London Olympics 2012 - Should we take flight or not?

The demands for boycott of the 2012 Olympics seem to be gathering steam with less than a year going for the big event. The reason being the presence of Dow Chemical Company as one of the major sponsors for the Games. Dow Chemical Company had taken over Union Carbide which was responsible for the devastating Bhopal Gas Tragedy of 1984.

Boycotting the Olympics is perhaps not the best idea for us under the current circumstances, the reasons being manifold. Firstly, by boycotting the Games, the Games is not going to lose anything. The Games will still happen. Plus India doesn’t boast of any athletes or players who the World would miss at the Games were we to remain out of it. It is we who are going to be the losers (literally as well as branded!). Secondly, we have just about started to win medals in Olympics. What started with a Leander Paes’ Bronze in Atlanta(1996) has continued in every successive edition with atleast one medal being won by Indians. The last one at Beijing was special because we won our first Individual gold in the form of Abhinav Bindra and was the most productive outing at the Games with 3 medals overall. The consistency in winning has just about begun. By not participating, that momentum might be lost. Third, the Olympics happen once in 4 years, and is the biggest stage for an Olympic sportsperson. Lots of dreams are associated with the Games and it comes with tremendous preparation and practice for the years before the Games and also great amount of sacrifices. Qualifying for the Games is a very difficult proposition in itself. Someone might just have come within striking distance of a medal earlier and this might just be his/her last opportunity at it. With that kind of an attachment to the Games, it will be very unfair to ask the athletes to stay out of the Games. Fourth, the Games provide an opportunity for many athletes to prove themselves. Most of the athletes get noticed only after a significant performance at the Games. Life improves for a lot of them after the Games. Why deprive them of it?

But do we forget the victims of Bhopal 1984 and just move on? No. A protest is mandated. Dow has to pay for whatever happened. But the protest need not have to be a total boycott of the games. It can be done in many other ways. Mixing two totally different things can be a recipe for disaster.

A protest has to be just that, and not trying to enforce your opinion on others. Issues need to be sorted out by sitting across the table, discussing your points, debating on the points of others and then coming at a reasonable solution. As much as pressure tactics may be important, there should be a limit to it too. Exactly why at times I feel Anna’s protests are also not justified completely.

We need to realize that Olympics is a world forum, a place where the number of stakeholders is enormous and so are the stakes. A wrong action here or an uncalled for statement there might just worsen things for us! So let us be very thoughtful and careful about what we choose to do!

Flipping the Kart - an Amazon for India!

I was not a big fan of online shopping, till not so long back. Partially, it was because I was not convinced about banking and making payments online, but partially, it was also because I had some not so good experiences with my initial attempts few years ago.

As a couple of experiences are enough to turn you off, a couple of good experiences are also enough to bring you back. On the recommendations of a friend, I happened to make some purchases on Flipkart.com around a year back. And man, what did I experience!!

Started 4 years back, by two graduates from IIT and later colleagues in US based Amazon.com, they started off with the dream of replicating Amazon in the Indian context. And to a great extent they have been successful at it too. Let me go about highlighting a few reasons why I feel so and why I think they have a bright future.

First of all, they have a vast range of products under offer. Books, Electronics, Gift Items, Mobiles, Computers and accessories and what not! So it makes a one stop shop for people wishing to shop. To add on, prices of most of the products on offer are usually much lower than what you would pay elsewhere. Secondly, the web user interface is simply amazing. Very user friendly and simple, it gives you options to search and filter search options as you would like to. Small things like storing your previously shipped addresses, etc makes your experience something worth yearning for. The interface is also ‘smart’ in terms of keeping a track of what you have searched earlier and also recommending products to you based on your searching and shopping history. Even the payment gateway that’s integrated to make online payments is very reliable. Thirdly, the delivery is lightning fast. Most of the products are delivered on the second day in major cities in India, which I think is simply brilliant. Before you even realize your order is delivered at your doorstep. In addition, they also deliver to smaller cities and towns also, that too reliably. Fourthly, it is complemented with great service support. Right from the time you book your order till the time your shipment is delivered, you have consistent notifications coming your way that keep updating you about the status of your order via Emails and SMSs. Plus there is a 24 X 7 helpline that is always available should you have anything at all. The best part is how they go out of the way to make sure that no customer is left dissatisfied for whatever the reason. They are always active and your queries/complaints/grievances are addressed within 2 hours at any point of the day (or night). And to top it up, when they get the slightest hint of a customer being unhappy, in comes a phone call from a senior executive in the company trying to understand what went wrong and how can that be rectified. Fifth, they also have a very good exchange policy where they assure to take back a product within 30 days, should there be any problems with the product. Now this guarantees the customer of the quality of the product. Amazing. No?

No! That’s not all. One of the most important strengths I guess is that they are continuously innovating. Keeping on adding features that either benefit the customers directly, or help them in the way they do business. I have seen/experienced improvements in the IT systems, improvements in the Supply Chain in terms sourcing the products, warehousing them and then ensuring delivery to the customers at the earliest possible time.

As was recommended by someone else, I too have recommended Flipkart to a lot of my friends. And the reaction has almost always been, “Wow! I am in love with Flipkart” after the first shopping experience.

To what extent have they been able to achieve their goal, nobody other than the founders can perhaps answer. But one thing is sure, Flipkart.com is definitely one of the pioneers in e-commerce and has changed the way people shop. Why would you go elsewhere to shop when you are getting products faster, cheaper and in a much more convenient manner?

Lessons from Card Games

During your MBA Education, learning happens not only in the class, but also from other quarters. It happens from interactions with professors, interactions with peers, seniors & juniors, co-curricular and extracurricular activities that you choose to take as well as things you do during your free time. You can draw parallels from what you are doing and what you are learning.

I was fortunate enough to influence my learning’s from most of these sources. Of all the activities I used to do, towards the end of my course, I fell in love with card games. I had a great set of friends who used to play cards every day. The more we started playing it, the more I found its applicability in Businesses as well. We started playing games like Poker and Teen Patti which actually helped me draw parallels with the business world. Even today, when I sit and ponder over certain decisions that I have to make, lessons from these games come in handy. Here are some of them

• Do not underestimate your resources. You never know when they might come in handy

However insignificant are the cards you have, you do not know what others are having. They might be having equally insignificant or even worse cards. Alternately, even the others do not know what cards you have. Even cards of small value, can sometimes win you games.

• Fortune favors the brave

You need to take risks in order to get returns. Higher the risks, higher usually are the returns. Only when you go out of your comfort zones, can you reap rewards. Taking risks sometimes also plays the added role of destabilizing the opponents and induce him into doing something wrong, which can again help you in your pursuit.

• Play with the mind

There is an old saying which goes somewhat like you should never think with your heart but with your mind. You may be losing and your strategies may not be showing the desired effect. But the moment you take things to heart and influence your decisions, you are sure to make more mistakes.

• At times, it’s better to keep quiet

In terms of action as well as words, at times, it is better to remain silent. Usually when you are under stress, you tend to panic. Under such situations, you tend to do something or say something that will clearly indicate the same to other opponents. Sometimes, this might just be the opening they might be looking forward to

• Be unpredictable

The more unpredictable you are, the more difficult it is for the opponents to play against you. You should be unpredictable in terms of the type of moves you’ll play for different situations. A good player usually forms an opinion about fellow players a few rounds into the game based on observations of play. You should not let the player form an opinion about you that is correct

• Exit at the right time

All of us have bad days, all of us have bad games. When things are stacked against us and no options are working out, we need to know it’s time to move out. Staying in the game, will only further your losses and will give nothing. There is nothing wrong in retiring from the game at times. The idea is to win the battle. Losing a war here and there is okay.

• Be ready to quit when the situation is against you even if you have the best resources

Sometimes, you might have the best of the cards. On other occasions, those might just give you a resounding victory. But this might just not be the occasion. The situation might just not be with you. Someone else might be having cards better than you. You need to be smart enough to take cue out of the same

• Read hidden signals

Everything in life doesn’t come to you on a platter. You need to stretch a bit here and there in order to excel. Some signals come from the game and the opponents in indirect ways. Read those signals and make your moves accordingly.

• Be a good observer

Games need not be necessarily won by your smart moves alone. Some games are won by capitalizing on the mistakes of the opponents. And to do that, you need to be alert and always in the game.

The Art of Writing

Daakiya daak laaya…. daak laaya
Khushi ka payaam kahin
Kahin dard naak laaya

Thus went an old song of the 70s. It describes how eagerly one used to wait for the postman to arrive with letters, sometimes bringing messages of joy and happiness while sometimes bringing sad news.

Try to go back in time, and recollect when was the last time you collected a personal letter from a postman. I am not talking about documents sent through modern day couriers or through speed of registered post. I am talking of letters – like the one a newly married daughter used to write to her mother to convey her status of acceptance (or the lack of it) in her new house, or the one a son used to write to his father updating about his progress in education while staying in a hostel thousands of miles away.

The last letter I wrote, perhaps, was some good 15 years back I guess. As a kid, I often used to write letters to my grandparents whenever they were not staying with us. I can still remember the enthusiasm with which I used to post the letters in post box, and await eagerly for them to reply. When the reply came, I used to be so excited that I used to sleep with the letter under my pillows. I still have some of those letters with me. A letter from an uncle preaching why something that I was doing was wrong and why I should change my ways. A letter from grandfather congratulating me on my achievements in school and one from grandmother about stories from Ramayana and Mahabharata, are still a part of my most prized possessions.

The telecom revolution in the 80s and the internet in the late 90s and early 2000’s have drastically changed things. Phone calls have become more and more affordable. A letter would take days to deliver, whereas a phone call is instantaneous. Internet delivers Emails almost instantaneously. Added to it, the applications for chatting (text, voice and video) have actually reduced distances drastically. Today, my mother sits and talks to my brother in the USA using Yahoo Messenger and Skype as if he is sitting right next to her.

But all said and done, nothing gives you a personal touch that comes with a personal handwritten letter. A phone call lasts for a few minutes, an Email never gives you a feeling that a letter gives. You can keep a letter for years together and go through it again and again, whenever you feel like. Can you do the same with modern means of communications? (Actually yes, you can record conversations and go through them again and again :P)

Earlier, if someone used to make physical notes, using pen and paper, or write down reminders in his or her diary, today it’s entirely electronic. Notes are typed on laptops or tablets and reminders are set on a mobile phone. When I was pursuing my MBA not so long back, people hardly used to take notes using paper and pen. Mostly it used to be jotted down on MS Word or Notepad. The advantage of this form is replication is very easy. A copy just needs to be circulated and everyone has what everyone else has taken down. In the earlier era, it used to involve a painful exercise of copying what someone else had written down (which later came to be replaced by the photocopier, which directly copied what someone had written and used to be circulated among everyone else)

Once I finished my engineering, three years of working and I had lost touch of writing so much that when I was about to appear for the first semester MBA exams, I was very apprehensive if I would be able to actually go out there and write on paper for two and a half hours! Slowly, I am sure that even examinations will happen by making use of the electronic media. Some entrance tests have already gone online and it’s only a matter of time before the rest follow suit.

Gone are the days, when handwriting used to be one of the important parameters to assess a person’s personality. It’ll be interesting, if 20 years down the line, people will even know how to write. The art of writing is surely but certainly vanishing. It will for sure become an ‘art’ in the years to come.