Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Selling the Wheel- Cox and Stevens

A story of Cassius the Closer, Toby the Wizard, Ben the Builder and Caleb the Captain. They follow the Technology Adoption Life Cycle of a Wheel.

Egypt. Long long ago. A man named Max thinks of a circular device that can roll about its axis. Under the desert sun, buried in hot silken sand, appears, THE WHEEL. A concept with no takers. Then Max meets Cassius...

Cassius the Closer doesn't care about much except selling dreams and making his margins. He is a master of human psychology and uses fear and greed to his advantage. He wants fresh challenges periodically and likes to leave as soon as customers shake off the stars from their eyes and confront practical problems. He can sell anything. And he sells- the first Wheel.

Customers realize they want more than dreams..they want solutions. Toby the Wizard is highly educated, smart, credible, efficient, technically oriented and can solve problems with an authoritative wave of her wand. Information and education are her twin credo. She will sell customers the wheel and provide maintenance, training and even upgrades. She delivers end to end solutions.

At this point in the story, everyone knows what the Wheel is and all customers seem to require, are quotes for different colors. Ben is a builder of relationships. He knows everybody in the business and sells them products according to their specification. Ben sells the Wheel with incremental improvements and at marginally lower costs every year.

Alas! As we reach the decline of the Life Cycle, as the wheel slips into a commodity with nothing to differentiate the product but price. Caleb the Captain of sales takes up the challenge with a well trained sales force and bets on large volumes and razor thin margins. His customers only worry about price and convenience. His sales people provide differentiation.

So ends the story with a recommendation to spin off portions of the business that cause Max to lose focus of his core competency. Max appoints Caleb COO of a wholly owned subsidiary and goes off to meet Archimedes about a screw pump.

Question. Has learning this over a period of 6 hours vs reading a summary similar to the one above, caused me to be better off?

I really can't tell :)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

N 3230

I never wanted you in the first place. I was happy as ever, getting by the days with no need for company when Cheenu introduced us. Do you remember? It was my birthday. I didn't really like you that day but my poor brother wanted us to be together and I had not the heart to appear ungrateful. I suppose my feelings for you showed in the way I treated you. You were slow and irritating, heavy and clunky. I admit, I did the minimum I could to to keep this relationship alive. I never once looked at you with affection even when others made eyes at you.
Scratched repeatedly in my purse, left in my overheated car, dropped from the third floor of College, attacked by viruses..you stood by me. You never rang loud enough for a fine even when I forgot to silence you. Your little games always gave me company when I was alone. You saw me through good days and dark times- always blinking a cheerful blue. And today, when you slipped out of my hand for what seemed like the 100th time, I thought to myself..If you decided to let me go.., I would understand.
But you didn't my darling!! You bravely flickered back to life after a few hours, like a warrior, a lover, my best friend.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Later...

Yes, its the day India found itself booted out of the world cup ignominiously. Dravid says, we don't deserve to progress to the Super 8's plunging a billion+ people into the depths of depression. Thankfully we no longer measure our self worth in terms of how capably we belt a leather ball and the country will get back to life as usual after a few burnt effigies.
It's quite amazing how the overwhelming desire to do something else, ie. care about Team India's performance, consumes me right when I have something way more important to do. Got to study for an Industrial Marketing exam happening in the afternoon and I find myself checking mail, blogging, logging in and out of chat, making tea, planning a bath... Why O Why? Am I a classic Procrastinator?
My watch is set 15 minutes fast and as a result of having brilliantly erased that memory from my consciousness, I reach college on time. Is that the art of living with this disorder?

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Mirrors

What if there was a world with no mirrors? Nothing to tell you what you looked like. No reflection in the pond, or photographs, no video not even paintings.
Here is another question. Can the self understand the self? Can you tell the difference between the perceiver and the perceived when they are both just electrical impulses in your brain?
Is this blog a mirror?
Are mirrors tools that separate the observer from the observed?

Monday, March 12, 2007

Neighbours

I am my own neighbour! Well actually, we have two apartments opposite each other on the same floor of this building. I've lived here almost all my life. I played cops and robbers, as a kid, on the unfinished stairways, fell into pools of cement water and even thought I saw a UFO up on the roof! Goki and I met on the terrace. We fell in love on the water tank and made plans for the rest of our lives in the lift room. All the people that live here, the sounds of the bay of Bengal, the moonlight on the water, the coconut trees and even the crows feel like my neighbours.
In the US, my neighbours were rowdy college kids who partied incessantly and threw their old sneakers up on electric wires. I had an Indian girl live next door for 2 years but never once visited her apartment.
Neighbours are nice to have. They make me feel like I know when I've reached home.
Lately I've been wondering, if my friend list on Gtalk, contacts on my cell phone and even Lilly, Anna and Arriahna, from the blog 2 pages away qualify as neighbours?

U Curve

I believe that this is one of the more important concepts I've learnt in Strategy. When you plot RoI Vs Size of all the firms in an industry, they lie along a curve that is 'U' shaped. What this means is that smaller companies with a greater customer focus are as successful as large firms competing on platforms of 'low cost'. It's the guys in middle that find the going tough as they are too big to unlock value from the customer and still too small to achieve economies of scale/learning to unlock value from the product!
If you didn't know, there are only 4 ways businesses make money 1. Premium Pricing 2. Lower Costs 3. Cash to cash efficiency 4. Turnover management.
Sometimes I wonder if I would have the same undertanding of business concepts if I read about it at home. I believe MIT put all of its content online as a show of good faith. It's the environment and the people that a B-School provides that makes all the difference!!

Memories

Every once in a while, I feel memories come upon me. Normally, I'm in a state where I don't remember anything. I don't carry any baggage, either good or bad. In fact my memory is a source of consternation to my dad who finds it offensive that I can't remember his relatives names, while it's a huge joke to my brother who believes that his goldfish are more capable in that department. My friends, yeah they despair and Gokul... well, he would probably notice if he wasn't WORSE than me!!
I wish I could hold on to all my good memories. The ones that provide comfort during times of crisis, memories I can snuggle upto, memories that hug me back. But I can't. It feels like I lost a best friend.
On the flip side, the bad thoughts get blanked out with the good. They don't make me nighmares or fill me with bitterness..for which I am grateful.
Like Floyd says..Comfortably Numb...thats what I strive to be.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Models

Not the ramp scorching types of models. Ok the question is, do conceptual models taught in B-Schools just help you arrange information or do they lead to some special insights? Consider Porter's 5 forces, the SWOT, the 7 S model, the PDCA cycle or even the advaitha theory (I learnt it in B-school!). Are these ways of arranging known information in an easily accessible form or do they enable users develop miraculous insights? Putting together information in different forms allows the mind to think in different ways. As far as I can see it, it's your mind that's doing the thinking rather than the magical powers of a model. This is especially true of theories that work with soft data originating from human irrationality. All bets are off with data of that sort and any predictions you make are useless. This would be similar to nominal data in stats.

Now what about semi hard information like the stock markets? Stock movements are caused by a heady mix of rationally along with doses of fear and greed. Do theories like Efficient Market Hypothesis actually treat this kind of data to produce models with predictive powers? I'm not sure of that.

The only theories worth their salt are ones that exclude human behavior. Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Human beings somehow screw everything up. Even the weather is easier to predict.

Everone Needs a Diary!

I had a 'Dear Diary' epiphany a while ago. Postponed it as usual. Everyone needs someone to talk to. Especially someone who will understand everything you say and preferably doesn't talk back. Obviously I'm here to fess upto things that didn't go right or at the very least- vent. I'm even considering recording my random thoughts for posterity. Like when I've forgotten I ever had them. A record of my struggle with the days, proof of my encounter with life's little jokes and a faithful account of whether i laughed it off or spent sleepless nights cursing a lousy sense of humor.