Good reasons to have a meeting

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So I started off writing a post on 10 things to do so that meetings remain useful. As soon as I started typing, I realized that I did not feel motivated enough to write that post. I personally believe 90% of all face to face meetings are useless and could have been avoided. As such, did not want to write something which then others would use primarily (9 cases out of 10) for meetings which did not need to happen. So I thought instead I would list out some of the reasons why I feel meetings are important:-

1. Social meetings are important. I would never want to underestimate the rapport one can build over a heart to heart chat, a drink or over lunch or dinner. Successful people become successful because they very rarely lie and while in a corporate situation they may try to be diplomatic, in a heart to heart chat they would be upfront and direct with you. Getting to this level of comfort takes time otherwise and so I feel doing such social meetings are important. Social meet and greet meetings are also great where the leader meets people across the spectrum of the company and builds empathy and gets ground level feedback.

2. All hands meetings or meetings where the top boss is present (Any other meeting does not qualify as an 'All' Hands). I don't support all hands meetings where the leader is talking or taking questions. I feel this is much better done over email. I feel All hands meetings are best called on a regular basis to cut through corporate bureaucracy and to ensure that there are no silly wait times because some department is 'waiting' for information that they don't have or for some other department to act. 

3. Briefing meetings. This is when you are working with an external company / contractor and you need to brief them on your requirements. I have found in such situations, the RFP may not be comprehensive enough and so it may be best to spend some time with the sales guy front ending the deal to ensure he has absorbed exactly what you want from the solution. 

4. Meetings with important people. This one is bound to be controversial but I feel these meetings need to happen in person. Unfortunately, super important people are super busy. It is very difficult - sometimes near impossible for them to respond to email or to schedule a meeting. My feeling is if you have got a relationship with such a person it is worth your while to head to their office and wait in line to see them. 

5. Show of support meetings. This is where you are trying to drive a larger industry wide issue and where it is necessary for a bunch of people from the same Special Interest Group to meet a third party who can make a difference. I feel here things are best done faces to face where they can appreciate that a bunch of high powered people are serious about pushing through an agenda. This is just not effectively done through email. 

Ideal Times for such meetings -Social Meetings-45-60mins, All Hands Meetings- 20mins, Briefing Meetings-10mins, Imp people meetings-20mins, Show of support meetings-45mins 

I've been recently trying a new strategy to keep meetings short which is to do meetings standing up. I will post my analysis on the effectiveness of this strategy once I have more experience with it. 

P.S. I have made some changes to my blog template. Wanted some feedback on how it is displaying in blog readers. Do let me know if you feel your reader is not displaying my posts in a reader friendly manner.

Life should be busy

Image via Wikipedia

So I watched two people living their lives recently and they've inspired me to work harder. One is of course the Indian Film Star Shahrukh Khan who I've been following on twitter. He's either got a very good team around him or else it's inspiring to see him put in the effort to connect with his fans. I am seriously amazed that he spends time responding to queries, interacting with his fans and showing off his personal side. The tweets come in really late at night and so I imagine he must be a workaholic.

The other person who I noticed is Dr. Nozer Sheriar - our baby doctor. He's one of the well known baby doctors in Mumbai and I was very inspired to see that on a regular day he works till mid-night. A doctor's job as you all know is not like a regular desk job. He was seeing a patient every 15mins and I don't think a single patient went away with a feeling that the doctor did not give her the necessary time and attention. I remember thinking the same when visiting Dr. Milind Kirtane - a very renowned ENT specialist in Mumbai along with my dad. His appointment slots were of 15mins each and needed to be booked 15 days in advance. I'm don't know if it was a stroke of luck or providence but in a 15minute consultation he diagnosed and fixed an ailment that my dad has been battling for over 15 years with multiple specialists across the globe. These two Doctors and a lot of the other doctors must love their work in order to sacrifice their personal life, rest, relaxation etc. for it.

I am inspired to work longer hours and put in even more energy into meeting my professional goals having seen these people. Thanks Guys!!

Meeting with our Property Agent

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We're making daily trips to Kandivali nowadays as me and Hemisha get ready to move into our new apartment - works been going on for the past month and we're a good month from moving in - another story altogether!! We bumped into the agent who helped us buy our apartments. A bit of real estate agent speak / gossip:-

1. The market has completely turned around. People are all positive and investing big time into property. Six months ago has been forgotten.
2. He sees rates moving upwards as the properties under construction get closer to completion.
3. Seems dahisar check naka is moving 20km further north and so that whole area will get decongested - this was while he was trying to hard sell us on the Lodha property at Dahisar.
4. There is a new flyover coming up from Dahisar to the fountain restaurant signal which means travel will really speed up.
5. It seems the centre and the state are really working well together as they are both controlled by the Congress - so lots of progress in the pipeline.
6. 5 years and there should be positive changes in Kandivali East - Mahindra to redevelop their factory area, slums to move and a big road to come up.n
7. He sees rates going up even in Kandivali to 10,000Rs. a sq. foot.

Now what remains to be seen is how much is fact and how much is fiction - or more realistically how much of this remains at the blueprint stage for the lack of political will to implement. Anyhow, good to hear the bullish gossip once in a while. He did say something which I do agree with - With markets moving up, every one is now enthusiastic and that causes everyone to move ahead with positive energy.

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Paytronic Closes First Year with 26,553 "Recharge Points"

So it's been exactly one year since we rolled out the first "Recharge Point" in Mumbai and what a year it has been. I was going through our website and when we launched our target was 10,000 Merchants across the nation by the end of March 2009. We closed March with 26,553 Merchants - nearly two and a half times our target. In the past 12 months we have built a network 12% larger than Paypoint - arguably one of the most successful companies in this business and a large dominant player in the United Kingdom. A phenomenal achievement and a great team effort. Congrats to the teams at Paytronic and Myzus - who have driven the technology behind the effort.

Achieving the BJP's BHAG

I am just done with going through the BJP's IT vision document and this is what I could quickly see as big promises:-
*National ID card to merge all the other ID cards together.
*10mn Students to be given laptops for Rs. 10,000. All those who cannot afford it will be given interest-free loans for the same.
*Broadband internet in every town and village with unlimited upload and download at roughly Rs. 75 per month - the cost of cable TV.
*Mobile penetration to be taken to 1bn subscribers
*Take Internet users across nation to 1bn.
* All People below poverty line to be given smart phones.
* The entire country to be banked.
* Entire country to have basic health insurance and hospitalization to be cashless.
*Every school to be IT-enabled.

I am impressed. This is a great vision to have and I am happy that L.K. Advani (BJP) has had the courage to articulate this Big Hairy Audacious Goal at the risk of sounding like Don Quixote. I think that all political parties should be asked to immediately state their own IT vision and I hope that they will all come out with such BHAGs.

On my part, I would like to suggest to the BJP a few things as a CEO and one who would know the practical problems to implement the above vision. My suggestions rest on two big strategies + 1 comment :-
Suggetsions:
*Make Mobile and a 10-finger-Biometric national ID the key pillars of your strategy - the other parts of your vision will be easier to play out if you get the National ID and the Mobile penetration parts done.
*Leverage the power of retail distribution that the mobile operators, the banks, schools, hospitals and the corporate sector can provide you.
Comment: Set a BHAD - Big Hairy Audacious Deadline - 12 months to get 400mn Indians to get a national identity and 2 years to get 1bn Indians a mobile phone and a national ID.

Now how do you tactically get to meet this goal ?
*Take a really capable person and make him the head of the National ID project. My suggestion - Prof. Jhunjhunwala from IIT Madras.
*Give him 3 months to put together a frame work for the National ID and to invite open feedback through the WWW.
*Another 3 months to build the infrastructure for the same.
*Change perception - The NID is not a 'card' but an application that can be installed on any smart card.
*Take the mobile phone numbering systems of all operators, all their KYC details and nationalize them immediately. All mobile numbers and the databases, All KYC documents and scanned versions of supporting evidence will become property of the NID (National ID Dept.). This is anyhow needed to ensure number portability. Similarly take KYC and personal information lying with all banks licensed to operate in the country and give them a deadline of 3 months to convert them all to digital and 'submit' it to the NID Department in a prescribed format.
*Legislate that all SIM cards issued should support the download of a 'smart national ID card' and the same should be at no cost to the government.


Now for the easier stuff. You have a national ID framework, you have the base level of information through what is already in the telco and bank network - how do you ensure the final mile compliance - The stick policy, namely:--
*Make it mandatory for the telcos to ID all present mobile subscribers and make generation of a national ID mandatory (if you don't have one) before you can get a new connection. This is an easy task for the telco. Keep in mind that he already has all information apart from the fingerprint scan of his customer. Keep also in mind that the longest time when a mobile customer is not engaged with a telco touch point is 1 month - in the case of a post paid subscriber who pays his bill monthly. Most prepaid users (80% of the base) recharge their phones 2-3 times in a month. Give the telcos 3 months and after which if your NID is not linked to your phone numbe, it will switch off.
*Make all banks and stock brokers also conform to the National ID within 3 months. If you don't have the national ID linked to your bank account, you cannot take money out of your bank account. All new account holders to create ID before they can operate their bank account.
*Make all educational qualifications linked to the National ID.
*Make all hospital admissions and issuances of birth certificates linked to the national ID.
*Give companies a 3 month period to ensure that all their staff members have been IDed - either through the bank or the telecom channel and after that make it illegal to pay anyone who has not got an ID. All salaries to non-Identifiable people will be mandatorily deposited into a government account and can be claimed by the person only after he creates his national ID.
*Lastly, Do away with all other IDs- PAN, Election Card, Ration Card, Director's ID, Driving License, Passport etc. and migrate all systems to be only based on NID. That means you cannot pay your taxes or claim a tax refund if you don't have an NID, you cannot register land or sell land if you don't have a national ID, you cannot give a driving test if you don't have a national ID, you cannot vote in the gram panchayat elections if you don't have a national ID etc.

That's it. I would be surprised if we implement the above and are not able to ID the entire country within 3 years. If we do do this, it will mean India has built a solid foundation on which to catch up with the rest of the world.

Disclaimer: My views above may sound far fetched. I feel they are practical and we need to move with speed as a country.

Things that keep me thinking in these times

* How to identify where the low hanging fruit are so that cash for expansion can be generated from operations.
* How to grow the overall market as opposed to just taking market share away from others with entrenched relationships.
* How to improve the way we measure productivity so we can monitor and improve it.
* How to bring in a certain 'organizational rhythm' so that everyone wakes up every morning fairly in control of his life and knowing what he is expected to do.
* What areas to prioritize and how to be nice when postponing certain opportunities.
* How to ensure that all staff members see the big picture and don't feel the daily revenue pain that I definitely feel. I feel they can focus more on their job with better results if they do this.
* How to pick the few things that are really urgent and to put everything else on the back burner so that they can be fixed in serial order.
* How to identify the people hiding under their tables and to let them know nicely that I am watching and don't consider it the right thing for leaders to do.

Another week goes by. . .

--originally wrote this post last saturday. Haven't had the time to finish it through the week. Just did so----

So it's the end of another long and stressful week and I've enjoyed my much needed Sunday break. I'm sitting here before I go to bed and wondering about a topic to blog about.

India's business press is filled with news about Subhiksha - one of the largest retail chains in India going through a severe liquidity crisis. I personally feel the chain is probably going to be shut down with the investors (ICICI Venture and Premji Invest) being forced to learn the hard lesson that equity values can be negative.

I'll try and summarize what went wrong:- Subhiksha was trying to become the largest retailer in India. It felt that the best way to do so was to open up 1000+ stores on a national basis, purchase in bulk from suppliers and sell at a discount to the end customer making money on the volume. Unfortunately for Subhiksha and their shareholders, it seems like the management team miscalculated a few things:-
* The time it would take each store to break even and hence the budget they needed to set aside to fund operating expenses till that time.
* The complexity of managing product availability and quality at their stores given the diverse purchasing habits and needs of the different parts of India.
* The change in the fund raising environment making it very difficult to continue to sustain even the minimum cost structure given that most of the company's equity had already been used up in capex for setting up the new stores leaving no money to fund either operations (till break even) or the purchase cycle.

Sadly, while it is easy for a lot of us to stand by and criticize, fact of the matter is that these miscalculations are common to quite a few entrepreneurs. Subhiksha's story is a reminder to get back to the basics:-
1. What are the reasons outside of cost why people would want to patronize your business? Are you offering them convenience? products that are not available elsewhere? Quality?
2. How are you positively impacting all parties? Do they have a vested interest in seeing you succeed? In Subhiksha's case this really goes towards their relations with suppliers - Is it a case that dealing with Subhiksha was more efficient or hassle free for the FMCG companies or was it just the same as dealing with the local grocer but with order sizes larger and profit margins thinner?
3. Is the product the best there is? How are you measuring success? Was Subhiksha going head onVs. a Food Bazaar or a More / Spencers/ Hypercity? Was it measuring by talking to the Colgates and Cadbury's of the world if their stores in the same locality as the other stores were performing better in sales numbers? If no, then why? If you don't fix the product then effectively what you are doing is multiplying mistakes 1000 times when you start replicating the format elsewhere. Is it not better to perfect the format first before going national.


Sadly, these are common mistakes that all entrepreneurs are bound to make. I guess I should count myself as lucky to notice the failures of others and try and avoid making the same mistakes.

Coping with the recession

I was just going through my blog and looking at my last post on the recession. While I feel I did manage to say what I felt was gonna happen with the economy, I must admit I myself did not feel it would be as bad as I feel it will be now. I did not realize the number of people who had leveraged themselves on the way up and only now do I get some sense of the chaos as they de-leverage or re-leverage. Anyhow, thought I would write about how I am trying to get my companies to cope with the recession. I don't know if these are the right strategies or whether we need to do things a bit differently. If you have any suggestions, please let me know:-

1. We're trying to get everyone to focus on personal productivity. That means all people staying more focused on work, working smarter and using better IT tools and managing schedules and meetings more effectively.

2. Doing more with less. We're trying to of course cut flab wherever we can but more importantly redirect senior resources from slightly more futuristic projects to areas which are very critical and need the involvement of senior managers. So for instance, our Business Development team is aiding the sales team, the revenue team is working with the Back office and I'm personally doing business development and product management.

3. We're engaging more with our customers at a strategic level. The good thing about the recession is that most of our clients and partners seem to have some time to meet in a relaxed manner. I'm trying to meet as many of them as possible to understand what their top priorities are in these times and how we can look at modifying our offering (if required) to help them to meet their new 'recession time' goals.

4. We're pushing hard on new offerings while not growing the technology team. To a certain extent this is a dilemma. On one hand, we feel that no new competitors will come up and so we are not running against the clock and on the other hand, we want to launch quick and when there is not much noise around. Our technology team here has been really good. They're a bunch of good developers who are highly motivated and committed to the cause. We're lucky to have built such a team.

and lastly, though I wish we were doing more of this

5. We're trying to keep the team together and get them to celebrate the cheaper things in life. I want to do a lot more of this but I think we've made a beginning in a small way this month.

Do let me know if you have some more suggestions on how to cope. We're trying our best as this doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon.

New Year, New Resolutions

Sorry everyone for not really posting much. Myself and Hemisha took a small diving break to coincide with our anniversary and then have been spending quality time in Mangalore with parents, brother and large number of relatives. It's been tiring as this is the wedding season in Mangalore and we've been out every day eating out and dancing, socializing non-stop. I've hardly had some rest to think.

Well it's a New Year and this year I want to make some easy resolutions which I have some shot of keeping:-
1. To become a nicer gentler person overall esp. in my interactions with family.
2. To improve my pathetic fitness.
3. To spend more time working during the week and do absolutely no official work on the weekends.
4. Go out more - both on the official front with meetings and on the social side.

Let's see how it goes!!

Amazing - Satyam Saga Post 2

Amazing stuff I've been reading. It seems the 8.6% stake that the Raju family owned in Satyam was already pledged to banks - They had borrowed cash against the same already and had used the proceeds to invest in Maytas Properties and Maytas Infrastructure. So the plan seems to have been to use all of Satyam's money to buy the shares they owned in Maytas and then return money to the banks to free up their shares. In effect, using money lying in a company they managed but owned very little of to exit their investments before the markets further deteriorated. Is it only me or does this whole confusing rigmarole seem almost criminal?

Poetic justice that their desperate actions caused the stock to plummet and meant their value did not cover the loans that banks had advanced to them earlier causing them to ask them for further collateral. They not being able to provide the same, banks went ahead and sold stock to recover as much as they could, further depressing the stock. It seems they could end up losing their entire shareholding in the company. Poetic justice indeed!!