NaMo ‘Merits’ Attention

I had remarked to someone before May 16^th results that if NDA gets 300 it will be a blockbuster performance (I was hoping but did not expect), with NDA close to 340, it is a blockbuster of blockbusters something like a Sholay or Dilwale Dulhaniya le jayenge or in cricketing terms a one day double century or may be a T-20 double century.  Now I am getting carried away ………. J

Taking Dilwale analogy forward , are we now at interval stage where the girl has fallen for boys charms   but the hero still has to convince many sceptics / intellectuals / realists (in this case even the girl) that the hero can really deliver. Picture Abhi baaki hai!

Expectations are high, honey moon may be short (honey moon before marriage … whew I am getting mixed up with analogies hereJ)

Psephologists / Pundits will analyse in detail the reasons for Ab ki baar… , for me and (assume) for  many others it was a simple choice between:

1.       A person who has delivery experience over 10 years…. 

2.       Person who has virtually not delivered anything but is still the VP because…..

3.       Person who had a great opportunity to deliver but ran away from the experience.

If you ran a company & want to hire someone will you pick 1, 2 or 3?

To add , NaMo has a unique combination … for some he is the Hindu Hriday samrat, for some his ‘caste’ is right, for some he has proven delivery experience, for some he has great connect / oratory, for some he is extremely hard working….  He has something for most if not all.

People will say but what about 2002, a country is not a company, we are in a democracy not electing one person but electing a party, what about ‘inclusive’ growth, what about religious freedom, etc.

For me our system has finally rewarded meritocracy over all other factors (atleast as far as one person is concerned). Shouldn’t this be the way someone should rise to the top => build a track record and then move up the ladder…….

Let me look forward and leave you to ruminate over these ‘relevant’ questions…..

• Politically ……..Lot of dilemmas

Looking forward politically, are we at a juncture where in next 12-15 months large parts of North + Central India (including AP excluding Odisha) may have BJP+ rule.

Is that good or bad? Will the voter be in a dilemma?  On one hand, let BJP rule state so that centre / state friction is reduced and delivery improves or will they want to keep check on Modi / BJP so that Absolute Power doesn’t corrupt absolutely.  Will the anti-incumbency in states like Maharashtra be so great that ‘Absolute Power’ funda doesn’t matter?

What about contentious issues like Article 370 / Uniform Civil code, etc (not including Ayodhya since for me it is not an issue)?

BJP always maintained in last NDA that since they did not have absolute majority on their own these issues will not be brought up. Now that they do have majority are these issues atleast open to debate?

Again BJP in dilemma? On one hand don’t rock boat but on the other bring up these important issues?

What about making headway into non-BJP states? Would BJP be tempted to build leadership in states like Bengal, TN, Kerala, etc , capitalize on this great opportunity since they are not tied down by any compulsions ….

How will the voter and NaMo resolve these dilemmas? How will you the reader resolve these dilemma given a choice?

• Economically…..What are the Few Injections?

Whew this is the important part as far as people’s expectations are concerned….yahan heropanti is maximum required

What are the few things (not more than 5) which can lead to ‘positive’ domino effect?

• ·    Promote ‘swadeshi’ and ‘nationalism’ where it is really required, i.e in 2 big forex suckers.. Defence procurement and Energy. Conducive environment for robust domestic defence manufacturing and an energy ecosystem.  (Let our Italian fascination be only with Pasta / Pizza and not with Italian defence ‘agents’J)

• ·      Subsidy / Rights …. How will NaMo calibrate these so that politically it is palatable? (I would say scrap most of them completely but may be unfair) Imagine if MNREGA is scrapped, a Father of storms will be created by the grand old party….  Can we tie up MNREGA with outcomes rather than just work?  What about Right to all kinds of right? How will he right the wrong?

• ·         Job creation….the Father of all expectations. What could be some of the counter-intuitive things here?

o   Make it easier to fire people J

o   Open up retail?

• ·         Infrastructure

o   Use TOC to ensure that projects are completed on time … if it completes on time then scope / cost normally are under control

No writing is complete unless TOC is brought in …….. :-), on a more serious note Ministry of Infrastructure in Japan insists use of TOC for all government projects.

                                                                                                                 

• Foreign Policy / Defence…. Hero kis se aankh milayega!

I heard NaMo saying in interviews that “Har ek desh ke saath aankh se aankh milanyenge na aankh zukayenge na aankh dikhayenge” (Trivia => Translate this verbatim into EnglishJ)

 

How will we engage with USA / China? What about Look East policy?

What about Pakistan?

What do we need to change / what can we keep the same?

Social Impact

This is likely to be the most sensitive area with passions running high due to religious and caste connotations.

Appeasement will be clearly limited if at all, how will community leaders react to this.. I am saying leaders as appeasement benefits rarely reach the aam aadmi of any community.

Election results seems to suggest that typical stereotypes of caste, religion have been pierced with hope of development.  But don’t be sure….it will take handful of incidents to get all of this back….Lalu, Maya, Mulayam ko bhoolna mat

Can we become Australia (whew not for racial attacks!), a country where anyone who wants to stay has to accept some common minimum rules / norms, some kind of Common Minimum Policies for all citizens. Democracy, yes but no mobocracy.

To top it all, do you think this will improve the quality of politics in the country, no longer can the hero con and get the girl but has to work hard …Dilwale Dulhaniya Kaam kar ke le jayenge (pervert minds think straight J)

Make to What ?

Make to What is a blog about whether companies should be in Make to Stock mode or Make-to-Order mode or something different





Normally companies operate in Make to Stock mode due to long lead times and the fact that the tolerance time of customers is much shorter than the lead time. Customers can't wait so a ready made stock is required from which customers can buy. This is more so as we go further in the distribution chain closer to the end customer.





Over the years due to process improvement techniques most notably Theory of Constraints, companies have managed to reduce their lead time to one third or lesser than what they were earlier. As one aware, most of the lead time is in the waiting / queue time. The actual processing / set up time is quite small in most industries





The reduction in the lead time meant that in certain industries, companies could move from Make to Stock to Make to Order. Make to Order was always considered better since production was against a firm order rather than unpredicatable make to stock which could result into unsold inventories.





So lets take the example of a company which is operating in Make to Order environment , it supplies the product to a bigger OEM. It struggles to meet the Order Due Date performance and is always operating in a urgent / crisis mode.





By moving to DBR / Buffer Management , the company is able to reduce the lead time on the orders and operate in a more controlled fashion. Isn't this great, the company selling in Make to Order environment with lead times / due date performance no one can beat.





This is great but the next step is to move into Make to Replenish / Available model , a kind of refined Make to Stock model but stock which is not built based on forecast but on actual consumption by the next link in the distribution chain.





In this case, the supplier starts managing the inventory of the customer, without the customer having to worry about the inventory levels. So instead of customer triggering an order based on reaching the threshold stock level, the customer always has a buffer stock with him at all times. As soon as something is taken from this stock buffer, a order is created on the supplier who then replenishs the buffer stock.





The measurements are also quite interesting here, the supplier starts being measured based on Throughput Dollar days in case the buffer is empty till it is replenished upto the defined levels. The higher the TPD days the lower is the performance of the supplier. TPD means the throughput lost due to unavailability of the particular part in the buffer stock.





So we started from Make to Stock , moving to Make to Order and now we are in Make to Replenish / Available mode.





In the next blog, lets look at different industries and suitability for Make to Stock, Make to Order, etc

Customer as Advocate vs Customer as Adversary

Recently I came across a very interesting video ; the video was a summary of the research done by a Harvard professor around how companies dealt with their customers The interesting bit from the research was thinking about customers on a contiuum with Customer as Advocate at one extreme and Customer as Adversary on the other.
Lets first look at Customer as Advocate
One of the research topics was identifying companies providing extraordinary service and earning extraordinary profits in competitive industries. Come to think of it in typical price sensitive industries, just providing extraordinary service doesn't automatically translate into great profits.On the other hand , in some industries due to their nature (mono/duo/oligo poly) , its possible to earn extraordinary profits with lousy service. The research study took 3 examples of companies in diverse industries of banking, auto insurance, software products (all US companies) who have managed to provide great service & earn great profits, either by indirecly making customers pay for the service (no fooling around, customers know this) or taking some costs out of the business with intelligent data analysis and sharing it with customers or making sure that customers need to rarely contact the company for service through great products. (In the process , they have also expanded their customer base )In the process, the customer has became an advocate for these companies & these companies are able to influence the behaviour of their customers through normative approach (request / persuasion) rather than usual carrot / stick approach.An example may help to explain this point.A bank as part of its service used to reimburse charges incurred by its customers when they used other ATMs. At some point in time they realized that charges were going through the roof, they put out a note on website that customers should as far as possible refrain from using other ATMs to help reduce charges. Interestingly many customers behaved accordingly and stopped using other ATMs. Now lets look at customer as adversary The research provides example of cell phone operators in US. In many cases, the customer / company are adversaries predominantly due to the way cell phone companies are set up to deal with customers. Most of the call plans are structured in a way whereby customers are charged for un-utilized calls, exhorbitant charges are levied when customer crosses a threshold. (Companies win big time when customers lose)This may be more applicable for US cell companies but I am sure many of us have some grievance against cell phone companies in India.Customer as adversary relationship in competitive industries will mean higher churn with customers trying to find less lousy service at the same (or preferably at lesser cost)My personal experience suggests that I have more adversary relationship with companies rather than advocate, whether it is private sector banks, insurance companies, construction companies, etc and definitely public sector entities Not sure if it is unreasonable service expectations or something to do with the way companies are set up to deal with customers or just a fact of life given the environment / nature of competitive markets. (companies win when customers lose or are put at disadvantage) Some examples from personal experience, where companies make good profits but mostly with lousy service :1. Many of the IT projects carried out by IT service companies are in Time & Material mode (or sometime @ Fixed cost) with very limited connection to the actual benefits derived by the clients. IT companies win when more time / resources / module are consumed without any connection with benefit for the customers.
2. Some of the Capital equipment manufacturers make most of the money through selling spares and after sales 'service' ,i.e the manufacturer wins when the capital equipment is down.
3. Banks (esp private one) win massively when we make a small mistake of chq dishonour or delaying credit card payment by a day.
Is there an opportunity to move along the continuum and change the model so that customer becomes advocate rather adversary ? Any thoughts ?