Friday, June 22, 2007

Communication!

Say it Right the First Time

There are many different ways to produce high-performance results in organizations. Some companies create an internally competitive environment where the toughest, but not necessarily the most competent, rise to the top. Other organizations build a consensus culture where agreement replaces quality by reducing decisions to the least common denominator. Organizations of the future, however, are choosing a longer term approach to producing results by investing in people. The most prized possession in these companies is the high level of accountability and collaboration among people.

Communication, language in particular, is the vehicle for unleashing the power of people. Words are potent and they can drive or retard the growth of an individual or a company. So they should be cautiously utilized. I am hereby sharing some thoughts and some daily use language, which forms the communication dialogue between people everyday. These language snippets, aptly used with the right timing can do wonders for people at different management levels.

Your Purpose
To inspire positive action in others by communicating accountably at all times!

You need to help other take 100% Accountability. What 100% accountability means is:

>Choosing to be an OWNER of everything you do.
>Accepting responsibility (not blame) for your impact on results and people.
>Focusing on what you can do instead of waiting for other to act.

7 Keys to speak accountably:

Talk straight responsibly – Being appropriately direct, honest, and straightforward raises trust and credibility.
Inspire positive action – Communicating in an up-lifting manner.
Collaborate with others – Working well others gives more speed and flexibility, competitive advantage in market.
Build ownership – Taking accountability for results and their impact on others.
Commit with integrity – Commitments should be made only when they can be fulfilled, else bargain for time.
Hold people accountable – By holding yourself and people accountable for high standards, morale is raised along with performance.
Recover quickly – Perfection is not the wuest; recovering quic kly should be the goal. Admitting mistakes, using breakdowns and problems as learning experiences increase creativity, innovation, and risk taking.

Short Statements that inspire Accountability

Speaking Accountably

“That’s the problem in a nutshell”
ü Add: “Now it’s up to us to turn this around.”

“This is an issue we must address quickly.”
ü Add: “I’m confidant we can do this.”

“We will meet on Friday at 8 a.m. in the conference room.”
ü Add: Let’s use this time to generate new ideas together.”

“I haven’t had the chance to read your report.”
ü Add: “I always appreciate how you look at things.”

“We are facing a number of challenges this next year.”
ü Add: “I’m happy to be on a great team. We’ll need everyone’s thinking and energy.”

“Good Morning.”
ü Add: “It’s always good to see you.”

Here is the document, read it and let’s talk.
ü Add: “I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.”

I am just at the starting point; I would be sharing some more thoughts in coming time. I would highly appreciate your comments and suggestions to improve my posts. I hope this would be helpful in bringing an all-round high performance leadership in your organization.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Contd. Organized Retail in India

I suggested earlier that government regulation is needed....Atleast First step taken by government.. ..however this may not be the best policy adopted...but it is somewhat similar to whats done in other parts of world.

Article in Economic Times, Front page, 18-june-2007, Bangalore edition

Big grocery retailers may come under licence raj
SHOPS SPREAD OVER 10,000 SQ FT, RETAILING FOOD AND GROCERY, TO NEED LOCAL NOD
Mayur Shekhar Jha & Rajat Guha NEW DELHI
THE government is mulling the introduction of a licensing regime to regulate grocery, fruits and vegetable retail in the country. As per the model being considered by policy makers, any shop dealing in retail of food and grocery items such as atta, edible oil, fruits and vegetables, and spread over 10,000 sq ft will mandatorily have to seek licence from the local urban body managing that area. The objective is to check unfettered growth of grocery retail and to protect small kirana stores by restricting the mushrooming of organised retail outlets in a particular catchment area. When implemented, the licensing policy will have a direct impact on all hypermarkets where selling of food and grocery items is proposed. Both Reliance and Bharti plan to operate huge hypermarkets, ranging from 50,000 sq ft to even 1.5 lakh sq ft in certain cases. The retailers will be allowed to operate only in a specified catchment area, thus minimising the scope of competition between them and local kirana shops. For one, in the case of Delhi, the MCD, which is the administering authority in most areas, will be empowered to give these licences. Large mega outlets and hypermarkets will be asked to operate from outside the city. The policy is being worked out by the commerce, urban development and labour ministry. According to sources, the move has come at the back of Left parties’ demand of regularisation of retail. “The Ministry of Urban Development is already finalising zonal plans. The zonal plans for Delhi will be ready by January next year. Subsequently, the same model will be followed in other states. The move is aimed at protecting the interest of local kirana stores from unfair competition thrown up by large corporate retailers,” a senior government official said. Zonal plans divide a city or town into different zones, specifying areas for mixed land use. These plans are then incorporated in the city’s master plan. However, when implemented, the mandatory licensing will not impact the basic food and grocery format of retailers like Reliance and Future Group and the proposed Bharti Retail.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Wipro Infotech launches India’s first eco-friendly desktops

Wipro as a Brand has always stood for Integrity and Good Quality. They are one of first and most concerned organizations in India to take up Corporate Social Responsibilities.

With Wipro launching these eco-friendly PCs, they have proved it yet again that they are socially responsible for making our environent better.
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Wipro Personal Computing would be free of hazardous materials such as brominated flame retardants (BFR), PVCs and heavy metals

Bangalore: Wipro Infotech, the India, Middle-East and Asia-Pacific IT business unit of Wipro Ltd on 14 june launched its eco-friendly range of desktops, claiming it was the first Indian company to do so.
The new range of products named Wipro GreenWare, which include desktops and laptops, is compliant with RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous substances) directive, thereby reducing substantial e-waste.
“At present, eight products -- five desktops and three notebooks -- are 100% RoHS-compliant. By this year- end, we want to ensure that the entire product range of laptops and desktops is RoHS-compliant,” Ashutosh Vaidya, Vice President, Wipro Personal Computing, told reporters here.
Wipro has set up its e-waste management process called Wipro Green Computing which spans across its product lifecycle, from designing and manufacturing to the final disposal.
Wipro Personal Computing would be free of hazardous materials such as brominated flame retardants (BFR), PVCs and heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury that have been regularly used in computer manufacture so far.
“We will choose only RoHS components from our vendors,” Vaidya said.
Welcoming Wipro’s initiative, despite no government legislation on the issue, Greenpeace Toxics Campaigner Ramapati Kumar, who was present on the occasion, hoped this would lead the way in phasing out chemicals like BFRs and PVC.
Greenpeace appealed to electronics industry to design products that are free from hazardous substances.
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Green is the way to go, and we have Way to Go!

Organised food retailing can increase rural income

One of my batchmates from IIM C sent this article on our group mail. and the following is what happened post it...

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/06/14/stories/2007061401910500.htm

Pranav sent the following article:

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Organised food retailing can increase rural income, cut inflation: Crisil Will facilitate better supply chain management, create efficiencies
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The findings make a strong case for providing an impetus to organised retail of food and grocery.
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Chennai June 13 If organised retailing manages a deep and widespread penetration of the food and grocery sector, farm incomes could increase even as consumers pay lower prices, according to a latest study by Crisil Research. The study suggests that the resultant rise in farm incomes and in rural spending could boost GDP. Only one per cent of the Indian food-retailing sector is currently organised as against countries such as the US where the penetration is 80 per cent. Crisil estimates the total avoidable supply chain costs in the food and grocery chain at Rs 1,00,000 crore. About 57 per cent of this is due to avoidable wastage, the rest due to costs arising out of multiple storage points and multi-layer commissions. Farm realisations are, as a result of this wastage, only 35-40 per cent of the final retail price as against 60-65 per cent in countries such as the US. Inefficiencies push the final price paid by the consumer to 2.6 times that paid to the farmer. Organised retail practices, however, invest in better supply chain management and could create efficiencies by way of disintermediation and enhancement of transportation and storage facilities, which could in turn lead to reduction in commissions and lower wastage of produce, says the study. According to Mr Sudhir Nair, Head, Crisil Research, if one-third of these savings (Rs 33,500 crore ) are passed on to the consumer in the form of lower costs, it amounts to 3.5 per cent of the country's spend on food items (Rs 9,51,000 crore ). "This can play a significant role in lowering food inflation," it says. Food inflation was 8 per cent in 2006-07, while overall inflation was at 5.4 per cent. Mr Nair goes on to argue that if two-thirds of the savings from supply chain efficiencies are passed on to the farmer, farm incomes can grow by more than 37 per cent to Rs 2,50,000 crore. Crisil estimates that if farmers then spend 80 per cent of this incremental income, an additional spending of Rs 53,600 crore — nearly 1.7 per cent of India's GDP— would get added to the economy. In a teleconference with the media, Mr Nair admitted that the savings equation could be more biased towards the consumer, as against their own estimate of two-third of the savings going to the farmer, depending upon the way consumer preferences and retailing practices evolve. However, he maintained that the findings made a strong case for providing an impetus to organised retail of food and grocery. Do modern retailers in India really generate supply chain efficiencies? Mr Nair told Business Line that such players were, indeed, better in managing the supply chain. Wastages for such players were found to be about 3-5 per cent of retail price as against 15 per cent otherwise.

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I wrote:

Good English but full of Heat but no substance in Indian context....better supply chain etc is good but at the expense of Local street hawker's job...? In country like India...adundance of manpower is already a challenge in front of government to provide them with jobs...here we are talking about taking away thousands of more jobs....by giving better supply chains...we r going to give more jobs in terms of new jobs but one section of people is going to suffer for sure....and the small entrepreneur having his business is going to get uprooted... Government has to ensure the dirty price politic games should be avoided some regulations which can regulate the retail industry is getting important day by day to dave the interest of common businessman and workers workign with them.Just my personal view, you can differ!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Pranav Clarified:

Few observations on your connotation:
a) “Good English but full of Heat but no substance in Indian context..” CRISIL is Indian company incorporated in 1987. There AOF has been Indian Market and PSU on whole. Thus this is not observation from foreign player but this is study from organization with Indian roots and deep rooted knowledge of Indian businesses, culture and they are well aware of issues that lie in Indian contex towards retailing. Apart from them KSA Technopak hold the rapport at international level in market research and retailing in India. They have already roped in Pantaloon, DLF, TSV as customer. Wal-mart Bharati are on there way to use their services to promulgate their retail business, here in India. There is indian context here :).
b) “here we are talking about taking away thousands of more jobs....by giving better supply chains”
Two wrongs does not make one Right. Point here is if government is incompetent in certain areas businesses cant be restrained from growth. It’s just a perspective, on how you see thing; improving the SCM(supply chain management) in India will help consumer to avail commodities at lower prices. Also if Supply chain evolves and develops to expected level this will generate innumerous jobs. To leverage such large upcomming system ancillary business will also grow around new retail and supply chain developments. Aaian leading to more jobs and better prospects.
e.g. ANAND as an NGO removed middlemen from dairy product business, despite of doing so it created more job opportunities then what existed before and consumer had better offering at lower price.
Same was the case with Telecom industry in their days of infancy. There was huge skeptic about it but today same telecom has created huge job and business opportunities. They have enlarged the scope of business thus swelling the customer base and eventually call tariffs plummeted. Consumers are benefited with more employment opportunities.
Lastly improving the supply chain mean reducing the cost of moving goods effectively and efficiently. Although this would lead to job cuts and business loss in few sectors but this will be counterbalanced with new opportunities that will come along.
This is how I perceive this retail fiasco in India.
In business if you don’t innovate you w'll die. !!

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I clarified:

Good observations, Thanks for sharing your point of view, I appreciate the effort!

In my comments I didn't question CRISIL's credibility neither i said govt is incompetent or not. What I mean here is, Organized sector, with improved supply chains is a good thing, however in Indian context, at what cost? You have to leverage the resources best....India has manpower, as a citizen what would you want....jobs for all or jobs for only few and rest kept lurking in search of job and food? Not to mention the crime which gets fuelled.

I already mentioned that there will be new jobs created however they will not be for the people who are going to loose there jobs. Putting pressure on middle men is good to give better rates to customers, but organized retail is also playing dirty price wars of initially killing the competition wwith low prices and then increasing the prices....for these reasons, I said govt has to regulate the retail pricing.

Mr Nair's comment "if two-thirds of the savings from supply chain efficiencies are passed on to the farmer, farm incomes can grow by more than 37 per cent to Rs 2,50,000 crore." Who takes gurantee of this "IF"? Organized sector is driven by profit motives similar to unorganized sector, I don't see a reason why the organized sector would give better prices to the rural cultivators? Considering they would be investing in improving supply chains, adding infrastructre, managing their human resources, killing competition, managing initial losses etc.

Lastly Mr Nair admits "that the savings equation could be more biased towards the consumer, as against their own estimate of two-third of the savings going to the farmer, depending upon the way consumer preferences and retailing practices evolve."
So he also knows that this estimate is wrong!
However as mentioned, if govt regulates this, atleast the improved supply chains might help the rural farmer.

Hope this clarifies my point.

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Your comments.....

Strive Harder!

After reading the news below, I am just going to head faster and faster to reach my goals!_______________________________________________________

San Francisco-based drug distributor, McKesson's chairman, John Hammergren, recieved a total compensation package valued at $22.6 million last year. This is in commesurate with the record profit posted by the company last year.Besides his salary of $1.37 million, Hammergren also collected eleven million dollars in bonuses.He also was awarded stock options and restricted stock that had an estimated value of nearly ten million dollars.In addition to the salary, bonuses and stock options, McKesson also doled out nearly $500,000 in other benefits for Hammergren including his personal use of the company's aircraft.McKesson earned 913 million in its fiscal year ending in March, the highest annual profit since its inception in 1833. Revenue also reached a new peak at $93 billion.

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Keep working hard!

Organization Citizenship Behavior

Organization Citizenship Behavior

“No employee in any organization is indispensable, every employee’s efforts to become indispensable brings foreword the citizenship”

In today’s competitive world we see the biggest challenge in front of a Leader would be managing and motivating people in an organization. People are one of the most important drivers of the business and no business leader can ignore this fact. People, who can be technology enablers, technology managers, sales enablers or sales managers, everyone needs to be motivated.

Another challenge faced by Leaders is to align the entire company to the business objectives. This is a major challenge posed to any Managing Director; HR Manager; Delivery Managers; as failing to align people in your company would essentially mean a Hay-wire execution which results in inability to meet business targets. This challenge of People Motivation and Alignment leads us to find out innovative techniques to achieve the same.

In my article below I run you through an innovative leadership technique which, out of my experience and interaction with business leaders from Fortune 100 companies has shown success.

Organization Citizenship Behavior or OCB is one human behavioral technique under research for improvisation in many institutions worldwide as well as tried and tested approach in many Fortune 500 companies. OCB is one way in which there is a direct involvement of the business leaders with the people in his company. There is an open communication channel and there is a clear understanding in every individual of their role in the organization.

You might wonder how come Citizenship is being talked about in respect of an organization. Essentially citizenship is considered in terms of States or Countries; however, there is a striking similarity between a state and an organization. Driven by a Leadership with values and distinct goals in mind, any state, works for the development of its citizens. In addition to providing rights to the citizen, it can motivate its citizens to contribute to there duties. Similarly, in an organization, driven by a strong leadership and distinct values one can help every individual to understand his or her roles importance in the organization and by fulfilling the basic rights of freedom of work it can drive them to go beyond there call of duty by making them the Citizens of the company.

What this leads to is, creation of a “Citizen” and not an “Employee”. Having a lot of employees in the company is not a great thing and not enough, what matters is how many citizens have been grown in the organization.

It’s a proven fact that any Citizen of the Company would perform much better than any employee. Every citizen would take decisions which are aligned with the company’s business objectives. The strategy and execution would work hand-in-hand delivering higher productivity, and increased business revenues.

I would categorize Citizenship behavior in an organization in two parts:
Self inculcated citizenship behavior
External Driven Citizenship behavior

Self inculcated citizenship behavior:

Such behavioral occurrences are due to an Individuals’ high understanding of the organization and personal belief in ideologies of the organization. The urge to get benefited on a long term basis for any individual drives them to co-operate as well as contribute. Thus drives a citizenship amongst themselves and peers to achieve long term goals and bring in long term discipline.

This behavior is not comfortably supported by an organization until the individual makes an extra effort to educate and influence others. The individual needs to communicate the same within a smaller group and hence find ambassadors to promote the same.

As an organization, starts seeing the benefits of this behavior, starts encouraging the cause and hence motivates the individual and the organization on a whole. This is the time when the individuals taking these initiatives creates a higher value for themselves in the organization and become indispensable.

External Driven Citizenship behavior:

In this kind of behavior, individuals are motivated by the management to inculcate an additional responsibility where they create enough awareness and need, to become a citizen of the organization rather than just being an employee.

Creating this culture in an organization requires additional efforts to educate all employees, to motivate them further and align them further with the company goals and objectives. To find ambassadors to promote this behavior, a strong sense of understanding is required along with a crafted communication message.

Organizations which are able to achieve such feats really have individuals working with them who are very passionate and committed. Such initiatives are then passed on from management to the employees and the employees finally become the ambassadors of the cause. This creates a lot of value for the managers. The ambassadors who practically implement such initiatives again draw enough attention from management and get recognition for the same.

Various ways which can lead to having lots of citizens in an organization can be as follows:


Leader Spending Time with Citizens
v Every Leader should spend enough time with its citizens to communicate the business goals of the organization.
v Spending time helps people understand, what is expected out of every individual, to achieve the business goals
v It gives freedom to the individuals to take creative decisions keeping in mind the business goals
v It again helps them to verify the decisions and check if they align well with the objectives
v As well as the leader should explain the importance of Contribution to the company as the next step to Learning

Citizens spending time to see the Bigger Picture
v Every citizen having understood there role in the organization should try to spend time in coming out of that frame and should try to understand the bigger picture.
v Post understanding the basic elements of there role the citizen should try to look at the importance of there role and how to improve and enhance productivity.
v Learning is a life long process, to emerge as a successful citizen there should be a focus on contributing to the company.

As an employee in an organization try to think
Am I Indispensable in this company?
If your answer is Yes try to do things which moves you closer to become a Citizen and
if your answer is No, you need to learn a lot more!

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