Let’s be Fair
Corporate Governance

Let’s be Fair

When cinema theatres catch fire and it is known that they violated safety norms and yet received municipal approvals, who is the non-executive chairman of the approvals-granting body that has not been taken to task? So why is it considered acceptable to go after the non-executive chairman of a corporate entity where a really disastrous malfunction occurred the likes of which we have just discussed? Is it because the corporate world is seen to be more deliberately callous, more wilfully destructive, more malafide in its intentions than every other sector of society? Yes of course the legal system must do its job and the wheels of law are turning in the cases file against the non-executive chairman of Union Carbide at the time when the Bhopal tragedy occurred.( Interestingly, no proceedings seem to have been instituted against the rest of the non-executive board at that time. Who are they, and […]

August 21, 2010 0 Comments
Thinking out of the Dabba (India and Global Affairs)
Corporate Governance

Thinking out of the Dabba (India and Global Affairs)

He makes the case that that the large number of poor people that exist in the world actually represent an enormous and lucrative potential market, which businesses can profitably address, if they think innovatively about their business models and business economics. The message of “profit from the poor” has caused a storm of protest in certain development sector circles, leading to debates about whether the poor should be thought of as mere consumers or also as producers. The answer of course is that thinking of the poor as consumers does not preclude them from being thought of as producers. Some micro finance institutions see themselves as operating on both sides of the “poor as producer, or poor as consumer” equation. Their financial and business assistance enables the poor to be economically productive. And as they get economically productive, they can afford to pay for other things that they need, provided […]

September 17, 2009 0 Comments
Process Obsessed and Customer Hostile
Corporate Governance

Process Obsessed and Customer Hostile

We know of a person who got a call selling him life insurance from a company from whom he already has a policy. He asked whether the caller knew that he was already a customer, and she said she had no idea. She was presumably following the process laid out for her – get a bunch of cell numbers in this manner and call them and proceed using this script. Viewed from the customer’s side, he was really hassled. These were the folks who were supposed to pay lots of money immediately to his wife, if he died suddenly. And they didn’t even know he existed. The company’s response to this was to say “in a cold calling customer acquisition process, it isn’t really possible to control this duplication”. Anything more, like for example feeding the number and name into a computer and getting a call – don’t call verdict […]

September 14, 2009 0 Comments
The Walk-Talk Gap On Financial Inclusion
Corporate Governance

The Walk-Talk Gap On Financial Inclusion

This potential customer is 5th standard passed, poor, lives in Mumbai in her employer’s house, has some family in a distant village, and is acutely aware of her need for financial security and independence. Demographic data shows that there are many like her in our big cities. Indeed, they are the consumer segment that Kishore Biyani, Chairman Future Group calls “India 2” i.e. people who help “India 1” make the money that they do; a consumer segment whose thinking has been influenced by being in close proximity and observing “India 1”. This is a primary opinion leader segment even for the folks back in their village. We went to the nearest public sector bank branch. Somehow, we felt that compared to the others, public sector banks may be more willing to admit such customers, given that their owner, the government, is constantly espousing it. But obviously public sector banks have […]

August 10, 2009 0 Comments
Prognosis on Consumer Spending
Corporate Governance

Prognosis on Consumer Spending

We are spooking ourselves into a slowdown that is even slower than is warranted by the reality of how much our consumers’ disposable income and their mood has actually been hit. Gloom and doom feeds on itself, and then it makes companies even more pessimistic in their marketing conduct as they shift from coaxing consumers to buy (as they usually do in the normal course of their business) to conserving their own cash and not taking chances on sales growth generating expenditure. The last several quarters saw unprecedented rise in input costs, but companies decided to absorb much of it and opt for margin pressure rather than pass it on to the consumer and risk decreasing consumer demand. Their bet was on a steady future increase in consumer income and desire to consume, hence top line growth would more than offset the margin drop, and profits growth would be safe. […]

October 27, 2008 0 Comments
Governance Models for IIMs & IITs
Corporate Governance

Governance Models for IIMs & IITs

The HRD minister must be congratulated – and thanked – for wholeheartedly accepting the propositions that educational institutions should be governed by their governing boards; and that there is nothing wrong with a plan that delivers self-sufficiency with social justice. We look forward to this being the direction in which he will encourage all educational “navaratnas” to move. The purpose of this article is to provide facts and perspectives in order to frame the debate on governance of IIMs and IITs and the role of MHRD. It would be a waste of this space to further stir up the already muddied waters of the fee increase issue. Suffice it to say that social justice is not served by subsidising people who have an average starting salary of around Rs 17 lakh and access to pre-approved loans with banks who deem them creditworthy based on where they are going, and irrespective […]

April 7, 2008 0 Comments
Paying for Basic Consumer Data
Corporate Governance

Paying for Basic Consumer Data

Even as large companies in India loudly proclaim their worship at the altar of consumer centricity, their reluctance to pay for fundamental consumer related, consumer based market structure data bases is low. The market research industry agrees with me– they say that serious analysis of fundamental, consumer data on demographics, living conditions, spend patterns, consumption and ownership, collected on an all India basis, across rich and poor, rural and urban households does not have as much demand as it ought to, given the level of business interest and business speak about consumers. And it isn’t because the price is prohibitive. India has the lowest cost survey data compared to anywhere in the world, and of very high quality.I am not referring to market research budgets, which are showing healthy growth. The fact is that a lot of market research spend is on product and marketer performance related issues like customer […]

February 14, 2006 0 Comments
Helping the IIMs to Surge Ahead
Corporate Governance

Helping the IIMs to Surge Ahead

Thank God for cosmic chaos. For delivering institutions of higher education from a regressive regime with anachronistic ideas. Thank God for the new HRD minister and his team who believe in logic, dialogue, and the sanctity of governing boards. The IIMs now have a window of huge opportunity to sell a plan to get them well on the path to world class, and get the resources and the changes needed to make it happen. There is now a really urgent need for the IIMs, especially the big three, to redeem the faith and the enormous support that they have received from the new ministry, from their governing boards, from their alumni and well wishers, and from the media. There can be no disagreement from everyone, inside and outside, who participated in this battle, that this is the time to open a discontinuous new chapter of big, hairy, audacious goals, and […]

June 14, 2004 0 Comments
More on the IIMs
Corporate Governance

More on the IIMs

The articles on the Government ‘take over’ of the IIM directors’ appointment and on why alumni and corporate leaders are merely watching this retrograde step without comment, suggested that the reason for this apathy is that neither group believes that autonomy has done too much” for the IIMs -so why bother, if they are going down the tube any way. As someone who has been closely involved since with one of the IIMs as an alumna, a visiting professor and a member of the last Committee for Future Direction, I would like to discuss some of these issues further. But first, why on earth is the fate of the IIMs such an important topic? Because they are one of the flagships of Indian education, and at some time maybe education from/in India will be as big a business as software; because they have been nurtured with tax payers money; because […]

July 14, 2002 0 Comments
© 2023 Rama Bijapurkar, All Rights Reserved.
Powered by ADKRAGE