Forbes list of World’s Most Innovative Companies

Forbes has brought out a list of World’s Most Innovative Companies, ranking them by a matric called Innovation Premium: 

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http://www.forbes.com/special-features/innovative-companies-list.html

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Salesforce.com is ranked as world’s most innovative company. Amazon.com is at #2, confirming that technology companies will remain in the most innovative lot as a practice. Some favorites appear like this: #5 Apple, #7 Google. We have good representation from the ERP players also: SAP is at #63, Oracle at #77, Microsoft at #86, (Well, Salesforce is at #1, as I started with). 

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We have Intuitive Surgical as world’s #3. #24 is P&G, #31 General Mills, and #50: Pepsico. Syngenta is at #79.

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Some rankings would of surprise to many and a matter of pride for others. E.g., some Indian companies appear as top notch: 

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Hindustan Unilever (Indian arm of Unilever) is world’s 6th most innovative, Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL, from India) appears at #9, and the #15th place is occupied with pride by Infosys (Indian IT major).

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We could still guess it for HUL or Infy, but is it really that BHEL is world’s 9th most innovative company? A lot of people won’t easily believe that the PSU would hold that position. Here, the key is to understand how Forbes estimated the positions. The bottom text says, 

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The Innovation Premium is a measure of how much investors have bid up the stock price of a company above the value of its existing business based on expectations of future innovative results (new products, services and markets). Members of the list must have $10 billion in market capitalization, spend at least 1% of their asset base on R&D and have seven years of public data.

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This explains many of the inclusions and exclusions. Anyways, I found the list predicable, surprising, and interesting, at places. 

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- Rahul

‘Goonj’ from the eyes of Darren Gest

A very interesting article from Darren, who spent some time with the NGO ‘Goonj’ while in India. It is a kind of review of Goonj, as well as a feedback for we Indians :)

I am sure you will find it very interesting.

Someway, Somehow: The valuable lesson I learned in India

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-business/2010/11/someway-somehow/

Darren Gest, who earned his MBA degree from Vanderbilt in 2010, is currently a Human Capital Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in Chicago.

‘Goonj’ from the eyes of Darren Gest

A very interesting article from Darren, who spent some time with the NGO ‘Goonj’ while in India. It is a kind of review of Goonj, as well as a feedback for we Indians :)

I am sure you will find it very interesting.

Someway, Somehow: The valuable lesson I learned in India

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-business/2010/11/someway-somehow/

Darren Gest, who earned his MBA degree from Vanderbilt in 2010, is currently a Human Capital Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in Chicago.

A very interesting article from Darren, who spent some time with the NGO ‘Goonj’ while in India. It is a kind of review of Goonj, as well as a feedback for we Indians :)

I am sure you will find it very interesting.

Someway, Somehow: The valuable lesson I learned in India

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-business/2010/11/someway-somehow/

Darren Gest, who earned his MBA degree from Vanderbilt in 2010, is currently a Human Capital Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in Chicago.

My Experiments with Made-in-India Brands!

I remember the day when I had to buy my first motorbike. I was on my first job, in Chhattisgarh, and I went on a search to find a bike in the market. I wanted to buy an Indian brand only. I won’t even take a Hero Honda because Honda for me was Japanese, even though my father and all my friends recommended me to buy one from the HH brand. Ultimately I chose to buy a Bajaj bike; because it was an Indian Brand. The Bajaj bike was not so great in looks, but it gave me good mileage. Next, when my father had to buy a car, we children did an analysis comparing all the cars in the market. I was biased in favour of an Indian brand, but didn’t want to show my biasness so early. Ultimately we found that a Mahindra car scored over all others in the segment, on most parameters. Today, father is very happy with the selection. I am sure if we had found some other foreign brand as the best suited, somehow I would have persuaded everyone to buy at least a Maruti, if not a Tata or Mahindra. My love for Indian brands often made me buy a Tata product or an Airtel or a Dabar product. I would choose a VIP baggage or a Westside cloth, because these are Indian. I tried to stay on Rediff, because it was Indian. I even tried hard to retain my India.com email ID, for a long time. I bought a Moser Baer CD even if it was 2 rupees costlier than the Chinese brand. Even at times I have preferred to buy a medicine with an Indian brand, when I had a choice.

I accept that it is not always possible to find an Indian brand without compromising on the best quality or service. For example, I have longed to have a great Indian cola; and a best quality toothpaste with an Indian brand. My favourite ones for these products, be it ThumsUp/Coke, Pepsi, Pepsodent or Colgate, all are foreign brands. I would also love to buy an Indian Digital Camera. In such situations I have to make a trade-off. How much am I ready to sacrifice on service or quality, when it comes to choose the second rank Indian brand Vs best-in-class foreign brand. I accept that many a time I choose to buy a foreign brand when I am not happy with the competing Indian brand. I think there is no point in promoting bad quality products just because they are local. Now do you think my experiments make sense?

We are in a world which is increasingly becoming global. Our Indian companies and brands are doing great business in the US and in Europe. At the same time there are foreign brands making money in India. What is wrong with the later? I think there is nothing wrong. There would always be customers who would choose to buy a foreign brand simply because they are foreign (this attitude has come from the colonial era and then the decades when owning an ‘imported’ product was a social status). So if there are some people who buy local brands just because those are local, it only balances the power! At the same time, it does make an economic sense also. Do you feel something is wrong if India buys from China; China buys from Japan, the Japanese buy from the US, the US buys from Taiwan, while Taiwan buys from India? It would lead to a very inefficient global-economy! Even the proponents of globalisation have now woken up to the fact that it makes a lot of sense to manufacture and consume locally. Often we have woken up with a shock, like after Japan’s nuclear disaster disrupted global supply chains or after tainted elements were discovered in Chinese food products. This is not the best way to realise facts; and the lessons learnt in such haste are not even permanent. After the disaster gets over, people may start going the same old way; until once again the same disaster repeats. As much as possible, manufacturing makes sense locally. But there are things which are best managed globally for the benefit of all – like information and capital flow. And to some extent, free movement of skilled manpower. But for products and raw materials – a long supply chain always has higher risks and is inefficient.

The path that I have chosen is not so easy. We can’t always have everything locally made. Yesterday when I was buying Oats at a D-Mart store, I found two brands. I saw one was from Saffola – a Marico brand. Marico, from Harsh Mariwala and company. I bought it thinking that it was an Indian brand. But when I brought it home and looked at the package, it said, “Origin: Australia”. It was only packaged and sold by Marico. I found that India doesn’t stand anywhere in the top-10 oats producers. But I felt let-down, not finding a made-in-India product. I am also waiting for a great Indian brand in a lot of other segments. For example, I have always bought a Shoe with a foreign brand; have never found an Indian brand appealing enough. But when it comes to floaters (footwear), I have found a Khadim or a local product very good. I think this was the historical situation – Indian brands would make good regular products with less sophistication, but won’t be able to design higher up. The situation has changed in a lot of areas, but not in all. For example, I was tempted to buy a Wipro laptop. But how could I ever do that, leaving HP or Dell? I would long for that day when I would choose to buy a laptop with an Indian brand.

If we are rational, we shall face a dilemma: which one to choose: African brand but Made-in-India, or Indian brand but made-in-Africa? Tough call? I shall choose the later. Why? Because, the first choice: African brand but made-in-India would have destroyed (outmatched, taken market-share from, or reduced profitability of, by price war / scale of ops) many other indigenous Indian brands! While the later – Indian brand made in Africa would make the Group a bigger one, which may decide to make many new products too! If I sum this up in a matrix, here is what I think should be like:

Going one step further, we can even develop an index (may be, called Swadeshi-Index). A lot of Indian companies (e.g. ICICI, HDFC) have a high foreign stake-holding. These need to be differentiated from totally ‘Indian’ enterprises. Anyways, back to the main issue.

Does my preference for Indian brands make me a local-citizen, as compared to the global one? Does it make me a kind of a chauvinist guy? I don’t care, until I am buying an Indian brand which is also best in the segment. And when there is a tie – two products as good as each other – I shall buy the Indian one. Now, can we qualify this practice with a tag “patriotic”? I don’t care for tags or qualifications, until somehow my money is going to help my country more than any other. Do I recommend this practice to all? Do it if you are convinced that it is the best way. Otherwise do give it a thought.

My experiments with buying “Made in India” brands might have occasionally given me second-best products and services, but it has always given me the best possible feeling. Today, money can’t buy all the happiness. But one of that happiness is the happiness that comes with a feeling that somehow our money is helping our motherland. What can be a greater feeling?

I love my India, and I support my Indian brands.

- Rahul

Which is more Powerful - Good or Bad?

Someone asked me, “Which is more powerful: good or bad?” Here are my thoughts and the reply:

There is a similar debate on which is stronger gender: males or females. I think many reached the conclusion that their strengths are "different" and hence not comparable. Both are powerful, in their own way. If we compare them on one particular criterion, then only one would appear more powerful than the other.

I think to find which is more powerful between what we call 'good' and 'bad', we would have to clarify what we mean by 'powerful'.

If power means an ability to contract and spread - I think bad is more powerful.

If power means one which gives strength to the heart and soul, and virtues like will power and confidence - I think good is more powerful.

If power means an ability to retain, persist when faced with opposition - I think bad is more powerful.

If power means an ability which makes us feel well even alone and not to ask for external approval - I think good is more powerful.

If power means an ability to win over others on physical level - I think bad is more powerful.

If power means an ability to win over others on intellectual level - I think good is more powerful.

If power means being such a virtue which one can wish to have even at the death-bed and even after earning all that one can earn in this world - I think good is more powerful.

- Rahul

Trip to Shimla - A Beautiful Town on the Mountains

A Case of Lost and Found

In April, I lost my wallet in my office. I had kept it on a sofa on ground floor of my building and forgot to take it with me. I returned back in 3-4 minutes but found that it was gone. I went to the security gates, but they were only noting down the “found” items and not the “lost” items. I kept visiting them for a month, but nothing was returned to them – that I could see by going through “Lost and Found Register”. I had lost my 2 credit-cards, 1 debit-card, 1000+ rupees, my driving license, and pictures of self and my wife. Losing the Driving License was a great loss for practical reasons, others gave me emotional pain. I found it weird that there was no place in our campus where we were registering/documenting the lost items in the campus. 

Till then, the security team used to register only found cases. Suppose I lost my wrist watch and followed up with the security (by visiting each of the three security gates and checking the respective registers) for a month and then gave up my hope. Someone had got the watch but was not able to return because s/he was on leave/onsite/travel. The person returns the watch on 31st day. Since I am not following up with the security anymore, where will this watch go? If they have a “lost” register, they can match the descriptions and verify and return it to me. Also, the benefits of noting down the details of “lost” cases are many. Just an example: if we analyze the data and find that 50 thefts have happened from a particular area in a building in a month - we can install a CCTV to monitor and curb the trend / catch the person responsible. We have about 20,000 employees in our campuses here, and daily a number of items are lost and found. A proper “system” should be in place to document the cases. 

I raised a formal request, asking “where can I register the ‘theft’ I have faced”. The initial response was insensitive. But I never accepted the explanation. The company has a fair and just system, so I had faith that I would end up making a positive change. The request went through many cycles and escalations. I was tempted to get discouraged and close the case. But I let it persist. Ultimately after two months, I have now got a communication from the facilities team that they have directed all security gates to register “lost” cases also, in the same “Lost and Found Registers”. 

I have informed my colleagues with the new development and asked them to use this facility when needed. It helps those who lose their items and have to face a lot of troubles enquiring/reclaiming those items. It also makes our facilities system more transparent and effective. I am happy that I was able to be an agent for this positive change. I haven’t got my wallet back, but there are chances that those who will face the same would go through less distress than what I went through, and the cases would also reduce just because someone is keeping a tab on them. 

- Rahul

Pictures from Shimla

Here is my public album with pictures from my ShimlaVisit:

Trip to Shimla - A Beautiful Town on the Mountains

Slideshow:

Saving Nature

Heart melts at this news:

Sadhu dies after a 73-day fast to save Ganga

http://tinyurl.com/3wc7cl7 and http://tinyurl.com/68qkndu

New Beginning for me in Volunteering

Donating old clothes and some usable items like toys and utensils is a very good idea. Often we have the will but don’t find the opportunity. There are many NGOs who specialize in facilitating in that. I knew of a very good NGO which ran a campaign to collect old clothes in cities and then reach it to remote and needy people for ‘cloth for work’ scheme. It has also won many awards, including a Best NGO and a World Bank award. They have a collection center or warehouse in my city, but that is far from our office. So here is what I thought and made a scheme: 

I talked to them and offered myself as a volunteer. I planned to collect old clothes and items from my colleagues and friends, and would deposit those to their collection center in the weekends. They have agreed to my offer and gave the necessary details. 

So I have informed my colleagues and friends that anytime if they want to donate old clothes and some usable items for the poor, they could feel free to contact me. I shall make sure the items reach the NGO. I am not posting the specific details like name of the NGO and address; would like to pass these to those who are interested. 

This is my first proper social initiative. So far I have tried to be part of some one-off social campaigns and also contributed monetarily, but this time I wish to contribute my efforts, selflessly, with a plan… 

Regards,

Rahul

Puppy

Our company has an online bulletin board on which people can post ads and messages for a host of things. Buy and sale for items, flat on rent, any event being organized - colleagues are allowed to share the message with others. At times some very touching messages appear there. Like one that appeared today. A lady colleague posts the picture of a pup she said she had rescued and wanted someone to adopt. She says the pup is around 1.5 months old and needs to be adopted by some family which cares. And what a cute pup it is! See yourself:

His Ego

Writing in a very quick story, but it means a lot. It is complete fiction, out of my mind:

It is the story of a girl and a boy. They married after felling in love with each other. After marriage, the girl realises that she was only a means for the boy's ego satisfaction, only a prize in his eyes. That lowered the girl’s respect for the boy. The boy never failed to fulfil any demand for his girl, but somehow the girl kept seeing it again as a gesture of his own ego fulfilment. One day, she decides to quit and separate. They don’t remarry, but lead separate life. The girl takes up a profession and achieves name and position. She outshines the boy. At one time, she realises that the boy had indeed tried 4-5 times in those years to reconcile and to get together again. But she had never agreed and ignored the gestures. In the end both get old. She lies on bed and is rethinking about her own life. Suddenly she realises something. She realises that it was her own ego in the first place which had separated her from the boy. It was again her ego which had made her not accept his gestures and requests to reunite. She wonders since when she also had an ego, which she accused the boy to possess in excess? She realises that she also always had the ego – only it manifested itself in different ways than that of the boy. Only after she had separated from the boy, her ego had become of the same kind as that of the boy… Now she is able to separate the boy’s ego from his love. She returns back, and is surprised to see that the boy still accepts her… As a conclusion she realises that though he had an ego, the ego didn’t come as an obstruction to their love. His ego had only boosted his love…

- Rahul

Book Review: Games Indians Play

Games Indians Play: Why we are the way we are’


By V. Raghunathan

(Forward by N.R. Narayana Murthy)

Penguin Portfolio

Dr. V. Raghunathan is a man of many credits. He has been a professor of finance at IIM Ahmedabad from 1982-2001; then worked as President of ING Vysya Bank and later as MD of GMR Industries. He is author of 9 books, has been on many companies’ boards, and esteemed panels. He is also a popular columnist in newspapers; and is involved in CSR roles as of now. You can check his LinkedIn profile here; or can go to his website. When such a man writes something, readers have better take him seriously.



The purpose of this book is to analyze and understand why Indians are ‘like this only’. Now what is meant by ‘like this’ has often negative connotations. Dr. Raghunathan says that the root cause is that Indians are one of the most intelligent lots in this world. He says he has visited many places and understood many people – but never has he found such an intelligent population, as we are in India. Yet, he says our intelligence results in us taking rational decisions ‘individually’ in situations, but leading to our ‘collective’ failure. He calls us “Privately smart and publicly dumb”:



When I jump a queue or a red light, or throw that garbage on the sidewalk, I am taking a rational ‘squeal’ decision, since it seems to get me ahead of others or make life easier for me. Here I am privately smart. But then, as others are no less rational, intelligent and smart, they too start squealing for the same reasons, and before we know it, we have unruly traffic, filthy streets and stinking urinals. So collectively we are all worse off. And then we complain about a dirty country, a polluted city and appalling traffic. In short, publicly we emerge dumb. (P 42)



To show how whatever is in our achievement kitty fails to match up to the best in the world, glance this portion:



Impressive as the completion of the Konkan Railway or the Delhi Metro Railway have been, they pale in comparison to the Chinese projects, especially where implementation skills and political will are concerned. Consider the statistics. It took seven to ten years to complete the 760 km Konkan Railway. As for the Delhi Metro, between 1950 and 1990, some thirty feasibility studies were carried out by various bodies to evaluate an alternatice transportation system for Delhi. The final go-ahead came in 1990. Delhi Metro Rail Corp Ltd was established in 1995 and first phase of eleven kms was completed in 2004. The eighteen km Calcutta Metro took a good 24 years to complete, from 1971 to 1995.



China completed the final section of the pan-Himalaya Golmud-Lhasa railway - 1956 kms – at 5072 meters above the sea level. It had 550 km frozen belt, with snow alternately melting and freezing in summer and winter. Workers had to breathe bottled oxygen to cope up with high altitude (no single death due to this though). This stretch of 1142 kms was completed in a mere 4 years. (P13-14)



The best part of the book is the analysis. Dr. Raghunathan uses Game Theory and Behavioral Economics to analyze the situation. Though in the process, he ignores many factors. For example, he discarded the impact of colonization (by foreigners, for a thousand years) on our present behavior, in a one line sentence. Here, I didn’t agree with him. But seeing that history is not his area, and the tools taken up by him for analysis are powerful enough, I didn’t bother much. He explains the Prisoner’s Dilemma in the beginning and by the end he tries to reach a conclusion. Now I found that the Game Theory part could be applied to any case, not only to Indians or India. He worries that in a Prisoner’s dilemma situation, if everyone tries to take best rational decision benefitting oneself, in the end it harms all. So what was the way out? Now this was the most important part. I have typewritten a portion from his last chapters, though this is selective and not exhaustive enough:



Karmany evadhikaras te ma phalesu kadacana



Ma karma-phala-hetur bur ma te sango‘stv akarmani



(Bhagawat Gita, Chapter II, Verse 47)



Meaning: You have right only to the action and never to the fruit of the action. Fruit of action should not be your motivation, nor should you be driven by attachment to action.



For most of my youth and a little beyond, I always found these words innocuous and naïve. Taking this bit of verse as a random sample of what the Gita is all about, I thought I understood why we weren’t result-driven people. You see, innocence can lead to such quick generalizations.



Meanwhile, a good Samaritan presented me a copy of the Gita, which I did read now and then, though rarely pausing to contemplate seriously on its contents.



It was only when I started getting interested in game theory and immersed myself in it that the whole import of the Gita hit me like a truck.



In many ways, the Gita, in a quintessential form, lays down what one may call the absolute truth for most aspects of our lives, the dharma. To amplify this statement further: for years, my idea of right and wrong was largely intuitive. Yet somewhere deep down, I could never see any reasonable evidence to believe that there existed absolute truths outside physical sciences which one could ‘measure and prove’.



My argument was: If this is a world of ‘selfish genes’ and therefore selfish people, what makes it ‘wrong’ to shaft somebody, as long as you found it worth your while? Religions may proscribe shafting somebody, pronouncing such action as a sin. But the question is: ‘Why is it a sin?’ Who is to say that a wrong has happened, given that each individual is selfish and each one’s actions are supposed to be in the best interests of oneself? Similarly, the Gita might say that it is wrong to be driven by desires. But why is it wrong? Again, if I see a child begging for alms and risk reinforcing the system, or desist and risk the child going hungry? Which is the lesser evil?



For questions such as these and other social dilemmas, there don’t seem to be answers that are right or wrong. Or so I had believed for a long time. I was enlightened when I found game theory capable of answering many questions such as these unambiguously. But what really captured my imagination was that most answers which a game-theoric situation such as prisoner’s dilemma yielded were consistent with what Krishna had to say to Arjuna in the Bhagawat Gita! I discovered that modern game theory and associated experiments and games seem to validate what Krishna had placed before Arjuna in a nutshell. Clearly, it took thousands of years of management science to validate the Gita (even if unwittingly), much as presend day experiments on the outer reaches of space continue to validate Albert Einstein.



Consider our simple prisoner’s dilemma situation of Chapter 4. ……. If everyone followed the path of the karmayogi stipulated by the Gita, C-C is the only outcome and that leads to the “highest good”…..



That is why we must not ‘defect’; that is why those who do not follow the path of dharma ought to be punished; that is why it is one’s dharma to be provoked by the adharmi and retaliate, and yet show compassion and forgiveness in the conduct of one’s actions, just as the Tit for Tat strategy guides us.



This is what game theory tells us, and this is what the Gita tells us as well. It is just that Gita is simplified and made-easy or ready-to-serve version of actions that the game theory plods through to demonstrate. It is interesting that some sage, aeons ago, thought of the right courses of action for humanity at a large in a variety of situations that can stand the test of proof of present-day tools and techniques, including computer simulations.



My intention in writing this chapter was merely to share my own personal awakening to many aspects of the Gita. What is strange is that we should be witnessing so much of defect-defect behavior in the very land that gave us the Gita. Clearly, while the West, using its cumbersome vehicle of game theory, has covered a lot of ground in collective cooperative behavior, we seem to have made very little headway in that direction, notwithstanding our heritage of the Gita.



(P142-148)



This review won’t be complete if you missed the last two paragraphs in the above quoted text. And any review can’t be replacement for the ultimate joy of reading a book.



The book is not long, the language used is simple, the scientific inquiry (e.g. game theory) is not too complex to understand, and this book deserves to be read by one and all. I highly recommend it to all my readers.