What's in Store for India?!

That the economic outlook for Indian remains wobbly is a well known fact. In this blog, I explore what FY 14 has likely in store for us, and what we can do to make the best of it. Though no economic downturn is ever permanent, the recent cycles have demonstrated that they can be both longer and more frequent than ever, thus highlighting a unique problem arising due to the extent of interconnectedness of global economies. Cases in point: A remote nordic island, Iceland’s fall shaking up the entire global banking system in 2008, and more recently, Greece, Spain and Portugal threatening the stability of EU and the rest of the world; in short, a contagion effect is an omnipresent threat, now more than ever.

Although several economies worldwide have been hit by the downturn, India, interestingly enough, remains robust. We saw this in 2008, and we are seeing it again now. One vital factor being robust domestic consumption softening the blow to the economy. Let us take a closer look at some of the economic indicators of India. Indian GDP in 2012 at purchasing power parity stands at $4.825 billion making it the 3rd largest economy in terms of PPP (CII). India continues to be a rapidly growing economy as seen over the last decade and a half (GDP has grown from $250 billion in ’97 to $1.8 trillion in 2012). An interesting fact to be noted is that Agricultural contribution to GDP has shrunk from 32% in 1992 to mere 14% in 2012 indicating the rapid industrialization as well as growth of service industry. India is favorably predisposed with young demographics; India has among the least percentage of population above the age of 65 and is expected to add 290 million people to the workforce by 2050 as against a decline by 233 million for China and mere 29 million for the US. India remains a well diversified economy with sectors such as Auto, BFSI, Oil & Gas, Telecom etc. contributing to domestic consumption as well as exports. Despite global slowdown, we closed FY 12 with a GDP growth of 6.5%, and expect to close FY13 at around 6%. While this may seem disappointing in absolute terms, we must consider the fact that among the BRICS, India continues to be one of the fastest growing economies (in 2012, Brazil grew a mere 2.7%, and South Africa 3.12%). An important factor for this growth being domestic consumption fueled by a large and fast growing middle class. The Indian middle-class is among the largest in the world (expected to reach 60 million households by 2015 as against 13.3 million homes in 2005).

Inflation has remained persistent over the years ranging between 7 and 8% with primary articles and fuel prices being the drivers. But any fast growing economy is bound to face this problem. A strong economy would create inflationary pressure as companies battle for workers and raw materials, pushing up wages and prices. Too, if the economy is strong, businesses will be eager to expand and will compete for saver’s capital, bidding up rates. This is the painful reality we need to come to terms with and realize the futility of expecting RBI to lower interest rates. Overall, corporate sector performance has been weak with disappointing Net Sales growth (14% for FY 13 as compared to 17.2% for FY 12) PAT growth expected 9.3% for FY 13 as against 12.1% for FY 12. The slowdown can be primarily attributed to rising input costs and interest rates.

So what can we expect for FY 14? Not much can be expected in terms of external drivers of economic activity due to persisting uncertainties in US, and Europe; China too is showing signs of slowing down. With rising crude oil prices, inflationary pressure will persist both on industries as well as on commodities. A silver lining on the horizon though is the recent policy agility demonstrated by the centre. Some of the reforms in sight are fiscal consolidation through measures such as hike in diesel prices (beginning with bulk consumers and progressively rising prices across the board), reduction in subsidiary on LPG cylinders, direct transfer of subsidies to poor people, and approval for disinvestment of four pubic sector PSUs. Slight easing of monetary policy (The recent 50 basis point repo rate cut and a CRR rate reduction by 25 bps is expected to infuse Rs. 170 billion in the system, a much needed respite), FDI reforms and land reforms are all positive signs. 

While the centre is doing its best to ring in the fiscal deficit and attract much needed foreign investment, these measures by themselves may not be adequate to revive the economy. India Inc. will have to depend on newer and innovative means to fuel growth. We enjoy several favorable conditions in the form of relatively cheap labor, quality consciousness, and global image as a reliable outsourcing destination for both products & services. The key would be for us to build on these strengths and develop our niches. Apart from growing the domestic market, it is essential to selectively grow our exports especially to some of the fast growing emerging economies. Africa is one such market, which is vast and still relatively untapped. The IMF says continental GDP of Africa will grow by 5% in 2012 and about 5.7% in 2013. A new research paper by two World Bank economists says that if Africa were one country, it would already be “middle income”, defined by the bank as having income per person more than $1000. Africa’s average is $1700. Technology is having a bigger effect in Africa than anywhere else, for instance, the use of telephones went from 0.7% of the population to 70% in the last decade alone! Africa is a global pioneer in banking on mobile devices since most people do not have access to conventional banks. Infrastructure is another big sector in Africa and rest of the developing world, diversifying into this sector would not be a bad idea.

In short, uncertainties and downturns notwithstanding, there are vast opportunities to be tapped and growth to be realized. The key for Indian industries is to remain patient yet opportunistic. With the right strategies in place, I’m confident that Indian industries will go a long way in not only beating these economic cycles but also coming out stronger than ever before!

Booming in Tough Times

It is quite clear by now that the Indian economy is headed southward. My premonition of an imminent slowdown (See Trouble in Paradise: India Inc., 23rd March 2012) indeed came true. India registered a mere 5.3% GDP growth for the quarter ending March 2012, the slowest in 9 years. So what lies ahead for the economy? Is all love lost for domestic industries? What is going to help us get back on our feet and revert to high growth levels?

For too long now, our policy makers have found safety in denial and have been blaming everything from the Euro crisis to Oil prices for the slowdown, but it is undeniable that the government needs to wake up to some of its own wrongdoings that have led us to the situation we are finding ourselves in today. True, global consumption is wobbly; Europe, one of our biggest trade partners is in crisis with no clear visibility of a clear resolution. Investor sentiments are weighing heavily on global currency flow; investors have found safe havens in $ denominated investments, leading to strong movement of portfolio investments away from the Rupee thus hurting it badly. Recent drop in crude oil prices haven’t had the favorable effect that we anticipated, largely due to the declining rupee, which has wiped out any potential gains. One more tell tale sign of crisis is that leading rating agencies such as S&P and Fitch have downgraded India’s credit rating reflecting sagging global sentiments about the country thus threatening to make India the only country among the BRICS to fall below investment grade. The union budget 2012-13 didn’t do much to revive sentiments either; some of the draconian policies such as retrospective taxation have only further scared investors away.

So what can be done to improve the situation. It is clear that UPA II has completely lost its way and there is no sign of policy reversals until 2014 general elections, by when, I fear we would’ve lost too much time. In order for businesses to survive, it is going to take a lot of innovation and some Lean thinking. While falling of rupee is making imports dearer, it is also making exports more lucrative. It is a golden opportunities for exporters now to make windfall profits. What will likely come in the way, of course, is quality and ability to fulfill demand in a timely and qualitative manner. One of the constraints that have prevented exporters from filling orders quickly and expanding their reach has been their inability to eliminate bottleneck in their manufacturing and supply chain leading to back orders and lost opportunities. Too, India is blessed with large domestic consumption, which is a vital ingredient to keep the economy ticking. Sectors ranging from automotive to telecom are witnessing enviable domestic growth. But time and again what has come in the way for them to cash in on the opportunity to grow has been their inability to consistently maintain quality standards and customer commitments. This is where Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma can come in extremely handy. Lean can help overcome supply hurdles and extract more out of existing resources without the burden of capacity expansion. This will in turn help companies cash in on market demand through better productivity and resource utilization. Six Sigma on the other hand is a potent tool that can be effectively leveraged to achieve benchmark quality levels through a relentless quest for defect elimination.

In summary, economy upturns and downturns are imminent. At both ends of the curve there are opportunities abound, it is only a matter of perspective how a company views these opportunities, and more importantly, gears up to cash-in on them. Quality and agility will always remain the cornerstones and key differentiating factors. Only those companies with a genuine eye for customer value creation will remain viable and grow in the long run. Lean helps in agility whereas Six Sigma helps in meeting and surpassing quality standards. In my opinion these are powerful tools available for Indian industries to differentiate themselves and grow and prosper despite uncertain economic conditions.


On a lighter note...

Trouble in Paradise: India Inc.

I have been worrying lately about the state of the Indian economy and couldn't resist my urge to add my bit to the ongoing debate. With inflation adjusted GDP growth rate as high as 10.4% in 2010, suddenly the brakes seem to be jammed on the country’s growth. Let me try to deconstruct this situation.

First off: Some fundamentals

It is a well established fact that macro-economic phenomena like GDP growth and inflation go hand in hand. For a high growth economy like India with growth projections pegged in the 8-10% range, inflation levels of up to 10% are considered normal. In a typical fast growing economy, growth in industrial output drives GDP growth i.e. more income for the nation (and more money in the hands of its people). This should trigger a growth in domestic spending due to greater liquidity, which means more money chasing fewer commodities thus driving prices up. Governments and central banks typically reign in the inflation through Monetary and Fiscal policies. The central banks, which sets the benchmark interest rate i.e. The rate at which it lends to other banks in the country plays a significant role in regulating the economy through monetary policies. When in expansionary mode, it simply prints more money, lowers the benchmark interest rates thus lowering borrowing cost for banks and in-turn for the consumers. This typically leads to more money available for consumption thus causing inflation. On the other hand, when in contractionary mode, it rises interest rates thus making borrowing dearer for banks and in-turn the consumers. This has a decelerating effect on the economy and in-turn curbs inflation.

The fiscal policy on the other hand is a potent tool in the hands of the government, which determines how it will allocate funds for its annual spend. The source of income for the government is largely tax revenue and sovereign debt. When in expansionary mode, the government raises more money through higher taxation and borrowing. This typically drives interest rates up thus, grows GDP primarily due to increased government spending on subsidies and infrastructure projects among other things and impedes inflation due to rising interest rates. When in contractionary mode, government liberalizes (i.e. lowers) tax rates and borrowing thus bringing down interest rates but slows down GDP due to reduced public spending. Both Monetary and Fiscal policies need to have a balance effect in order for the economy to be in steady state and grow. If one of them goes off the rail it will threaten the equilibrium and sustainable growth of the economy.

Let is now examine some factors that are ailing the Indian Economy:

Political Stymieing: The gerontocratic political class running the county is going through its worst period of impasse with every proposed reform blocked by short-sighted vote-bank politics. Our pseudo egalitarian, left of center politicians seem to be unhappy with every possible reform proposed by the government. We have seen several promising bills such as liberalizing FDI in retail to the recently proposed railway fare hike being shelved due to their apparent threat to the ‘Aam Aadmi’. The ruling congress partly seems to be hapless and at the mercy of its coalition partners and simply rubber stamping their demands. All of these developments have significantly dampened investors spirits and have threatened to take India off the ‘high-growth’ map.

Budget Deficit: The government is unable to reign in growing budget deficit due to wasteful and costly public spending. Some examples being soaring subsidies for fuel and fertilizers. India’s fiscal deficit stands at 5.9% of GDP fueled primarily by subsidies (2.4% of GDP). One of the glaring issues is diesel subsidy; it is not uncommon for industrial users of furnace oil (an unsubsidized commodity) to buy diesel instead of FO due to its lower price. Too, diesel cars are selling in disproportionately larger volumes that petrol cars due to lower diesel prices. This are glaring example of subsidies not reaching the intended beneficiary. Government is unable to take a unified stand on this issue of rationalizing wasteful subsidies.

Faulty Monetary Policies: The RBI became notorious for repeated interest rate hikes. Since March of 2010, RBI hiked its benchmark interest rates 13 times. Each time with the hope of reigning in inflation but with limited success. It is now widely accepted that RBI’s stand on inflation was flawed. The primary driver of inflation being food prices, which were caused by supply side constraints and nothing to do with money circulation. Hiking interest rates with the hope of restricting money supply and in-turn curbing inflation was to no avail. Inflation remains stubbornly high at 8.8% as of Feb 2012. While unable to impact inflation, the interest hikes have succeeded in stalling economic progress. At 6.9% growth for Q3 2011, India registered its slowest GDP growth in years thus ringing the alarm bells for policymakers.

Global Sentiments: Global investor sentiments have sagged due to politico-economic crises in Europe. Global demands have sagged, badly impacting trade and more importantly investor sentiments. A relatively small economy like Greece (and now Portugal) threatened to bring down the EU and questioned the very existence of a single currency Eurozone. While Europe by itself may not be India’s largest trade partner, the crises impacted our economy at more than one level. For one, India payed the price for being a high growth economy. A high growth economy attracts hot-cash (short & mid term portfolio investment), lured by prospect of superior returns. When global economic outlooks sag, the tell tale sign is capital flight from high-growth economies, and India was no exception. Capital flight threatened the Rupee and made it the worst performing currency in Asia in 2011. It fell by more than 17% against the dollar, reaching an all time low of Rs. 54.20 to the US$ on 15th December 2011. India relies on capital inflows to fund its current account deficit, but self inflicted wounds and investors’ worries about troubles elsewhere have been driving capital away and New Delhi, already in turmoil, is running out of firepower to deal with the impact.

So this brings us to the obvious question: will India Inc resurrect? A well diversified, highly industrialized nation with strong domestic consumption fueling growth, Indian can in no way be written off. At one point 8-9% GDP growth was considered entitlement and nobody considered the possibility of a slow down. I still believe that impressive growth figures are achievable at least over the next decade, fueled both by both domestic consumption and global demand. A strong feature of Indian economy is the fact that it is one of the most well diversified economies in the world. Sectors ranging from mining to telecom are registering strong YoY growth; Too, primary, secondary and tertiary sectors are all contributing to the growth of the economy (though lately the tertiary AKA service industry is taking the lead). The country is also benefiting from a largely young population. A UN report claims that between 2010 and 2030, India is likely to add 241 million people in the working age population as compared to 10 million for China and 18 million for Brazil! All these facts lead us to only one obvious question: Will better policymaking at the center resurrect India's growth....OR can India grow despite the policymakers at the center?!

10 Reasons Why ‘Silver Bullet’ Strategies Fail

“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”

- Jack Welch

Fortune Magazine stated that “Less than 10% of strategies effectively formulated are effectively executed”. If Fortune is correct, only one in ten companies that do an effective job of formulating strategy are doing equally effective jobs of implementing it. For the rest, presumably, the well-crafted strategy is lost in the press of day-to-day tactical concerns or is left to languish in a report on the CEO’s bookshelf. Modern day management is punctuated with tales of hunt for the elusive ‘Silver Bullet Strategy’ that promises to transform the business and rid it of all its ailments. Be it Six Sigma, Lean, TQM or BPR, time and again we have witnessed strategic initiatives that have promised to be the next big thing in transforming the business, but only a small fraction of them eventually succeed in delivering long lasting value; for the rest - well they end up languishing as just-another-flash-in-the-pan, drawing flak from all quarters. Oftentimes, the reasons for failure are systemic and have nothing to do with the methodology itself. Let us try and explore some common patterns of failure observed in such endeavors, and understand why they fail and, and in hindsight, what could've been done to avert failure.

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   1) Not Aligned With Business Imperatives: Eli Goldratt in his book ‘Goal’ argues that in order to build competitiveness, a firm must focus on three things: Throughput, Inventory, and Operational Expenses; in short, a strategic intervention must answer how it will enhance the financial competitiveness of the firm and create long-lasting stakeholder value. One of the reasons why change initiatives fails is because they are not clearly aligned with such business imperatives. The business results expected are either not clearly defined or communicated thus leading to confusion and chaos. A successful change initiative is one which has clearly defined goals and linkages with business imperatives.

2) Not Creating a Powerful Enough Guiding Coalition: The Success of any change initiative hinges on the creation of a critical mass of change agents that truly believe in it and are willing to pull out all stops to ensure success. There will also be detractors and naysayers who will not only denounce the effort but also try to cause it to fail. Thus the success depends on how rapidly the leadership can create a critical mass of people who become the guiding coalition of change and nurture it till it becomes sustainable. This could very well prove to be the tipping point of success for the change initiative.

3) Poor Execution & Followthrough: Management guru, Ram Charan once said “Execution is a discipline and a system, it’s not only tactics. It must be built in to a company’s culture, strategy and goals. It’s a leader’s most important job. But many leaders today don’t do that. They spend time learning and deploying the latest management techniques. Execution is a discipline of its own, and today it is the critical discipline for business success.” Execution is an age old issue that has ailed strategy implementation. Execution encompasses defining clear start and end points, selecting the right change agents, setting appropriate goals, identifying key milestones and target, implementing the right KPI monitoring mechanism, and adhering to timelines. Most organizations struggle to differentiate strategy from daily operations, which becomes the starting point of failure. If an organization is not able to treat strategy execution as an equally important task as as day-to-day operations, they must avoid trying to execute it.

4) Poor Internal Communication: Communication plays a vital role especially during the initial stages of the change process. A well defined communication campaign will help set the right expectations, create a platform for two way information exchange, and deal with employee apprehension and resistance to change. Not too long ago, I was privy to one of the largest change initiatives at a multi-national logistics company where the CEO took personal interest in ensuring that the communication campaign was designed to meet its objectives. Employee engagement at every levels was achieved through town-hall meetings, training sessions, dialog maps, and internal posters. All these helped to send out a consistent message across the organization thus ensuring wholehearted support for the movement.

5) Not Converting Short-term Wins into Sustained Success: Oftentimes the first and most crucial milestone of a change initiative is creating a success story. After this milestone is achieved, companies lose their way in converting them into longterm winning strategies. There are many reasons why this occurs, most common among them being change in business priorities and goals. The initial team that created the success is not utilized as flag-bearers to carry the message across the rest of the organization. These people are usually sent back to their line responsibilities and soon enough the flame is doused. Also sometimes the leadership lacks the long-term vision for change; the goals are set on a shortsighted basis of let’s say cutting operating expenses or increasing throughput or improving cash flow but misses the mark in term of long-term capability and culture building aspect.

6) Over dependence on the consultant: It is a well established fact that consultants can bring a lot of value to any strategic or tactical intervention. They possess huge industry insights from multiple sectors, which often proves to be a goldmine of information and ideas. Consultants can play the Devil’s Advocate by questioning the leadership’s strategy and can be a vital cog between leadership and execution. But on the flip-side, consultants do not understand the business as well as an insider. They do not have the empowerment or the support system in place to lead the execution. All these factors make it a dangerous combination to expect the consultant to execute change or replace the role of the CEO in the change process.

7) There is no such thing as silver bullet: Despite several flavors of the month programs that promise to be the next big thing, we are generally unwilling to accept the fact that there are no such things as silver bullets or panacea for all our strategic ailments. While proven methodologies like Six Sigma, Lean and BPR hold the potential to deliver significant business results, the true power of these methodologies can be unleashed only through a systematic, diligent, time-bound and consistent effort.

8) Wrong KPIs: While recently delivering Champions training to the leadership team of a well diversified group that has deployed Six Sigma for over 9 years, I observed that one of their moot points was whether Six Sigma is still delivering business results (read: bottom-line results). And to my surprise, several of the divisional heads carried the opinion that it was not. The general perception was that while 6 Sigma was well aligned to customer needs, the line of sight with the divisions competitiveness & profitability was not established. Hence many of the leaders ended giving only partial support to the program. This highlighted a gaping hole in the firm’s Six Sigma strategy. Despite deploying it for almost a decade, they still lacked clarity on what must be the right KPI for Six Sigma. In another example, a large multi-national firm in India is deploying Lean Six Sigma across the organization. Almost all their KPIs are aligned with scaling up the trained employee base, and reaching a wider cross section of employees. How the belts will deliver business results on an ongoing basis is not clearly defined and very little focus is placed on actual project execution and success. While internal metrics such as trained employees base in themselves may not be bad indicator of success, but a lack of clear enough strategy for aligning the efforts with business KPIs is a sure enough recipe for failure.

9) Black Belts as Demigods: I recently happened to witness the Head of Six Sigma of one of the largest groups in the country speak about why the movement failed in his organization. The topmost reason he cited was that Black Belt (an other belts) were projected as demigods, more importantly expected to deliver groundbreaking business results on their own without any involvement from the process owners and domain experts. This is akin to expecting the doctor to cure the patient by consuming the pills himself! No black belt or for that matter change agent can succeed without active involvement and participation of the process owners and domain experts. This, in my opinion is the single biggest factor overseen by many companies that eventually fail in their deployments.

10) Solutions are Obvious/Superficial: The leadership team sometimes gets carried away by obvious and superficial solutions given by improvement teams. While the solutions may provide few short-term results but may not have any far reaching business impact. While this in itself may not be objectionable but what it does is sends out a wrong signal to the rest of the organization. People start believing that superficial efforts and gains are enough to please the CEO thus taking away vital enthusiasm and drive to push themselves farther. I recently witnessed the CEO of a large Indian firm fondly recall his experience of earning a Six Sigma Green Belt Certification while working for Honeywell. He said that he not only had to spend well over six months to complete and deploy his project but he also had to present his project to a steering committee chaired by Larry Bossidy himself (the then CEO of Honeywell) in order to earn his certification. This put a lot of responsibility on his shoulder to do a thorough job. Such leadership commitment sends out a clear signal to the organization that only the highest quality efforts would be recognized and appreciated.

RIP, My Idol

The world has lost a super hero today. Steve Jobs has captured the imagination of millions world wide and in the process created the most loved global brand. Apple holds the distinction of not only being the most valued tech company in the world today but also the only company in the world to have trumped an Oil & Gas major (Exxon Mobil) in terms of market cap at a time when global oil prices are at their peak!

Steve’s visionary leadership will be sorely missed at Apple for years to come. He never allowed to be typecast and kept Apple at the cutting edge of innovation. He pushed his team to dump the tried and tested and create products that were truly revolutionary. As a CEO, Steve inspired millions all over the world. Although I agree that he was not a level - 5 leader who could develop future leaders under his wing to carry his legacy forward (no offense to Tim Cook but I a seriously doubt his ability to fill Steve’s shoes), he was a leader next to none.

Ever since he came back to Apple in 2000, he has led the company from one miracle to another. Starting from the launch of iPod in 2001, which completely transformed the way the world listened to music to the iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010). His style has always been that of a daring and pathbreaking leader. With the launch of iTunes, he singlehandedly brought the biggest names in the music industry, who refused to believe there was a better way to distributing music, to their knees; and in the process transformed the way the world accessed music.

As a budding entrepreneur, I have always tried to emulate Steve. His ability to simplify complexity, his oratory skills, his infectious passion, and his pride for his baby (Apple) have all deeply resonated with me. His keynote speeches at product launch events have always been a treat to watch; I have not seen another leader that is so passionate about his creation as Steve. Although he never bragged about it, Apple, under his leadership has been a pioneer of Lean Product Design. Apple was the first company to shun excessive bells and whistles in its products (Macs to iPads) and instead focused on value as perceived by customer, both in engineering and software design. While delivering superior value and reliability, their products are insanely simple in design and in use. Their OS and Software are next to none; they have just the right amount of features that delight the user while being incredibly simple to learn and use. It always amazes me that Macs (OS X user base) have only 15% penetration even in North America, when it is obvious that they are at least 100 years ahead of the competition in features and design.

I was hoping for Steve to come out strong and win his battle against pancreatic cancer, so it comes as a deep shock to me to learn of his untimely death. Steve has left an indelible mark on the world and his position at Apple is irreplaceable. To my mind, he is the greatest entrepreneur of the century and the world will dearly miss him!

RIP my idol.

"I want to put a ding in the universe."

- Steve Jobs

Empowerment!

I have been going through a harrowing experience with an airline recently. I am a gold member in their loyalty program and have been religiously earning all my miles with them. Having accumulating enough miles to redeem a round trip, I called them to get my award tickets for a trip I plan to make next month. My sage of disappointment began right away.

I realized that they do not have a dedicated call center for the low-volume high value customers like me, who I presume will not exceed a few 100o in number. Thus each time I called, I was put on an average 30 minute hold before my call was answer. Also to my utter disbelief, I was told that the category of seats for award tickets were sold out, and we’re talking 2 months in advance here! I was not convinced and chose to lodge a complain through their website. I received a call the very next day from a “Guest Commitment Executive”. For some reason, she seemed to be in a real hurry to wind up the call, all that she said was that my complain had been resolved and that I was going to receive a call shortly from the loyalty program desk. In her parlance, a commitment for call back was in itself the resolution of complain. This time I flew off the handle, I put my utter disappointment on record. She had no choice but to promise that my complain will be taken up on high priority and that someone will call me at the soonest to resolve it. To this date the problem has not been resolved. My biggest grip is the fact that I didn’t see any trace of effort on the part of the airline to go the extra mile to retain the loyalty of one of their most premium customers.

When I was in the US, I have faced many service failures. But each time something went wrong, the company went all the way to retain my loyalty. There was this incident when I accidentally made an international call without using my calling card which ended up costing over $200. I hesitantly called AT&T to implore them if they would consider waiving off the fee. Without a moment’s hesitation, the call center executive waived the entire amount. I was shocked in disbelief by her heroic act of customer focus. I became a loyal advocate of AT&T for life despite being painfully aware of their lousy network because I know for sure that they will more than make up for it by their superior customer service.

Amazon is another brand that I passionately advocate. Once a hard drive I’d ordered online crashed suddenly leaving me in the lurch. I was in the middle of my MBA semester and couldn't afford even a few hours downtime. Without missing a beat, they shipped me the replacement drive the very next morning. They didn’t bother to even probe if my request was genuine. This made me an Amazon loyalist for life.

The common element in both these experiences was EMPOWERMENT. An employee at the lowest rung of the ladder was empowered to take such a bold decision on behalf of the organization. She didn’t have to waste time being caught up in the administrative quagmire in order to resolve my problem. These organizations didn’t become proactive by accident. They have taken the pains to systematically create the right climate and procedural framework to bolster such bold decision making. They have also instilled the value of customer service in each and every employee thus making them just as passionate about it as the CEO would be. So to summarize, the only way to attain and retain customer loyalty is by having a long term vision to engender a strong culture of service. Only then will companies be able to differentiate themselves and earn the love and loyalty of their customers for life.

"A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so"

-Mahatma Gandhi

I'm Back!

It has been over a year since I last blogged. Looks like writers block indeed isn't a myth. It took a great deal of caffeine, and determination to shrug off the inertia and get myself to blog again, and what better topic could I write about than my fresh-from-the-oven MBA experience.

My MBA journey has been a roller coaster ride, in fact it went by so quickly that, up until now, I never really had the chance to reflect. And how has the experience been? To put it succinctly, it was life-changing. So what really is a Global MBA? Is it just a marketing gimmick or does it really stand for something unique? Why should I go to Thunderbird and not to one of the top b-schools in India? These were some of the thoughts that hounded my mind while evaluating Thunderbird among other schools. Looking back now it seems like an obvious choice, but most certainly not back then.

Thunderbird has given me such a global vision that cannot come from even some of the best designed courses in the country simply because they would just lack the global relevance and global context that courses at Thunderbird so naturally resonante with. The cultural tension of working with diverse multi-cultural teams was as much a part of my development as the lectures and case discussions in class. I learned the importance of looking at things from another person’s point of view and respecting their opinion as much as I’d want them to respect mine. I learned the nuances of dealing with diverse cultures and the power of context in every communication. Given my global aspirations for SSA, I don't think I would have had a better avenue to enhance my cultural intelligence.

So in summary, the past several months in the US, and especially at Thunderbird have been some of the most challenging as well as most rewarding months of my life. I am amazed at how much I have learned and grown both in knowledge and stature within such a short span of time. For once I don’t feel like I’m too small to fill my father’s shoes someday, but then I am reminded...there are promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep!