Panel Discussion on Post Recession Strategies and Tactics at The Leaders In India 2009

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Oct
09

So now we have a power panel talking about recession and the current scenario and the road ahead being moderated by Steve Tappin, chair, LII 2009.

What’s happening at the Global credit Markets?

Theres’ no doubt that the US and UK are going to see slow growth and hence if you look at where the growth would really be, well, India, China are in the race. We did go through difficult times in Q1, but now we are introducing the concept of reverse integration. We are manufacturing products at price points which make sense to the masses int he country. Hence we are focusing on a whole new market segment to look at.

Corporations like us have to better how to work with the governments around the world. We as an institution have to get better at doing this as the funds today really are with the governments. We have realized that in some markets its better to partner with exsiting organizations to achieve the right and fast growth.

Now we have the Airlines industry being represented and what we are discussin are the cycles in the airlines industry. Global recession and fuel prices, have hit the industry pretyt badly. Now how do you weather a downturn like that?

I believe, what you need to do is have a very detail and deep customer focus. If you listen to your customer right, you kind of know the bad weather for which you could well be prepared. You hence start thinking on what best can be done with the customers hence delivering and creating the right value. In any industry if you do your homework and understand where the world economy is going will help you a lot.

One of the reasons the Indian airline industry is losing 1.5 billion dollars is the Me-too syndrome!

And now we are discussing the remittance industry and interesting to note that the trends in this industry are still increasing. And what we did as a company is get the slow down much faster and quickly, hence we looked at strategic growth options. We as an organization grew and looked at our corporate strategy, aligning it with the growth and then we looked at investments. We had the following two crucial pieces with us:

  1. Communicating with our stakeholders
  2. Being progressive and Aggressive than the industry – high level of execution

And now we have the IT Services business being represented from the panel and interesting to note that the comopany went ahead to drive growth within and external to the organization.

We went to our top 50 customers and understood their issues and problems and had our swot teams helping clients and helping them grow their businesses

We went to our partners to look at how we could get the right pricing models for our customers and finally we went to unions in the EU, and supported the cause of outsourcing which highly supported us in generating new business than cutting on any sources/ costs

And now we are in the Q&A mode in the panel discussion, which will be open to public view next. Interesting to share the notes here, we are discussing the defence industry as an opportunity in India. Tejpreet from GE remarks that the new and innovative products which will come, will be from India and China and emerging economies now rather than the west and this will drive growth of the market in the west.

Session two of The Leaders In India 2009 WIth a Panel Discussion on Mergers and Acquisition

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Oct
09

So here we are with the second session of Day 1 of The Leaders In India 2009. This is a panel discussion with a very impressive moderated panel, and the discussion will revolve around Mergers and Acquisitions which surely is an interesting discussion to be in.

We have the resident editor from Mumbai for Outlook magazine moderating the session for the gathering and he talks some very interesting numbers.

70% of acquisitions fail

Company like Cisco which has done more than 135 acquisitions till date, we have the Chief Globalization Officer from Cisco, talking about how Cisco has mastered the art of acquisitions. He says the majority of our acquisitions came from our customers. This is the Go To Market anc business strategy for Cisco. We differentiate in market enetering, expansion and acceleration. Our success rate is 70%. We are very high on retention as well.

You need a culture in a company to be able to do M and A

We also do acquisitions to enter new business models. Our learning with acquisitions is that you have to have that culture in your company and today we have an entire team to do these acquisitions. Last but not the least, its a process. Now we are talking India in specific and interestingly Cisco has so far done 6 new investments in India.

Key takeaway: M&A can be a key part of your strategy and it can become your culture

Now we have Mr. Charles from wattson wyatt, giving the Human angle to M&A. What I have learned working with clients, there is no standard template for culture. It has to be something which is central to all parts of your transaction. In terms of due diligence, if you really dont understand the culture of the organization that you are buying, you should not think of buying them.

I was very impressed with the amount of expertise and process and real hard work which went into due diligence when I was working with clients in India

But the whole diligence was on the financial part and not the cultural or Human part. One of the things you need to accept about M and A, is that you need to be better at it.

Interestingly we have an expert talking about post integration and acquisition and she says, when you are in the midst of your deal, how much attention have you paid to the fact that what would happen to the organization after merger and what would form out of it?

You need to have the systems integrated to get the right prioritization, post acquisition integration. The key thing for you is to get the right internal team together. You need to bring all the elements together with common objectives and right prioritization, as you cannot do everything in 30 days, hence you need to have the right planning which will definitely pay dividends in the long run.

By bad post acquisition realizations, and if not planned well, you could inherit losses and other issues. Hence plannign the right internal team with the right objectives is the right thing.

Bad M&A?

Sure, there is bad M&A there, but it is also the time for opportunity. Governments are going to have to raise money in the near future and taxes are the way to do it and hence this is the time to have a strategic look at your group structure and if you have your IP rights at the right places in your organization and if you are exploiting them fully.

Q&A:

Now we are in the q&A mode with the moderator of the session leading with the questions.

Very interesting discussions happening about Indian family businesses and also how Cisco does the right things by setting the right expectations, while discussing business Integration across verticals and internal employee cultures.

Money is a Motivation – setting the right financial structure post integration:

We now are discussion how compensation structures change and how they are controlled and managed over time, post integration. You need to structure the deal looking at the fact that anybody who has set up a business has a huge amount of emotional attachment with the business. What we have found is: if you can intelligently find out the right roles for people post integration, looking at what they are doing, they love, you can have a successful post integration team merger and integration.

Tom Peters the Management Guru – LIVE at The Leaders In India 2009

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Oct
09

Here I am, LIVE blogging Mr. To Peters, Management Guru and Author at The Leaders In India 2009.

We said somethings 25 years ago about basics and we are in this mess today. I said to a MIT graduate, that shut down MIT and we can go a long way in bettering. Since 1996 of my time, I have focused on the issue on women in leadership and women in management. Now it is not an issue of social justice, but its that woman buy things!

I am pretty much able to give a guarantee that I will dissapoint you this morning

If you have reached the age of 66, you know for sure that the only secret is there are no secrets! Tom starts by giving an example of Conrad Hilton’s answer to “what was the most important lesson you’ve learned in your long and distinguished career” and he said, remember to tuck the shower curtain inside the bath tub!

The art of war does not require complicated maneuvers; the simplest are the best and common sense in fundamental. From which one might wonder that how it is that generals make blunders; it is because they try to be clever – Napolean

Interestingly Tom shares how he has learned from his life and the neighborhood talking about one of the issues that India faces today with its growth, which is continuing the growth.

I am often asked by would be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within hgue corporate strcutures, How do I build a small firm for myself? The answer is: Buy a very large one and WAIT – Paul Ormered

If you are not pursuing incredibly aggressive strategy, your days are numbered. And Tom shares his experience of working with Mckenzie with one of his colleagues. Interestingly Tom shares some very amazing statistics from the US and how companies have failed over years. if you look at the world’s largest exporters:

  • No.4 is Japan
  • Tie for 2nd and 3rd : American and chinese
  • No 1: Germans

I am a strong strong strong believer of middle sized companies. I believe that medium sized enterprises are the future for us. I think if you look at the US economy, which continues to have a significant productivity lead than the rest of the world, fundamentally every automobile plan has the same productivity!

Everything in existence tends to Deteriorate – Norberto Odebrecht

If you have to make a sizeable company, you have to go to war against yourself. The only thing that beats a company is ITSELF PERIOD! I have read Tom before, and I feel this is an absolute truth, which was also supported by Mr. Subroto Bagchi yesterday at NASSCOM.

Giant mergers destroy value. PERIOD

Execution IS strategy – Fred malek

The three magical words that are crucial for an enterprise. And Tom is giving this perfect example referring to the Blue Ocean! I am impressed Tom :) What’s the point of looking outside if you can’t do anything with your assets?!

Two point strategy by Tom in life:

  1. Execution is strategy
  2. You only find OIL if you drill wells

**My apologies for not being able to blog the entire session by Tom, due to an urgent call by the Co-founder of my company!

But here I am again covering the question and answer round with Tom.Tom just spoke about the lessening of the cultural differences and how we should be working towards getting the systems right! The CEO is NOT teh best strategist, but he is the guy who would get the best Strategist on board to do the right work.

Tom very strongly puts how the best of the projects fail due to lousy execution specs in the proposal. The Chrysler Americans and the Daimler Germans may not be the best strategist in the history! It is the little stuff that matters with significant multiplier effects, says Tom, giving a very interesting example of surgeons.

A professional listener is as same as a professional pilot

Business schools are a scurge of the world! Many of you went to Bschools and so did I, but I like thinking of the fact that I outgrew it!

In my perfect world you should have someone on Board your company under the age of 25! Things are changing and you I can challenge, dont realize it! You are as good as the people you spend your time with.

Live Blogging Tthe Leaders In India 2009 – The Opening Ceremony with Steve Tappin, Peter Rigby and Donald Trump

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Oct
09

Listening to Steve Tappin from Yorkshire, and he pushes the ambitions of CEO’s to be the best and be more inspirational which is his day job and his night job is the book he is writing, which is secrets of CEO’s.
Interestingly, Steve says that two thirds of Global leaders that we have at the moment are not big enough, two thirds are managers at best and they don’t have the leader’s qualities. Steve gives areas for CEO’s:
1.    Business performance
2.    Business leadership
3.    Personal performance
4.    Personal leadership
5.    Talent

And after a good networking energy filled opportunity, we have Peter Rigby, Chief Executive of Informa Group plc, Non-Executive Chairman of Electric Word plc. Peter starts the day with introducing the Leaders In India and how the contribution of such platforms can make a meaningful difference to the communities we serve and as the community as a whole.

We now have Steve again talking about the TRUMP group and here we have Donald Trump. And Donald starts with the resilience of the Indian marketplace and Donald will be talking about the emerging markets in specific the Real Estate Market. WSJ has dubbed Real Estate as India’s new Tech.

It takes an outsiders perspective to look at the things that can change

Donald is sharing his experience of a conference he attended at Dubai and well how the buying patterns are evolving.

To move things forward we really have to get things back to basics.

My father was teaching me abotu business and about focus and he told a story in the early nineties which explained to Donald what focus really is. you can’t be all things to all people. One of the biggest pitfalls every one has seen over the last few years is that all are going the same direction, but in my view we have to understand the subtleties. We hence lost track of basis, we lost track of cost, margins shrunk. Its time to ge trealistic!

Why India today?

interestingly, Donald is talking about the India story and what things can you do differently and what new things can you do to move forward. In 27 years India has only had 1 year of negative growth.

Fluency in English in India is a great advantage, which I see as a great potential, as it still is the language of business

There is a level of aspirational wealth here, that you don’t see anywhere else in the world. The desire here is so much stronger that I have not seen anywhere lse in the world! People here really love try and do things. And you have to love what you do to be successful. You never will out-perform anyone else in the company if you don’t love what you do.

Urbanisation is another thing which is very rapidly growing and is a mind boggling statistic which has applications everywhere

I have always heard of the American Dream, even in Obama’s speech, but today listening to Donald Trump, creating the amazingly HUGE Indian DREAM! I am a proud Indian (as always) !

Opportunities:

  • People wanna know what they are buying
  • They wanna know who they are dealing with
  • Creating a risk adjusted level playing field

The biggest issue in my mind in investing into any emerging market, is the lack of transparency

Certainty creates value. Without transparency its going to be difficult to create continued investment. When my own backyard is getting interesting, it creates good competition for not just the emerging markets but for everyone.

The TRUMP organization has developed a model over the last few years to do business across the globe. We dont assume that we know all things about all markets. The first emerging market which cracks the transparency code will WIN – Donald Trump Jr.

I just love the so much home grown talent in India, but that doesn’t still mean that you dont want to attract foreign talent.

You don’t get anything that you don’t ask for. And this is one of the biggest lessons I have learnt in life, which took me three years. Transfer of knowledge creates clarity. International players have not been able to get in touch with the legal system in India.

Donald Trump Jr. is now talking about Infrastructure and I agree to him on this, as an emerging market, we do need infrastructure, not just in terms of rail and roads, but also agriculture, education etc. Someone has to bite the bullet and it has to be done says Donald.

Cultural Differences

Donald Trump talks about talks about business and how it is done globally. And how people do need to understand that there has to be a common understanding in doing business. A times I go losing 3 hours on a business call which should effectively get closed in 5 minutes for me. Trump talks about creating a level play, a level playing field and I agree no less to himi on this. Business in India has to become this.

Donald, closes with his remark the potential for this country is amazing if some of these things are changed and now we are in the Q&A mode.

Exclusive: Pepsi, the Cola Giant to Cease all Advertising Immediately

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Oct
01

Pepsico has shocked the entire advertising fraternity by deciding that they would put to use their almost 1.3 billion dollar advertising budget NOT for Advertising anymore!

The CEO, Indira Nooyi, in her statement to the press remarked “We know it’s good, and everyone’s pretty happy with the overall taste, so why spend all our time worrying about what other people think?”

“Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don’t like it, then they don’t like it.”

The TOP Pepsico team has been on for this since sometime and have finally decided to shift the funds into PepsiCo’s savings accounts and utilize them for much constructive things, as people anyway dont drink or feel the advertisement. The funds would now be divided amongst various charitable organizations and for bonuses to the employees.

Interesting to note, Nooyi asked the pressmen to go back to their families, hug them and play…really play and spend good time with them, before life passes by.

I support this move and its an amazingly intelligent step by a company of the size of Pepsico.

Bringing the MOBILE VAS SUMMIT 2009 LIVE from ITC Sheraton, New Delhi

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Sep
23

Paritosh Sharma (dot) com is glad to be the Official Media Partner for the MOBILE VAS SUMMIT 2009 organized by Virtue Insight.

We bring you all the action over the next two days LIVE from ITC SHERATON, New Delhi. Follow @paritoshsharma on twitter and the Official Event page at facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128074769798&index=1

Thanks to Fen castro and Sarika Sareen for all their support!

The Presentations and Photographs from the event are brought to you Exclusively by the Official Media Partner: http://paritoshsharma.com    make your next event Go Global, contact us!

LIVE Photo Blogging the MVAS SUMMIT 2009

Click on the below image to download the pictures!

VT-Pics

paritosh@paritoshsharma.com

Look forward to your comments!

The YouGov Survey for Entrepreneurs, Promote Entrepreneurship in India and WIN Rupees 35000

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Sep
15

yougov-logo

CLICK ON THE IMAGE to Take the SURVEY

I am supporting this survey by YouGov, which is aimed at Promoting Entrepreneurship in India and getting more funds to the country, to support entrepreneurs!

I particularly want the level of primary education to increase in India and be supported by entrepreneurs.

If you share such a DREAM, I CALL UPON ENTREPRENEURS to take this survey and SHOW SUPPORT to the CAUSE of ENTREPRENEURSHIP in India!

Cheers to Entrepreneurship!

CLICK ON THE IMAGE to Take the SURVEY

Reconnect to Your Roots, Reclaim Your Pride, Support Your Parents Back Home – A Midson Care initiative for the NRI – Startup Watch

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Sep
10

I have been supporting start-ups and SME’s, moving up the value chain. In my quest for innovative work and finding out new companies which are doing interesting work, I would now be featuring some of these Start-ups and fairly based companies from India, who Deserve to be!

Midson Care Logo(1)

Just a couple of days back I got a chance to connect with the Founders of a New Delhi based NRI CONCIERGE Services company Midson Care. There was so much to know and for me it was another world of opportunities that Midson has opened up for the NRI community.

If I am in the US and my parents back home in India need medical help or some sort of help, how do I do it, without being dependent on my relatives?

This was a question that Mr. Vivek Chibber (Co-Founder, Midson Care) asked me and well, in my personal capacity I have no answers, as I have had no such experience. But reflecting back at the question, I remarked, that such a service is highly critical.

Midson Care Presentation
View more presentations from Midson Care.

A parent in India, whose son/daughter is there in the US, goes through much. I never was aware of the level at which the parents are affected, once their children go abroad. Post listening to some practical stories which happened and the stress and trauma the parents and the children both had to go through, which essentially resulted in a rift in the strongest bond on the planet, that of a parent and the child.

Interestingly Midson Care, aas told to me by the Co-Founder, is that platform and bond between the parent and the child, that is why we are called – “Mid-Son”…the middle son :)

The concept really struck with me and hence I decided that I would want to support this cause and if this can lead to lesser number of parents going to old age homes, then I am ready to leverage my blog as a platform for the same :)

To know more about the Services of the company click here.

I would now be doing a series of posts on the same and request you to SPREAD the WORD if this leads to happy families and great relationships!

Blog Your Brand – A Vision for Corporate to Leverage Networked Blogging

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Sep
06

Walk the Walk… Talk the Talk… Times have now arrived for the corporate to consider Blogging the Blog!!

Yes, its true, as social media is arriving with the Corporate, there are new rules getting created. New possibilities opening up. The Corporate today wants to get one with the consumer, interact with his relevant target audience wherever the consumer is!

Your consumers are already on the Internet

With the usage of Internet spilling over to almost all parts of the country, the corporate has a valid and an entirely new and ever increasing scope to interact in real time with its consumers, take feedback and hence constantly evolve as a ‘People’s Brand‘.

Your clients are already talking about you, are you listening?

We are licing in change, which essentially is the only contant thing in life. And so is a brand.  A brand needs to evolve with the times, reaching out to the relevant set of people who are talking about you or would want to talk about you!

Blog and Get Blogged about

I suggest many of my clients that they should themselves participate in corporate blogging and not leave the entire communication to be handled by the PR team or any third party agency or marketing company handling your online communications.

Should you tie up with an external agency – Case Study?

Hmmm… I am sure with the strategy that Nokia used before launching N97 in India and Samsung while launching the Jet. What did they do? Call a select group of bloggers and wallah they have arrived at a much lesser cost as compared to doing a TV ad or big hoarding out there, which they will do for sure, but they have captured one strata of the market.

Trends In Indian Corporate Blogging – My View

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The trends purely show, that there is a BIG opportunity and according to me it exists due to the fact that agencies have not been able to show the GAP and the OPPORTUNITY to the Corporate.

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Say ‘hi’ to your sutomer each day, reach out and extend your hand! Get connected and retain your loyal customers!!

A focused Corporate blog will EMPOWER your customer to know more and get connected with the brand.

To leverage the power of Corporate Blogging and create a successful strategy of saying ‘hi’ to your customer each day, CONNECT WITH ME at    patpcom

Corporate Blogging – How Can You Create Social Media Success Through Focused Blogging

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Aug
30

There are many Buzzwords in the Social Media industry today and each day one evangelist is harping on a new one. Much clutter gets created due to the same and hence the diluton of your Brand Equity, as each Brand is pitched these high flying Buzzwords by the marketing agencies.

Corporate Blogging though not a Buzz word, but has been so messed up that many a corporate have lost value rather than generating it. There have been instances of big corporate entities using fake blogs and many other tactics to boost up terming them as “so called social media campaigns”.

I have been LIVE blogging some of the most major corporate conferences in India since over an year now and have been approached by Corporate to support their initiatives. Am I averse to it? NO! But would I go ahead and support just about anything? NO!

Through this post, I intend to cut through the clutter which has been created and make the Corporate present to how they can successfully integrate Corporate Blogging in seamlessly in their marketing effort and with much ease!

First the numbers:

According to JupiterResearch (via Search Engine Watch), 34% of large companies and 15% of Fortune 500 companies blog.

Though these may not be the absolute latest numbers, but with respect to the industry growth, this surely is a number to reckon with, stand up and make a note of, I believe. In the current times corporations large and small are increasingly taking the “being different” and “with the times” route. Blogging has suddenly taken the mainstream route and is one of the factors in the Corporate overall marketing mix and budget.

There may be many people giving much gyan, but what I present here is the on the field reality and of my experience, hence there may still be better ideas, which I would be glad to listen to and incorporate.

What should you do before you decide on that oh! so blog!! ??

  • Put in black and white, your marketing objectives both in the short and the long term
    • Determine if blogging is a good fit for your company

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, is almost true for all, but why are you generalizing the apple with a blog in the social media space? Blog for one company may work wonders for them, for the other it may not work!

Just being cool using blogs, is already a passe! Social Media space is changing and growing at a much faster pace and is much complex. Just having a corporate blog may not be of any tangible return.

  • Are you ready to invest on a blog?
    • The last time I was sitting in this major corporate HQ, I asked them a question, are you ready to invest on a blog and well they were a bit off the track. Blogging they said is easy, we will leverage a free platform like wordpress or blogger. Well, yes, I agree, but you need to invest much focused time and energy on customizing the design of the blog as it represents your Corporate sentiment. Today blogs are as much a part of the entire corporate image as were websites sometime back!
  • Don’t be afraid, Create a solid strategy
    • Strategy for a blog? Well, YES!! For a Blog! As a corporate you may have a single blog for all your functions/ verticals or you may choose to go ahead with multiple blogs representing each of them. Now this is the first stage of your blogging strategy.
    • Positioning: You need to be clear in a properly documented form on the positioning that you would like to create with your blogging effort. Who are you positioning the blog to? What is your target group?
      • you may just create a blog to attract the best talent in the industry
      • you may have a focused blog on thought leadership to position yourself accordingly int he industry
    • Branding: the branding strategy that you intend to establish with the emerging of the blog should be clear. What campaigns (if any) would you intend to run on the blog. Would the CEO/ CFO/ Senior management participate on the blog? Are you trying to make a point?
      • Are you open to external content on the blog other than your own? And are you willing to be open to comments from the external environment?
  • Are you selling/ marketing? STOP…..Start ENGAGING!
    • Since Corporate blogs are generally an effort of the PR department of a company, they have a restricted vision, and hence it reflects on the way they PUSH content on the blog. PUSHing is not the key, ENGAGING is! Your content will speak for itself. If you have smartly invested into content creation, in terms of videos, pictures, etc. you will break the ice much faster with the prospective target audience.
      • its fairly simple, you get unsolicited calls on your cell phone. Would you refer such a company to your circle? Probably NOT, but a genuine follow up and feedback conversation at a preferred time, well yes you would and WOMM is bound to happen
  • Provide Value
    • This is one of the most crucial aspects of a successful blogging effort. VALUE creation.
      • why do you think would I (either your prospective employee or client) spend 5 minutes in going through things which are not adding any value to me in terms of knowing more about you or the industry? Even if I land up and stick to your blog for a couple of minutes the first time, with no VALUE I will not bookmark it for my future reference, leave aside following you on my Google reader.
  • Take Feedback, Build Relationships
    • This is one aspect of Corporate blogging which many a Corporate think of and include in their agenda, but their focus shifts from this objective to the exclusivity of presenting and design. Looks do matter, no doubts, but you need to understand that each feature of the blog would essentially be leveraged towards achieving a particular business objective!
  • Remember YOU are a HUMAN and the person reading yoru blog is a HUMAN too!
    • Many a times, the Corporate get so consumed in their vision of presenting their best foot forward and trying to arrive the best way in their client’s perception, that they lose the basic essence of the fact that WE ARE STILL HUMAN. And business is all about relationships.
    • Write the blog as if you are expressing yourself to your target market/ group!
  • Select Bloggers
    • Yes! I know everyone can write and that you hire the best of class human resources in your company, still blogging is an art and hence I suggest my clients to select a team of bloggers who are honed in their skills and trained further by the company. This team should essentially consist of the following people:
      • PR professional from the company
      • Group of employees trained on company’s social media./ external communication guidelines
      • Social Media agencies
  • NO, your “Corporate Blog” DOES NOT need a SINGLE VOICE
    • Dont be afraid and get only one person to be writing/ punching the keys for you. He/ she will have a certain perception of the company and may as well be limited in the scope. Go ahead involve people. Give them a platform to express what you want to. More hands on deck make the experience for the client all that worth it!!

This is one of the many posts that I would be doing on the correct measures and tips and tricks of the trade of blogging, not out of what people say, but what I have experienced in real time on the field. And I would not be a common voice, but I would say, it works for me!!

To devise a Corporate Blogging Strategy for your company, CONTACT ME