V-Day

It is the month of February. Valentine's Day has come & gone.

Where were all these 'days' a few years back? Since the late nineties, there has been a deluge of such special 'days' - Valentine's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Friendship Day, Hugging Day & many more...

The question is - do we need to earmark a day in an year for love, to remember friends & dear ones? Is it conditional & timed? Is it not perpetual & unconditional?

It is purely a marketing gimmick. Just look at the amount of money spent on gifts 'for her' & 'for him'. During the countdown for these 'days', the market is flooded with various bespoke gift ideas - from cards to diamond studded pendants to expensive pens to holiday packages. It is indeed a clever marketing manoeuvre.

The story does not end here. Now comes the discussion & comparison on the gifts given & received. If one has been drawn into this vortex of various 'days', you will be forced by circumstances to give something better next time.

Valentine's Day has come & gone. And it will come back again, next year with more hype & fervour.

Endangered Species

Hobbies are activities that one gets engaged during spare time.

It was not so long ago that hobbies like stamp & coin collection, playing a musical instrument, gardening, reading were the actively pursued & popular hobbies. But today, many of these activities are on the verge of extinction & hobbies per se, are going into oblivion.

This can be imputed to modernisation, changing priorities & a lack of time. Other priorities have taken precedence over hobbies, in that little spare time if at all available.

In school & college it is the demanding rigour of the academic curriculum, competition, the pressure to be the 'topper’, additional coaching, entrance-coaching...

The pressure does not end with school & college. The travail of securing a good job comes next. And once you start your career, the rat race begins, intense pressure to perform better & better, office politics, survival of the fittest, long working hours, daily commuting...

When you assume that you have settled (???) in your job & leave a sigh of relief, comes the decree from the parents - start a family ! Priorities change, once again...

Indeed it is the pressure of modern times, which has made time the biggest luxury of the century.

In this modern world there still exist some weird & sedentary activities which people who purse, term as hobbies & some even include them in their CV ! - surfing the net, shopping, sleeping...

Kudos to all those who are still engaged in a creative & productive activity based hobby.

Customer Loyalty

Jack Welch in one of his articles in “Winning Ways of Management” talks on customer loyalty. He says that, in today’s increasingly competitive market place, customer loyalty has not disappeared, but has taken a new form.

In today’s fiercely competitive market environment, just offering best services, better products, competitive prices, discounts, rebates, lunch, holiday trips, goodies etc will not help retain customers. One has to help the customer to compete & be successful in their (customer’s) market place. This needs to be achieved by understanding the market (competition, products etc) & also your customer. And will require implementing a combination of actions to support the customer, incessantly.

An organisation which fails to understand this & react accordingly will face difficulties in retaining customers & will not have customer loyalty.

Satyam Asatyam

Satyam in many Indian languages stands for truth, honesty, rightful. But the recent accounting fraud at Satyam Computers is not befitting its name. It is a definitely a setback for the IT industry (which India is famous globally), for corporate India, for corporate governance and above all it has tarnished India’s image.

Satyam is (was ?) India’s 4th biggest IT company. It had won many accolades – Golden Peacock award for corporate governance; E&Y Entrepreneur of the year for Ramalinga Raju. Has World Bank & some Fortune 500 companies as customers (GE, Nestle); has operations globally; is listed on the NYSE; employs over 50,000 people.

It is indeed mind boggling as to – how a person (Ramalinga Raju) who is the founder and at the helm of the organisation could fudge assets & accounts for years & it went unnoticed. Is it so easy to show assets & margins worth crores? The board of directors which has many distinguished members & an international auditing firm too did not take notice of it. Or was it hand-in-hand?. The scale of the scam is also shocking. It was not a few, 10 or 15% but was a staggering 94% (7000 cr). Even the number of employees has been falsified (not 53,000 it is 40,000). Mind boggling indeed...

In his poetic resignation & confession letter (“... riding the tiger...”), he even advices future course of action for the company! Interesting...! How could one instill belief from some one who has lying for the past 5-6 years.

The investigations & restructuring are on the way at a frantic pace, but the future of the company & moreover the fate of the employees hangs on a balance. Whether it was greed or calculated gamble or stupidity that was behind this fraud, the trust & faith of the clients, stakeholders & employees are badly shaken.

As it is titled, Satyam is undoubtedly the ‘Enron of India’, the biggest financial scam of corporate India that will be forgotten not so quickly & easily. But eventually will be...