Must read for every MBA grad:Week-1

Hi Everyone,

I took up the challenging task of documenting list of tools/techniques that are commonly used in management field across industries.With help of industry experts,professors and my little experience, I was able to list down top 40 important tools/techniques which are most widely used.

There are countless tools/techniques, strategies and Laws etc., that are used in management filed but these tools/techniques which are quite commonly used and have significance relevance in our day to day professional life.

I will be publishing the list in a batch of 5 every week, so please stay tuned.

Below are list top 5 tools/techniques with description

1.SWOT Analysis: Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats.
         This analysis is used to monitor individual/corporations. It is divided into internal and external parameters. Opportunities and Threats are treated as external parameter and Strength and Weakness are treated as internal parameter.

2.Porter's Five fore model: Micheal porter has identified five forces that determine market attractiveness. The five forces are:industry competitors, potential entrants, substitutes, buyers and suppliers.

3.McKinsey's 7'S Framework: This framework is widely used for improving organization effectiveness. It is divided into hard and soft elements on the basis of influence/dependency of this elements to the success of organization.The hard elements are:Strategy, Structure, Systems. The soft elements are:Shared Value, Skills, Style and staff.

More details: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/strategy/enduring_ideas_the_7-s_framework


4.PESTLE model: The most common analysis for underatnidng the external environment, they are Political, economical, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.

5.BCG matrix:It is the growth share matrix, having 4 quadrants.It helps companies to prioritize their investments and strategies for growth.


More details:  https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/corporate_strategy_portfolio_management_strategic_planning_growth_share_matrix_bcg_classics_revisited/


Note: This top list may change from industry to industry, person to person.

Learning from the book "Jack:Straight from the Gut"

Recently I completed reading the book "Jack:Straight from the Gut" by Jack Welch.

About the author:
Jack Welch: CEO of GE Corporation from 1981 to 2001.

About the book:

It is must read book for every person who needs to taste success in their life, it will be more appropriate to senior executives and senior managers. It is autobiography of Jack, who describes his journey in GE. The book describes his family, education, career in GE and reaching the pinnacle as CEO in GE.

It clearly depicts how he struggled to manage his early life in GE as entry level executive in plastics division and getting promoted as General manger and responsible for the entire operations of the plastics division. His No.1 or No.2 agenda made company to concrete on core areas/domains, rather than diversifying into various fields [the major reason to do reduce their portfolio is to improve on their financial numbers i.e., revenues doubling, margins improvement and PAT  improvement].

In early years as CEO, he invested heavily on new plants and machinery, new acquisitions and selling of no-core business, during 2nd year as CEO he was know as "Neutron Jack" for firm decision in removing employees from GE payroll and many critics came as he laid  profits first ahead of people.During this period he laid importance on capacity building of employees through training and other initiatives. His strategies in making GE a global corporation. The thing which was not achieved by him is Honeywell deal.

His famous performance curve called as "vitality curve"[Top 20; Vitality 70; Bottom 10]. The famous RCA deal, which lead to NBC acquisition. His ability of proactive thinking, thereby devising four game changing  plans for GE they are:

1. Globalization
2. Services business
3. Six Sigma
4. E-business

Key takeaways from the book:

• Believe your "Gut" and believe in yourself
• Thinking ahead of crowd make you a valuable person.
• Managing people
• Create a company were legacy is ingrained in the employees.

Every page has a takeaway, so difficult to mention all.

Note: I strongly recommend this book for every MBA grad.

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.

  

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.