IIPM FACULTY

Friday, August 06, 2010

The intrigue of the islands

A mysterious and fascinating set of islands lie in the Bay of Bengal, ready to give your most adventurous imagination wings…

The British came here and so did the Japanese, but the mystery of the group of islands that is Andaman and Nicobar islands was never quite unravelled. Even after years of studies and observations, practically little is known of the origin and the people of these islands and this sense of intrigue and the feeling of a mysterious air about the place will overwhelm you if you happen to land on these islands – any of the 572 of them cradled perilously in the Bay of Bengal.

There is a sense of the primordial among the flora, fauna and the indigenous people of the islands – the most fascinating bit about exploring the Andamans. Always inhabited by aboriginal tribes, many of whom still live the lives of hunters and gatherers, the inaccessibility of the islands had made them an object of fascination. The existence of the islands had been known for centuries (they find reference in early historical writings of Roman geographer Ptolemy) but the first attempt at an outside settlement on the islands was by the British in 1789. They had to abandon it seven years later because of the inhospitable locals and the immense logistical challenge of connectivity to the mainland.

Oddly, they returned in 1858, this time establishing a penal settlement – the dreaded and the feared ‘Kaala Paani’ or the Cellular Jail. The jail held mutineers from the First War of Indian Independence, even some criminal tribes and refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan apart from other freedom fighters later on. My visit to the jail was a unique experience because a first-hand experience of the conditions there is enough to make your hair stand on its end. You can go around the courtyard, see the cells and the gallows and also look over the horizon from atop the wings. One bit of trivia I got to know was that the sight of the lighthouse and the island imprinted on our twenty Rupee notes is a view from the top of the wing facing the sea. The prison initially had seven wings, with the watch tower at the centre. Today, only three remain (the rest had been destroyed by the Japanese during World War II), and it has been branded a national monument. The Japanese briefly controlled the islands from 1942-1945, a period in which though innocent blood was shed, there was development of the basic amenities, especially in Port Blair.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Don't trust the Indian Media!

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Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Thursday, August 05, 2010

‘B’usiness ‘P’rocess ‘O’utdated!

The prime driver for BPOs in India has always been cost effictiveness, but that differentiating factor is now fading away. Is Indian BPO industry finally headed towards the death bed? by Ashutosh Harbola

The threat from Vietnam cannot be undermined too. While salaries of BPO workers in Vietnam are the lowest among almost all major offshore destinations (they are 40% lower than India and China, and more than 80% lower than Singapore), tax rates, too, are at par with other emerging markets. For instance, outsourcing software development work to a Vietnamese firm can cost a company up to 50% less than what it would have cost it had it outsourced the work to India. Even outsourcing companies in the Middle-East are now giving tough competition to Indian BPOs by moving up the value chain. If industry experts are to be believed, their efforts have resulted in an annual growth of over 20%. Historically, a large talent pool has been one of India’s major strengths, but if one goes by a latest ASOCIO-KPMG report, employability of Indian graduates at present is considered to be really low, with Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rating India as 2 on a scale of 5 on quality of labour force. This has made multinationals hesitant in outsourcing their work to India.

The next stumbling block is the high attrition rate in the Indian BPO industry which is invariably high (35%) when compared to its Asian counterparts. The increasing cases of data breaching too are affecting outsourcing to third parties in India. Then there is the slated withdrawal of STPI scheme in FY 2011. The sunset clause u/s 10A and 10B of the Income Tax Act gives a tax holiday to IT-BPO companies operating under an STPI, where the tax rate works out to be 20% for a BPO at present. This is expected to go up to 33% if the scheme is withdrawn. In all, the future of the BPO industry doesn’t look as sunny as road mapped by Nasscom with optimism deep sunk within. So is the major job provider (2.23 million) finally heading towards the death bed or is there a way out?

One possible way out could be to take BPOs to tier 2 and tier 3 cities where rising costs could be managed as compared to high cost offerings in the metros or tier 1 cities. The challenge there will be the training gap, but the investment does have long term potential. The next way could be to innovate within long term sustainable verticals like KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing), LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing), et al, for which even outsourcers are ready to pay a high price as they derive utility from them. “BPO will continue to evolve, both in form and substance, from simple processes in the beginning to complex KPOs later, involving support to business decision processes and consulting for optimal performance. Business itself will begin to look like a project management process (think construction projects) compared to the familiar current business. My Asian mind tells me that BPO will re-incarnate in another form, more suitable and responsive to the shape of the global economy,” Eugene Reyes, VP – Business Development North America, BPO International, Inc. tells B&E. Even Joel Perlman, Co-founder & President, Copal Partners feels that the next big opportunity for India could be DPO (Document Process Outsourcing) “KPOs & DPOs are high growth areas and India is well positioned to become a leader here,” he tells B&E. K. M. Nanaiah, MD, Pitney Bowes too holds the same view and feels that DPOs certainly have the potential to be the next big thing in India.

No doubt, because of its sustained cost competitiveness, experienced and large labour force, India has been considered to be a favourable BPO location in the past. But not any more! With radical changes in global economic environment & growing sophistication of customer needs, it’s now inevitable to evolve further. It’s therefore imperative for all stakeholders to identify challenges and put an action plan in place to meet them and identify areas that can catalyse future growth. If they are able to do so, good enough! If not, BPO, an acronym that most Indians rejoiced in, will soon become a reason to mourn over!

Ashutosh Harbola

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Love Aaj Kal

Post their break-up, both Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor were linked with various other people. Where Deepika was rumoured to be going around with Siddhartha Mallya, Shahid Kapur and Farhan Akhtar, Ranbir was said be getting close with Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra. But recently, the ex-love birds, who have stayed in touch through SMS, were seen coming out of a movie hall after watching Deepika’s new film Housefull. This is believed to be the first time that they’ve gone out together after their break-up. Could the duo be heading for a patch-up?

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Fiends on the prowl

A TSI sting operation finds how paedophilia has turned into a thriving business in Delhi, NCR and Mumbai. Taking advantage of kids’ poverty and craze for brands and gadgets, middlemen get rich by supplying minor boys and girls to satiate the desire of sick, rich men, many of them NRIs and foreigners. By Abhishek Kumar and Neeraj Rajput

Dutch national Will Heum’s arrest in Chennai for having sex with minors and uploading pornographic pictures on the Internet came as an isolated shock to the nation. But a TSI investigation finds out that paedophilia is rampant in India’s cities. The number of sick and rich individuals who want to have sex with minors is large enough to sustain a thriving business involving middlemen and child sex workers. So if any of you thought paedophilia was a western malaise that would not affect India, you could not be more mistaken.

Children are the easiest to be taken advantage of. Poverty as well as their desire to own the latest gadget make them vulnerable to overtures of middlemen. Most kids, whom the TSI team met, had told their parents that they were going for study or dance lessons. To explore more, the TSI special investigative team visited Faridabad, Noida, Delhi, Mumbai and Goa many times. What was astounding was that despite being minors, these kids spoke and reasoned like adults, obviously trained by the pimps who brought them along. Another startling fact is that not only kids from poor and needy families are being trapped in this racket. Kids from rich or well-to-do families are also lured into the trap.

We got lead about Ansh, a pimp in Noida. One of us posed as an Australian NRI on the phone and he agreed to meet us. The next day, we met Ansh at a coffee outlet in Noida market. We reached much before time, eager to find out who all accompanied him. There were two more people, one of them a girl. When we met him, a kid sitting next to him greeted us. He said he was 14 years old, but looked younger. The smartly dressed kid looked like from a well-to-do family. The kid said his father was a big officer in Indian Railways. He was so confident that we felt we were not talking to a child but a professional.

TSI-What work do you do?
Boy-I am a student.

TSI - Where do you study?
Boy-I am in the XIIth standard

TSI-What is your age?
Boy-14 yrs

TSI- But you don’t appear 14. Incase you are wondering where I got your number from, I saw an ad in the newspaper and picked it up.
Ansh-Yes. We have advertised many times in newspapers.

TSI-What do you advertise for?
Ansh-For body massage

We could feel that Ansh did not appreciate us having a long conversation with the boy. But since we don’t want to take them to a hotel or any other place, we need all our answers then and there. It’s an uncomfortable situation; but we press on. We said we were surprised that kids were so easily available here in India too. The boy immediately replied that India was getting rapidly westernised and you get to find such kids in virtually every corner of the country. He added he wanted money so that he could buy a Yamaha Fazer motorcycle. Asked if he would feel awkward later, he categorically said no.
Boy-You are from Australia?

Monday, August 02, 2010

Are they ‘Nuts’?! A crazy success recipe...

There was a time when buying aircraft and flying overseas appeared just another plan for Indian aviators. The slowdown ensured everybody cut on fleet and rationalised routes. All except one – SpiceJet! Are they nuts (apart from being, er, India’s only profitable airline company right now)?! by Steven Philip Warner

Kevin Freiberg created a global ruckus when, in 1996, in a book titled Nuts!: Southwest Airline’s Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, he profiled Southwest Airlines founder Herb Kelleher’s salacious, radical, nutty, yet fantastic strategies to make his fleet one of the few profitable airlines (sometimes, the only one profitable) in the US. The increase in air traffic due to Herb’s then eccentric strategies – low fares, no frills, short skirts, long legs and that jazz – was so dramatic that the US Department of Transportation introduced a formal term – ‘The Southwest Effect’. It’s weird, but it’s only a matter of time before ‘The SpiceJet Effect’ gets formal usage in Indian skies.

The carrier will now become the first Indian low cost carrier (LCC) to fly overseas. This at a time when everybody is cutting fleet size faster than you can say Jack Robinson. But there’s reason behind this madness. During a year when the domestic aviation industry lost Rs.70 billion (in addition to accumulated losses of Rs.260 billion, as per the Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation, CAPA) and the global industry loss totalled $9.4 billion (as per IATA), SpiceJet recorded a positive bottomline of Rs.532 million! SpiceJet was the only Indian airline in profits for the whole year!

Three years ago, the same airlines was in doldrums. When we had met SpiceJet’s CEO Siddhant Sharma at that time, he had no answers for the unhealthy price cuts, scramble for scanty infrastructure and plummeting market shares. In fact, like us, he was equally baffled about the airline’s future. SpiceJet’s stock price was in trouble too. In the seven months leading to July 14, 2008, it had lost 71% of its value. What changed since then so dramatically? Umm, the CEO. Siddhant had to resign.

It took the board three months, to bring Sanjay Agarwal on board as the new CEO, whose job was to repair, restore and relaunch. He did; and very well too. In the past 12 months, SpiceJet has been the highest gaining airline stock (in relative terms), having increased in value by close to 300% (to touch Rs.59.60 as on April 27, 2010), while the Sensex rose 60%.

Profitability has become a phenomenon hard to come by in the business of Indian aviation; logical reasoning has become harder. But SpiceJet is clearly an exception. It has learnt from the mistakes of others. During the past couple of years, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines have been loud about ‘long-distance’ expansions to Europe & US. But given a choice, they’d play silent about their books. In the nine months ended December 31, 2009, Kingfisher Airlines reported losses of Rs.10.75 billion (after losing Rs.16.09 billion in FY2008-09). Jet Airways is a reflection. Its loss for the first three quarters of FY2009-10, stands at Rs.5.26 billion (after a loss of Rs.4.02 billion in FY2008-09). Clearly, their international bets haven’t paid off too well. Then what about SpiceJet’s international plans? Says B.Somaia, Regional Director of Sydney-based CAPA to B&E, “International operations are far more complex than domestic due to issues related to regulatory requirements, language, foreign exchange, the need for new distribution networks et al. The management cannot lose focus on the core domestic market just as the situation is stabilising. Building the brand overseas will take time & investment.”