‘3 idiots’ at its best

I saw the movie yesterday and it is one of the best movies I have seen in recent times. The movie is based on the book 'Five Point Someone' by Chetan Bhagat (lot of controversy currently going on) and I have not read that book but it does not matter. People go to watch movies for entertainment and believe me you cannot expect anything better than this. I hate comparing movies as each and every movie is special and different so comparing is not a wise job.

I do not rate a movie after going through figures of box office collection and so on...it is only the delight one experiences after leaving the theatre and full marks to the entire team. There is no special message in the movie which we are not aware of...then why we are talking so much about this movie??? If you want to get the answer please rush in to the nearest theatre to watch it. Believe me you will get the answer but I am sure you cannot pen down those reasons...that is why the movie is so special.

ALL IS WELL

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Mandatory Voting Bill for Healthy Democracy

There is no greater civic responsibility than taking the time to cast a vote whenever the polls are open. Unfortunately in India the story is different. In any democratic country voting is necessary for healthy democracy, but in India, people do not think the same and they should not be blamed also for this perception. They believe that voting is a useless process, because it cannot bring changes in the system. It is the initial set of mind people are having in our country and this is more predominant in the rural areas compare to urban areas.

People in India experienced very little changes in the system even after casting votes at different levels of elections for last so many years and so they prefer to remain at the sidelines during any electoral process.

Then what is the solution???

To me instead of making it mandatory which people may feel it is being forcefully imposed; the government should try to held fruitful discussion with facts and figures and making people understand that their precious vote can bring positive and constructive change in every nook and corner of the country. It is because of people not casting their votes, the deserving candidate is not winning at each and every level and this in turn fails to bring changes in the system. So if they really want to bring changes....then they should come out and caste their votes. I think by creating awareness we can change the mindset of the people.
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Brand language and communication

Brand identity cannot be reduced to a word or a concept. In the advertising campaigns you may see a picture standing out more than the words. The brand might choose to create a way of communication by according itself a combination of spoken and visual language. The power of this language lies in its truth, expressing the brand’s identity. This is a combination of its logo, emblem, pictures and slogans in the advertisings. The language should be international, applicable to all company’s products and services, and stands out in the sense in which every brand should be noticed. Through lack of a personal language, the same words or pictures keep reappearing, so the whole brand message gets clogged.
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Michael Schumacher returns to F1

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher is to come out of retirement to race for Mercedes GP......great news and I am happy that I will see the CHAMPION back in racing track. Schumacher, who had quit earlier in 2006, will again make his debut with the new team at the Bahrain Grand Prix in the upcoming 2010 season. We all know that he is a TRUE CHAMPION and I am fully confident that he will be able to resume at his familiar level of competitiveness. It is my opinion (which people may disagree) that not everyone will be glad to see Michael Schumacher back in F1 but no one can doubt is the extent of Schumacher's commitment.

A quick look of the numbers that make up his career so spectacular:

Race Starts: 249
Podiums: 154
Career Points: 1369
Poles: 68
Fastest Laps: 76
Wins: 91
World Championships: 7

Such a career like this is certainly worth more than these mere numbers and statistics. Will the history be an indication of things to come? Let’s wait and see....
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Five Rules for Mastering Leadership

There are countless opinions on how to be an effective leader, but it's important to not forget the basics. Here are five rules for mastering the fundamentals of leadership:

Shape the future - Articulate where your company or division is going and be sure everyone around you understands the direction.
Make things happen - Once you know where you're headed, focus on the how. Again, be sure all of your people know what it takes to execute.
Engage today's talent - Make the most of your people; engage and inspire them to do their best.
Build tomorrow's talent - Find and build the talent you need for future success.
Invest in yourself - You can never be a perfect leader; find ways to continually build your skills and become better.
(Source: Harvard Business Review)
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Fortune 100 Social Media Study

During 2009, Twitter surpassed blogging as the social media platform of choice – at least among the Fortune 100. A recent analysis found that the largest 100 companies in terms of revenue as compiled by Fortune Magazine's annual Fortune 500 were active on three key social media: Twitter, Facebook and Blogs.

The study found that 54% of the Fortune 100 were using Twitter to reach out directly to stakeholders, while 32% were using a blogs and 29% were actively using a Facebook Fan Page to engage. Despite the perception that Twitter is the newest kid on the block among the three platforms, 76% of Fortune 100 companies that were using just one social media channel were using Twitter over Facebook and Blogs.

Perhaps not surprisingly each company that was classified in consumer facing industries such as General Merchandisers, Specialty Retailers and Telecommunications are Tweeting. Many companies in each of these categories have multiple Twitter accounts.

The analysis found that about 94% of Fortune 100 Twitter accounts distribute company news updates and announcements while fully 67% are at least partially serving a customer service function.
(Reference: Burson-marsteller.com)
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The workforce as a well planned resource

Organisational resources that offer great prospects for strategic value are often attached with a high cost and/or risk of deployment. This affects everything at the store level. From a cost point of view, commodities such as fixtures, utilities and even most products are in simple terms bought and sold. Truly strategic resources - real estate, supply chain and POS infrastructure, the employee workforce are not acquired, managed and retained quiet easily. When you consider provisions of the value that all these resources offer, there is a likewise trend. Commodity resources are a reality of life. They are vital to business, but they hardly get you apart from your competitors. The effect of strategic resources, such as the employee workforce, extends far beyond maintenance of the sales floor and stockroom. In reality, they influence the entire function, including product availability, quality of customer service and ultimately overall business profitability. Management of strategic resources is further complicated by the scattered nature of the retail enterprise.

Labour costs have always been considered as the retailer's greatest controllable expense and this fact is only exaggerated by today's challenging market environments. The underlying irony is that corporate and production demands do not match with decreasing sales, nor does customer demand decline if department staffing is scaled back.
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The Battle for Customer Loyalty

Despite the sea of changes taking place in the retail sector, some stability has also been observed. Though retailers still have to struggle to out shine their products as compared to their competitors, differentiation strategies that focused on some combination of product offering and price-point are becoming extinct. Increasingly, the only battleground left is the war for customer loyalty. Today's retailers are in a great catch 22 situation where they have to cope with modern retailing. In order to drive customer loyalty one not only requires the right product offering at competitive prices, but also requires increasing customer satisfaction while keeping a control on the operating costs. While retail has always been completely service and customer oriented, the reality is that now profitable retailing revolves around the performance of the retailer's greatest controllable expense and most strategic asset - its employee workforce.

Demand-Driven Workforce Management gives retailers the means to control this strategic asset and increase store profitability. By balancing all the demands that affect the workforce, from corporate headquarters and customers to employee preferences and production requirements, retailers can streamline functions to more closely align labour costs with variability in its demand. Moreover, aligning the workforce more closely with demand is vital for rising customer loyalty and gaining market share over competitors.
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Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions .These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.

The Kyoto mechanisms

Under the Treaty, countries must meet their targets primarily through national measures. However, the Kyoto Protocol offers them an additional means of meeting their targets by way of three market-based mechanisms.

The Kyoto mechanisms are:

Emissions trading – known as “the carbon market"
Clean development mechanism (CDM)
Joint implementation (JI)
(Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)
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Climate change talks in Copenhagen

Copenhagen agreement or no, there is one certainty: the negotiations that must carry on into next year will be even tougher than the two years of talks that led up to this landmark -summit. The Copenhagen meeting was intended, when it was decided on two years ago, to produce the world's first truly global agreement on climate change, one that would bind all countries - developed and developing - to take action on their greenhouse gas emissions.

But the fortnight of volatile negotiations in Denmark, and the year of intensive talks that preceded them, have clearly demonstrated the extraordinary complexity of more than 190 countries agreeing on such a difficult long-term issue as climate change. The prospect of continuing this process for several more months and possibly years appalled officials from many countries and the United Nations. What concerns some is that when these negotiations continue next year, many of the fragile alliances built up here will break down again.

The north-south divide at these talks has also been clear. Many developing countries have taken the attitude that climate change is a moral issue, caused by developed countries and it should be solved at their cost. This argument frustrates developed countries.
(Source: The Financial Times Limited)
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Globalisation and Competitiveness

Michael E Porter discovered a new theory that recommended going above comparative benefit to the competitive gain of a nation. It expressed a productive idea of competition that embraced compartmentalised markets, distinguished products/services, technology variations, and economics of scale. This new idea had gone past cost and justifies why companies from some nations are better than others at creating benefits based on quality, features, market reaction, speed and product improvement.

Because some of the factors of cost benefits, the Indian apparel sector provided relative gain for the low-end price point products. But it could not realise those benefits that could have supplied this sector the necessary competitive lead. A nation can maintain her successful high-income status only by racing with unique, discriminated products or services and that is what helps in creating the image for nation. It is the growing impact of the performance of organizations that promotes the brand image for a country. Moreover, distinguished, contemporary products are less responsive to price rises. Indian textile and apparel sectors were found to expand diversely when it could move its pricing southwards, either due to rise in government financial aids or driven by currency devaluation, which are neither extraordinary nor sustainable.

As far as the international economy remains comparatively open, countries will progressively involve highly focused performance in a worldwide production chain. With a view to choosing specific kinds of products and techniques of doing things, nations are inclined to promote capability in their companies and public institutions.

In the same fashion, with the intention of sourcing and production, creative design houses of Paris, New York and Italy joined hands with Indian apparel production companies having competitive benefit; this could prove profitable for both.
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Is credit starting to flow?

Every six weeks, the Mckinsey Quarterly conducts an economic conditions snapshot survey of a panel of executives around the world. For the first time in more than a year, the proportion of respondents who report that their companies have sought external funds has changed significantly—increasing to 41 percent, from 32 percent in October. What’s more, a higher proportion of these companies actually received the money they sought. Their findings may indicate a rising—and apparently well-founded—hope among executives that credit will be available.
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Mind the 3 Cs of Simplicity

Complexity is one of the largest problems plaguing organizations, and most leaders yearn for more simplicity. But don't confuse simple with easy. Ridding your organization, department, or process of unnecessary complexity requires careful attention. Remember these three Cs when trying to restore simplicity:

Collaboration - Silos are the enemy of simplicity. Work across the organization to identify where the complexity is and together improve the way business is done.

Coordination - Smooth coordination is critical to finding simple solutions to the problems you're trying to solve.

Communication - Once you've gotten rid of complexity, you can be sure it will try to find its way back in. Open and regular communication will allow you to identify it before it takes hold.
(Source: Harvard Business Review)

Building Customer Delight

Firms misbelieve that forged relationship with the customers will fetch them profit, however people know the intention of company is siphoning their money. The firms must ensure for the appropriate pleasant experience of each transaction in succeeding with CRM Endeavour.

Customer Relationship Management – CRM: Is the fury since firms progressively use techniques of developing relationship with customers. Intention behind is developing clientele, maintain it life long. As thought by companies they could attain it by:

 Building Relationship – through various means the firms interact with customers for building their relationship with customers. Such objectives prompt auto makers closing the car deals with telematics equipment and thus nearly 3,500 firms globally initiate email campaigns.
 Data Collection – seller believes that data monitor will reflect customer’s idea. Developing the richest possible data the companies seeks the third party records like credit bureau studies with their own customer data.
 Customized Offer – the companies design and float various optional offers to their customers from wireless telephone carriers’ custom calling plans to Amazon.com’s book suggestions from time to time.

Customers Don’t Want Relationships: Hypothetically the CRM strategy mimics the way the relationship develops by spending time together for knowing each other and exchange ideas, the resemblance are deceptive. The person to company relationship does not develop strong as compared to person to person interactions, since customers:

 Like Secrecy - though a person may willingly share the secrets with friends but never likes to reveal any personal data to the salesperson. According to the recent online research conducted on almost 6000 North American participants, 69 of them expressed their extreme concern about losing secrecy of their personal data.
 Follow their own schedules - for unprepared conversation or casual visit, people never approach companies, but they interact to carry out special deals. Hence hardly 3% customers go to consumer packaged goods (CPG) sites for lifestyle content, inspite of remarkable inventory by CPG firms in this area.
 Stay Mistrustful - sometimes the companies on way to establish long relationship with customers are trapped with other objectives like meeting quarterly numbers. The customers notice this in company’s hard sell tricks disinclination to replace faulty materials and openly charge fees to terminate contract. Major examples like 1980 junk bond debacle or current Enron scandal strengthens people’s thought of not trusting companies.

CRM Must Focus on Customer Experience: Companies require new CRM focus as the customers reject the corporate relationship advances. As suggested by Forrester, companies develop and maintain their clientele data by recording customer’s experiences at every stage. For success, company should:

Redesign internal processes, not customers: it is possible for company to change operations but it’s rather impossible to change the human nature. A reputed hotelier recently noticed that puzzled clients called the reservation line for tech assistance, and vice versa. The company formed a combined contact center instead of specifying the numbers with instructions that no one would ever read.

Fulfill current goals - don’t rely on loyalty: the companies should try hard anticipating customer’s attitude of expecting more and more by letting go some mistakes. For these companies should introduce Scenario Design like noting the users, their aims and the way they achieve the same and thus developing the customer facing system.

Measure outcome and not activity: customer’s viewpoints must be valued by the company through interactions. The quick but ridiculous reply of an email query may suffice internal awareness but it finally displeases the customer. To curb such event the company must check what matters to the consumer – if any initial problem was solved.

Dynamic management: Better decisions in uncertain times

Companies can’t predict the future, but they can build organizations that will survive and flourish under just about any possible future.

The economic shock of 2008, and the Great Recession that followed, didn’t just create profound uncertainty over the direction of the global economy. They also shook the confidence of many business leaders in their ability to see the future well enough to take bold action.

It’s not as if we don’t know how to make good decisions under uncertainty. The US Army developed scenario planning and war gaming in the 1950s. And advanced quantitative techniques, complete with decision trees and probability-based net-present-value (NPV) calculations, have been taught to MBA students since the 1960s. These approaches are extraordinarily valuable amid today’s volatility, and many well-run companies have adopted them, over the years, for activities such as capital budgeting.

Here’s the challenge: coping with uncertainty demands more than just the thoughtful analysis generated by these approaches (which, in any event, are rarely employed for all the business decisions where they would be useful). Profound uncertainty also amplifies the importance of making decisions when the time is right—that is to say, at the moment when the fog has lifted enough to make the choice more than a crap shoot, but before things are clear to everyone, including competitors.
Source: McKinsey Quarterly

How to Handle Customer Complaints

All organizations depend on customer feedback to make their businesses better and increase customer satisfaction. Yet, customer complaints take up an inordinate amount of time and money, and the complainer doesn't often get what he wants. Here are three tips for expediting the complaint process and keeping customers happy:

Understand the full context - Try to understand as much as you can about the complaint. The more information you have, the easier it is to determine the root of the dissatisfaction.

Propose a resolution - Know what would make the situation better for your customer and propose ways you can solve the problem.

Show respect - Complaining customers are often upset. Train employees receiving complaints to be empathetic and to reframe the harsh criticism they may receive into constructive feedback.
Source: Harvard Business Review
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Total Productive Maintenance: The way of excellence

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance program which includes a newly described concept for keeping in up to date conditions of plants and equipment. The goal of any Total Productive Maintenance program is to reduce losses attached to equipment maintenance or, in other words, keep equipment generating only good product, as fast as promising with no unexpected downtime and at the same time, increasing employee morale and job satisfaction.

TPM carries maintenance into a basic and significant role in to the business. It is no longer considered as a non-profit movement. The goal is to hold catastrophe and unplanned maintenance to a lowest level and to confirm the machinery and equipment availability to manufacture products for the end customer. By reducing rework, slow operating equipment and downtime, maximum value is added at the lowest cost. The basic purpose of TPM is to execute ‘perfect manufacturing’.
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