A Nation on the March
Posted: 18 Jan 2008 06:44
Consortium of Indian Defence Websites
https://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/
Well mantriji, how abt u walk the freakin' walk rather than just yap on and on about how we will beat every one else out there etc??pradeepe wrote:India will catch up with the best of West: Chidambaram
Pray that in 2009, BJP will CRUSH the sc&mbags an achieve a solid majority govt. No coalition, no 'NDA' cr%p, just a solid majority with the help only of Shiv Sena in M'hastra.vsudhir wrote:Well mantriji, how abt u walk the freakin' walk rather than just yap on and on about how we will beat every one else out there etc??pradeepe wrote:India will catch up with the best of West: Chidambaram
Esp since your sarkar has much less reform to its credit than even the most pessimistic among us back in 2004 had predicted. You've been riding a boom not of your making and you go around making statements like these essentially setting us up for mockery should we stumble somewhere ahead, even if temporarily....
Bah, rant happening. Shall stop here.
/Have a nice day, all.
Nationalism is not the monopoly of BJP. If it becomes then we are screwed. Howsoever the nepotist ridden, DIE dominated Kangress might they cannot suppress the urge of the nationalists within. Here is an excerpt from Kamalnath's book extolling jugad. http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jan/28spec.htmrachel wrote: Pray that in 2009, BJP will CRUSH the sc&mbags an achieve a solid majority govt. No coalition, no 'NDA' cr%p, just a solid majority with the help only of Shiv Sena in M'hastra.
Mahindra Shaan:Made in India
Sujata Dutta Sachdeva
Driving through the American countryside, an Indian visitor was taking in the sights when something caught his eye. Amid the vast, rolling fields was a farmer riding a Mahindra tractor. Conceptualised and designed at Mahindra and Mahindra’s R&D centre in Mumbai, this made-in-India farm vehicle has managed to grab 6% of US market share in its segment. And now it’s making inroads into mark-ets as diverse as Europe and Sri Lanka.
Surprised? Not when you consider India’s steady emergence as an engineering and design hub. Tata’s Rs-1 lakh Nano has already made a global splash. Then there is HCL’s homegrown Mileaptop. Weighing less than a kilogram and priced below Rs 15,000, the entry-level laptop is touted as the cheapest in the market. "The idea is to increase PC penetration in India and improve Net accessibility," says Rajendra Kumar, executive VP, HCL.
And let’s not forget Maruti’s first concept car. Saurabh Singh and Rajesh Gogu created waves at the recent Delhi Auto Expo. The duo designed the A-Star at Maruti Udyog’s Manesar plant. Soon, the car will be seen on European motorways. Maruti engineers have worked with Suzuki Motors to design Swift and Zen Estilo as well. "We hope to design and produce our own car model from India by 2011," says C V Raman, chief general manager (engineering), Maruti Udyog.
From cars to tractors, refrigerators to laptops, made-and-designed-in-India is becoming a sought after label. One that also means serious business. According to some studies, India’s contract industrial engineering revenue is expected to grow from around $500 million to $10 billion in the next five years. Worldwide, the market is growing exponentially. International market research firm IDC expects the product engineering services industry to double, hitting $53 billion annually by 2009.
Closer home, Nasscom in its study ‘Engineering Service Outsourcing (ESO)’, pegs global spending on engineering services at $750 billion per year - almost equal to India’s GDP. By 2020, this amount is expected to increase to more than $1 trillion. Of the $750 billion being spent today, only $10-15 billion is being offshored. India has about 12% market share. By 2020, the ESO market would be worth $150-$225 billion. India’s share will be 25-30%, or $50 billion annually.
In fact, much like software design, the volume of sophisticated engineering design work being done out of India is growing rapidly. While many IT majors have already set up captive centres for design development here, local firms too are getting good business from global customers. Harita TVS in Bangalore does engineering design services for customers across US and Europe. It’s the preferred partner for many OEM and Tier-1 customers. Similarly, Plexion Technologies has worked on interior design and windows for a top European car brand. Other car makers like Toyota Motors, Ford, Ferrari, and Honda have all boosted Indian outsourcing.
Realising the potential, Indian companies are now focusing a lot more on innovation and design. Sona Group, the well-known auto accessories maker, is now working on an electric power steering for non-highway vehicles in the US. "We are trying to create a mindset for innovation. To keep ahead of the competition, innovation in design is a must; we are creating tools and developing skills so that people are able to think out of the box," says Kiran Deshmukh, COO, Sona Kyo Steering Systems. The company was involved in the making of the Nano’s steering wheel.
"A lot of product design is already happening in Indian industry. The final products will be as impressive as the Nano," assures Sarita Nagpal, deputy director general, CII. Take, for instance, Godrej’s latest fridge-in-the-works. The folks who gave us our first indigenous locks, vegetable-oil soaps and colour fridges have come up with the low-cost Hedge. "It’s a refrigerator with convection floors that allow uniform cooling and is competitively priced," says G Sundarman, president, product strategy, Godrej Appliances. Competitive pricing is also the USP of HCL’s rural PCs that run on car batteries.
Last year, Mahindra created Shaan, a multiutility farm vehicle which won an award from the American Society for Agricultural and Biological Engineers for design. "We have a patent for it. The tractor is aimed at people who use it in their farms, as a family vehicle and for transporting goods," says Manrao, senior VP, M&M. They also created India’s first bio-diesel tractor in 2004.
Likewise, the Tata Group has been in the forefront of design engineering in India. Their Indica was touted as the ‘first truly Indian car’. Now the Nano’s become a global talking point. As Sunil Sinha, CEO, Tata Quality Management Services explains, "As a group, we started looking at innovation seriously in the ’90s. Internally, we have amplified the message of innovation, strengthened our R&D and increased our budget spend."
And it’s showing. While Tata Tetley designed an iced tea dispenser that’s become a rage in the US, Tata Technologies, which operates in 12 countries, is designing cars and vans for top foreign carmakers. However, Sinha feels a lot still needs to be done. "In 2006, India had filed only 400-odd IPRs while companies like Microsoft and Intel alone filed more than 2,000. We need to change the mindset and make innovation happen here."
The problem is that over the years we have focused more on excelling in production engineering rather than on creating our own designs. "It’s time to think beyond and recognize the importance of product design and innovation. Only then can we remain competitive," says Deshmukh. Else, we may only end up creating the occasional ripple with a Nano or a Shaan - hardly adequate for the long drive to design stardom.
Very nice. Please post in full....lots of quotable quotes too.SwamyG wrote:Mama mia.... an awesome speech: IT industry has its own Hiranyakashyap to battle
I kept forgetting if it was Mahindra or a Tata who was giving the speech. His speech displays immense recognition & respect to his competitors. For some positive examples, he gives Tata's example first and then talks about Mahindra itself.
I like companies that dig into our culture to solve our problems.
Nasscom Leadership Summit has always been a place for good story-telling and provocative thoughts. This year, the spark came not from a software veteran or a BPO moghul, but a captain of an old economy industry. Anand Mahindra, vice chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra drew from mythology to call for game-changing innovation from the IT industry.
One of the tasks we at the Mahindra Group have set ourselves is to aspire to be recognized as the most customer-centric organization in India, and why not, in the World!
In order to walk the talk, every time I'm asked to speak at a conference, I have made it a default option to ask what the audience--my customers--might expect of me.
And so I found myself wondering what this conclave of IT wizards expects from a predominantly right-brained character like myself. You certainly haven't called me here to deliver a sermon on technology. And I wouldn't even risk doing that with Nandan (Nilekani) and Kiran (Karnik) sharing the dais!
Of course, I might have been able to do that by getting one of my IT colleagues to write this speech, but then it would have been comprehensible to you, but incomprehensible to me!
And although the title of this session is 'Building a Knowledge Economy for Growth', I believe that a) All of you out there have helped build the foundations of a knowledge economy, so again, you don't need me to pontificate to you about that and b) I think there are some urgent pressures and imperatives the industry has to deal with at this point.
So, I'm going to talk about something completely different: I will talk about the Trimurti.
Most of the Indians in this audience will know the Trimurti – the trinity in Indian mythology of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer. There is a wonderful depiction of this in stone, just ten kilometers across the bay, at Elephanta. Both as a businessman, and as someone who tends to see life in visual images, the Trimurti reminds me of India's IT industry. Think of it.
You people have gone through a stage, where like Brahma, you created something out of nothing. You created a new and global industry. You created a service sector that is today, a major pillar of our GDP. But most importantly, you created a perception of a new India, both in the world and in Indian hearts and minds.
CK Prahalad once told me that in universities in America today, there are almost unfairly high expectations from Indian students, because there is a huge perception that all Indian students are brilliant, outstanding. You created that perception. And within India, what you created was self-belief. You showed us what Indians could do, and now the rest of India believes that Indians can do anything. Brahma created a physical landscape; you sowed the seeds of a new mental and psychological landscape. In that sense, you are truly the Brahmas of the age of liberalisation.
But creation is only the first phase. You then have to move on to the next phase of sustaining that creation - to the realm of Vishnu the preserver. Creation is a one-time affair. Sustaining that creation is obviously a longer haul, subject to many attacks and crises. Perhaps that is why Vishnu comes not in one, but in ten incarnations.
Every time there is a new danger, he changes his avatar to a form best suited to meet that danger. At various times he has come as a fish, as a tortoise, as a dwarf. But his most interesting avatar came when he had to fight the demon Hiranyakashyap. Hiranyakashyap was a bad guy, who had obtained an amazing boon from the gods. Neither man nor beast could kill him; he could not be killed by daylight or at nighttime, within his home or outside it, on the ground or in the sky. All this made him pretty invincible – he went on a rampage, and only Vishnu could tackle him.
The IT industry today faces challenges every bit as complex as those Hiranyakashyap posed for Vishnu. It is hit by a macroeconomic tsunami of adverse currency changes, rapidly escalating costs in both salaries and infrastructure and inadequate talent pools below the tier 1 and 2 institutions.
At the Company level, firms are begin to feel the penalties of poor differentiation and lack of focus (trying to be all things to all people); and an over-emphasis on high volumes and price competition.
Suddenly, the industry seems to have fallen off its pedestal; You are facing your very own Hiranyakashyap.
It's interesting to see how Vishnu dealt with him. How do you destroy someone who can't be killed by man or beast, inside or outside, by day or night etc etc. The demon pretty much had all bases covered. So Vishnu took on the Narasimha avatar to bypass the boon. Narasimha was a hybrid creature, half man half lion, and therefore neither man nor beast.
He killed Hiranyakashyap at twilight, which is neither day nor night. He killed him in the courtyard, which is neither inside a house nor outside it. And he killed the demon by placing him across his knee and tearing him apart, thus circumventing the terms of the boon that he could not be killed either on the ground or in the sky. Now that's what I call an innovative algorithm!
So what are the lessons for the IT industry in this story? Well, the first thing Vishnu did was to reinvent himself. It was not the gentle and contemplative Vishnu who fought Hiranyakashyap – it was the fearsome Narasimha avatar. Vishnu reinvented himself to suit the circumstances. The circumstances have changed drastically. Reinvent yourselves.
Do I have all the answers on the modes of re-invention? No, obviously not, otherwise I'd be out there filing patents, although I can suggest two broad approaches.
First, why don't we design business models that challenge traditional industry approaches and then transform our organizations, people and processes to execute. If we simply keep knocking on the doors of clients with our traditional offshoring options, we'll meet the fate of hearing aid salespersons: our best customers won't hear the doobell!
For example, software-on-demand and open source models changed the rules of the software game. Can we not try to change the rules of the game this time around? Why didn't we invent Zoom technology or Virtualisation? Thus far, India's brand of innovation has been identified with the IT industry, but is it truly innovative. Is it really game changing? Ironically, you can now look to the old smokestack industries for inspiration.
A few weeks ago, an Indian car company made a game-changing move. Maybe the Nano will ultimately not retail for a hundred thousand rupees. Maybe it won't have great margins, or replace as many motorcycles as it would like to, but it was a game changing move; it fired a shot that was heard around the world. Can the IT world make any such claim?
There was an old saying, apparently adopted by the IT industry, that the secret of success is to jump every time opportunity knocks. And how do you know when opportunity knocks? You don't, you just keep jumping!
So when are we going to stop simply jumping every time a client seems to sneeze, and actually create products and IP that become their own opportunities?
Let's look at new areas where India may have natural advantage. I remember C.K Prahlad telling us that we didn't realize how important it was to leverage emerging innovation ecosystems in our country. He gave us the example of how, due to a fortunate coincidence, India's IT and automotive industries were situated in roughly the same geographic clusters. So why wasn't, according to Michael Porter's competitive theories, a world beating automotive telematics industry taking shape here.
Why aren't IT companies using the massive potential of India's soft power, the film and TV business to exploit technological dominance of what Telco's call the 'last mile' but is actually the 'first mile' in the brave new interactive world?
Secondly, why don't we try to focus on a vertical industry (e.g., telecom) or horizontal domain (e.g., supply chain management) selecting the key dimensions of competitive differentiation – product vs. service, breadth vs. depth, speed of delivery, customer service responsiveness, fixed or outcome-based pricing, proprietary technology or intellectual property, and so on.
And let's be prepared to make hard decisions along the way – change people who don't fit, walk away from businesses that doesn't fit.
It's essential, while attempting this, however, to recognize that focus, differentiation and brand building require time and investment. Selling value or doing business differently than the norm tends to elongate sales cycles, which tends to put pressure on cash flow and we need to resist the temptation to broaden our offerings or slash prices just to win the business and keep people busy.
Along with re-invention, during the course of reinventing himself, Vishnu figured out the loopholes in the boon, and regrouped his physical and mental aspects to take advantage of these loopholes. That's something the IT industry can do as well. Its often been pointed out that in the Chinese word for crisis is also the Chinese word for opportunity I love that mindset. I truly believe that the adverse rate of the dollar can be viewed as the glass half empty or the glass half full. Sure it affects margins. But it's also a chance to take advantage of the loophole and buy yourselves what you don't have, so that you can regroup your structure to meet the challenge.
To me the fact that our currency is more valuable and our price earnings ratios are still higher than average, means that we can acquire the front-ends and the large IT businesses that we never thought we could before. And the bigger the better. If people are egging us on to leapfrog, then they should also cheer as you bid for companies that seem bigger fish than you. It's happening all the time today in the manufacturing sector—Tata Corus being the stellar example—and we at Mahindra, while starting from scratch, have inorganically compiled together a portfolio of acquisitions that make us the fourth largest steel forging company in the world today.
This is not without historical precedent. If you look at Japan and South Korea, both of them went through a phase of enduring the worlds' skepticism, then painstakingly building strong and competent domestic businesses, and then on the back of global liquidity support and strong price earnings ratios, compressing time by acquiring global firms and their customer credibility.
In effect, by acquiring the strengths and skill sets you need, you will regroup your profile and create a new entity, which can vanquish your challenges as effectively as Vishnu vanquished Hiranyakashyap.
And finally, while reinventing yourselves, you will have to bring in some of the aspects of the third element of the Trimurti – that of Shiva the destroyer.
Destroy for example the premise that cost arbitrage is the way to go. Recognize that the low cost, high volume offshore outsourcing battle has already been fought and won. Often, when strategic frames grow rigid, companies, like countries, tend to keep fighting the LAST war. If you are not already on the winners list, you need to think of other ways to compete on value and differentiation, rather than price and scale.
Destroy the premise that success comes only from size, and desist from comparisons with other Indian companies.[/b] There are still many IT companies in India who define success as "we want to be one of the top ten Indian IT companies". Why not, for example, "we want to be the world's #1 banking back office solutions provider"?
And lastly, perhaps the time has come to destroy the notion that the world may be your oyster but India is not. There is a huge domestic market in middle class and corporate India that has not been plumbed. Even selling to the bottom of the pyramid is profitable today. But it needs a creative destruction of the current mindset and a re-think on many of the assumptions we hold dear.
So, in conclusion, perhaps there really isn't that much distance between avatars in the mythological sense and avatars in the technology sense. Perhaps they are both symbolic expressions of the same reality. In their different ways, they both underline the same message – that it is necessary in any situation to reinvent, regroup and re-think our way out of whatever challenges confront us.
I'd like to close with one of my favourite quotes—such a favourite, that I can't even remember where I first read it:
My father thought the world would be same;
My children, however, wake up EVERY day thinking the world will be different.
Let's begin emulating our children. Time to wake up and make the world different.
(Anand Mahindra's speech at Nasscom Leadership Summit on February 13 th , 2008)
It was a good speech indeed. However, Indians should stop using the word mythology for puranas, and instead use the word purana or pouranic and let that become another English word....
Most of the Indians in this audience will know the Trimurti – the trinity in Indian mythology of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer.
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So, in conclusion, perhaps there really isn't that much distance between avatars in the mythological sense and avatars in the technology sense. Perhaps they are both symbolic expressions of the same reality.
We should call it 'Scriptures' as they do their Bible. Has a lot more weight than 'mythology'. Call them 'Hindu Scriptures' to distinguish them from their versions.shyam wrote: It was a good speech indeed. However, Indians should stop using the word mythology for puranas, and instead use the word purana or pouranic and let that become another English word.
It is the westerners who started calling it mythology, while they don't want to call old testament another mythology.
Good idea. In the west, theology is considered a proper subject of study in a university, and you can get even a PhD in it, with all the attendant respect as any other college degree.Rye wrote:No, it should be referred to as Hindu Theology, not mythology.
Hindus need to coopt the "theology" word which is deliberately meant to differentiate the study of the christian god...
To hear the pundits tell it, India's future in electronics is bleak, and the subcontinent will remain merely an outsource destination. Don't believe a word of it. The digital electronics in the next-generation HDTV that Sony introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show were like a growing number of communications, consumer and industrial products designed and developed in India. Their "Made in China" label belies the fact that more and more of the core engineering value takes place in India. India is not China, but its future in electronics is far more certain, for two reasons: software and innovation. The Nokias, Sonys and TIs of the world are quietly doing some of their most advanced R&D and design work in India, in everything from networking systems and advanced communications to consumer electronics. China copies, India innovates. Domestic electronics industry growth has been slow, but that's about to change. An expanding network of OEMs, EMS providers and chip makers is coalescing around a next-wave design ecosystem that's domestic-market focused. China, take note.
By Richard Wallace
often been pointed out that in the Chinese word for crisis is also the Chinese word for opportunity
The Judaic, Christian, and Islamic books are revealed scriptures of the type made familiar by these historic religions, but the Vedas are, if I might extend the word used for the religion of the Hindus for their basic texts as well, 'natural' scriptures. They are not the word of any God or gods, but mostly words addressed to gods.â€It is the westerners who started calling it mythology, while they don't want to call old testament another mythology.
That would be the benevolent explanation for the usage of "theology" as opposed to "mythology" by western elements.Because the Hindus are marked as neither having a religion nor expounding any philosophy, then much of what is contained in their scriptures is proclaimed 'myth'. Mythologies can be interesting, profound, symbolic, and entertaining.
They are all Indian citizens.Ameet wrote:4 Indians (well of Indian descent)
Crisis is "WeiJi" in Chinese, while "Wei" means "dangerous" and "Ji" "opportunity".Surya wrote:often been pointed out that in the Chinese word for crisis is also the Chinese word for opportunity
Sigh this is worng but continues to spread.
Maybe a Chinese lurker can confirm this
And 2 Indians among the 5 "notable new billionaires"Ameet wrote:4 Indians (well of Indian descent) in the top 10 richest in the world!! With a new #1
(4) Lakshmi Mittal (5) Mukesh Ambani (6) Anil Ambani (8) KP Singh
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budget ... aires-2008
TVS Motors is actually going through some rough time....falling profits across sequential financial quarters...ongoing court battle with Bajaj over latest TVS Flame model bike's dual-spark plug engine technology & etcThe Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) has awarded the coveted Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Excellence Award to TVS Motor Company in the first category. The company won the award for its exemplary implementation of TPM processes in its Plant II in Hosur and its Mysore plant.
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The TPM Excellence Award indicates that the company has been consistent in terms of significant business results and performance indicators on Quality, Cost, Delivery, Productivity, Morale and Safety.
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This is the second time that TVS Motor Company has bagged this esteemed award. In 2004 the Engine Component Division at Hosur had received the distinguished honor in recognition for excellence in application of TPM methodology.
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Zero accident has been achieved in both plants and productivity has improved by 35%.
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The company is the only two-wheeler manufacturer in the world to be honoured with the hallmark of Japanese Quality – The Deming Prize for Total Quality Management.
Around same time last year..... (Mar 12, 2007) LinkWith 23 companies receiving the Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) Excellence Award at a ceremony in Japan, the number of winners has swelled upto 132, industry body CII said.
Hindustan Unilever Nashik and Pune, Hosur and Mysore plant of TVS Motors, Hospet Steel Ltd, Brakes India Ltd are among the 23 companies which included in the TPM Excellence League.
TPM is the concept originated and developed by Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM).
"While the number of companies challenging the TPM Excellence Awards has been reducing in Japan, it is heartening to see that the number swelling up in India," JIPM Solution Co Ltd CEO Tsuoshi Kodera said in a statement.
CII has also inked an memorandum of understanding with Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) to collaborate and cooperate towards the spread of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) excellence in India's manufacturing sector.
TPM is based on zero-loss concept viz, zero break downs, zero accidents, zero defect, primarily to achieve high reliability/flexibility of equipment and reduce costs through minimising wastage of man hours, raw material, power, tools.
When Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM) confers the TPM Excellence Award on 16 companies in a special ceremony in Japan, it will be a celebration of India having embraced Total Productivity Management as an integral part of business. While India remains amongst the countries with the highest tally for the year, the total number of TPM Excellence Awards winners now stands at 111 – no small achievement.
To drive the TPM mission in India, Confederation of Indian Industry, in line with its mission to promote competitiveness in the Indian industry set up the TPM Club in association with the JIPM-S in 1998.
CII was also recently appointed as one of the 5 TPM Assessment Agencies outside of Japan. CII has been entrusted by JIPM to become the point of contact for the assessment of the “TPM Awardsâ€
Well well well...."We brought in McKinsey's to help. They told us to dump steel and go for automobiles and retail consumer goods," said Irani. "So we ignored their advice on steel. I like to remind them of that."