The Dynamic capabilities of David Teece

Recently I was reading an edition of S+B, one of the article I found interesting,which it is a interview with one of the renewed professor from University of California, Berkeley.

The article talks about the dynamic capabilities of the organization and it's implications on the business decisions.

Link to the article: David Teece dynamic capabilities.

About the author: David J. Teece is the Thomas W. Tusher Professor in Global Business at the University of California’s Haas School of Business (Berkeley). He is also the director of the school’s Institute for Business Innovation. He is the author of over 30 books and 200 scholarly papers and co-editor of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Dr. Teece has received four honorary doctorates and has been recognized by Royal Honors.
(Source: David Teece personal website)

For further information on David Teece

Traditional Vs Logical Thinking - Possible solution...

Hope everyone enjoyed the story and realized the importance of logical thinking.

The possible solution to the previous post regarding the importance of logical thinking.

"The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked." Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one."

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don't attempt to think.

For the story refer to the link..
Traditional-thinking-vs-logical-thinking

Traditional thinking Vs Logical thinking

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.

He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. 

Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.

2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.

3) But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer's field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers.

What would you recommend to the Girl to do?

Note:- Post answer/views as comments...  In next post I will post what she did......

Every thing happens for our own good

During my school days, I had a period of Moral Science class where they teach the ethics, morals and the code of conduct for the students so as to become the good citizens of the country.

In this subject, one story inspired a lot to me which helped me to build myself and enrich my career.

The story goes like this:

Once there was a king named 'Thirumala' ruled some part of the county and he has a wise adviser, who is well versed in the all the subjects.

One day on the king birthday he was well dressed with royal robes and walking majestically into the court room, on the way to court room he his waving his hand to all the citizens present in the court room due to waving his hand his fingers got scratched to the metal door and got hurt as his fingers has a minor cut leading to a loss of blood.

After this incident, the king asked the his adviser that why it had happened he replied "Every thing for our own good", king got angry and told to the guards that adviser to arrested and sent to the dark dungeon for some days.

One fine day king went to royal hunting to the near by forest, for a while he was with all the soldiers, suddenly he spotted a dear, he wanted to catch it but unfortunately he couldn't catch it and he lost with other people he was alone. It was in the evening he was resting under a tree suddenly he heard roaring sound of a lion near by him smelling him he was scared and he was lying silently watching it's activities.When it came near to his hand and saw there was cut in the hand it simply left without harming and he immediately realized the importance of his adviser words that "Everything happens for our own good".

Animals(especially Lion, Tiger) follow a principle of eating fresh meat not a rotten or damaged.

He back to the kingdom, ordered the guards to release the adviser immediately,when he came king apologized for his foolish act.

What can we learn from this a small moral story:
Every thing happens for own good.

We should patiently wait for our turn and nothing happens without any reason.
Hope everyone will think in positive ways for the acts they do in their lives and ultimately good will happen.

Logistics Infrastructure report of India by Mckinsey & Co

Infrastructure is one of the key indicators of the country's economic development. With respect to India, we lacks in the basic infrastructure. This impacts on the business community as whole.

In this regard, Mckinsey & Co. came up with the logistics report, the underlines the importance of logistics and ways to improve the logistics.

The link for the report is given below:

Logistics Infrastructure Report

What can we learn from Chinese Bamboo tree??

Usually we learn from our experience or from seeing others so that we don't repeat our mistakes. But do we realize that can we learn from a tree that is growing in our backyards?? The answer is....

YES.

We can learn a lot of things from nature and one of the beautiful lesson that we can learn from the nature is the story of the Chinese Bamboo tree.

When you observe the Chinese Bamboo tree it grows about 80 feet high and it takes about 5 years and 3 months to reach the 80 feet.

When you plant the seed of Chinese Bamboo in the back yard, you can observe the following:

• 0-1 year: You can see anything, even the green sprout can't be seen but you should water it.
• 1-2 year: Even daily watering you won't see any changes as same as the 1st year.
• 2-3 year:Even daily watering, you can't see any changes happening as same as 1st and 2nd year, be optimistic and patience. If you are fool enough dig and see what happens you will get astonished by the result.
• 3-4 year: Daily water it and no visible changes, want to check dig and see.
• 4-5 year:Daily water it and no visible changes.

After the 5th year you can make a note of the changes:

•  6th year: 1st day you can see a small green sprout coming out of the soil.
• 6th year: 2nd day you will be wondered to see the plant as grown 3 feet within a overnight.

Like wise within 3 months of time you can see the bamboo tree as grown of 80 feet high.

So why it took so many years for a small sprout to come up...

Within this five years of time the bamboo tree is getting ready to sustain the 80 feet high that means the tree is growing under the soil and making it stronger. It is making it roots stronger for supporting its height.

How can we relate to our personal lives:

• Patience has a reward.
• Major achievement comes after years of hard work, patience and failure.

Don't be panic every time you loose or didn't get want you want, some or other day you would be recognized and rewarded what you want.  

   

GE's Ambidextrous leadership

First let us understand the meaning of the word "Ambidextrous" it states that  "able to use the right and left hands equally well " as per Oxford Dictionary.

Point in bringing this word in context to the GE company is they were able to use their strategies for growth and cost-control measures equally and balancing both.

In Welch period, he concentrate much on the cost-control measures for making profits.
In Immelt period, he inherited the principle of cost-control and he made strategies for the growth of the company.

Immelt had a right mix of strategy for growth and cost measure. By changing the pattern of working through series of changes.

When Immelt took as a Chairman and CEO of GE on the first day he laid down a series of activities to be done in short and long term.

• Concentrating on emerging economies like China and India.
• Going for green technologies i.e., ecomagination.
• Investing on R&D centers.
• Modernizing the leadership center(renamed as Jack Welch Leadership Center) at Crotonville.

This points tells us that Immelt had a strategic vision for development of the company.

Further to his ideas, Immelt sold the the plastics and insurance business which are eating away the profits of the group and many more mergers & acquisitions as part of expansion and many business were sold of as part of cost-control measures. 

Jeff Immelt's strategy on turning GE into Ecofriendly

We all know that  Jeff Immelt is Chairman and CEO of GE. One of  the biggest companies in the world in terms of market capitalization. GE is conglomeration of various business like energy, aviation, locomotives and financial services.

Jeff succeeded Jack Welch after Jack retirement from Chairman and CEO of GE in 2001
Jeff has developed a business model that is ecofriendly which they term as "Ecomagination®".

Ecomagination is the initiatives taken by the GE under the leadership of Jeff Immelt, for developing cleaner technologies and improve companies energy efficiency.

The main reason behind launching this model is:

• To go for "green" technologies.
• To improve the customer efficiency by delivering the at-most value of the product.
• To practice socio-economic sustainability.
• To provide innovative solutions to the present day energy challenges.

GE's five primary commitments in the business initiative are:

• To increase revenues through ecomagination products.
• Double the investment on research and development for cleaner technologies.
• Reduce green houses gases emissions.
• Reduce water use and improving the water reuse.
• Keep the public informed.

Impact of MOOC on present day univeristies

Recently we have seen changing pattern of learning by students, business practitioners and professionals, etc. This is because of introducing MOOC(Massive Open Online Course) by various universities in the world.

What is MOOC:-

• It is a online courses offered by various universities by providing their course material and sharing their intellectual property. 
• The courses contain various assessments, course material and assignments.

Before introduction of MOOC, the learning the courses is majorly from physical universities through enrollment for full time or part time and distance education. Due to this students has to spend lot of money for their undergraduate/post-graduate education and the only source of learning is by tuition or by private institutions.

Impact of MOOCs on physical universities:-

Due to introduction of MOOCs, the students community welcomed because it helps them to learn new concepts and enhancing their knowledge. For every step taken by mankind has effects which is like two sides of a coin. As for as my knowledge is concerned the following areas of learning may effect.

Some of the positive and negative points are listed down.

Positive points  

• World class knowledge: Many universities may not access to the world class resources due to intellectual property rights this makes the students from various countries and others universities to access to their material. 
• Learning pattern: Previously students are depend on the text books and videos available, but now they can access to the multiple sources for their reference.
• Popularity of the offering university: The offering university develops a special status in minds of readers, as readers will be across the globe.

Negative points

• Effect on admissions:- Due online courses and access to virtual class rooms, the students community may prefer to register in online rather than to physical universities.
• Intellectual property:- There may be chance of misuse of the intellectual property rights.
• Damage to traditional way of learning. 

Some of the famous MOOCs are listed down:-

1. MIT's OCW.
2. UDACITY.
3. COURSERA
4. EDX
5. NPTEL(Indian context)

All above points are my personal views and any suggestions & constructive feedback is always welcome.

Relevance of proverb: Jack of all trades, but master of none.

We all know the English proverb "Jack of all trades, but master of none" do we think that this is valid anymore in this present day world. As this 21st century is highly competitive and filled with advanced technological know-how.

I think it has to rephrased as "Jack of all trades, but master of one" his statement can be best suit in this world where we should be equipped with at-least one skill for employable.

I think today's world we have two perceptive's to think about, they are:

• Company's perceptive
• Individual perceptive

Company perceptive:-

The company looks for the individuals who are experts in the domain knowledge and their skills and they look for candidates who are expertise at-least in one of the their core abilities, so that we are value creators to the company.

Individual perceptive:-

As a individual we wanted to gain knowledge irrespective of the area of our interest i.e., wanted to learn about everything what we see, but this good until some point of time.

We as a individual has to develop an area of interest for creating a competitive edge over others( friends, colleagues and peers). So by building our ability on one area we can develop a niche in that area of interest. 

3 C's for a Strategic decision making

Generally for any decision making we think so much for reducing risk and unknowns in our decisions in day to day life, i wondered how companies will take decision's for achieving it's mission and vision.

In this regard Mr Kenichi Ohmae,  developed a strategic triangle for business decisions. The three elements of the triangle are:

• Customers
• Competitors
• Corporation

(Source:- The Mind of the Strategist by Kenichi Ohmae)

The success of the business is achieved by properly balancing this three elements, if any one of the element is not given sufficient priority then the strategy will go for a toss which ultimately impact the business.

• Customers:- Customers are the ultimate buyers of our products/services, which should appeal to them and the decisions should address the total market in which the company is operating. In further to that, in present day market condition every market is not homogeneous but it is heterogeneous addressing this market is very difficult.
• Competitors:-In a free and open economy, the market place is filled with lot of competitors and we should carefully address them. The strategy what we take should differentiate with the competitors product/service it may be price, packing,functionality, etc...  
• Corporation:- The strategic decisions what we make should be aligned to our business mission and vision. These decisions may be functionary inclined and should strength the corporations uniqueness.

Kellogg's failure in India

Kellogg's is world's leading breakfast cereal manufacturing company hardhearted in USA.
In 1994 Kellogg's entered Indian market with it's iconic brand Corn flakes, this brand was a strategic failure for them. why they failed??

After there intensive market analysis they understood that the traditional Indian breakfast consists of hot served food like Idly, vada, Roti  & Puri, etc but the Kellogg corn flakes should be taken with cold milk which is not preferred by Indians. So there is a mission component of customers preferences in their decision making.

As i described above that for  any strategic decision making the three C's must be taken into account for success for the decision.

Value analysis and Value engineering- A tool for cost cutting

I wondered how companies are doing cost cutting in their products to achieve a competitive edge over the competitors with absolute no compromising on the quality of the products.
In this regard, present day companies figured out a competitive tool for analysis of  the product with at-most detail, this tool is termed as "Value analysis" and "Value engineering".

Generally people tend to call Value analysis as Value engineering and vice verse.

Kenichi Ohmae describes VA and VE in his book "The mind of the strategist" as "analysis of the purchased materials or components from the point of view of price so that the results can be incorporated into planning in such areas as cost reduction and development of new products".

Value analysis/Value engineering :- It is a orderly method to increase the value of the material or component in the system by understanding it's present value and it's associated costs.

In general sense the term value can be determined as the ratio of it's functionality and cost.

VA/VE tend to improve the value by increasing the functionality of the product or decrease the cost associated with it.

Example:
Consider a product X which is charged at Rs 10 and product Y is charged at Rs 10, both are competing in the same market place and both companies are trying to increase their market share, so both companies are allocating huge budgets for marketing people to push the their respective products.

Due to increasing intense competition, the company manufacturing product X wanted to increase their market share and revenue from the product with out any additional budget, so they decide to undertake cost cutting scheme but without affecting the quality of the product.

At this times VA/VE helps to come out of this situation, by analyzing  each and every component.

First, collect the competitors product Y and product X, dismantle both the products to the smaller components . Now analyse both the components of products and you can know which component and do cost analysis for the component then you can know which component is costing more and you can try to reduce it with out compromising on the quality of it.

This how the cost cutting measures are taken by major automobiles manufacturing companies in Japan.

Power of Geometric Progression

Recently i heard an anecdote regarding the power of geometric progression, the anecdote goes like this:

There was a Sadhu(saint), who lives a normal life in the forests roaming near by villages for food and he is very knowledgeable person in all aspects and it is believed that he is the inventor of chess game.

Once he got a chance meet the king and explained the game, king got fascinated about the game as it involves the real life scenario and that to it's associated with the strategy.

King liked the game and told to sadhu that ask what ever you want i will give you, then sadhu asked i want rice, king replied that ask some thing that suits my status like gold, precious stones, etc.

Sadhu didn't change his mind and king told nodded for the sadhu request and asked hoe much rich you want then he told some conditions for fulfilling the the sadhu words, the conditions are:-

• Rice that can be filled the boxes of the chess board( 64 boxes) and 
• The number of rive grains should be double of every box succeeding it i.e., 1,2,4,8,16,32.....

At end of the day the king couldn't fulfill the sadhu gift and even he sold his entire kingdom for the fulfilling the sadhu gift because the condition that the sadhu told of the geometric progression series i.e.,

1,2,4,8,16,32,64,126,...(1,2^1,2^2,2^3,2^4,2^5,2^6,2^7,2^8....)

In another instance, Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Tipping point", he explains that when a paper is folded 50 times then the distance would as the approximate distance to the sun from the earth. That is the power of geometric progression.

Diplomatic mission extraterritoriality in country

Recently i came across some interesting facts about the diplomatic mission or embassy in the countries, where they enjoy at-most freedom from the host country.

This rules and procedures are laid down in Vienna convention on Diplomatic Relations-1961, a short summary of the convention is :-

• The convention has framed a legal document, which has 53 articles which contains defining a diplomatic, duties can be performed and relation of rules to the diplomat and embassy or mission.
• Articles 1,2, 3,4 & 5 describes defining a head of the mission, establishment of the mission or embassy, functions, agreement between the host & sending country and establishment of head of mission for more than two countries.
• Articles 14, 15 & 16 defines the classification of head of mission and assigning of diplomatic staff 
• Articles 22 defines that the entry of host country to the mission.
• Articles from 23 to 41 explains the exemptions to head of mission. diplomatic staff and agents.
• Articles 42,43 & 44 explains some of the functions of diplomats.
• Articles 45 & 46 tells what to perform in emergency times like war time, etc.

Some of exemptions to diplomats and mission/embassy from the host country is:-

• Tax exemptions and custom duty exemptions to diplomats.
• No civil or criminal cases against the diplomats.
• No interference in communication between diplomat and the home country.
• Immune to local laws and legal procedures.

Diplomatic Bag:- A bag or pouch usually carried by the diplomats for carrying confidential information from host country to their home country and it is exempted from checking by police, custom officials and this cannot be scanned through x-rays. scanners. This may a small bay, suit case , etc...

Diplomatic courier:- A person carrying the diplomatic bag and person enjoys exemption from scrutiny by the security people and there are given diplomatic immunity.

• Embassy or mission is the only place in the country that the host country laws are not implemented.

Law of 150- Dunbar's Number

We all know that man is social animal where we all makes social connections for building our personal and professional networks for accomplishing our goals.

In this regard, do you ever figured it out how many social relations can we make perfectly i.e. genuine connections ?...

Any guess.....

150
this is number that our brain(Neocortex) can handle and remember.

It is scientifically proven by famous professor named Robin Dunbar. He is British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist and presently working in Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. In this research in 1992 based on the understanding of human behavior and published a research paper named  " Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates".
In this paper he clearly explains the constrains of human brain and group size and etc. This law of 150 also explained in the book "Tipping point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

The Dunbar's Number or law of 150 tells that:

• Human brain can properly maintains social connections up to 150, it can remember more than that but the impact 150 is more and highly sensitive to this 150 connections.
• This number indicates that a individual genuine social relationship.

Dunbar has written. “Putting it another way, it’s the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar.”

Examples:-
W.L.Gore & Associates Inc., strictly incorporates this principle in their company and they design their plants such that it fit for 150 employees only.

One of religious group know as the Hutterites can find in European nations and this group of believe in the rule of 150  and they strongly believe that 150 number is the maximum number that the community lives together and they believe that adding one number  more to the community that they can change their believes and other cultural aspects.    

Uniqueness of W.L.Gore & Associates Inc.

W.L  Gore & Associates Inc, is an American company specializing in manufacturing of products associated with polymer polytetrafluoroethylene(PTFE) and it's headquarters situated at Newark, Delaware, USA.

Quick snapshot about the company:-

• Founders: Bill and Vieve Gore
• Founding year: 1958.
• Gore is one of the 200 largest privately held U.S. companies.
• For the 16th consecutive year, Gore earned a position on FORTUNE's annual list of the U.S. "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2013. 
• Gore ranked 21st overall. Gore is now one of only a few companies to appear on all of the U.S. "100 Best Companies to Work For" lists since Robert Levering and Milton Moskowitz initiated the ranking in 1984. 

Gore company has been granted more than 2000 patents worldwide in various fields.  

How W.L.Gore & Associates is different from others:

1. Organizational Structure:- Gore company has a flat organizational structure  i.e, no hierarchy in the company  they termed as flat lattice organization and all the employees are designated as "Associates" and some of the top management people are termed as "Sponsors", who are their to advice and motivate employees 
2. Organizational Culture:- Gore company has team based, motivational and inspirational culture. As it encourages it's employees to come out with innovative ideas and freedom for expression.

A company like W.L.Gore & Associates Inc, exists in this present day world is miraculous and its purely the management team success. In other words i can say that the management team is striving hard to preserve this management and company philosophy for decades together.  

Preserving this type of company philosophy and organizational culture in present day virtual world is herculean task, but still they follow because their employees believe in their organization culture and system.

In the book Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, he clearly explains about the working of the Gore company.

Link to the company website is http://www.gore.com/en_xx/index.html 

Power of few from the book "The Tipping point"

Recently i read the book "The Tipping point"by Malcolm Gladwell, in this book  he clearly explains how little things can make a big difference.

In this book, he clearly describes how the few things in our lives change a lot and he explains about the connections between the people and impact of them in our every day lives.

In this book  he explains the Law of Few and stickiness factor

• Connectors:- Those are the people with large number of connections with people. 
• Mavens:- They are data banks, where this people has a lot of knowledge.
• Salesman:- They are people they can persuade others towards their choice.

In the stickiness factor he explains the reasons for the success of the TV shows( Sesame Street and Blue Clue's) in USA, in which understanding the audience is essential and delivery, but  understanding audience need is very difficult task.

In later part of the book he explains about the Law of One hundred and fifty and the power of context.
The Law of 150 says that the people can make good relationships between 150 people, beyond this the group can  divert from the main course this may lead to misunderstanding among the people.

The book goes very smoothly and has a good finishing.

I personally feel it is a good book for better understanding of our psychology, perceptions and external environment.

Venkat......

What does India Export?

We all know that we import oil from gulf countries;watches from Switzerland but what does India export?
.
.
.
As far as my knowledge i think India exports talent(people) to all the developed countries, you name any company Indians are present.

In Indian context IIT's and IIM's play crucial role in developing, nurturing this young talent there by creating engines of future growth.

Indian's IIT'S and IIM's are the major powerhouses of talent generation, where it is considered as the toughest to get entry to the this prestigious institutes.
Some of the alumnus of IIT and Indians who showcased exemplary talent are listed below:-

1. Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
2. Sabeer Bhatia, founder of Hotmail.com
3. Vikram Pandit, ex-CEO of Citigroup.
4. Vinod Dham, regarded as Father of Pentium Chip 

Like this there are many more examples where Indians are proving their talent.

But when we understand that why these people left India?......

Is a billion dollar question......

but i think the external forces may forced them to leave this nation and many more.....


venkat....

India's Ranking in Global Competitiveness Index 2012-2013

Recently i read a report "The Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013", which is published by World Economic Forum in which it gives details about the impact of competitiveness on the economic factors and  factors relating to level of productivity .

What is Competitiveness?

"Competitiveness is a set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country."

(Source:The Global competitiveness report 2012-2013)

The report has identified twelve factors under which the global competitiveness index is based upon and the report clearly explains how these factors influence the economic condition of the country.

The factors are:-

1. Institutions
2. Infrastructure
3. Macroeconomic environment
4. Health and primary education
5. Higher education and training
6. Goods market efficiency
7. Labour market efficiency
8. Financial market efficiency
9. Technological readiness
10. Market size
11. Business sophistication.
12. Innovation.

When we take Indian context, the facts are given below:-

• India ranks 59th out of 144 countries.
• India is in last position with respect to BRICS countries.
• India is behind Thailand, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, China, Japan in Asian Countries.

Some of the findings that they have reported with respect to Indian context is:

• India lacks in basic infrastructure and in technological aspects.
• No proper transport system and energy infrastructure.
• Indian is in 101th rank in health care and in education.
• India is in 99th position in Macroeconomic environment and 106th in politics.
• India has a well sophisticated financial markets and regulations.

My understandings from this report is:-

• India has to develop infrastructure in both transport and in energy this can be done by PPP model.
• India has to improve quality of the education and should totally revamp it's existing model and this can be achieved by utilizing present day technology.
• India has to improve in health care.

Link for the Global competitiveness report 2012-2013

venkat.....

Learning from the book "The Game Changer" by A.G.Lafley and Ram Charan

Recently i completed studying an interesting book named "The Game Changer: How every leader can drive everyday innovation" by A.G.Lafley and Ram Charan.

About authors:
A.G.Lafley: CEO of P&G(Procter and Gamble)
Ram Charan: A well known author and business consultant.

About the book:
It was a good book to be read by every MBA student, which explains how Innovation important to a organization to sustain in the market. The book also explains about how innovation is key in companies like Lego, DuPont, Toyota, GE and Honeywell.

The book reveals the penetration of innovation in P&G work culture and also it tells how it impacted the company.

A.G.Lafley is instrumental in bringing innovation into the company and transformed P&G, a world class leader in FMCG sector.

Takeaways from the book:

• Importance of innovation to the company
• Work culture of companies like:- P&G, DuPont, Honeywell and GE
• Business models of the companies.
• Strategy formulation and execution.
• Thinking out of the box.
• Leadership attributes.
• Managing people.

At end the book a chapter is dedicated for the  leadership qualities of Jeff R. Immelt, CEO of GE.

Note: I strongly recommend this book to your personal library....

Hansei(Self reflection)- A tool for self improvement

We all know that Toyota is know for it's quality products and we also aware of TPS(Toyota Production System), an unique production methods keeping quality as a motive and to deliver at-most value to the customer.

In TPS, we are all aware of 5s and lean technique which made a TPS a powerful tool for a manufacturing industry.One important thing which we didn't know about its powerful tool is:

Hansei, a Japanese word which means Self Reflection.

Toyota always looks for continuous improvements in its products, in this regard Toyota  learns from its past .

Toyota strictly follows this Hansei, by which they understand 

• why a product failed?
• How it failed?
• Reasons for failure.
• Expected and real outcomes of taking that project.
• What would be the possible steps to be taken to overcome this type of failure in future projects.

One example to showcase that Toyota learnt from incidents(Hansei in practice):-

Toyopet Crown, a 1950's Sedan had been a hit in  Japan, so Toyota was eager to grab an opportunity in the United States and shipped off the Toyopet Crown  to United States and debuted in California in 1956 but it failed to impress Americans and ultimately Crown was a flop and it was a major blow to Toyota.

From this incident, Toyota did not return for 8 year and during this period Toyota learnt:-

• About American customers.
• Customers lifestyle, culture.
• They also understood unmet demands for the cars. 

After a gap of 8 years, Toyota launched Corona in 1965, which boosted the sales and showcased their ability in automobile industry in USA. 

So in everyone's life we should learn from our past and should analyze 

• why it happened? 
• how it happened? 
• what made to happen this event and in future 
• what precautions to be taken for overcoming this?

Success Story of Singanayakanahalli Rythara Seva Sahakara bank

During my internship i got a chance to visit and study one of the co-operative society situated in Singanayakanahalli (Near Yelahanka New town,  Bangalore North taluk)  named Rythara Seva Sahakara Bank.

A quick snap shot of the society:-

• The society started its operation in December 1976, with financial help from Syndicate Bank.
• The area of operation is 48 villages of Bangalore North Taluk.
• At present the society is covering 1710 hectares of area the jurisdiction.
• The members of the society are: small farmers, agriculture labors and village artisans
•  At present it has 6 branches situated in Singanayakanahali, Yelahanka, Raajanukunte, Chikkabettahalli, Kogilu, Marasandra.

I was astonished to see a cooperative society success in this manner which is equivalent to be  a big MNC success and in cooperative sector which can be compared to the success of SEWA(Self Employed Women Association), in Gujarat.

My study on this cooperative bank revealed a lot interesting factors like:-

1. Business model
2. Operational activities
3. Organizational Structure   

Operational activities and organizational structure are different in this cooperative bank when compared to ordinary cooperative society.

The main reasons what i think for the success of this cooperative bank is:-

• The management style.
• Strong belief in ethics and professionalism and adhere to code of conduct.
• Healthy relationship between stake holders.
• Transparency in financial transactions.

By seeing this success of this cooperative, i remained of Mahatma Gandhiji's words:
'Village empowerment and socio-economic upliftment of poor is possible only by cooperatives".

Concluding my post by saying

JAI JAVAN JAI KISAN

Internship experience- A first taste of corporate life

I started my internship at Arience Strategies, a project management consultant firm based in USA and in Bangalore.

Started my first day with lot of enthusiasm and curiosity focused on learning. The excitement was immeasurable in laying my first step at the office doors. The enthusiasm is still continuing and it will be ever in my mind about learning new things. In my view learning is

On the first day, had a good experience after talking to my mentor and project head Mr Pramod Kumar sir, a perfect example of professional as defined by Subroto Bagchi in his book "THE PROFESSIONAL".

From first day to present day had a great learning which had a influence on my personal life also, some of the aspects of my learning other than project is:-

• Leading a Professional life.
• Thinking process on a specified problem.
• A positive approach on every aspect we think. 

Until now i had a good experience working under Mr Pramod Kumar sir, hope to continue  for ever........ 

I am condensing my writing about my internship experience in a brief manner and  i continue in further posts.......

I would conclude my first post..........by saying "KNOWLEDGE IS DIVINE"

I heartfelt thanks to my well wisher, mentor and fatherly person Dr George Easaw sir, without his motivation and encouragement this would not happen.

I think, i didn't not hurt anybody in my post, if so my sincere apologies to you....

Wish you the best Venkat  in your blogging adventure ..

george..