helps draw the IT industry, as do its technical and scientific institutes. It is home to the Indian Institute of Science, singled out in the Indian budget this year as a centre of excellence in research and development to be promoted as a “world-class university”, as well as the location of the organisation spearheading India's space programme. Karnataka has 77 engineering colleges producing more than 29,000 graduates a year.

Now, to these attractions are added an abundance of talent, a relaxed and cosmopolitan atmosphere, and a lively nightlife. Many recent graduates come, at their parents' expense, to hunt for a job. The big IT firms have built huge campuses in Electronics City, a few kilometres out of town. Some are as modern and efficient as anything in Silicon Valley, from the state-of-the-art remote network-management systems to the cappuccino bars.

But commuting is a nightmare. Bangalore suffers the infrastructure shortcomings common to many Indian cities: a water shortage, inadequate sewers, an erratic power supply, and pot-holed roads too narrow for the traffic they need to bear. But Bangalore may be unique in the speed of its decline. Samuel Paul of the Public Affairs Centre, an outfit that monitors the government's performance, says it shows that just a few months of neglect are enough to undo years of improvement. Hearing the negative signals about Bangalore that the new government sent out, many city workers stopped bothering. The result: “total urban chaos”, according to Sudip Banerjee, boss of Wipro's “enterprise solutions” division.

But this chaos has not infiltrated the Wipro campus, however, nor those of its competitors. They build much of their own infrastructure. Their virtual connections to the West sometimes seem stronger than their physical ties to India. “Our body is in India,” says Mr Nilekani, “but our head is in New York or somewhere.” So the impact of “crumbling” is diluted. In the long run, it may make Bangalore a less attractive destination. But firms still have to coax Bangalore-based staff with incentives to move elsewhere.

Few in the IT industry have much good to say about the new government. At least, however, it is pretending to be friendly to business. It has dropped the entry tax for exporting firms and is even talking of setting up a committee with the private sector, along the lines of Mr Nilekani's defunct task-force. All its talk of expansion will inevitably be bogged down in bureaucratic delay, and the building will itself cause disruption. Things will get worse before they get better. But are they now, or will they become, very much worse than elsewhere in India? Probably not.

Bangalore's troubles will, however, encourage local and foreign firms to examine the many other options available. It used to be, says Partha Iyengar of Gartner, a consultancy, echoing an old IBM advert, that in the IT industry, “no one ever got fired for choosing Bangalore”. Now the city is a “drastic victim of its own success” that is becoming less and less attractive. For the most sophisticated work, in research and development, Philips's Mr Hoekstra argues there is still no alternative: “if Bangalore sinks, India sinks”. But he wishes the Karnataka government had deterred the call-centres. For them, and many other BPO activities, there is plenty of choice.

Gartner has classified Indian cities in four “tiers” of attractiveness to foreign firms seeking to outsource work to India. Bangalore, along with Delhi and Mumbai, occupies the top tier. But it lists six places as “Tier 1-1” cities, just behind the leaders. They are Gurgaon and Noida, the fast-growing towns on the edges of Delhi; Mumbai's new town; Chennai (formerly Madras) and Hyderabad in the South and Pune in the West. Then there is a whole range of places just below that vying for business. Last month Dell, an American computer giant, opened a contact centre in Mohali in the north. Kolkata (once Calcutta) is trying to shed its image as a bastion of labour militancy and is aggressively courting investment in IT and BPO.

Most of the big Indian IT firms and many of the smaller ones have operations in several Indian cities. Vee Technologies, a BPO firm with its headquarters in Bangalore, employs 300 people there for its “high-cost work”, but about 500 in the town of Salem, about three hours away, where costs are lower and staff far easier to retain. Lakshmi Narayanan of Cognizant, an American IT firm with its main Indian base in Chennai, says IT job-hunters are starting to move there and to Hyderabad to look for work, as they do to Bangalore. Chennai alone has an estimated 100,000 software professionals, and is expected to add another 50,000 this year.

Mr Narayanan says companies such as his worry more about mounting costs than they do about the infrastructure. Bangalore, with the influx of foreign firms pushing up wages, is where they are mounting fastest. P.V. Kannan, boss of 24/7 Customer, a BPO firm, reckons the city is about 10% more expensive than other places in India. Staff attrition—running as high as 40% for the industry as a whole, and even higher at the lower end of the call-centre market—is a particular problem because of all the foreign firms.

The successful firms are expanding aggressively. OfficeTiger expects to double the number of its employees to about 4,000 by the end of the year. 24/7 Customer added 1,200 people in the past year, and has 4,200 now. It expects to grow by 40% this year and next.

Optimism about India's prospects in these businesses is based, firstly, on the sheer range of work now encompassed by the IT and BPO industries and, second, on its potential for further expansion. The business that started it all—offshore software development—still has plenty of room to grow. The world becomes more dependent on IT by the day. Even as new applications are churned out, old ones need maintaining and even newer ones developing.

The qualities of those graduates give India its biggest competitive advantage and, in the long run, the one that gives most cause for concern. Partha Iyengar of Gartner forecasts that in 5-7 years' time, many of the software processes at present performed manually in offices in Bangalore will be automated. India will have to move upmarket and “who is going to convert the army of programmers into businessmen?”

The biggest constraint on the growth of India's service industries may be the available talent pool. Nevertheless, the bullish projections for Indian IT and “IT-enabled services” produced in 2002 by NASSCOM and McKinsey seem within reach. They forecast that the combined industries would, by 2008, employ 4m people (up from fewer than 900,000 in 2004), earn $57 billion-65 billion from exports (compared with $17 billion in 2004), and account for 7% of GDP (compared with 4%).

The challenge this poses for the firms leading the boom is how to expand fast enough to meet demand without jeopardising quality. For quality, as much as cost, is what is driving the demand. It is in this context that Bangalore's troubles have to be seen: as the acute growing pains of a still-infant industry. It is a worry not because the difficulties are insuperable, but because some can be solved only by the government. India's IT industry has thrived in part because, unlike most other sectors of the economy, it has largely kept the government out of its business. That period is coming to an end. Neglect, the industry is learning, is not always benign.

The Rickshaws of Kolkata

Here in Kolkata , these are everywhere. The government plans to ban them. But there's no denying that these have become part of the city's streets and the city itself would seem quite incomplete without them.

These photographs are from the "International Herald tribune" Asia-Pacific Page.

Could You Please Make Me a Shade Lighter?

How Indians came to view fair skin as an ideal--and a business opportunity

This is an article from the TIME website.
The link to this article is here

Explains why "fair and lovely" is the world's largest selling fairness cream.
And why our matimonial ads are far more bizarre and comical than the ones mentioned in the article.
I dont agree with the sense of optimism , prevailing towards the end of the article. Life for women in India is no TV soap. And no amount of posturing by some ex-model in a serial is going to change centuries of prejudice. At least not in my lifetime.

The article hits the nail on the head by rightly mentioning about "racism" which most indians practice (maybe not in classrooms , offices or the street , but definitely in marriage alliances and such.) But it remains somthing we as a nation remain tightlipped about and even try to cover up and play down.

Being fair has nothing to do with beauty. It is merely aspirational. Being fair is equated with a higher social status. After all in our minds -- arent fair women supposed to be socially "forward" and racially superior ? They are NOT, but images and dogmas rule !

Anyways read and decide for yourself. ---------------------------

Up close, Rajashree Thakur makes a terrible ugly duckling. Her face is a flawless ocher, punctuated by ebony eyes and framed by jet black hair, and in the light of the setting sun, she glows. Thakur plays the lead in India's new hit soap Saat Phere ("seven circles around the fire," a Hindu marriage ritual), which, between riveting digressions into the lives, loves and secrets of a Rajasthani family, is the tragedy of Saloni, too unfortunate-looking for love. "It's not that Saloni isn't beautiful," clarifies Thakur, a former model. "It's that she's dark. Because of her complexion, her family thinks no one will marry her." At today's shoot in the hills north of Bombay, Saloni seeks solace at a temple after another day of dusky humiliation, only to be lectured on the virtues of fairness by a fat, ivory-skinned 9-year-old boy. "Ah, Saloni," grimaces Thakur. "She goes through hell."

The notion that Thakur's skin color could qualify her as unattractive is hard to fathom. Hers is a universal beauty, and in the West, despite concerns about the sun's rays and skin cancer, people spend billions of dollars trying to duplicate her café au lait tone. But Asia, from its geishas to its Ganesha gods, has always prized the pale. And in India the desire is a national obsession. You see it in the personal ads, which range from the general ("Whitish girl invites match") to the pinpoint specific ("Suitable alliance invited for ... fair, smart, only daughter having advanced training in footwear molds designing") but consistently mention the aspirant's light skin. You see it in pharmacies selling Fair & Lovely lightening soaps and creams and--new this season--Fair and Handsome, for men. And you see it in commercials, in which India's top two models, Katrina Kaif and Yana Gupta, are part English and part Czech, respectively. Lightness is big business. Fair and Handsome's maker, Mohan Goenka of Calcutta-based Emami, says the fairness-cosmetics market has grown two-thirds in the past five years, to an annual $250 million. India's 60,000 beauty salons do a roaring trade bleaching faces and blasting skin with tiny sand blowers.

No one can say for certain where this fascination with white skin originated. Thakur and Goenka point to pale-faced conquerors from Britain and central Asia who forcefully instilled a reverence for whiteness. Cultural conservatives complain Hollywood is pushing aside Indian heroes in favor of Westerners all too ready to display their pale flesh. Some sociologists argue that in a country where most people still farm, dark skin is associated with lowly labor in the outdoors.

Cory Wallia is Bollywood's top makeup artist and a man whose cautionary--and perhaps apocryphal--tales on whitening include the time the mother of a bride insisted he slap on so much white foundation that the young girl somehow turned blue. (The punch line? The mother approved.) He believes the real reason for the fairness craze is more troubling than most care to admit. While no one suspects that Westerners seek tans to change their ethnicity, Indians, he says, are motivated essentially to do just that. "Indians are more racist with other Indians than any American ever was with his slaves," Wallia says. "The desire for whiteness has very little to do with beauty."

But fashions--even cultures--can change. Although darkness is still akin to evil in rural India, Wallia says that in Bombay, reflecting its position as the capital of an increasingly cosmopolitan India, dusky is becoming a popular look. Thakur, as her character Saloni, may even be poised to become India's first overtly dark-skinned icon. "People stop me everywhere and ask me, 'Why are you crying so much on TV? It's not fair.'" In fact, says Thakur, the climax of Saat Phere will break another Indian taboo. "Saloni eventually decides she's not going to get married. She is educated, she can sing and dance very well, and she just doesn't consider her complexion a problem." And does the single, dark Saloni live happily ever after? Thakur laughs and says, "Of course. This is Indian TV. Not every rule was meant to be broken."

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Heres what the channel says about the programme. --

Saat Phere is a story of a girl’s struggles against the stigmas forced upon her by society and her quest for her unique identity. Although India has progressed in various fields of technology, science & education, discrimination against women remains the root cause of regression in many societies in India leading to degradation of women.

One such story is that of Saloni, a dark complexioned 24-year-old girl. Salonis’s talent is overshadowed by her complexion. Faced with such a situation, Saloni is determined to not let society's will be imposed upon her and ruin her life and has the will, spirit and the courage to embark upon the journey to search for her own unique identity. Yehi hai Saloni ka Safar.

IIM-L seethes with anger, shock

This is an article from Times of India , Bangalore Edition, dated today, 24th Nov '05. Sums up the mood in the IIMs on the death of one of their own.

By Prashant Srivastava/TNN

Lucknow: On the surface there is bereavement and condolences, but below it a storm of anger and dismay is brewing. Not just in IIM Lucknow, which lost an alumnus to the gun-weilding goons of the oil mafia, but also across the IIM fraternity—faculty and alumni included. And the anger is triggering the question of whether IIM graduates should opt for the public sector or government jobs.
To them S Manjunathan’s death doesn’t make sense. He was the happygo-lucky kind. A do-gooder with a song on his lips and honesty to live by. And above all, he was only doing his job. “Is it actually worth it for our students to work in an environment like this?’’ asks a shocked IIM Lucknow director, Dr Devi Singh. He says it is instances like these that will make the student community think twice before taking up assignments in Uttar Pradesh.
If hatred for the “system’’ is another fallout, it does not seem an overreaction, for the sales officer in Indian Oil Corporation was trying to check rampant malpractice of selling adulterated oil in the state. Manjunathan’s mentor Prof Debashis Chatterjee says, “politicians don’t have a right to stand on podiums and give long speeches on brain drain.’’ He adds that the student community and the academia has starting debating whether we are so feeble as to let this pass.
Second year student Satish Pulekar says the incident incited the students enough to stand in unison for the cause supported by Manjunathan. “We are taught to strictly adhere to the value system and not to compromise on any account. Such incidents, though highly traumatising, only firm our resolve to fight it all out,’’ he says. The sentiments are shared by batchmates Garima Dixit and Pooja Sikka.
The sole point of discussion among the students on Wednesday revolved around the huge difference between working in Manhattan and Uttar Pradesh. “Should we work at the expense of our lives?’’ they asked. “People say IIM graduates never do anything for the country, never join PSUs. Look what happened to one who did,’’ said a student bitterly.

IOC field staff have to face oil mafia alone By Sanjay Dutta/TNN

New Delhi: S Manjunathan may have sealed his fate the day he decided to join a state-owned oil company. As a sales officer of IOC, the government also made him police the adulteration mafia, worth Rs 10,000 crore a year. But unlike the mob, he had no protection for doing his job.
About 1,000 sales officers working throughout the country for the four state-owned oil marketing firms are living under the shadow of death for over a year now. This is when the government abolished the anti-adulteration cell in the oil ministry and asked the companies to check such malpractices under its marketing discipline guidelines.
Under this, a sales officer is supposed to take the prescribed action on the spot against a petrol pump owner or gas agency dealer when any malpractice.

I have nothing to say.....

....but the total lack of media interest on the shocking Manjunath murder has ticked me off.
The Mumbai bye-elections, the murder of the Indian in Afghanistan got their articles.

Even the CAT exam ,had 4 FULL articles on it.
The nation bitched eloquently about the 1300 "privileged" students , who will make it into one of the IIMs, study for two years and then presumably work for some firang for the rest of their days (earning of course loads of $$ in the process.) Articles popped up debating whether the cut-offs this year will be 59.5 or 60.25 !!!

Does we care about , or even want to listen to the ones who place country and home above their own ambitions ? Perhaps they dont really look good on Page 1 (or 3).

I came across this article on someone -- who chose to join a PSU after graduating from IIML , when he so easily could have joined any hi-flying private firm, someone who refused to compromise on his principles, AND who paid with his life for his honesty and his uprightness.

I also must mention, that i first came across this article here. Not in a newspaper.
Other stories I found are here. and here.

Perhaps , the thousands who slog blindly for CAT and other exams, should understand that being a manager is not just about earning the big bucks, or about driving a Merc or working in a fancy highrise .
It also just might be about sweating it out in "Gola Gokrannath" , measuring adulteration levels in Petrol pumps, dealing with the corrupt mafia daily, keeping your head held high , maintaining your integrity and honesty. . . . and getting shot in the process.

Rest in peace, sir. You are an inspiration.

Democracy vs Poverty Eradication

This is an article from the Economist dated May12 th 2005.

A real eye opener.

ONE of many ways in which the Chinese economy outperformed India's in the last two decades of the 20th century was in reducing poverty. In China, the number of people living on less than $1 a day, adjusted to reflect purchasing power, fell by about 400m, according to the World Bank. In India, the figure dropped by just 70m. There are many explanations for this, such as India's higher birth-rate. But it is nonetheless, for democrats, a puzzle, and something of an embarrassment.

India, unlike China, is a vibrant democracy with a proudly robust habit of turfing lousy governments out of office. The poor not only represent a big chunk of the electorate; they also, proportionately, vote more than the rich do. As Larry Diamond, of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, puts it in a recent essay in a collection, published by the World Bank, one would logically expect such a democracy to choose “leaders, parties and policies that favour poverty reduction”. Yet, in this respect, at least, China's unelected heavies have done better.

This is a dismal conclusion for democrats, though most, like Mr Diamond, argue that the fault lies not with democracy itself so much as its partial implementation or hijacking by elites. Another new book, by Bimal Jalan, a leading Indian economist and former governor of the central bank, lists some of the woes afflicting Indian politics, such as the rise of small parties, the dwindling of inner-party democracy and the shrinking role of Parliament in ensuring accountability. “For the poor in India,” he concludes, the political system “does not have much to offer—except the periodic satisfaction of casting their votes.”

In another chapter of the World Bank book, Ashutosh Varshney, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, writes that India's record in eradicating poverty is “neither extraordinary nor abysmal”. However, he makes the disturbing suggestion that some of the reasons India and other democracies have not done better are related to the structure of democratic politics itself.

As with “tigerish” rates of economic growth, the “miracles” in reducing poverty have occurred almost exclusively in dictatorships. But so have the disasters—sometimes in the very same dictatorship. Amartya Sen, an Indian-born Nobel-prize-winning economist, has noted that democratic India, unlike its colonised predecessor, has avoided famine. China, on the other hand, suffered in 1959-61 probably the worst man-made famine in history, in which 30m may have died.

In poverty-reduction, as in growth, India is typical of other developing-country democracies, having achieved steady but not spectacular success. It is a small group: precious few poor countries have been democracies for very long—Botswana, Costa Rica, Jamaica, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Trinidad & Tobago, and a few others. Mr Varshney excludes Malaysia, which has eradicated poverty, as “at best half a democracy”. Other countries have democratised after becoming quite rich.

Voting one's caste

Why might democracy militate against poverty reduction in poor countries? Mr Varshney has two suggestions. First, democracies have a bias towards “direct” methods of tackling poverty, such as subsidies and hand-outs, which, in the long run, are less effective than “indirect” methods—ie, those that generate faster economic growth. In India, this seems undeniably true. Governments have built up whopping budget deficits, thanks largely to subsidies. Many farmers, for example, receive subsidised or free fuel, fertiliser, electricity and water. But little public money is spent on improvements that would do most to lift the growth rate: in infrastructure, primary education and basic health care. Everybody wants better roads, and nobody votes against them. But every politician promises to build them and hardly any do. Cutting subsidies, on the other hand, is a sure vote-loser.

Second, the poor are not necessarily a homogenous group. In a democratic system, they may organise themselves along lines other than economic class and “the shared identities of caste, ethnicity and religion are more likely to form historically enduring bonds”. If you are born poor, you may die rich. But your ethnic group is fixed. In India, with its myriad linguistic and caste-based groups, the upshot is a dispiriting beggar-thy-neighbour politics. Just as subsidies are easier to deliver than are roads and schools, so are affirmative-action schemes, giving jobs to members of specified castes.

The relationship between caste and class helps explain the wide regional discrepancies in India. Mr Sen has noted that in one Indian state, Kerala, infant mortality has fallen from 37 per 1,000 in 1979, the same as in China, to ten now, compared with 30 in China. He suggests that the improvement relates directly to India's democratic strengths. The collapse of the public health system in China in the reform era was possible because there was little political resistance, whereas the deficiencies of Indian primary health care are subject to constant public scrutiny. Mr Varshney points to another explanation for Kerala's good performance in reducing poverty: the “remarkable merging of caste and class”. This made the poor better-organised and more cohesive. Such a coincidence, he says, is rare. In most places, ethnicity and class cut across each other.

Even where they do, however, democracy, still young in the poor world, may yet prove better at reducing poverty than despotism has been. One of its many unquantifiable advantages is a capacity for self-improvement. In dictatorships, if the people are lucky, rulers may learn from their mistakes. In democracies, so can the people. In time, they may even get it right.

Indias best employers - PSUs ?

I was reading an article on "India's best employers" in a leading business daily.
6 software firms.
2 banks
1 ITES firm
1 PSU.

A PSU ? Is it a fluke ? Isn't it a misfit. Read on and decide for yourself.

The software companies, banks and the ITES firm evoke no raised eyebrows.
The six software firms are well known organizations which have top-notch people practices and industry leading pay. The same holds true for the ITES firm (which until recently was run directly by the worlds largest company... so go figure)
The banks are BOTH foreign ones (Just in case your mind is working on the lines of "State bank of...")

Now to the star of the lineup - the PSU.
Think PSU, the first thought is of paan stained corridors, pot-bellied babus , stacks of files, overflowing cabinets, endless queues, and innumerable chaprasis. This might have been the case twenty years ago , under the shadow of quota rule and licenses, but in the era of liberalization , forced to compete with leaner private firms, PSUs have learnt to use their clout and the unwavering government backing (provided to most of the PSUs without question) to emerge winners.

Coming to the PSU - Its NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation)
People are so happy here , that the attrition rate is a stunning 0.4% and the average career here is 20 years long. Can we dismiss these numbers as a result of the public sector mindset or the lack of suitable employment elsewhere ? (I mean....how many companies in India can boast of being thermal power generators? :-P)
Contrary to other PSUs, NTPC has a reputation of being a fast mover. It finds innovative opportunities and converts them into money-spinners.
The learning here for any fresh recruit is huge. The training is liberal and provided in a planned and scheduled manner.The company sponsors higher education and vocational courses for its key executives.

The downsides ?
A gender ratio of 22:1 against women !!!
and
The "Government pay scale" (which to some extent is offset by the perks and other facilities)
But these are issues , the management seems t be addressing, when chilling out at the company's state of the art gymnasium or around the pool table.

But are PSUs prefered employers ?
They are not.
There used to be a time when the best technical talent of the country (from the IITs, RECs) as well as the best managers (from the IIMs) used to join PSUs.
Nowadays the tables have turned, and they have largely become unwanted by the top talent.

Maybe they cannot match the astronomical pay packages of the private firms.
Maybe its "uncool" to work in a "Government" firm.
Maybe a PSU just doesn't end up looking good on your CV.

The PSUs have a long heritage in our country and in many ways are insitutions , our country needs to be proud of.
They are key to our national security and in providing employment.
But in this era of increased competition, they need a major revamp, and a major image makeover, if they are to attract talent and stay competitive.

NTPC is an organization , worth emulating in this regard.

A female engineer in Tata Sons ?

This is an article about how Sudha Murthy became an employee of Tata Sons. Intersting and Inspiring. Found it in an email.

An angry letter from a young lady made JRD Tata change his rule. Sudha was livid when a job advertisement posted by a Tata company at the institution where she was completing her post graduation stated that "Lady candidates need not apply". She dashed off a post card to JRD Tata, protesting against the discrimination.

Following this, Sudha was called for an interview and she became the first female engineer to work on the shop floor at Telco (now Tata Motors). It was the beginning of an association that would change her life in more ways than one."

There are two photographs that hang on my office wall. Everyday when I entered my office I look at them before starting my day. They are pictures of two old people. One is of a gentleman in a blue suit and the other is a black and white image of a man with dreamy eyes and a white beard. People have often asked me if the people in the photographs are related to me. Some have even asked me, "Is this black and white photo that of a Sufi saint or a religious Guru?"

I smile and reply "No, nor are they related to me. These people made an impact on my life. I am grateful to them." "Who are they?" "The man in the blue suit is Bharat Ratna JRD Tata and the black and white photo is of Jamsetji Tata."

"But why do you have them in your office?" " You can call it gratitude."

Then, invariably, I have to tell the person the following story. It was a long time ago. I was young and bright, bold and idealistic. I was in the final year of my Master's course in Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, then known as the Tata Institute.
Life was full of fun and joy. I did not know what helplessness or injustice meant.

It was probably the April of 1974. Bangalore was getting warm and gulmohars were blooming at the IISc campus . I was the only girl in my postgraduate department and was staying at the ladies' hostel. Other girls were pursuing research in different departments of Science.

I was looking forward to going abroad to complete a doctorate in computer science. I had been offered scholarships from Universities in the US. I had not thought of taking up a job in India.

One day, while on the way to my hostel from our lecture-hall complex, I saw an advertisement on the notice board. It was a standard job-requirement notice from the famous automobile company Telco (now Tata Motors). It stated that the company required young, bright engineers, hardworking and with an excellent academic background, etc.

At the bottom was a small line: "Lady candidates need not apply.? I read it and was very upset. For the first time in my life I was up against gender discrimination.

Though I was not keen on taking up the job, I saw it as a challenge. I had done extremely well in academics, better than most of my male peers. Little did I know then that in real life academic excellence is not enough to be successful!

After reading the notice I went fuming to my room. I decided to inform the topmost person in Telco's management about the injustice the company was perpetrating. I got a postcard and started to write, but there was a problem: I did not know who headed Telco.

I thought it must be one of the Tatas. I knew JRD Tata was the head of the", I knew JRD Tata was the head of the Tata Group; I had seen his pictures in newspapers (actually, Sumant Moolgaokar was the company's chairman then). I took the card, addressed it to JRD and started writing. To this day I remember clearly what I wrote.

"The great Tatas have always been pioneers. They are the people who started the basic infrastructure industries in India, such as iron and steel, chemicals, textiles and locomotives. They have cared for higher education in India since 1900 and they were responsible for the establishment of the Indian Institute of Science. Fortunately, I study there. But I am surprised how a company such a Telco is discriminating on the basis of gender."

I posted the letter and forgot about it. Less than 10 days later, I received a telegram stating that I had to appear for an interview at Telco's Pune facility at the company's expense. I was taken aback by the telegram. My hostel mate told me I should use the opportunity to go to Pune free of cost and buy them the famous Pune saris for cheap! I collected Rs 30 each from everyone who wanted a sari. When I look back, I feel like laughing at the reasons for my going, but back then they seemed good enough to make the trip.

It was my first visit to Pune and I immediately fell in love with the city. To this day it remains dear to me. I feel as much at home in Pune as I do in Hubli, my hometown. The place changed my life in so many ways. As directed, I went to Telco's Pimpri office for the interview. There were six people on the panel and I realised then that this was serious business.

"This is the girl who wrote to JRD," I heard somebody whisper as soon as I entered the room. By then I knew for sure that I would not get the job. The realisation abolished all fear from my mind, so I was rather cool while the interview was being conducted. Even before the interview started, I reckoned the panel was biased, so I told them, rather impolitely, "I hope this is only a technical interview."

They were taken aback by my rudeness, and even today I am ashamed about my attitude. The panel asked me technical questions and I answered all of them.

Then an elderly gentleman with an affectionate voice told me, "Do you Know why we said lady candidates need not apply? The reason is that we have never employed any ladies on the shop floor. This is not a co-ed college, this is a factory. When it comes to academics, you are a first ranker throughout. We appreciate that, but people like you should work in research Laboratories." I was a young girl from small-town Hubli. My world had been a limited place. I did not know the ways of large corporate houses and their difficulties, so I answered, "But you must start somewhere, otherwise no woman will ever be able to work in your factories."

Finally, after a long interview, I was told I had been successful. So this was what the future had in store for me. Never had I thought I would take up a job in Pune . I met a shy young man from Karnataka there, we became good friends and we got married.

It was only after joining Telco that I realised who JRD was: the uncrowned King of Indian industry. Now I was scared, but I did not get to meet him till I was transferred to Bombay. One day I had to show some reports to Mr. Moolgaokar, our chairman, who we all knew as SM. I was in his office on the first floor of Bombay House (the Tata headquarters) when, suddenly JRD walked in. That was the first time I saw "appro JRD". Appro means "our" in Gujarati. This was the affectionate term by which people at Bombay House",

I was feeling very nervous, remembering my postcard episode. SM introduced me nicely, "Jeh (that's what his close associates called him), this young woman is an engineer and that too a postgraduate. She is the first woman to work on the Telco shop floor." JRD looked at me. I was praying he would not ask me any questions about my interview (or the postcard that preceded it).

Thankfully, he didn't. Instead, he remarked. "It is nice that girls are getting into engineering in our country. By the way, what is your name?"

"When I joined Telco I was Sudha Kulkarni, Sir," I replied. "Now I am Sudha Murthy. " He smiled and kindly smile and started a discussion with SM. As for me, I almost ran out of the room.

After that I used to see JRD on and off. He was the Tata Group chairman and I was merely an engineer. There was nothing that we had in common. I was in awe of him.

One day I was waiting for Murthy, my husband, to pick me up after office hours. To my surprise I saw JRD standing next to me. I did not know how to react. Yet again I started worrying about that postcard. Looking back, I realize JRD had forgotten about it. It must have been a small incident for him, but not so for me.

"Young lady, why are you here?" he asked. "Office time is over." I said, "Sir, I'm waiting for my husband to come and pick me up." JRD said, "It is getting dark and there's no one in the corridor. I'll wait with you till your husband comes."

I was quite used to waiting for Murthy, but having JRD waiting alongside made me extremely uncomfortable.

I was nervous. Out of the corner of my eye I looked at him. He wore a simple white pant and shirt. He was old, yet his face was glowing. There wasn't any air of superiority about him. I was thinking, "Look at this person. He is a chairman, a well-respected man in our country and he is waiting for the sake of an ordinary employee."

Then I saw Murthy and I rushed out. JRD called and said, "Young lady, tell your husband never to make his wife wait again."

In 1982 I had to resign from my job at Telco. I was reluctant to go, but I really did not have a choice. I was coming down the steps of Bombay House after wrapping up my final settlement when I saw JRD coming up. He was absorbed in thought. I wanted to say goodbye to him, so I stopped. He saw me and paused.

Gently, he said, "So what are you doing, Mrs Kulkarni?" (That was the way he always addressed me.) "Sir, I am leaving Telco." "Where are you going?" he asked. "Pune, Sir. My husband is starting a company called Infosys and I'm shifting to Pune."

"Oh! And what will you do when you are successful." "Sir, I don't know whether we will be successful." "Never start with diffidence," he advised me. "Always start with confidence. When you are successful you must give back to society. Society gives us so much; we must reciprocate. I wish you>all the best."

Then JRD continued walking up the stairs. I stood there for what seemed like a millennium. That was the last time I saw him alive. Many years later I met Ratan Tata in the same Bombay House, occupying the chair JRD once did. I told him of my many sweet memories of working with Telco.

Later he wrote to me, "It was nice hearing about Jeh from you. The sad part is that he's not alive to see you today."

I consider JRD a great man because, despite being an extremely busy person, he valued one postcard written by a young girl seeking justice. He must have received thousands of letters everyday. He could have thrown mine away, but he didn't do that. He respected the intentions of that unknown girl, who had neither influence nor money, and gave her an opportunity in his company. He did not merely give her a job; he changed her life and mindset forever.

Close to 50 per cent of the students in today's engineering colleges are girls. And there are women on the shop floor in many industry segments.

I see these changes and I think of JRD. If at all time stops and asks me what I want from life, I would say I wish JRD were alive today to see how the company we started has grown. He would have enjoyed it wholeheartedly.

My love and respect for the House of Tata remains undiminished by the passage of time. I always looked up to JRD . I saw him as a role model for his simplicity, his generosity, his kindness and the care he took of his employees. Those blue eyes always reminded me of the sky; they had the same vastness and magnificence.

(Sudha Murthy is a widely published writer and chairperson of the Infosys Foundation involved in a number of social development initiatives. Infosys chairman Narayan Murthy is her husband.)

Article sourced from: Lasting Legacies (Tata Review Special Commemorative Issue 2004), brought out by the house of Tatas to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of JRD Tata on July 29, 2004

Diwali in UP

This one is from the Economic Times.
Its really interesting and thought provoking though...

THOSE who've read their Mahabharatha or watched the B R Chopra mega serial will always remember that climactic moment when Yudhishthira loses the wife in a game of dice and a weeping Draupadi is dragged to the gaming hall in the royal palace at Hastinapur where the disrobing of the Pandavas' wife is divinely pre-empted by Krishna. There was an entirely different twist to the tale last Tuesday on Diwali night in the Kundapura Kedarpur village in the Dhampur tehsil of UP's Bijnore district when a drunken 28-year-old Ram Singh gambled away first his money, then his ring and finally his watch before staking his wife for a sum of Rs 5,000 and losing her too. When the winner went to Ram Singh's house to claim the wife, what followed was completely contrary to what Vyasa had scripted. Instead of letting herself be dragged away, Ram Singh's wife picked up a burning log of wood and used it to beat up the winner who fled in tears to the nearest police station. The matter didn't end even when the cops intervened and the loser borrowed Rs 5,000 and paid off the winner in cash instead of kind. When Ram Singh returned home, he was severely beaten up by his wife. The thrashing stopped only when Ram Singh begged for forgiveness and wailed that he would never, ever gamble again in his life!

Draupadi has come a long way since the Mahabharatha! Today's Draupadi obviously believes that God helps those who help themselves! So much so that today's Duryodhana has to cower behind the law-enforcing Bhishma to escape retribution. And today's Yudhishthira has to fall at Draupadi's feet to be accepted by her. And if Ram Singh reforms, we could even see that traditional proverb being re-adapted to state that "behind every successful man is a woman with a broomstick or a burning log in hand!" And Kundapura Kedarpur village may have already left Kaliyuga behind and moved into a golden age of its own!

Sudha Murthy -- The Love Story

The following is an excerpt from Sudha Murthy's Autobiography. It talks about the early years of her marriage and of Infosys.I found it truly amazing.

It was in Pune that I met Narayan Murty through my friend Prasanna who is now the Wipro chief, who was also training in Telco. Most of the books that Prasanna lent me had Murty's name on them which meant that I had a preconceived image of the man. Contrary to expectation, Murty was shy,bespectacled and an introvert. When he invited us for dinner.. I was a bit taken aback as I thought the young man was making a very fast move. I refused since I was the only girl
in the group. But Murty was relentless and we all decided to meet for dinner the next day at 7.30 p.m. at Green Fields hotel on the Main
Road,Pune.

The next day I went there at 7' o clock since I had to go to the
tailor near the hotel. And what do I see? Mr. Murty waiting in front
of the hotel and it was only seven. Till today, Murty maintains that I had mentioned (consciously!) that I would be going to the tailor at 7 so that I could meet him...And I maintain that I did not say any such thing consciously or unconsciously because I did not think of Murty as anything other than a friend at that stage. We have agreed to disagree on this matter. Soon, we became friends. Our conversations were filled with Murty's experiences abroad and the books that he has read.

My friends insisted that Murty was trying to impress me because he was interested in me. I kept denying it till one fine day, after dinner
Murty said, I want to tell you something. I knew this was it. It was coming. He said, I am 5'4" tall. I come from a lower middle class family. I can never become rich in my life and I can never give you any riches. You are beautiful, bright, and intelligent and you can get anyone you want. But will you marry me? I asked Murty to give me some time for an answer. My father didn't want me to marry a wannabe politician,(a communist at that) who didn't have a steady job and wanted to build an orphanage...

When I went to Hubli I told my parents about Murty and his proposal. My mother was positive since Murty was also from Karnataka, seemed intelligent and comes from a good family. But my father asked: What's his job, his salary, his qualifications etc? Murty was working as a research assistant and was earning less than me. He was willing to go dutch with me on our outings. My parents agreed to meet Murty in Pune on a particular day at10 a. m sharp. Murty did not turn up. How can I trust a man to take care of my daughter if he cannot keep an appointment, asked my father.

At 12noon Murty turned up in a bright red shirt! He had gone on work to Bombay, was stuck in a traffic jam on the ghats, so he hired a taxi(though it was very expensive for him) to meet his would-be father-in-law. Father was unimpressed. My father asked him what he wanted to become in life. Murty said he wanted to become a politician in the communist party and wanted to open an orphanage. My father gave his verdict. NO.

I don't want my daughter to marry somebody who wants to become a communist and then open an orphanage when he himself didn't have money to support his family.

Ironically, today, I have opened many orphanages something, which Murty wanted to do 25 years ago. By this time I realized I had developed a liking towards Murty which could only be termed as love. I wanted to marry Murty because he is an honest man. He proposed to me highlighting the negatives in his life. I promised my father that I will not marry Murty without his blessings though at the same time, I cannot marry anybody else. My father said he would agree if Murty promised to take up a steady job. But Murty refused saying he will not do things in life because somebody wanted him to. So, I was caught between the two most important people in my life.

The stalemate continued for three years during which our courtship took us to every restaurant and cinema hall in Pune. In those days, Murty was always broke. Moreover, he didn't earn much to manage.
Ironically today, he manages Infosys Technologies Ltd., one of the world's most reputed companies. He always owed me money. We used to go for dinner and he would say, I don't have money with me, you pay my share, I will return it to you later. For three years I maintained a book on Murty's debt to me.. No, he never returned the money and I finally tore it up after my wedding. The amount was a little over Rs 4000. During this interim period Murty quit his job as research assistant and started his own software business. Now, I had to pay his
salary too! Towards the late 70s computers were entering India in a big way.

During the fag end of 1977 Murty decided to take up a job as General Manager at Patni Computers in Bombay . But before he joined the company he wanted to marry me since he was to go on training to the US after joining. My father gave in as he was happy Murty had a decent job, now.

WE WERE MARRIED IN MURTY'S HOUSE IN BANGALORE ON FEBRUARY 10, 1978 WITH ONLY OUR TWO FAMILIES PRESENT.I GOT MY FIRST SILK SARI. THE WEDDING EXPENSES CAME TO ONLY RS 800 (US $17) WITH MURTY AND I POOLING IN RS 400 EACH.

I went to the US with Murty after marriage.Murty encouraged me to see America on my own because I loved travelling. I toured America for three months on backpack and had interesting experiences which will remain freshin my mind forever. Like the time when the New York police took me into custody because they thought I was an Italian trafficking drugs in Harlem. Or the time when I spent the night at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with an old couple. Murty panicked because he couldn't get a response from my hotel room even at midnight. He thought I was either killed or kidnapped.

IN 1981 MURTY WANTED TO START INFOSYS. HE HAD A VISION AND ZERO CAPITAL...initially I was very apprehensive about Murty getting into business. We did not have any business background.. Moreover we were living a comfortable life in Bombay with a regular pay check and I didn't want to rock the boat. But Murty was passionate about creating good quality software. I decided to support him. Typical of Murty, he just had a dream and no money. So I gave him Rs 10,000 which I had saved for a rainy day, without his knowledge and told him, This is all I have. Take it. I give you three years sabbatical leave. I will take care of the financial needs of our house. You go and chase your dreams without any worry. But you have only three years!

Murty and his six colleagues started Infosys in 1981,with enormous interest and hard work. In 1982 I left Telco and moved to Pune with Murty. We bought a small house on loan which also became the Infosys office. I was a clerk-cum-cook-cum-programmer.

I also took up a job as Senior Systems Analyst with Walchand group of Industries to support the house. In 1983 Infosys got their first client, MICO, in Bangalore. Murty moved to Bangalore and stayed with his mother while I went to Hubli to deliver my second child, Rohan. Ten days after my son was born, Murty left for the US on project work. I saw him only after a year, as I was unable to join Murty in the US because my son had infantile eczema, an allergy to vaccinations. So for more than a year I did not step outside our home for fear of my son contracting an infection. It was only after Rohan got all his vaccinations that I came to Bangalore where we rented a small house in Jayanagar and rented another house as Infosys headquarters. My father presented Murty a scooter to commute. I once again became a cook, programmer, clerk, secretary, office assistant et al. Nandan Nilekani (MD of Infosys) and his wife Rohini stayed with us. While Rohini babysat my son, I wrote programs for Infosys. There was no car, no phone, and just two kids and a bunch of us working hard, juggling our lives and having fun while Infosys was taking shape. It was not only me but also the wives of other partners too who gave their unstinted support. We all knew that our men were trying to build something good.

It was like a big joint family,taking care and looking out for one another. I still remember Sudha Gopalakrishna looking after my daughter Akshata with all care and love while Kumari Shibulal cooked for all of us. Murty made it very clear that it would either be me or him working at Infosys. Never the two of us together... I was involved with Infosys initially. Nandan Nilekani suggested I should be on the Board but Murty said he did not want a husband and wife team at Infosys. I was shocked since I had the relevant experience and technical qualifications. He said, Sudha if you want to work with Infosys, I will withdraw, happily. I was pained to know that I will not be involved in the company my husband was building and that I would have to give up a job that I am qualified to do and love doing.
It took me a couple of days to grasp the reason behind Murty's request.. I realized that to make Infosys a success one had to give one's 100 percent. One had to be focussed on it alone with no other distractions. If the two of us had to give 100 percent to Infosys then what would happen to our home and our children? One of us had to take care of our home while the other took care of Infosys.

I opted to be a homemaker, after all Infosys was Murty's dream. It was a big sacrificebut it was one that had to be made. Even today, Murty says, Sudha, I stepped on your career to make mine. You are responsible for my success. I might have given up my career for my husband's sake. But that does not make me a doormat...

Addendum - ON@TCC

Attended a talk by Chetan Bhagat today. He's promoting his second book "One night at the call center"
I bought both his books and got them autographed too !
Posts on the books after I finish reading them first....after my Mid terms.

My earlier post (in which Chetan is mentioned is here )
Chetan's Website is here

Coming now to his talk...

He spoke on the 4Ps of marketing books in India. 95 bucks (Price) , Coffee shops, launches, Bookstores (Place) , countless interviews and promos (like this one, i guessed) (Promotion)
and His "insightful" book (Product)
Couldnt quite figure out how it fitted in though...

Also spoke on the "Book publishing in India" and the difficulties involved in getting a good book published in our country at a reasonable price. Must agree with him compelely here.

He did go a bit overboard with his take on how the IITJEE is being made simpler this year because the IITK chaps read his book and the pressures on the IITians.

Also a lot of gyan , on "following your heart" and "doing what you like" and the old be-patient-the-money-will-come etc.

Anyways a welcome change for me from my usual mugging schedule . Will post later on this and others soon.

Aravind Eye Hospitals

We had a strategic management workshop here on campus. It was conducted by our distinguished alumni... The attendance was on the lower side. We - first years - had to contend with CV submissions, Company applications, Approaching Mid-terms and the incessant rainfall.
I was very much present for the inauguration and the first part of the session till 11:40 (which was about what follows in this post) but I confess leaving in the break , to attend to certain of my pending errands (like this blog.) I remain convinced of having lost out on a lot of value

The case dealt with the "aravind eye hospital" chain and how they are able to provide world class eye care at practically no cost. It was a real eye opener for me. Till then I had believed that quality always had to be bought. The concept of how high quality eye care can be provided, free of cost in remote Indian villages , to those who need it the most is something totally new to me.

This , story is something we need to be proud of. Harvard uses this as a case-study. And when I attended the presentation, I was stunned. (you'll soon see why.)
The company is a savvy marketer of services and its innovation and service-mindedness makes it stand out among clutter.

The Original Case study is available at http://www.savefile.com/files/2411751
This is a must read (though I will be summarizing it below)

The Eye hospital chain has 1400 beds and is the largest of its kind in the world. What makes it all the more remarkable is that it is in a largely rural setting in India. Facing a dream of eradicating needless blindness in India, the company faces 20 million patients and even at the stupendous rate of 1000000 surgeries a year (!!!), it cant keep pace with the burgeoning population.
The primary cause of blindness in India is cataract. I wont go into details here. Suffice it to say, it is very common and totally curable with a surgery,.
The chain was started by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy in 1918.and expanded from 30 to 1400 beds.It has seven hospitals.

The hospital performs 70% of its surgeries free. The remaining 30% of the patients are charged and this money is used as a cross subsidy.

The company operates a main hospital (with top notch facilities which come at a price.) It also operates a more toned down, free and correspondingly chaotic "free Hospital". In addition there are a series of free eye camps (which are fairly well attended)
Free camps are held in villages and semi-rural towns. They are sponsored by other organizations with the hospital only in a supporting role. Such camps are sponsored by religious charities , Movie star Fan clubs or Lions' Club etc.

Lenses are manufactured captively at an unbelievable $3 per lens , while ensuring quality comparable with imported lenses.

Some other gems not available in the case -

* The company uses local media -newspapers, word of mouth, even folk music to spread awareness and information about eye health and its services in the community.
* The company uses satellite technology and GIS to map and locate target communities for eye camps (Those of who who think the IT revolution is only in cities, eat crow !)
* Several doctors are educated abroad (in the US for example)
* The costs are unbelievable . A surgery costs $50 , Glasses $5 and Intra ocular lenses come at $3

These kinds of organizations are real torchbearers in the path towards marketing to the rural customer. Their approach to their service holds lessons for all of us. They have managed to cut out the common misconceptions about rural Indians and their priorities and managed to bridge the HUGE gap that exists between the needs of the poor and Quality service to cover those needs.

IT - Factofthematter

Rashmi's take on IT this time
Hope Software Junta agree to the observations
I go along based on my (limited) exp of IT in India...

There are two kinds of engineering students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies. The cats usually bag the cool jobs which pay you well, send you abroad and keep you far far away from sweaty industrial shopfloors. 55,000 such cats found employment with the likes of Infosys, Wipro, TCS and other such companies in 2003-2004, by Nasscom estimates. But considering that India produces over 300,000 engineers annually, it's a dog's life for many fresh graduates out there.

So, what is it that separates the IT cats from the dogs? It's a question that needs to be asked, as yet another admissions season is upon us. The mad rush for engineering seats continues fuelled by this simple logic: Engineering has more value in the job market than an 'ordinary' BSc. And the jobs that are fuelling this perception are the lucrative software careers. Few would be happy building roads and bridges or working in factories -- as previous generations of engineers did.

Let's face it -- an engineering degree is a means to an end, not an end in itself. But it can turn into a dead end if you don't keep the following facts in mind:

* It's not what you study, but where you study that counts: Always, always choose college over branch. The reputation of a college is what determines campus placement prospects. This might mean doing civil engineering at VJTI although you have little interest in the subject. Live with it. At the end of 4 years, a bunch of software companies will visit the campus. If you pass their aptitude test and interviews, you're in.

It sounds illogical but companies look at it this way. "We believe in the generic concept of learnability," says Hema Ravichander, Senior VP (HR) at Infosys. "This, we define as the ability of the individual to derive generic knowledge from specific experiences and apply the same to future contexts." So when the company visits a campus engineers from any stream are welcome to apply for the aptitude test. All recruits are subsequently put through 14 1/2 weeks of intense training.

The scene at Wipro is similar. "At one time, we insisted on BE Electronics/Computer Science," says Ranjan Acharya, corporate VP, HRD, Wipro. "Now we look at basic analytical ability, understanding and grasping power." Wipro has a 45-day training program for computer engineers, and a longer one of 70-days for those from other streams.

Here's the catch, though. Infosys visits 60 to 70 engineering colleges for campus placements annually. IITs, NITs and a few top colleges in every state make up that list. "Historical relationship, performance of hires from a particular campus, ratio of offers made:joined are the main factors which determine which colleges we visit for placement year after year," says Ms Ravichander. Wipro visits 120 colleges, but its intake is less than Infy. TCS is the other large recruiter which visits about 130 colleges.

A relatively new recruiter -- Cognizant Technologies -- has also started hiring aggressively from premier engineering campuses. The company planned to pick up 60% of its targetted 4,000 new recruits for 2004 through campus placements.

* Performance does matter: The top software companies are pretty sticky when it comes to grades. It's not enough to just get into a great college, you must perform once you get there. Consistency is a very important -- companies will look at your grades right from class X onwards and expect to see a first class through all years of engineering. ATKTs (Allowed To Keep Term despite failing a subject) or dropped years are a strict no no.

This is a tall order, especially in some universities like Mumbai known for its vagaries, which often affect even the brightest students. As a popular shayari on Mumbai engineering campuses goes: Woh baap hi kya jiski beti nahin... Woh engineer hi kya jiski ATKT nahin.

Jokes apart, performance is key even if you get into a college which doesn't have attractive campus placements. A 60% throughout your engineering career ensures you still have a shot at your dream job. You can apply when these companies conduct aptitude tests off-campus.

The story goes like this. Companies have to make offers through the campus placement route, 12 to 15 months before the actual joining date. A lot can happen during this period -- often requirements drastically change. So a certain % of freshers are taken in at a later date, through off campus hiring. Infosys for example will visit various cities and test up to 10,000 applicants in a single day. Graduates from any engineering college can apply, as long as they have a first class throughout.

Aptitude tests normally cover arithmetic and analytical skills, GDs (group discussions) gauge communication skills and in the interview applicants are usually quizzed on basics from their core subjects. Any project work you may have done, as well as extra technical knowledge, eg having leant a popular programming language could help tip the scales in your favour.

Since many engineers are eventually put on the project management track, qualities such as leadership skills, teamwork and all round personality also matter.

* The year you graduate matters: An engineering course takes 4 years to complete. A lot can happen in the IT world in that time.

Some factors are simply not in your control. The graduating class of 2002 had a tough time finding jobs. 2003 was better, and the current year -- 2004 -- has seen a boom in demand for freshers. Infosys alone recruited 10,000 employees, a majority of them straight from engineering campuses. At Bangalore's RV College of Engineering 43% of the 460 students seeking placement were recruited by just 4 software companies -- Infy, TCS, Syntel and Cognizant.

This upward trend is expected to continue. But if you are entering an engineering college today, it's hard to tell exactly what the job scene will look like in 2008. Especially since the ups and downs in the US economy directly affect the fortunes of Indian software companies.

In boom years, students have more choices and better prospects. For example, at IIT Chennai last year, a strange thing happened. Less than half of the 450 eligible students took the TCS aptitude test. And there wasn't a single computer science student in that lot. Why? The salaries offered by Indian software companies (in the Rs 1.8 lakh to Rs 4 lakh per annum range) weren't attractive enough compared to other recruiters like McKinsey (Rs 7 lakhs pa), Intel and HLL (both offered Rs 4.6 lakhs pa).

In a tough year such as 2002 there was a major hue and cry when Infosys hinted it was reconsidering some of the offers made on the IIT campus several months earlier. The offers were later honoured. Companies realise that some years are hard on freshers. For example, in February 2004 TCS continued to invite entry level applications from engineers who had graduated in 2002 and 2003, as long as they had not been interviewed by the company within the last 6 months.

* You're no 22, try harder: It's true that graduating from a lesser known engineering school may mean you leave campus without a job. But it's not the end of the world. It simply means you have to conduct your own jobhunt. Respond to ads in newspapers, upload your resume on job sites and start doing the rounds of companies. Staying in touch with friends and seniors who've already got jobs is a great way to get to know about openings and entrance tests. Some companies actually prefer to recruit through employee referrals.

The good news is, a sustained effort of 3 to 6 months usually gets you a job. The important thing is to stay optimistic! As an underdog, you may end up joining an underdog company, ie a smaller outfit. But with the right experience and skills picked up along the way you can always hop, skip and jump your way to the software company of your dreams.

* Engineers@call centres: Last but not the least -- the call centre option. BPO outfits such as Wipro Spectramind actively recruit engineers, paying them higher salaries than regular graduates. And they have no dearth of applicants. But most engineers see call centre jobs -- even if they're in technical support -- only as a short term option.

If things don't work out on the software front, there's always the option of going in for higher studies. Which for most, boils down to an MBA. But remember, there are two kinds of MBA students in India -- the cats whom all companies run after, and the underdogs, who are running after the companies... But that, is another story waiting to be old.

MBA - Factofthematter

Another article from Rashmi, also originally on Rediff
I am constrained to agree to this also.....


There are two kinds of folks who aim to clear the CAT -- the 'MBA nahin to kuch nahin' and the 'Kuch nahin to MBA.'The first category discovered at an early age that M, B and A spelt the magic and politically correct answer to the inevitable question: "Beta aap bade hokar kya banna chahte ho?"

The second took the medicine-engineering route only to be disillusioned with their course of study or future prospects. No particular pyaar for management but chalo, paisa to kam se kam zyaada milega.

The MBA programme -- which allows graduates from ANY stream to apply -- thus offers one final hope of personal and professional salvation.
In India, the MBA magic has worked on two fronts. Say you plan to do an MBA and parents will be a lot less worried about your taking up Eco or Commerce and avoiding the PMT/JEE.

Secondly, in case you did make it through those toughies and find you haven't the faintest interest in electronics or electrocardiograms, you can at least dream of leaping off the wrong bus onto the MBA bandwagon. The 'luxury coach' that offers a ride in the fast lane!

Unfortunately, these coaches are very few and very hard to get a seat on. And although in theory ANYONE from any background has an equal chance at making it there, the statistics paint a different picture.

Check IIM Ahmedabad's Class of 2006 profile -- 70% engineering grads, 8% commerce, 4% IT, 4% science 4%, 3% arts, 1% medicine. Incidentally, Ahmedabad has traditionally had a much more diverse class profile in the IIM fraternity -- the Class of 2004 at IIM-B, C and L all boasted 78% engineers!

The stats should bust a few prevailing myths:

Fact #1: Doing a management course at the undergrad level gives you absolutely no edge. Only 1% of IIM A's 2006 class had an BBA/BMS background.
Fact #2: Humanities are a bad choice if you dream of making it to an IIM. Even among the 3% Arts graduates who've made it, most would be students of Eco -- a quasi-numerical subject.
To put it extremely bluntly, only exceptional 'ordinary graduates' -- the kind who could probably have made it to an engineering school but chose not to -- make it to an IIM A. Many in fact come from colleges like SRCC and St Stephens where the cut-offs for Honours courses are mercilessly high.

Even among the engineers who make it, a large percentage are from the creme de la creme schools -- the IITs, RECs, VJTIs and DCEs. The IIM Calcutta batch profile in fact lists 'engineering' and 'IITs' as two separate categories! Together these grads hog close to 80% of the seats at the Institute.

Why should engineers dominate so completely in an area which purports to offer entry to any kind of graduate?

According to UGC figures (as of March 2002), India's 253 universities and 13,150 colleges churned out 2.5 million graduates annually. Of that number, just about 300,000 -- or 10% -- were engineers.

Now logically one may argue that those who make it through highly competitive engineering entrance exams represent the cream of the nation's Class 12 crop. So four years later they are again more likely to excel when it comes to another competitive exam.

Engineering as a course enjoys such a halo that all but a small sliver of the intelligent school age population ends up in that stream by default!
There is another, more disturbing explanation. Engineers have a huge advantage when it comes to numerical ability. The vast number of ordinary graduates, especially those who have not been in touch with mathematics since Class 10, simply cannot cope.

But the crucial question is this: Does wizardry with numbers a good manager make?

It is unclear why the CAT exam must make such a big deal of how fast you can polish off sums on permutations and combinations. Sure, accounts and finance and operations all deal with numbers. But the level of number crunching undertaken during one's MBA has hardly any co-relation with the actual work profile of most managers later in life. Because as you rise higher up the ladder, success is increasingly defined not by what you know or do, but how you manage and motivate your people.

Engineers are trained to believe every problem in the world has a logical solution. But, people -- whether as employees or consumers or clients -- are far from logical. Why, then rely on a uni-dimensional exam like CAT to identify talent? Yes, it is the fairest and toughest MBA entrance exam in the land -- but are the people being selected through the process the best potential managers?

Top B schools in the US use the GMAT score as ONE of several evaluation criteria. In 2003, 18% of applicants who scored 700 or greater were offered admission by Kellogg. But more than 13% of applicants who scored between 650 and 690 were also admitted. Chicago's Graduate School of Business clearly states that 'successful applicants not only have the credentials but they tell a compelling and well-rounded personal story through their application.'

Fat chance, here!
Sure, there is an interview and GD stage, but to get there you must first score in the 99th percentile (ie be in the top 1% of test takers). And this works for one simple reason: Most admissions are tainted by 'less deserving' candidates using influence or money power. The fact that neither works when it comes to CAT has built a solid equity for the IIM brand. To protect this equity, subjective criteria comes in only at the second stage -- after the CAT hurdle has been crossed. Any other, more holistic form of admission would never achieve the same reverence in this country!

The entire management entrance scene in India, then, boils down to selection of the 'brainiest' and then grooming them towards a management career. Rather than selecting the brains best suited for the purpose. Going by the old Cats and Dogs theory, the funda is to identify and aggregate all the cats in the graduate universe. Add the IIM chhaap and the world and his uncle will accept them as kings of the corporate jungle.

On the flip side, scratch the batch profile of an MBA school and the percentage of engineers you find can give you an accurate picture of where the school is ranked. The Big 4 -- IIM A, B, C, L as well as S P Jain and IIM-K -- admit over 70% engineering graduates. At XLRI (BMD) the figure is above 60% while the likes of MDI, FMS, Bajaj, XIM B and IIM-I boast 55% to 60% engineers.

As you go further down the ladder the number of engineers dips -- a strong local school such as NMIMS had 23% while Welingkar just 6%. At these schools, Commerce graduates dominate -- comprising 50% to 60% of the batch. Again, this reflects the inherent bias in the education system at an earlier stage -- 'students with marks' inevitably join Commerce over Science or Arts!

The engineering overload at B schools is rooted in the fact that there is a strong opportunity cost for an engineer seeking to do an MBA. If he or she is to spend about Rs 4 lakhs for a 2 year course, also forgoing asimilar or greater amount in salary (perhaps even a chance to work abroad, given the software boom) -- the course had better provide a great return. Only the top few schools provide that kind of long term brand value and short term job prospects.

IIM A, B and C placed on average 46% of their students in consulting, finance or banking (the high salary, top dollar variety of jobs). Just about 11% of the batch went into marketing/ sales.

At top B schools other than IIMs only 27% of the batch was placed in consultancy, banking or finance roles while almost 30% went into marketing.

As you go down the ladder marketing jobs dominate even more -- and the prestige/ salary value of the job to an engineer declines.

In the final analysis,"Kuch nahin to MBA" may sound bechara, but the strategy it actually works. Those engineers didn't 'waste' 4 years, they were just biding their time. Conversely, "MBA nahin to kuch nahin" is going to remain a pipe dream for the majority. Koi MBA to mil jayega -- there are 900 + institutes offering the course in this country - but top B schools will continue to elude other graduates.

As far as CAT is concerned, non engineers remain the underdogs.

The MBA Caste system

This article is from Rediff and was written by Rashmi Bansal (of jammag and youthcurry fame)
I read this and thought to myself - How true !

here are two kinds of MBA institutes in India -- a handful from which you leave with a pedigree and the vast majority which offer just degrees. In the first category lie the IIMs, XLRI and, to a lesser extent, FMS and Bajaj -- the institutions which pioneered the concept of management education at a time when the IAS was a far more wanted career path.

In the second lies a vast array of institutes -- the good, the mediocre and the dubious. Evaluating the value proposition in the latter category is the daunting task faced by the majority of MBA aspirants.

The alumni is the brand

So what is it that sets the crème de la crème apart? Resources, faculty, infrastructure? That's just part of the story. By that reckoning, university departments like FMS and Bajaj should have been knocked off their pedestal a long time ago by newer entrants with deeper pockets. But 'pedigree', as the dictionary defines it, is a 'line of ancestors'. In the case of management education, ancestry has one simple definition -- the alumni.

The older institutes boast of alumni who joined the corporate world two-three decades ago and are at -- or very near -- the top today. The alumni effect is two-fold. At the obvious level, the companies they run ensure the alma mater is always on the recruitment radar. But, at a subtler level, alumni achievements rub off on the mother brand, and hence on the current crop of students.

In a sense, the alumni community IS the brand because they are the finished products, so to speak, of the MBA manufacturing process. And they form the one unique component in the matrix that cannot be duplicated by more recent institutes. That, in a nutshell, is the competitive advantage enjoyed by pedigree institutes which -- in the immediate future -- will remain unbeatable.

The 'merit-based' caste system

It's a modern form of the ancient caste system. Once you were born into it, now you arrive into it based on 'merit'. So, you have the 'Brahmin B schools' and some recruiters will visit only these schools, year after year, stating proudly, "We don't go to institutes below Bajaj." There is a certain prestige attached to such companies and this recruitment policy works simply because the number of jobs on offer is pretty small.

Hotshot consulting firms or investment banks essentially need to pick up a dozen fresh MBAs, at max. So it makes great sense to visit only the top schools. And there too, pick up the 'top' students. It's sad but true -- the Cats and Dogs phenomenon continues to hold sway. Despite the fact that all the folks who made it to an IIM-A beat the same odds, some ARE more equal than others.

The 'I schols' breed

This is the breed known as the 'I schols' -- a campus term for the top 20 students who are awarded 'industry scholarships'. The pecking order is swiftly and brutally established in the first few weeks on campus and usually holds good for the rest of the year. And whaddaya know? A large number of toppers are invariably IITians.

Partly because they are smart and hypercompetitive. But mostly, I think, because they're better equipped to face academic rigour and pressure. Four years at IIT, you've seen it all, done it all. The workload at an IIM, which hits the rest of the junta like a ton of bricks, is no big deal to an IIT grad.

A level playing field?

To offer a more level playing field, CVs sent to companies for summer placements at IIM-A now don't carry the student's CGPA. But the end result is still the same. Coveted recruiters look for the undergraduate background of the student and invariably shortlist those from IIT. IIM may be a brand name, but IIT-IIM is sone pe suhaga.

The IIT crowd will gleefully circulate this column in their e-groups, as further proof of their inherently superior status. Some, I expect, will feel compelled to write to me enumerating exactly how and why IITians really are a breed apart. Believe what you will. My point is: where does it end?

Reaping the benefits or paying the price?

We are reaping the benefits -- or paying the price -- for the actions of our ancestors. Company X has recruited a particular profile of candidates for the last 20 years and will thus continue to pick up the same kind of applicants. At the most basic level, this means it will stick to certain B schools, and within those B schools to certain kinds of students.

It's not just about how well you do at the interview but whether your profile matches with what's worked for the company in the past.

Yup, that's almost as crude as racial stereotyping but no point railing and flailing because that's how the human mind works. It unconsciously tries to fit each individual into a category, making complexity more manageable. We are invariably drawn to people like ourselves.

Companies rationalise that, this way, they get the people who fit into their culture. But the flip side of it is that everyone essentially thinks alike. And can that, in the longer run, really be considered a good thing?

Reasons of merit apart, the policy of sticking to a few select B schools keeps all concerned happy. Recruiters are happy to be in demand at the 'best' B schools, students are happy to be on the exclusive radar of the 'best' recruiters. Maintaining the status quo keeps the halo intact for both parties.

One man's Cat can be another man's Dog

So although numerous B school rankings may be published every year, it rarely if ever alters the recruiter's pecking order. For 'class' or the jobs requiring brainwork, it's a select few institutes. For 'mass' or the gruntwork jobs, it's down the B school ladder. And how low down this ladder a company will go depends on how many freshers it requires.

With so many new sectors opening up -- retail, insurance, BPO, telecom -- it would seem the job pie has grown exponentially. True, except that B school you graduate from often still determines whether you eat your slice at the chairman's table. Many companies follow differential recruitment policies. Better salary, designation and job profiles are offered to the more premium grads.

But, in an ironic twist, one man's Cat can be another's Dog. Several reputed companies -- especially Indian ones -- prefer to recruit from less elite campuses. These MBAs, they believe, work harder to prove themselves and are far more loyal to the organisation.

It's a different thing that, given half the chance, the same MBAs would jump to join the very MNCs that won't touch them!

One final consolation: Dog or cat, at the end of the day the MBA is but a rat. The right MBA can set a scorching pace. The question most forget to ask is -- am I running the right race?