Hail the Coder

Its the coder who has pulled India by its bootstraps and plonked it firmly on the world map. I know, she'll violently object to being called a coder - there are more politically correct, but boring terms available. With due apologies, let me sing an ode to the Indian coder.

The coder ranks right up there, as one of the hardest working classes in the world. She works her socks off. Day and night. Especially night ; which other person, who has a graduate degree would willingly work in the middle of the night, for years on end, because timezones dictate it that way. And she will do what it takes to get a job done or to meet a deadline, which others wouldn't even try.

She wasn't born into a privileged family. Her parents probably sacrificed a lot to get her educated. She studied hard and by her own efforts got a degree. And then post graduation. She let go of much of the fun in life to achieve this. She may be called a geek, but she can be proud of it.

At work, she has often travelled crazily. Never seen the inside of a plane before, and she's suddenly pitchforked into a 30 hour flight to the middle of nowhere in some country in the world. She copes with all the strangeness with grit and determination. Works even harder there. Sees snow for the first time and learns how to survive in minus 20 deg C. Endures abominable food (for she's a vegetarian), but does not complain. And delivers admirably. There is no other group, anywhere in the world, who's willing to travel like this for a job - literally to any country in the world, anywhere. And subsist on a measly daily allowance.

And slowly, but surely, she's proved herself as the best in the world. India's IT entrepreneurs have been rightly feted. But it is the humble coder who made all this possible.

The world, over the last 20 years has been transformed by IT. Many people, in many parts of the world had a lot to do with this, of course. But one of the most important components of this revolution, if not THE most important component, has been, and will be, the Indian coder.

Above all, I admire the coder for raising my stature as an Indian, in the world. How many times, have I been told by complete strangers in all sorts of countries that "I must be intelligent because I am an Indian". There is a new respect in the eyes of others when I meet them, that wasn't there 15 years ago. It was the coder who made this happen - not the political leaders, not the media, not Bollywood, not the businessman; but the coder.

Hail the Indian coder.

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Hail the 21st century heroes

In all of history, there have been periods when groups of people have changed the world. Sometimes the soldier, sometimes the priest, sometimes the king, sometimes the philosopher, sometimes the writer.

In my view, two heroes have changed the world at the dawn of the 21st century. Unheralded they are, but they have changed the world nevertheless. China's migrant worker and India's coder. Today it's a salute to China's migrant worker.

There are lots of them. Some 200 million or so. They have built the skyscrapers, the roads, the airports and all the wonderful infrastructure that you see in China today. They make all those products that you and I, anywhere in the world, have been able to afford. They mine the coal that supplies all the power to the factories that churn out the goods that we all buy. They are the ones, who have made China, what it is today.

They come from the interior of China. They come to the eastern coast where much of the economic activity happens. They leave behind their farms and their families. They come alone to the strange big city. They live in packed dormitories near their work place. Theirs is a tough life. They live alone. They work hard. They send the money to their families back home.

They work really hard. Work long hours. And they're all not men. In fact many factories prefer women. So the women too have come from a far off land. Its often usual that the husband and wife are both migrant workers living in cities thousands of kilometres apart. The child (China has a one child policy) is left back home in the village, often with the grandparents.

Once a year, at Chinese new year time, comes their moment. They all head home. All 200 million of them. Its the greatest annual migration of humans ever. It happens every year . For a week, they get back to their families. To their child. To their parents. To their spouse. The week passes by very quickly. And its time for the reverse migration to start another year of toil.

These are the real heroes of China. China's boom is largely because of them. Much of the world's economic prosperity is owed to them.

Hail China's migrant worker.

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Change rules to win

I am delighted to present a guest post by Adesh Sidhu. Adesh runs his excellent blog Not being Sarkari. He is a "Customer Advocate, Apple fan, Desi and an avid reader". He writes passionately on customer service - his blog carries many excellent posts. Thanks Adesh for your post that follows

Big boys make rules. Big boys want to rule the world by the rules they have created. They have created rules, which are convenient to them, and these rules serve as entry barriers to new players.

For so long music industry worked on royalty and record labels were operating by the rules, which they have created. From music creation to marketing of music to enforcement of copyright, record labels handle everything. Singers and musicians were depended on record labels for their success. Record labels were the big boys and rules they created were suited to them. Customers had to pay whatever price record labels decided. If record has only one good song, customers also had to pay for 7 below par tracks.

Then came the digital downloads. Napster changed the rules of the game. They were small but agile. They did not have resources but they had ideas. They challenged the age-old business model of record labels. Customers lapped this idea of free downloads. Customers had the power to choose good songs over poor songs. Napster was David. They almost changed music industry.

But Goliath did not like it. They objected this, as they were clueless on how to play the game with rules changed. They got Napster banned. Napster started the revolution by giving music digitally and later on iTunes capitalized on this revolution. iTunes model was little different as they were charging from customers for music download and taken steps to reduce piracy. This time record labels decided to partner with iTunes. Record labels knew that if they have to stay in the game, they have to adopt new ways and means of doing music business.

Singers and musicians were dependant on record labels to launch them and promote their music. With the advent of social media, not-so-known but innovative singers and musicians started building communities of their fan clubs. They started releasing their music on Internet and their fans can download the music directly from sites. Record labels are eliminated and singers/musicians are communicating directly with their fans. David won again.

Lot of many times we decide not to compete because we do not have resources. We rarely think of competing with bigger players by changing the rules.


PS: - This article inspired this post.

In case link does not work, use the link in parenthesis. (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/11/090511fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all)

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Remembering ABN Amro

Remember ABN Amro. It was one of the largest European banks, operating in some 60 countries. This venerable institution had a history dating back to 1824.

In October of 2007, it was acquired by a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Fortis and Banco Santander for a staggering price of $ 100 bn. By this time, the financial crisis had already started, although it was in its early stages. Still these three banks went ahead, paid a fortune and carved ABN Amro amongst themselves.

Just one and a half years later, look at the scenario

RBS needed huge bailouts from the British government to exist- its in effect nationalised. Its share price has plunged more than 80%. Its declared huge losses, in no small part due to huge writedowns of the ABN Amro acquisition.

Fortis has fared even worse. Its now completely taken over by the Dutch government. Its effectively dead.

Banco Santander is the only one standing , and perhaps smiling a bit. It took the Italian and Brazilian parts of ABN Amro and immediately on sold the Italian bank, leaving only the Brazilian business it wanted. Smart.

This is a plaintive post moaning about capitalism at its worst. A venerable institution was destroyed. The acquirers have virtually gone bust. The employees haven't benefited one inch from the deal - in fact they've got screwed too with big layoffs, although you could argue that they would been screwed anyway. The customers of ABN Amro haven't seen anything better. The taxpayer has landed up picking the tabs for the disastrous deal.

So who won ? The erstwhile shareholders of ABN Amro . They got a fantastic price. If the deal had not happened, their value would have plummetted in the financial crisis, as with every other bank. So what has in effect happened is a massive transfer of wealth from the shareholders of the RBS, Fortis and Santander to the shareholders of ABN Amro. Correction. actually a transfer of wealth from the tax payer to the shareholders of ABN Amro. Of $ 100 bn.

In the process a lot has been destroyed and zero economic good has been created.

This just can't be right.

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From Michigan to Guangdong

If your sales grew last month by 25% in the largest car market in the world (at the moment) ; if you were No 2 in the market behind a faltering market leader; if you had beaten the Japanese nicely; if your two most famous brands are household names and aspirational in the market; if your other American rivals are nowhere in sight; you should be over the moon - Right?

Wrong - for this company is GM China. And because of the troubles a continent away.

GM has got everything right in China. Its beaten the Japanese. Its beaten the other Americans hollow. Volkswagen is the leader because of historical reasons ; they came into the market very early. They once had a market share of 50% - which is now down to the teens.

Just pause for a moment. Worldwide the car industry is in doldrums with the bottom falling out of sales. And GM China announces that in March their sales grew by 25% over last year. Wow !

So here's a wild thought for GM. Get out of the US and move your headquarters to China. Become a "Chinese" company. In the country which is the largest car market in the world. In the country, which, without doubt, will be the fastest growing car market for some time. And in the country where you have a star subsidiary while the parent is in the geriatric ward.

Sure there are a host of issues. Local competition is heating up. You still can operate in China only through joint ventures. Profit margins are being squeezed. etc etc.

But the view from Guangdong is a lot better than the view from Michigan. Nǐ lái zhōngguó ma ?

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Cutomer Service is all about getting the boring bits right

Today's post is a guest post in Adesh Sidhu's blog - Not being Sarkari.

Adesh is an avid blogger and writes passionately about customer service. He is also an active member of the IndiBlogger forum.

Click here to read my guest post in his blog.

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TPOA

Business jargon is complex as it is. It is made even more unintelligible by meaningless acronyms. Think of how much drivel we spout every day in the office.

Yesterday, my daughter was telling me of the classes she had in her primary school. She said one of her classes was VCOP. For the life of me I could not understand what on earth it was. She didn't either ! I finally discovered that it was "Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation". Oh ! She was having an English class !

This reminded me of my first day at work, all those years ago. I had graduated from business school and was starry eyed and ready to take on the world . I was supposed to be a finance "cat". I walk in , into a leading company and was shown the management accounting template of the company which read like this

I gaped at it open mouthed. Here I was, reasonably intelligent, from a good business school and I couldn't understand a word. It was a most humbling experience.

We do this all the time. Any business document is totally unreadable by a layman. Its full of silly abbreviations.

In one of the companies I worked in, before you clinched a sale, you had to do a DRB, where you outlined the stage in SPADE, attached a CODEC, defended GOP in IFRS and non IFRS terms, got approval for a BAFO and finally signed a SLA ! Ha ha !!

Can we get plain and simple English back into business please.

The Pox on Acronyms - in case you were wondering what the title of this post meant.

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