Cars and Drivers

Cars are symbol of Technology Innovation and Drivers are symbol of Behavioral progression on the roads and India is a country which is the example of mismatch between the two. It is a simple demand and supply mismatch. Wheres as car are in ample supply , thanks to global major presence in India and behavior is in short supply thanks to our DNA, which treats good behavior as once in a year ritual like Diwali and holi.

Seeing more and more cars on Indian roads brings more and more drivers. These boys, girls, men and women, some educated, some highly educated and some un-educated, drives these TECHNOLOGY wonders seating on the front seat and keeping the BEHAVIOR on the back seat , some even leaving it behind home and some WHO do not have it at all. Like the licence , which we can manage, they also some how manage , by some time hitting, some time missing, and always blaming the guy in the next car.

Car companies have a responsibility, government has a responsibility and together they can do something. What?- stop making cars in India for next 5 years!!!!!!!!. In the interim [period make the GM, Ford of the worlds partners in developing roads and changing behavior of the drivers.

That will be CSR of auto industry towards India.

Whose companies are these

The bigger the company becomes, the further it goes from the customer. Walk into a store or customer services of a company and you can see or experience the truth. Their leaders who once created these companies gets involved into bigger picture of nation building or participating in economic forums or becoming global companies. This bring in the question, how big the company can be and who owns the company and who owns the accountability.

Public companies have board? but can a customer call a board? companies have employees, who call WE, as they move from one company to another. Technology has given the scale but in the process killed the human interface. Call any back office of a bank and be ready to face the music.

So how do you make the companies more human? It is a challenge. As we get engaged in wiring the world, creating virtual networks, social networks the touch and feel of the real world will start moving to the background. So while we need to keep working on the technology , it is the HUMAN BEHAVIOR which need to be tuned to current times

Companies need to work on the training of their employees from the perspective, where they not only know how to handle the technology but also how to handle another human
beings.

1st day of 365 in 2011

It's an another day in the calendar, but a leader. And we look towards leaders. Don't we?So every one wishes that leader day is a good day so that followers days also happen to be good. But if one were to keep this aspect silent then there is a catch people celebrate and party the last day of the year or to welcome the new year. Quite a few then do not go to work and quite a few places are now officially off. So the leader day becomes the off day and if the leader day is the off day then followers day also becomes off to some extent. Therefore people who party on the eve of new year are not productive as they could have been.in contrast are the people whom it is another day and if they do not go to work they do not get for the day. Their leader day is same as any of the follower day. So they remain stagnate throughout the year as they have been in years before that. So people who party on the eve and also start the leader day with work makes the most of it . They are not only effective but also efficient and their follower days remains the same for them .so make the Leader day especially day so that the follower day becomes good and who benefit You.

India 2010 or 1990?

India 2010 is suppose to be anchor of sinking world, considering China does not exist. So are we make to believe. USA economy is on the downhill, like what happened to the British empire a century ago. European crisis is not of banks but of countries. So on and so forth. Various TV debates, commentaries, essays and books talks of one or the other way. One economist say THIS and other say THAT. But fact of the matter is reality on ground.

India 2010 is not much difference to India 1990, except few changes on the built scape across the country, where few people have been able to take advantage of INDIA SHINING. But as a country we are still a century behind USA and Europe in terms of quality of life for common man. It will require structural shift in the behavioral of not only who govern India but also WE THE PEOPLE, who let governed.

The glaring example of India's failure is whats happening in Delhi. It is city in shame. Delhi and its glorified cousin GURGAOAN are examples of how things can go wrong. t GURGAON is nothing more than a glorified GAON. On one hand where as government has failed to deliver the infrastructure in Delhi for the common wealth gales, Gurgaon stakeholders who made all those buildings failed to create a urban community which is URBAN. It is pity that people have no option but to opt for what has been imposed on them. There are various such examples across the country.

India needs to THINK and THINK HARD , otherwise 2020 might look like 1980!!!

Pepsi today announced that it has pledged to pull out sugar related drinks from schools. Coke also have a similar stand where it does not serve aerated drinks in schools. This is for better health of our children. So says, Pepsi and Coke. So nice of them!!

But in terms of revenue they get between1-2% from schools shares. But that does not mean children will not want these sugar or aerated drinks? They will not get these in schools, so their urge to have them will increase. Meaning the consumption of these drinks might go up at homes by " school children" . Fair possibility.So the revenue loss of 1-2% might result in revenue gain of 1-2%.

This is innovation on human behavior. Did we say " Dil Mange More"

Every one want everything

Google want to be a twitter, Google want to be iphone, Google want to be Microsoft. except may be Google. Closer home LIC want to be bank. IRDA and SEBI has issues over insurance companies clubbing mutual fund etc etc. L&T which one knows as a construction company is into IT, Finance and more. Banks want to do every thing except simple banking of credit/debit. Brokers are becoming investment banks, which any way investment banks are. Except over the years they start behaving if they owned the money.

So crux is start doing other things once you achieve critical mass over the original business plan.Apple and Blackberries were simple fruits few years ago. Today they are complex technologies shaping human behavior. Not different from Roman or British empire????

Ministry of Home Work?

The minister of surface transport Mr. Kamal Nath mentioned of constructing 20KMS of road per day. He means business and the ministry he goes sees lots of action. One question that comes to mind is, why 20KMS? I have been wondering it for some time and no one ever ask him this question. How was this arrived? Why not 25 or 15? In a recent interview he said that we will not achieve the target but are currently doing 9 KMS per day. So why not set a realistic and achievable target in the first place and gradually increase it? But there can be reasons for this.

We Indians like to over promise and under deliver. Ask the foreign investors? And why is so? Because one, we do not like to do our home work and two we do not like to say “I do not Know”. We become experts in no time, with out doing ground work or homework. The result? Our project execution is bad, because we spend very less time on the drawing board. This is true for in majority of cases. Have we not heard about affordable housing? Coming back to the roads example. Should we not have all the proposed roads mapped digitally? On the click of a button, we should know all the statistics from land acquisition, soil condition, topography, major urban and rural center along the way. The bidder can so very well then design the roads along with utilities and facilities. I know this is not easy as it will bring the question of digitization of land records to start off. But that’s happening and India has the IT strength.

So may be surface transport ministry start with 5KMS and gradually move towards 20 KMS in a well articulated execution plan completely mapped and digitized. They should set up a command center for the surface transport ministry. Now roads can also carry utilities gas, telephone, water, broadband etc. May be command centers for respective ministries to plan their things and coordinate among each other. Link these command centers to a central command center. Recently I think Cisco; Chief Technology Officer said that we need to understand the impact technology can have on urban planning. He is right. Infect the impact technology can have on nation planning, especially for India is huge. Roads will also require facilities and opportunity for hotel, petrol station, bus stands, container depots, railway station, cargo airport and list can go on. USA as a country on infrastructure planning is a good example.

This is a big assignment now. Some one need to do the homework. Do we not need a ministry of coordination and a ministry of homework? Who then set up a National Mission for Infrastructure Planning to map each square inch of India . Time to identify another Nandan Nilekani?