Circus from monkey cage!

I was listening to a podcast on top management in which I came across an unusual statement by a US journalist and critic of American life henry luis mencon said that “democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage” In that way you are taking care of your employees( Similar to monkey) and also your customers( Similar to the people who have come to watch the circus). It does makes some sense.

Entrepreneurship: Few Questions

Is it seeking un-chartered waters? Are skills required at the start same as the skill required in the later stages? Is it about breaking the set mentality? Is it about risk taking? Is it about expecting the unexpected? Is it about taking feedback from your first few customers and then implementation? Does it include working in a predictable market? Is it about nurturing great people? Is it about failing fast or succeeding sooner?

Product companies Sales Staffing

How to hire your sales representatives in an IT product company also depends on the stage of the company. For example if the company has just started and has released it beta product then the best strategy will be to hire for learning and hire few good people who are interested in technology and sales so that your burn rate is not much. In the initial stages all your customer facing departments like sales, product engineering, and marketing should focus on learning from customers so as to stabilize the product. In the next stage when the product has stabilized and your revenue model has been proved one can hire more no of sales people who should be instrumental in getting as many leads as possible. In this stage some companies make wrong choices of sales people and they hire along the lines of their initial hiring which is not required. In this stage you require sales persons with decent knowledge of product and aggressive attitude to sell so that they can give as many leads as possible. They need not be paid on similar lines as the previous sales recruits. The goal should be to capture as much market as possible in minimum possible time and to reach the breakeven as early as possible with least burn rate.

Wisdom in hindsight or foresight!

A thought came to my mind that that generally people are of the view that wisdom is in the hindsight , but i feel both foresight and hindsight are inter-related. Only if you have hindsight you can gain foresight. So it become of utmost importance to analyse events which have happened in our life and internalise the learnings. This will sharpen our foresight.

Marketing our teachers

We celebrated teachers day but hardly realise that our teachers are grossly underpaid as compared to other developing and developed countries. Even when it comes to marketing them it is their successfull students who are praised and not their teachers. We hear about IIM's fat salaries but rarely hear about the effort of our lecturers/professors. Even in the media the effect is glorified. In this constant struggle between cause and effect should we not promote the cause rather than the effect!

Challenge is to be on the edge!

A beautiful thought crossed my mind that it's always challenging to play on edges. It always required more skill to stick or cross an edge of a cliff/mountain. In a similar way in an organisation how two or more functions interact with each others becomes very critical for the success of that organisation. Also inter-disciplinary problems are more challenging and require mastery of more than one disciplines.

Act of Sabjiwala

Only yesterday i heard my sabjiwala speaking through the loudspeaker and telling evryone the new prices of sabji. To my surprise more no of people came out of their houses to check him out and see his new marketing gimmick. People also bought sabji from him as the prices were really competitive compared to the mandi. In these testing times even a sabjiwala has learnt to use technology to increase his reach and thereby also increase his sales. Indeed we can learn something from him.

New story everyday

I have a habit of writing something at the end of the day in my diary. I believe that this practice can be great value add to yourself as you can think and see for yourself how you responded in a particular situation or things you have learnt. Everyday life weaves a story in which we play different roles and so it teaches us something everyday. It is up to us to take note of those teachings as well as our failures as they will someday be stepping stones to success.

Learning Accounts can help

In the time of financial slowdown reducing costs have become major priority of most firms. I personally feel that the reason why most of companies are not good at managing their costs is because they are dependent on their CFO's or person/team handling the company's finance. Managing cost should not be the pererogative of the company's finance team. In fact each person in a company should have knowledge about finance so that He/she can better contribute towards reducing the overall costs on a day to day basis. I have found this knowledge lacking in many companies where even the managers use wrong forecasting methods which can create a cash flow problems in the company- and this is irrespective of Managers being very skilled in their respective functions.

New Ideas

I believe that if each one of us can think of a need which has not been satisfied till now it can act as a starting point of many new product ideas. Those ideas then can be further researched and tested before the decision is taken to market them. This idea factory can be created within your organization and the stakeholders like your employees can be rewarded suitability. There are many organizations that are successfully doing this but this does not mean that you should completely emulate them but rather you should decide your own framework and work on it in a regular manner.