Business to the Buddha

Category: Business to Buddha

  • Special situation needs special solution







    Crisis unites, for how long? I was thinking about Quantitative Easing of Fed in the US. While thinking undoubtedly read G20 communique of 2009 e.g. London Summit here. A prologue about this communique. In 2008, US financial market collapsed. This resulted in domino effect across geographies. Every country, its financial system and thus citizen of the country were adversely affected. Do not ask me – what happened to those who were responsible for this collapse? Many of them made huge money and (almost) vanished! as – according to the books – they earned legitimately. Coming back to the point – otherwise a competitive world became a co-operative world. The mindset changed like this –

    “…We will conduct all our economic policies cooperatively and responsibly with regard to the impact on other countries and will refrain from competitive…” (source – London Summit communique para 12).

    I am forced to think – do we need crisis to unite the world and people?

    The thought is in the mind because now, when things seem to be fine with the US economy or may be just because US Fed wants to reduce burden on its balance sheet they came up with a solution of QE and rest of the world feels US is renaging the agreement/communique.

    I assume, we may go in another set of moderate crisis in coming time, we have not come out of the crisis completely. However, perhaps, this time world would have lesser belief on Govts, financial system and the cooperation as agreed by the leaders, economists and Financial Organizations.

    The trust deficit we live in – or we will live in – requires special measure. A special situation demand a special solution. Since, I am more of an spiritual person I feel the solution is moving towards spirituality. This can be done two ways – bringing spiritual lessons in corporate life or making corporate values resonate, implemented and executed spiritual life. Signing a document does not solve problem in long term – we are seeing that happen through tapering of quantitative easing by USA.

    Disclaimer – Author doesn’t intent to criticize QE, author is of the opinion of looking at the basics of the problem – Greed. Author has written few blogs on Greed earlier here.

  • ‘Sahara’ – for whom?







    It was in early 2000 or 2001. I was standing at a small shop in Indore. A person came at this shop and the shopkeeper – Naresh – gave him 5/- (INR 5). They talked for some time about next day – Sunday shop being closed, how are the kids doing, what is happening in general. Naresh gave him a small diary; visitor wrote something in that and went. That diary looked like old time bank passbook.

    I asked Naresh what was that? Was that Hafta – That is “security money”? That money is paid unaccounted for to the local goons (as I knew it that time). Naresh smiled at my naivety. He said “no, its a bank for very small businessmen.” I had a question mark on face? “Does a bank come to you that too at 6PM or late?” I was not convinced. He said – “we cant leave our business and go to Bank, we are small people – lowest middle class if not lower class, many big banks wont take deposit from us as low as INR 5, that too daily. We surviving on small businesses dont have savings such that one day we will deposit huge sum. If money is with me, I will spend & sure on something worth its while. That way savings does not happen with us/me.” So, I said what is this guy doing, what is his business? Naresh told me – he is my school friend, he works with the banks, he comes and collects money. Generally, when we need money we tell him in advance he comes with some, gives it to us and makes entry in the passbook too.

    Banking at that time was not something interesting to me – MBA & financial crisis made it interesting. I forgot to ask him the name of the bank also I was more interested in knowing that things were lawful e.g. No Hafta. I had almost forgotten this incident, but during my MBA and post MBA remembered these things specially in case of micro-finance. When I read about Sahara group – I felt that incident was related to Sahara group. In fact I wrote a blog on the same- Collective Materialism keeping that experience in mind and after reading something more about Sahara group.

    Now, we hear negatively about Sahara group, sure there must be something wrong therefore Supreme Court of India and SEBI is behind Sahara group. Than recently I read Live Mint article – Is Sahara India’s Swiss bank? I was surprised and felt that yes, micro-finance is basically for people like Naresh; but who is stopping black money to be saved in this kind of banking system ? I am not sure, though. I support such initiatives in which marginalized people are empowered, and hope these initiatives will be lawful.

    “Sahara” is a Hindi/Urdu word that means support. I am not giving the verdict, I am questioning myself – this ‘Sahara’ is for whom? Naresh – a small businessman – or for black money of the corrupts?

    Check – Sahara Philosophy

  • Three Avocados







    You may argue with Management professionals that investors invest because they want better returns. An investor weighs his investment options, considers his risks profile et al and make a decision of investment expecting certain returns, right? But I think we are living in a time when many of us are thinking and should think about what bigger return based investment we can make and how can we reduce risk. Risk of the society!

    Three Avocados
    Three Avocados Logo

    A couple of months back a twitter handle @nonprofitcoffee followed me. It sounded strange, so I visited the handle, eventually the website. I was impressed and thought to write a blog on the same.

    Three avocados is a Non for profit company operating out of Uganda. Their product is coffee, order from here. Avocados and coffee does not gel well together, right? The company is named so because a destitute widow gifted three avocados, the only possession she had, to the founders of this company when they visited a village.

    This business has a purpose, not the cliche – to increase “shareholder” value. The purpose is different than many other businesses. They want to help Central African country – Uganda – with clean water. Young girls and women have a responsibility in their homes, the responsibility is to collect water for their daily chores. Well this is the story of many Indian villages as well. So can we think of such an initiative in India or other parts of the world? There are many social issues to handle e.g. women security in Delhi (just an example).

  • Why wait?







    Last week I wrote on being at a crossroad. Generally, we are all making some or the other decision. I specially like entrepreneurs who need to be constantly analyzing situations their business and survival + growth. Life becomes very interesting, challenging and driven by passion. One has to balance between Guts, Analysis and if possible one can work on instinct with the help of awareness. Follow my one tweet recently.

    I am no expert, yet feel there has to be a balance in life. Balance between extremes. Whether its about love or hate, passion or dispassion, emotions and logic or Socialism and Capitalism. The balance (which we professionals) generally is restricted to something such as Work-Life balance. Balance goes beyond that limited definition. Yet for the time being assume balance as work-life balance. I want share a news few months back.

    Founder of Hexaware, Mr Atul Nishar sold off his stakes in the company and the news was that he wanted to go for a 10 day Vipassana meditation. Read the news here – After selling Hexaware, Atul Nishar longs for ‘nothingness’. I am no one to comment on a very successful businessmen yet in the news one point made me think.

    QUOTE – “I have been constantly working for more than last 30 years and never took a break. This is a great opportunity for me to take a pause and feel nothingness,” says Nishar… UNQUOTE

    I was thinking that there are two options – 1. learn from this statement and start bringing balance in life now or 2. struggle tirelessly and – may be and may be – one day we’d be next Mr Nishar to experience “Nothingness”. Question is, why wait? concurrently why go on any extreme? Grow as businessman/professional and spiritually together?

    Related blogs – “Balance”

    The Middle path, Balancing Act, Irony, Dichotomy on happiness…

  • At a crossroad







    Kala Ghoda festival just concluded, in Mumbai. My sister and her four year old daughter – my niece, Chinu – religiously followed the festival. Yesterday was the last day of the festival. I was there for few hours.

    Instead of events, I spent time wandering around. At about 10:30 or so we were about to get back to our car, parked near Westside at Kala Ghoda. My sister looked at a temporary shop of Rajasthani necklace. A flute seller hawker came to us. My niece has already bought a flute, I started seeing flutes. This flute seller was very good with playing flute. He taught us a few thing, in fact he played a raaga and told us its composition Aroh Avroh. Than he told us how to play with different notes and how a Sa, can be played differently.

    My sister came after a while and she made a very strange yet meaningful observation. She said – “Look at the irony of life. Look at the display of Westside – Gourmet. They have displayed exotic foreign brands, especially of hard drinks. Just on the footpath of this display this woman is selling traditional necklace, this fellow playing so wonderful flute and the overall cultural festival of Kala Ghoda. We are literally at the crossroad.”

    We observe rarely, every moment we are at a crossroad. The decisions we make or the market places we obliviously cross in our routine. I have crossed Kala Ghoda numerous times, yet never observed what my sister told me. Few of my friends started their business, they make tough decisions all the time, they cannot be unmindful about their decisions. I know what tough time an entrepreneur goes through in the initial years.

    We are at crossroad; how often we realize it?

  • Entanglement of a langot (undergarment)







    I heard/read a story when I was a kid, I think in some Osho discourse or book. Well, I have been thinking about writing this for a long time, but I didn’t remember the whole story so I called my gateway of last resort (Ramana Rajgopaul uncleji – he blogs here). “Gateway of last resort” is a Computer Networks term, when every other link fails send data packets to gateway of last resort, is how any router is configured.

    Actually, he is very different person – you (I mean, I) can speak with him on any subject matter (from Sex to Super-consciousness). He guides with different points of views and references (he speaks great sanskrit, speaks Shlokas of different scriptures and mind you – he is an MBA from IIMA OK!). By the way he is 70 year young; young because when I talk to him I feel as if I am an old man, he is full of life as young as a 15 year old can be. Coming back to the story…

    Entanglement

    There was a saint, ascetic. He used to live outside of a village as used to happen in old day India. He owned only 2 langots (Nappies, or undergarments), nothing else. One he used to wear while other is washed. As any Indian saint could be – he was fed by villagers. Once, one of his langot was nibbled by a mouse. So villagers gave him cat to shoo away mouse/mice. In some days our saint realized that he needed to take care of the cat and to feed her he needs something. Villagers gave him a cow for feeding milk to the cat.

    Well, now he needed someone to take care of his cow, he hired someone to take care. The story goes something like this – this hired person needed monthly salary so saint started teaching as well. Slowly, this saint – an ascetic – becomes a family man. This langot converts an ascetic to a family man…

    This is how (may be not because of your undergarment) all worldly entanglements are woven around our life.

    Life is like this, we try to do something and end up doing something else. May be to take care of a langot (business, family, self) your whole focus changes. So, take care of your purpose otherwise you would be entangled such that you would run around in paraphernalia than the focus.

    Oh yes, this story reminded me of Novel by Herman Hesse – Siddharth. Ramana uncleji has also written a story on similar lines here.

    Related blogs –

    What more you need?

    Why are you doing what are you doing?

    Race – never ending

  • Butterfly Effect, is it?







    One fine day morning, a very strange thought came in my mind. Whatever we are doing, is it creating any problem in the nature or it is development?

    I shifted to suburb some time back, I found that there is relatively less cleanliness in suburb compared to where I used to live in South Mumbai (SoBo). Almost everyday there used to be swapping of the roads and all. By noon you could not find foliage on the roads. Why did this strange thought of swapping came to mind mind?

    In my suburban apartment a pigeon has made a nest with leafs. The same happens & happened in SoBo apartment too. I have seen at least three (actually five) times the pigeon could not properly hatch the eggs. Whereas I believe the suburban pigeon’s hatching could be better. In SoBo, pigeon’s nests were not as warm as Suburban pigeon’s nest is. This is because SoBo pigeon did not get foliage leafs whereas suburban pigeon did! Three times I observed eggs ended with no baby pigeon because proper warmth was missing! Had I done something for the nest, pigeon wont have accepted it. I tried it once threw some cotton to help him/her.

    So both these pigeon’s a suburban and a SoBo made me think – when we do something for “Good” e.g. swapping for cleaning roads, are we really doing something good for the nature? Who knows!

    Is it butterfly effect – no matter how small, an event can change the course of the universe forever.

  • Lesson from the Twitter…







    Twitter is a funny thing, at times, It teaches you some lessons unintentionally. This is what happened to me which made me think – am I writing what I feel is my opinion or I am writing what makes others feel good about my opinions? For a mere mortals – like I am – this question is of existence on twitter. So here comes my thoughts on survival on twitter.

    I wrote last month The Master is the Servant’s Servant. I remember reading this in the Book of Mirdad. Recently, I revisited this line – Master is the servant’s servant and vice versa. In this “virtually socially connected world” There is a new paradigm to looking at this saying of Mirdad.

    During Diwali, I purged my list of people I am following on Twitter. I unfollowed whom I thought I should not follow now. Similarly I looked at the list of people who are following me. I realized, that there was a time when I had more than 250 follower e.g. more than 250 people following me and getting my tweets on their timelines. Slowly this number had declined. Many people did what I did to few during Diwali ‘cleaning’! They simply “Unfollowed” me. So, I was wondering, how come I reached 250+ followers? I tweeted about 1. political opinions, 2. my view on economics 3. spirituality and 4. Business e.g. Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, Startups, Entrepreneurship & VC/PE deals, Analytics, Big Data etc.

    Actually, many people followed when I tweeted what “sounded” good to their ears. Me being me – later on – I might have written something against those thoughts or something irrelevant to those followers – the simply went. No regrets – actually, that growing number gives you a false sense of pride – believe me it feels like that initially. I realized that ok – writing this or that makes people follow you. Should I start writing in this or that manner? I was getting in the trap of being salves of those few people who wanted to hear what suited most to them. Well, that was what making me servant (of others opinion) and them the master (of my owns opinion).

    So, it is a kind of question of one’s existence. cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I exist) or my thoughts echo with thoughts of the People therefore I exist (at least on twitter).

    Anyways the reality is – we are all interdependent and therefore the definition of salve and master is incorrect in itself.

    Disclaimer – I do not intend to demean those 1. who followed me, 2. later unfollowed me, 3. still following me 4. whom I follow, 5. I unfollowed and 6. I am still following etc on Twitter.

  • The Price of Inequality







    I have read Dr Joseph Stiglitz. He is a Nobel prize awarded economist. The book I read first was Globalization and its discontents and recently I started reading The price of Inequality.

    I realized that Dr Stiglitz may not be the so called capitalist economist, he is capitalist but with a touch of a Just and relatively Equal society. So, when I started reading “The price of Inequality” I started wondering what kind of wealth difference exist in the US. Since, I have never been to the US so the picture of the USA I have always created is – no poverty, everyone having enough and more to not only survive but also a lavish life, a home with front garden, a car parking (of course too), wonderful interiors of the home etc. This picture is largely because of the Movies we watch – on a lighter note Hollywood is responsible for that ;).

    Well, while reading the book, I came across a video on Facebook (watch below).

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM]

    Though, some may argue this video is shared for more socialistic reform e.g. healthcare reform, but that is not the point of contention for me. Watch Margin Call to understand the point of view of the bosses of the investment banks – well to sum up “They do not care! Everything will be fine in sometime.”

    My perspective is not a fight on any economic approach e.g. socialism Vs Capitalism, I favor inclusive growth and I believe for achieving that we need to follow a middle path wherein a mixed approach be used.

    Read my previous blogs related to the book – Globalization and its discontents

    Blogs here

  • Big data – lesson on spirituality







    I was talking to my MD – Dr Vivek Damle. I said, Big data is “relevant information provider” for real time. One cannot rely on old data generated by a person, say in 2010, for marketing strategy (I am writing this blog in 4th Quarter of 2013). The discussion went on a very strange yet lovely tangent, Dr Damle said – “… so big data would take us on the road of spirituality, is it? I mean to say – like suggesting us to live in the present!”

    I was impressed with this thought. So here comes the lesson learnt from spirituality and applied to the Big Data and vice versa.

    Big-dataBig data is all about volume, variety and velocity… so data generate say 2 yrs back is likely to be irrelevant for today’s marketing campaign. In coming days or say months – all analytics would move to the real time e.g. at the moment of truth. Spirituality teaches us this very simple lesson (difficult to apply in real life though) – “live in the present moment”. As Master Oogway says in The Kung Fu Panda – Yesterday Is History, Tomorrow Is a Mystery, but Today Is a Gift. That Is Why It Is Called the Present.

    I was thinking – is technology forcing us today to spiritual concepts? Or unknowingly are we moving towards concepts of spirituality through technology?

    Big data can help identify a persons choices and predict his or her future course of action… but what in case of older data? That data would have lesser significance. Take an example in India, Narendra Modi (PM candidate in India from Opposition Party – BJP) for someone was communal few years back now is a hope, why? because perceptions changed. Vice versa for Dr Man Mohan Singh (PM of India). Old data less relevance. If I talk about my owns example of last month – I was searching for rental apartment, not now. The data I created while searching for a rental apartment last month is irrelevant now. The marketing campaigns will be more real time e.g. the present not based on “Historical” data.

    Earlier in my professional engagement as a marketing analytics consultant, we made a predictive model. The client executed the recommendation more than 8 months later. result – failed. no one wanted to take the blame. That’s what is the case is in a fast moving world.

    Live in the present.

    For Business people – try to be more real-time data based decision makers.

    Image source – http://www.greenbookblog.org/2012/03/21/big-data-opportunity-or-threat-for-market-research/