Business to the Buddha

Tag: India

  • Syādvāda – The Doctrine of Postulation







    I had written about this earlier, however thought to revisit the same again. What is the meaning of system when it is not solving the required purpose? Let us take the same example again from my previous post Lost in translation. What is the meaning of grammar (System) if the language (Following the system) is not able to communicate the message using the grammer?

    To make my point further clear, let me take recent developments in India. In case of Anna Hazare, the Government was shouting about the SYSTEM in place, “THE SUPREME PARLIAMENTARY PROCESS” and therefore was not relenting to the rightful issue of sentiments of the common man of India. What is the use of such process which is not listening to the voices of people, and we call it DEMOCRACY! At the same time, Supreme court of India has kept death sentences (ruled in favor of High Court) for Killer of Mr Rajiv Gandhi and Afzal Guru (involved in parliament attack of 2003), let me repeat – Supreme Court of India. Yet for many years they are in jails of India. Now, the system of respecting the Supreme Court is not followed. What kind of SYSTEMS we are talking about?

    A man/woman – actually killer in some sense – is in jail not receiving the fruits of his/her crime, why because we can do away with some systems selectively to suit our benefits. At the same time a man (Anna) – who is fighting for a cause – is given rule-book and all sorts of stories of systems, stating what he is doing is not in favor of democracy. What nonsense! Are not these systems making us handicap rather than helping us? Is the system making us feel – in India, you can get away with murders too?

    Reiterating this from my earlier blog – …I am not arguing against systems. I am just trying to say that one has to answer the question – why at first place we designed systems?

    1. to facilitate operations of society (in case of religion, culture and laws)
    2. to facilitate operations of work (in case of businesses).

    Inputs from Prof Mankad on need of system –
    3. to facilitate understanding of the present and formulating vision for the future (in case of education)
    4. to facilitate orderly day to day living for people, ensure fairness in dealings, security and openness (in case of governance, transparency and judiciousness). At times, systems are inadequate too.

    And therefore my stand is no spiritual teacher advocated “create a religion in my name” …and do business on the same. They just showed the path, I recall Mahavir (one of the messengers of Jainism) used ‘Syādvāda’. What I understand about ‘Syādvāda’* is – this is true and that is also true. Everything is based on relativity. Systems are correct if they solve the basic purpose, if they do not – better to change them. Everything of 12th century (or Before Christ) may not be relevant today better abolish some of them, right? So, relevance is important and thus the doctrine of postulation… systems are correct but in context, be it democracy of India. Mahavir said that 500 years BC (Before Christ), we are still not listening/learning, are we?

    More on Syādvāda in future blogs.

    *Note – it is purely my understanding and please do your research for references

  • God be the CEO!







    From The book of Mirdad –

    God is your captain, sail, my Ark!
    …
    Love is your compass, ply, my Ark!
    …
    Faith is your anchor, ride, my Ark!

    Today I was wondering about what if the world is an organization and the God is the CEO! What would be the situation, in the boardroom and what must be going through His mind?

    Situation – the countries and continents are a department each. There is a cost center – USA – this department is in debt and there seems to be no way out for it to survive. The likely other cost center is the EU – European Union. Operations and manufacturing unit is China. Parts of Middle-East and India a chaotic department wherein the left hand ‘does not know‘, ‘does not want to know‘ and ‘does not want to support‘ what the right hand is doing. The chaos is such that the department is rather a destruction center, not even a cost center. Only good department seem to be Africa and the South East Asia region. Would the CEO resign? Or He would dismiss few those who are responsible for this. For namesake – Former president of USA George W Bush (he forced the world to a war – to me which was unnecessary – the Iraq war), Gaddafi, many politicians including Indian politicians, leaders of the terrorist organizations (Osama is already dead) and those others who are the culprits.

    Keep aside the joke of the God being the CEO. Do you think that the situation is really dire – accounts (economy), production and administration everything is in a chaos. If yes, do not you think that it is our responsibility to improve everything round us. Should one take life of the other in the biggest organization – The World? (terrorism). Should one be corrupt in the organization where her/his family will also be at the receiving end? (India). Should one produce products which could be contaminated by Lead (China – some toys), be prone to fail and take life (cars)? Should one be so extravagant that the whole organization is under debt because of that department? (USA).

    Even if we still continue thinking the God be the CEO, would not the CEO want every employee to do his/her job responsibly, be moderate and ethical? Let us hope that the CEO succeeds in his mission and vision of making the organization profitable with the triple bottom-line and make it an ethical organization. With that hope what we need is ‘responsible we’ – each one of us – and committed employee to make the organization a better place.

    Note – those who are agnostic, for the time being consider God exists. Or do not read the blog, or shoot your concerns/comments. Even if we do not want to consider God be the CEO, I thought about another philosophy from India – ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’. It means that the whole world is one single family. Would you kill your brother or sister, would you do something for which you may have to feel sorry in your family?

  • Retail update







    I could not resist myself from posting this blog. I am passionate about retail industry and therefore since last three days holding on to the news and finally posting on the blog.

    Govt of India (CoS) has recommended to 51% FDI in Retail industry. As there are always positives and negatives in any decision we make. The FDI brings positives as well as negatives. According to various sources retail adds 13% to Indian GDP of 1.3 trillion, organized retail is only 4% (in any case less than 10%) of the overall retail business in India. So there are immense opportunity of growth for organized retail. If we compare the organized Vs unorganzied retail UK has about 85% of retail done through organized retail. Such high dependence brings a huge risk (take an example of diversifying risk in financial portfolio management).

    The positive for Indian economy here is – lots of jobs, increased in quality of service and affordability of products (due to inherent reason of business of retail). At the same time the challenge is – how to manage possibility of loss of Mom and Pop stores? These are small business people running their small shop for livelihood. A rider to manage that situation is – retailer can operate in cities with populations more than 1 million. Well no sane retailer would want to operate in all nook and corner of India from day one also smaller cities would not provide that much profitability to the organized retailers.

    Growth of Indian economy and possibilities of more growth (compared to other developed economies) brings in more questions (as opposition is asking) regarding the number of 51%. Someone said – is it giving giving control of our retail industry to foreign based giants? I said yes and no both. Yes because 51% investment and No because at the end of the day people and the Govt will control buying decision and policy decisions.

    The competitions will teach few lessons to local retailers as well as learn few lessons on the cultural. As they said – think global act local… let us see whether this lesson of books comes to practice, otherwise we would have other lessons from failures of foreign retailers in India.

  • Next is what?







    I was reading a newspaper, the question came in mind – next is what? For a moment Samsung mobile advertisement came in my mind. So keep guessing, next is what for Samsung (off late for Nokia too)? Jokes apart, the question is serious, forward looking and for soul searching.

    The question is very natural, after completing graduation person asks him/herself – what next further education or a job? The question is still there and will always be there in our mind – thinking species.

    In terms of existence and growth of an organization this question is apparent. Organizations think of short term and long term strategies, I have heard some plan for next 25-50 years too and they do it sincerely every year. So, the question “Next is what?” is an eternal, perennial question.

    Next is what, was the question at the time of independence for India. Singapore became a part of bigger Malay nation in 1960’s with a vision of The Next. Though it failed, what makes us feel really great about Singapore is – the vision of Mr Lee Kuan Yew. He rose to the occasion and see where is Singapore in forty years of its independence. Singapore has emerged as an economic power and hub for Asia Pacific, I admire leadership skills of Mr Yew.

    Next is what? is the question currently for Egypt too. What we learnt in strategy planning is – scenario planning and what.. if analysis. Egypt needs an able leader one similar to Mr Yew of Singapore and make long term agile strategies and take short term actions to realize those plans.

    After Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Bahrain are protesting, “Next is what?” for Egypt is the question to ask and this is equally pertinent for these other countries. We will see the results in coming time.

  • Next super power?







    Germany? Is that… few days back President Obama was in India, he supported India’s candidature for permanent seat in UN. Germany and Japan the other contenders raised their voices on that. Germany is one of the two elected countries to serve as member of Security Council for two-year terms that begin Jan 1. Germany is also the protagonist for Unified Europe e.g. European Union (EU). Germany is the strongest economy of EU. And the trouble starts here – Germany being the protagonist and the strongest economy faces challenge of saving the EU and the cost could be cases against Government of Germany. Reason? German people were promised two things –
    1. Euro would be as strong as Deutschemark
    2. There would be a “no bail out clause”

    These clauses seem to fail. Euro is struggling because of exposure to stupidity of investment banks and naivety of European countries for example Iceland. Next to show domino effect was Greece in first half of the year, Ireland now and perhaps –Spain, Portugal next to face economic doldrums. “With Great power comes great responsibility” said Uncle Parker [to Peter Parker – Spiderman]. Germany needs to understand it, they need to change their promises or the spiral of over exposure and unified economy [not only of EU but also the whole world] would eat half of our generation.

    Balancing this would make Germany either very strong worldwide or make it pauper.

    China, is that? According to the recent FT news by 2014 China would roughly touch 20% of world manufacturing production and has already equaled US. As I earlier wrote [reference Macroeconomics class of Prof Mankad] China is replicating Japan on many fronts and is doing it phenomenally well. China hold Treasury bonds of US in effect it can twist arms of USA any time. Yet it faces a few challenges –
    1. for a strong economy of China, US and other nations importing Chinese products should be economically strong or China needs to increase consumption of its produce in China itself
    2. growing % of population in old age e.g. less working population.

    There could be many ways to tackle this issue –
    1. Work Visas to people of different nationalities
    2. Automation
    3. A least unlikely one is mildness on communism to attract foreign nationals

    India, is it? Perhaps, yes! I may be biased yet the economic, demographic and intellectual capital it posses, this country seems the contender for coming 10-20 years. The secret lies in the leadership, current duo of Dr Singh and Mr Chidambaram is a good combination. However, India needs to be cautious building next leadership line is the need of the hour.

    Coming back to the troubles in EU, I strongly see a solution in applying TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) for the situation. As far as the super power is concerned, only time will tell us who the super power is, I would bet on India and China, more on India ten years from now. Cast your vote…