Lean in IT/ITeS

Lean in It companies

When we hear the word Lean we think of manufacturing companies that to in particular Toyota automobiles.

Due to advancement in information technology, the It/ITeS companies are learning the importance of lean in there daily operations.

As for as my  knowledge is concerned a leading IT/ITeS company in India has employed world's leading consultancy firm for it's lean implementation in their daily operations.

From lean we can eliminate waste and can improve value creation.

There was a Harvard business review article stating the importance for lean in It and it's successful implementation in Wipro.

For a lean to be implemented in the company the leadership team should be committed to it and should thrive for it.

Because for improving competitiveness among companies, the lean is there tool of delivering more value to the customer with less use of resources.

A company to deliver more value to the customer, they has to ensure that there resources are fully utilized.

Lean should be the important goal to the leadership team along with other strategic goals.
a dedicated team of experts who can guide the implementation.

Note: This is small thought in my mind..pls correct me if wrong, and value adds are most welcome..

Lead at your best:

The word impossible or I cannot is most often used by us in our day to day life. The reason is that we think that we cannot do or achieve.Majority of us  underestimate the  power of brain and potential lying inside us.

Example:
Usain Bolt couldn't achieved as fastest man on earth, if he thought that the previous record cannot be achieved.

The title of the post suggests that we should maximize our use of brain and draw maximum potential lying inside of our body.

But the question is how?

Here are some of the areas in which I feel are important for us in achieving mastery in utilization of our potential:

• Understand your strengths
• Question yourself.(Like What I am doing?, How I am doing? and Why I am doing?), this helps us a lot in problem solving and understanding the situations better.
• Remove your mental barrier that limits our thinking ability, in simple words I can say "Erase Laxmana rekha" you can achieve anything in this world.

Note: The areas I mentioned are of my personal views based on personal experience.

My Journey begins.....

I am proud to say that, I am a working professional......

As part of job , I relocated from Bangalore to Noida. This location is new to me, I can feel the importance of diversity needed  to a working professional, which helps in career growth.

On reaching Delhi, enjoyed the ambiance of IGI Airport Terminal-3, which is well sophisticated and that suits present day needs of international and domestic passengers.

The day came which I was waiting for 6 months, i.e., 30-April-2014 , it is the day I joined the company and experiencing corporate life..

The day one journey was smooth. The schedule includes joining formalities, briefing policies. The day two was also same with corporate overview and briefing about employee engagement.

I should equip with contemporary knowledge and passion towards job for succeeding in my personal life and in professional career, with a zeal to learn new things and explore the opportunities with at most ethical standards and keeping the value system of company unchanged.

I can recall the Robert Frost famous poem "Stopping by Woods" :

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.  

The cockroach theory for self development

This is story is extracted from a mail sent to me by friends:

At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.

She started screaming out of fear. With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but... it landed on another lady in the group.Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.

 

The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.

The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt.

When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant.

Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?

If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?

 

He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos.

It is not the cockroach, but the inability of the ladies to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed the ladies. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me.

It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.

Lessons learnt from the story:

• I understood, I should not react in life.
• I should always respond.

Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of, just and right to save a situation from going out of hands, to avoid cracks in relationship, to avoid taking decisions in anger, anxiety, stress or hurry.

Are smartphone users are dumb users???

It is most contradictory statement that I can say.....

The reasons for making such a statement are as follows:-

• The value we derive from our smartphones are less compared to what we paid for
• We are not aware of many functions in the smartphone
• Many functions are not used i.e., underutilized 

These are points are can recall as of now...

If anyone has view points on this topic please post as comments...

Unique management system of Whole Foods

I was very fascinated on hearing the uniqueness of Whole Foods. Whole Foods is a American retailer, headquartered in Austin, Texas, which specializes in selling organic and environmental friendly products in it's stores.

The history of the company  


The following uniqueness in the Whole Foods can be found:

• Freedom: The company gave utmost freedom to employees like the store manager can decide about prices, promotions and even recruiting the staff
• Trust: The company trusts the employees to the core like sharing of company's financial details, this shows how their top management trusts their employees

In the book "The Future of Management" by Gary Hamel describes about the company as follows                 

"Some of the distinctive management principles are: Love, Community, Autonomy, Egalitarianism, Transparency, Mission"

The reason for writing this post is:

• We need a innovative style of managing a company rather than traditional way of handling it, where "office politics" are played dominated role
• We need a company where employees should motivated with regard to their job rather than motivated to intrinsic rewards like monetary benefit, ESOPs, etc
• We need a company where the employee capabilities are fully utilized 

Indians at the top of corporate ladder(International)

Recently appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft Corporation, it sends a strong message to the corporate world that the Indians can excel where ever they are and they can achieve success through their innovative and hard working capabilities.


Some of the notable Indians at the  global C-Suite category:-

1. Sathya Nadela- CEO of Microsoft Corp.
2. Anush jain- Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank
3.Indra Nooyi- CEO of Pepsico
4. Ajay Banga- CEO of Master Card
5. Rakesh Sachdev- CEO of Sigma-Aldrich
6. Francisco D'Souza- CEO of Cognizant
7. Abhijit Talwalkar- CEO of LSI Corporation
8. Rakesh Kapoor- CEO of Reckitt Benckiser
9. Dinesh C Paliwal CEO of Harman International

(Source: The Economic Times dated Febuary 5th, 2014)

Other notable Indians are:

1. Vikran Pandit- Ex-CEO of CITI Group
2. Harish Manwani- COO of Unilever
3. Sameer Suneja- CEO of Perfetti Van Melle sPA
4. Nikesh Arora- Chief Business Officer of Google

This shows the ability of Indians to perform extraordinary and compete with the best around the world. This gesture gives the world that Indians are capable of managing global business.

On the other hand it is also disheartening to see Indian talent flourish abroad and our own country failing to capitalize on the talent. This sends a strong message to our politicians and top level executives alike that they better get their act together. 

The value of Big Data: How analytics differentiates winners by Bain & Company.

Bain report on the big data: Report

The report covers how companies were able to effectively utilizes the available data to tap their potential.