Monday to Friday, when the clock strikes nine, I here some voices around me… come for the ritual. Long time, since I actually worshipped God in the morning… but this isn’t about God and idol-worshipping..!!
A few weeks ago, in one of our internal meetings, we decided that we would follow a ritual. A practice to recite the company’s vision, mission, values & culture, To speak out loud the company’s ten commandments and ten imperatives.
The first thought that struck my mind was… “Oh great, I’d not have to cram these sentences now and would be able to learn them easily in this manner.”
Of course this thought had a reason… Till date, I have no idea about the vision and the mission of the company where I did my summer training. I don’t even remember the number of values they had. No wonder they took some steps to make us learn those… like putting them on posters all around the office, pinning a paper at each desk… but who would have cared to have a look at those.
Once when my colleague was asked about the company’s values, I quietly glanced at the poster in front of me, so that I can speak them out, in case the next turn was mine. Poor chap could not glance at the poster and received a round of verbal bash.
Even during the corporate presentations during my days at management school, I was really bugged when these slides appeared on the screen. My mind used to shout… “I need to complete my assignments and projects. Why don’t these guys quickly move on to the relevant part of the presentation?”
Well, this being my views about corporate vision and mission, the announcement about the morning ritual at Milagrow was a relief. I thought, “This time definitely I’ll be able to learn these.”
Then, the next day onwards, the practice began. In the presence of just half the total number of employees, the ritual was initiated. This being the first day, we opened the corporate presentation on my laptop and read out the slides.
I probably didn’t give much attention to the meaning of each and every word because all I was doing was reading the slides loud.
The next three days, I was out in Mumbai for a client meeting and could not participate in the ritual. On the fifth day, the same practice of reading out the slides repeated. Finally & thankfully, the essence of the practice was checked on the sixth day. When asked as to how many remembered any of the vision, mission, values, culture, etc. not even a single hand was raised. No doubts, the practice had become meaningless.
So, for the next morning, all of us were then told that each and everything should be learnt by-heart and known to every individual. Finally, I learnt them before the next dawn.
Next morning, we all met again. As expected, everyone had learnt everything. But it still didn’t change my views about these things. They were still some English statements, which companies put on papers to show that they work with a strategy.
The practice has now continued for another 2 weeks. I don’t know how, but things have changed entirely in the last 14 days.
Now, every morning when I hear the vision, mission, values and culture, and speak them in my heart, my mind tells me, “Now you know what you are working for..!! What are you expected to do..?? Did you do something which is not aligned to the corporate values..??” A strange change, but probably the essence of the ritual was to achieve the same. When I sit back and think, what brought this change in just 14 days, I feel it was a mix of too many factors.
Firstly, and probably the most important one, the corporate values are aligned to my personal values. It’s just that in the last 25 years of my life, I never cared to list them and think how I am following them in my daily routine. Only when they were repeated daily, I realized that actually this is what I do in professional as well as personal life. However, now since these are listed down precisely, the chances on missing out on any of these in daily life becomes negligible.
Secondly, now whenever I am stuck somewhere in my work and am confused as to what should I do, these act as a handbook. Just a quick reference to the values and the culture, and somehow I get to see the way forward. For example, earlier I used to just finish of the tasks that were given to me. All I used to check was whether my job is done or not. But now, when I speak out daily that “Entrepreneurial thinking is a way of life,” my attitude has changed. Now I no longer check if my job is done, but I foresee that is my work productive? Have I been able to achieve something in the day?
Then during the reciting of the Ten Commandments and the ten imperatives, my mind keeps on checking whether I did it or not. Is there anything that has been left out? In fact a couple of times, during the ritual itself, I signalled my colleague that we have missed out on that point and we need to finish that right after this. Certainly, he was also thinking the same and I could observe a similar reaction from his side too.
It feels great to realize that with a simple practice, I have found a structure in my way of working. And the best thing that I feel is that I and my colleagues have some common things now - the reason for which we are working and our attitude towards our work.
I realize that this ritual would have significance if the employees believe in reaching out to its essence, but for some ignorant species like what I was, it was an eye & mind-opener. This was one of my first corporate learning, which taught me the significance and use of the vision, mission, values and culture of a company.
With me writing so much about it and you wondering what actually has got a change in me, let me simply pen down what I work for at my office.
Vision: We are Venture Catalysts. We Nurture Ideas and Enable Growth Seeking Enterprises to attain Ethical, Sustainable and Profitable Growth
Mission: Become ‘The Destination’ for Micro, Small and Medium Businesses. To partner with aspiring enterprises as a Venture Catalyst and build ‘best in class’ managerial and organizational capabilities in them. We shall a) Nurture Shared Values, b) Develop Relevant Knowledge & Competence and c) Create and Sustain Entrepreneurial Culture
Values: a) Commitment – Own everything we do
b) Ethics – Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
c) Respect – All Stake Holders
d) Trust – Believe in People
Culture:
* Entrepreneurial thinking is a way of life
* Belief in Youth
* Equal Opportunities to all
* Thirst for Knowledge
* Respect and Recognition for Expertise
* Accessible & Straight forward
* Collaborative approach
* Making things happen
* Passionate and Professional at the same time
Ten Commandments:
1. Have I cleaned my workplace today?
2. Have I updated my schedule on the shared calendar?(All client related, external facing and time bound, time consuming tasks must be on it)
3. Did I reconfirm all my appointments for today?
4. Have I prepared myself for my meetings today?
5. How will I delight my customers today?
6. Have I helped my internal customers today?
7. Did I make a call to my family/friends today?
8. Did I create/capture new knowledge for myself today? Did I blog today?
9. Did I reply to all my emails today?
10. Did I make my HML for tomorrow? (Do the biggest impact and external facing things first)
Ten Imperatives:
1. Follow the company templates on external and internal communication
2. All external communication which commits the company to doing a thing must be checked by a peer or superior
3. Record notes of all external meetings and important internal decisions must be made in written and circulated to all concerned within 24 hours
4. Minutes of Client meetings must go out in 24 hours after approval from superiors
5. Weekly Client reports are a must before weekend
6. Monthly Client reports must be printed before the 5th of next month
7. Company nomenclature and numbering system must be followed for all files and folders
8. Google groups must be hosted on every important initiative
9. Open source project management and IT tools must be learnt and followed
10. Always log on to 'Milagrow Chat' unless in meetings
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Right to Information
Currently, we are building up a Right to Information Help Desk on our upcoming SME portal which aims to facilitate Small and Medium Enterprises and Individuals to seek information and get justice from the right corridors.
To enable this Help Desk, I am trying to build linkages with RTI Activists across the country so that we can route the queries to respective state’s activists. The portal would act as a platform for bringing together RTI activists present across India for the social good for SMEs and helping them in getting easy access to information.
In this process, I have been talking to various activists across states and am quite motivated and enthusiastic to see how passionate they are about RTI Act and its implementation. Here, I would like to mention that most of them do it voluntarily after their office hours and take out time to bring awareness and keep the RTI flame burning.
For example, today I talked to Mr.Vikram Simha who is quite active in spreading RTI movement in Karnataka. He along with his two colleagues had set up Sakshi Trust which conducts Training Programmes on RTI for enterprises to make them aware about its magical effects.
The other day I was watching few videos on RTI and was surprised to know that the bribe business is worth 21 million rupees in India. To make people aware of RTI, a “Drive against Bribe” campaign was run across 55 cities with 1500 trained volunteers, 8 media partners and more than 700 civil society groups in July 2006. A lot of cases were solved successfully during this campaign. Representatives from Parivartan went on to the streets of East Delhi and made the citizens understand about their rights to seek information as to how their tax money is being spent, where the government is at fault and how they are being cheated. Also around 5 villages of Uttar Pradesh were benefited through RTI campaign by Kabir, an RTI Activist group. Many of the villagers problems regarding discrepancies in providing basic infrastructural facilities like ration, school uniforms, roads, etc. got resolved by filing RTI applications which forced the concerned authorities respond on the irregularities in the system. The campaign had a huge impact and villagers won the battle against the corrupt authorities and now are very well aware of the weapon called RTI.
Several cases related to land disputes, IT returns, passport irregularities, pensions, etc. where government authorities make unnecessary delays and ask for bribes can be resolved by putting the concerned departments in the dock and questioned about the irregularities in the system. It is high time that SMEs too, understand the power of RTI and use it as a tool to avoid exploitation from government bodies and public offices. RTI guarantees a person to get access to all the information and inspect any government correspondence or document, etc. until and unless there are very strong reasons to deny it. Right To Information gives its citizens a legal power to question the way of government functioning and attack the institutional impediments to openness and accountability that are still very dominant in many of the government departments.
Citing lot of discrepancies and loopholes in the operations of govt. authorities, I believe Milagrow’s RTI Help Desk would be a great tool for SMEs to get their voices heard and seek information from the concerned authorities. It is very premature to say how RTI Help Desk would fair in future but one thing is for sure that RTI Movement has to spread its wings and reach to wider audience who could use this powerful tool for their benefit. Milagrow would continue its efforts in making this movement popular and accessible to all SMEs and individuals but we would be requiring equal participation from SMEs to be more active and not hesitate to approach us for filing an RTI.
To enable this Help Desk, I am trying to build linkages with RTI Activists across the country so that we can route the queries to respective state’s activists. The portal would act as a platform for bringing together RTI activists present across India for the social good for SMEs and helping them in getting easy access to information.
In this process, I have been talking to various activists across states and am quite motivated and enthusiastic to see how passionate they are about RTI Act and its implementation. Here, I would like to mention that most of them do it voluntarily after their office hours and take out time to bring awareness and keep the RTI flame burning.
For example, today I talked to Mr.Vikram Simha who is quite active in spreading RTI movement in Karnataka. He along with his two colleagues had set up Sakshi Trust which conducts Training Programmes on RTI for enterprises to make them aware about its magical effects.
The other day I was watching few videos on RTI and was surprised to know that the bribe business is worth 21 million rupees in India. To make people aware of RTI, a “Drive against Bribe” campaign was run across 55 cities with 1500 trained volunteers, 8 media partners and more than 700 civil society groups in July 2006. A lot of cases were solved successfully during this campaign. Representatives from Parivartan went on to the streets of East Delhi and made the citizens understand about their rights to seek information as to how their tax money is being spent, where the government is at fault and how they are being cheated. Also around 5 villages of Uttar Pradesh were benefited through RTI campaign by Kabir, an RTI Activist group. Many of the villagers problems regarding discrepancies in providing basic infrastructural facilities like ration, school uniforms, roads, etc. got resolved by filing RTI applications which forced the concerned authorities respond on the irregularities in the system. The campaign had a huge impact and villagers won the battle against the corrupt authorities and now are very well aware of the weapon called RTI.
Several cases related to land disputes, IT returns, passport irregularities, pensions, etc. where government authorities make unnecessary delays and ask for bribes can be resolved by putting the concerned departments in the dock and questioned about the irregularities in the system. It is high time that SMEs too, understand the power of RTI and use it as a tool to avoid exploitation from government bodies and public offices. RTI guarantees a person to get access to all the information and inspect any government correspondence or document, etc. until and unless there are very strong reasons to deny it. Right To Information gives its citizens a legal power to question the way of government functioning and attack the institutional impediments to openness and accountability that are still very dominant in many of the government departments.
Citing lot of discrepancies and loopholes in the operations of govt. authorities, I believe Milagrow’s RTI Help Desk would be a great tool for SMEs to get their voices heard and seek information from the concerned authorities. It is very premature to say how RTI Help Desk would fair in future but one thing is for sure that RTI Movement has to spread its wings and reach to wider audience who could use this powerful tool for their benefit. Milagrow would continue its efforts in making this movement popular and accessible to all SMEs and individuals but we would be requiring equal participation from SMEs to be more active and not hesitate to approach us for filing an RTI.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Learning……. As an Experience
---Contributed by Divya Bhalla
My third week in Milagrow …… and each day has been better than the previous one.
Milagrow is a workplace of everyday learning, which doesn’t necessarily mean formal training or being a trainer to provide people with learning toolbars of their respective roles.
We get trained and impart training on various spectrums of learning by working as a team.
Hence, my interface with learning has been:
To be constantly conscience of our new strength
To identify opportunities and increase our speed of actions
To implement what we think immediately
To be assertive
To be committed
Our management Gurus say… that people of an organization learn the most when they are motivated and are emotionally committed to their roles.
Though it may sound difficult to inculcate learning into someone, but we can definitely ensure ways and environment that encourages this process.
I would conclude my experience of learning with what – Nelson Mandela said in his Inaugural speech in 1994:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but our deepest fears are that we are powerful beyond measure”.
My third week in Milagrow …… and each day has been better than the previous one.
Milagrow is a workplace of everyday learning, which doesn’t necessarily mean formal training or being a trainer to provide people with learning toolbars of their respective roles.
We get trained and impart training on various spectrums of learning by working as a team.
Hence, my interface with learning has been:
To be constantly conscience of our new strength
To identify opportunities and increase our speed of actions
To implement what we think immediately
To be assertive
To be committed
Our management Gurus say… that people of an organization learn the most when they are motivated and are emotionally committed to their roles.
Though it may sound difficult to inculcate learning into someone, but we can definitely ensure ways and environment that encourages this process.
I would conclude my experience of learning with what – Nelson Mandela said in his Inaugural speech in 1994:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate but our deepest fears are that we are powerful beyond measure”.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Open Source – A trend for the SMBs
Any business, be it small or large is because of People, Project, Process and Technology. Earlier the organization had more focus on People and Projects. People were hired and put into the projects. But today “technology” plays a vital role in the development of any business. This is because technology is applied onto a project to keep track on the processes and activities which in turn helps the people of the organization to achieve goals and success.
But today, so much has been spent on technology that there is a need to set up a secure, cost effective and at the same time productive IT infrastructure. Big brands like HP, Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle and many others who have created the tech market, also are leaving a big hole in our pockets. So where should the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) look in for technology? The answer being simple is difficult for many to digest is “Open Source”.
According to opensource.org “Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process.” Let us understand what actually the above statement means.
Free Redistribution of license, distribution of original or modified source code under the same terms and conditions, the license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time, license must not restrict other software or be specific to a product.
Let us take an example, today when we buy Microsoft Office; we get the software license for usage for around Rs. 20,000 or more. This is renewable license but each up gradation of license would cost extra every year. If you do not renew then your software will expire and after that you would be using pirated software which is not legal.
At that time open source “Open Office 3.0” comes into picture wherein you get the license once you download. After this you have the power to use the software for as much time as you want and for no cost at all. You can also distribute the product for free in compliance with the terms and conditions. If the software has newer versions, all you have to do is download the latest version or update your existing patch code with new patch code.
So when one asks “how do I come to know about the open source alternative of a software”, I reply- with little knowledge, eagerness to learn and an Internet connection one can simply browse to learn the alternatives. Because they are easy to learn with available “help menu” and save you from piracy of software. Apart from this, open source awareness has led to online demo of many types of software on the net.
To actually help you understand, how open source would be benefiting you in terms of cost and usage, let us look at the comparison below along with available options:
| Commercial S/w | Price (Rs.) | Open Source S/w | |
| 1. | MS Outlook | 5,000/user | Zimbra |
| 2. | Tally | 36,000 | GNU Cash |
| 3. | MS Office | 13,824/user | Open Office |
| 4. | Adobe Reader | 8000 | PDF Creator |
| 5. | Adobe Photoshop | 5000 | Gimp |
| 6. | Video Uploading on your website |
| Kaltura |
| 7. | Web Conferencing tool | Save travel cost | DimDim |
| 8. | MS Proj |
| OpenProj |
| 9. | Sales Force | 3250/ user/month | SugarCRM |
| 10. | Mc Afee/ Norton | 2000+/user/year | ClamWin |
| 11. | WinZip | 1500 | 7 zip |
| 12. | Nero | 3200 | InfraRecorder |
| 13. | MySAP HR |
| OrangeHRM |
| 14. | Windows XP | 6500/desktop | Linux-ubuntu |
| 15. | SAP ERP | 10- 25 Lakh | OpenBravo |
So you can actually total up your cost of commercial software and save that much amount by using open source model! For SMBs, this can be one suite for their organization IT infrastructure with which they can “develop relevant knowledge and sustain themselves with open source in these recessionary times”.
For more details on open source, watch the space on upcoming SME Portal- IT Solutions.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Five Days @ Passport Office
---Contributed by Neha Bhatia
The scene of the office of our worldwide identity proof is unbelievable and hard to imagine for anyone who has never been to any government body and has got the work done. I had to go to get the “additional” booklet and I was made to run from pillar to post for 5 days which ideally, is the time you get your fresh passport under tatkal scheme.
With very little knowledge of timings I went on the first day at 3pm. As soon as I entered I saw more than 100 people (some in queue and some fighting claiming to be in the queue). The scene was nothing less than a vegetable market. There were around 15 counters all having a board “This counter is not for general information”. All counters just had one thing written on a blue board “tatkal/ general”
With this I asked around 5 to 6 counters about “where can I get additional booklet” and the responses were counter 6 hall 1, counter 4 hall 2 and many more except the exact information. With hardly any hope to get any answer from inside the passport office, I went to the watchman and asked him the procedure. He said “madam kal line mein lagna subah 9:30 baje, token lena aur fir andar aana”. I asked “ye line kaha hoti hai, kaun se counter par” and that person responded “counter nahi madam, wo toh building ke peeche ek line lagti hai”.
Second day the line for token starts at 9:30 am I reached at 8 am and found atleast 30 people standing in front of me. And by 9:30 am there were around 150 people behind me. Some made their touts stand so that work gets finished faster and paying Rs. 6500 than paying regular Rs. 2500. So I asked someone in front me in the line why there are more than 2 people at the same position so the person said “ye India hai sab jugad hota hai”. I got the token at 10 am and then the passport authority refused to accept the token because I was not getting passport for myself which was violating the rule in tatkal scheme even if I had authority letter. So all my energy, time of standing in the line since 8 to 11 am got wasted or I must say, I had an experience of nothing…
Third day reached around 7am in order to get the work done and still saw 5 people ahead of me. And I thought people are crazy but they were like me who were fed up of the system and just wanted to get the work done as soon as possible. I got the token and I went inside. We (the passport holder and I) got the work done in 15 minutes paid the tatkal fees Rs. 3000, got the date of receiving the passport and left the place. But during this time we also found something strange inside the passport office. They were like “shoes on the table of one of the employees”, “passports and files lying idle” like if they get lost then it is not at all their responsibility because they would say “madam apki file incomplete thi”.
Fourth and fifth day were again just to receive the passport as on the fourth day, not all the passport could be made and we required additional passport of jumbo size. So fifth day again we stood at the gate at 10 am, received the passport (after requesting senior official to give on time because we had a meeting to attend at the office). At the same time I just said “Hope I never come back here”.
But later I realized should I have said that or I just wanted things here to be sorted? Actually I wanted privatization of the passport office so that no common madams (as they called) or anyone would have the same experience as I had there.
But before I end, everyone reading this blog please read below in case you have to get new passport or change of information or additional booklet.
1. Download the form from the website http://passport.gov.in/ for your requirements.
2. Fill and attach supporting documents
3. Go to the passport office next day morning around 7:30 am to get the token.
4. After taking the token, go to the counter mentioned on the token.
5. Specify your need and they would send you to the actual counter
6. Get your forms checked and submit to the official.
7. Pay Rs. 1000 for fresh passport in general scheme which would take 1 month or pay Rs. 1500 for fresh passport in tatkal scheme which would take less than 10 days. Incase of additional booklet charges are extra which is mentioned at the counter.
8. Get the receipt after payment which mentions date of collection.
9. For collection of passports timing is between 5 – 6 pm everyday behind the passport office building at the same place where you collected your token. In other cases sometime they tell you to go to the counters also.
10. Last but not the least “DO NO PAY THE TOUTS”. This can be one experience and also you would save Rs. 4000 by doing your work yourself.
The scene of the office of our worldwide identity proof is unbelievable and hard to imagine for anyone who has never been to any government body and has got the work done. I had to go to get the “additional” booklet and I was made to run from pillar to post for 5 days which ideally, is the time you get your fresh passport under tatkal scheme.
With very little knowledge of timings I went on the first day at 3pm. As soon as I entered I saw more than 100 people (some in queue and some fighting claiming to be in the queue). The scene was nothing less than a vegetable market. There were around 15 counters all having a board “This counter is not for general information”. All counters just had one thing written on a blue board “tatkal/ general”
With this I asked around 5 to 6 counters about “where can I get additional booklet” and the responses were counter 6 hall 1, counter 4 hall 2 and many more except the exact information. With hardly any hope to get any answer from inside the passport office, I went to the watchman and asked him the procedure. He said “madam kal line mein lagna subah 9:30 baje, token lena aur fir andar aana”. I asked “ye line kaha hoti hai, kaun se counter par” and that person responded “counter nahi madam, wo toh building ke peeche ek line lagti hai”.
Second day the line for token starts at 9:30 am I reached at 8 am and found atleast 30 people standing in front of me. And by 9:30 am there were around 150 people behind me. Some made their touts stand so that work gets finished faster and paying Rs. 6500 than paying regular Rs. 2500. So I asked someone in front me in the line why there are more than 2 people at the same position so the person said “ye India hai sab jugad hota hai”. I got the token at 10 am and then the passport authority refused to accept the token because I was not getting passport for myself which was violating the rule in tatkal scheme even if I had authority letter. So all my energy, time of standing in the line since 8 to 11 am got wasted or I must say, I had an experience of nothing…
Third day reached around 7am in order to get the work done and still saw 5 people ahead of me. And I thought people are crazy but they were like me who were fed up of the system and just wanted to get the work done as soon as possible. I got the token and I went inside. We (the passport holder and I) got the work done in 15 minutes paid the tatkal fees Rs. 3000, got the date of receiving the passport and left the place. But during this time we also found something strange inside the passport office. They were like “shoes on the table of one of the employees”, “passports and files lying idle” like if they get lost then it is not at all their responsibility because they would say “madam apki file incomplete thi”.
Fourth and fifth day were again just to receive the passport as on the fourth day, not all the passport could be made and we required additional passport of jumbo size. So fifth day again we stood at the gate at 10 am, received the passport (after requesting senior official to give on time because we had a meeting to attend at the office). At the same time I just said “Hope I never come back here”.
But later I realized should I have said that or I just wanted things here to be sorted? Actually I wanted privatization of the passport office so that no common madams (as they called) or anyone would have the same experience as I had there.
But before I end, everyone reading this blog please read below in case you have to get new passport or change of information or additional booklet.
1. Download the form from the website http://passport.gov.in/ for your requirements.
2. Fill and attach supporting documents
3. Go to the passport office next day morning around 7:30 am to get the token.
4. After taking the token, go to the counter mentioned on the token.
5. Specify your need and they would send you to the actual counter
6. Get your forms checked and submit to the official.
7. Pay Rs. 1000 for fresh passport in general scheme which would take 1 month or pay Rs. 1500 for fresh passport in tatkal scheme which would take less than 10 days. Incase of additional booklet charges are extra which is mentioned at the counter.
8. Get the receipt after payment which mentions date of collection.
9. For collection of passports timing is between 5 – 6 pm everyday behind the passport office building at the same place where you collected your token. In other cases sometime they tell you to go to the counters also.
10. Last but not the least “DO NO PAY THE TOUTS”. This can be one experience and also you would save Rs. 4000 by doing your work yourself.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Stepping Again in the Professional World
As we are in the era of globalization it is important to be target and goal oriented, focused, have a creative mind set to bring about turnaround for one’s respective organization and also for one’s own professional growth.
All the efficiencies and endeavors we possess should guide us to evolve our competencies.
The goals we must set for ourselves should necessarily be rationale: they should be within the parameters of our competence, capabilities and abilities. A goal without an emotional quotient becomes a task and a task is always heavy.
All this is in context to what I have learnt today in my new organization MILAGROW.
It has been a very important day for me today as I have made a comeback in the world of professionalism and Milagrow has provided me with a comeback platform for which I am highly thankful to the epitome of this prestigious organization, Mr. Rajeev Karwal.
In a span of six hours I have learn’t so much. The team here is a bundle of zeal and passion and most importantly they possesses a sense of ownership in whatever they do.
It is an honor and pleasure to be a part of this enriching team
“There are always new opportunities, either you or your competitor will find it”. This is what we all need to keep in mind.
All the efficiencies and endeavors we possess should guide us to evolve our competencies.
The goals we must set for ourselves should necessarily be rationale: they should be within the parameters of our competence, capabilities and abilities. A goal without an emotional quotient becomes a task and a task is always heavy.
All this is in context to what I have learnt today in my new organization MILAGROW.
It has been a very important day for me today as I have made a comeback in the world of professionalism and Milagrow has provided me with a comeback platform for which I am highly thankful to the epitome of this prestigious organization, Mr. Rajeev Karwal.
In a span of six hours I have learn’t so much. The team here is a bundle of zeal and passion and most importantly they possesses a sense of ownership in whatever they do.
It is an honor and pleasure to be a part of this enriching team
“There are always new opportunities, either you or your competitor will find it”. This is what we all need to keep in mind.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
My First Day as an Entrepreneur...
- By e-mail from Veera Mavalwala
A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur....
Dear Friends
Best wishes
Veera
"Success doesn't come to you, you go to it" .....Marva Collins
A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur....
Dear Friends
My first day as an Entrepreneur indeed has been very satisfying! I woke up as usual at 7.00 am - thought I would go back to sleep so set the alarm for 8.00 am - but couldnt sleep so was up by 7.30 am. Read the newspaper back to back (not just glancing through it as I would normally do), had a bath and was ready (make-up and all) at 10.00 am when my Partner Mona came over. I requested her that I would like to say a Prayer and light a diya before we started our first day together. She agreed and I read out a "Mushkil Aasan" prayer which I normal say on Tuesdays and Fridays. We ate the Prasad of channa and elaichidana and started working around 11.00 am on our Presentation for our "NAVROZE ACADEMY - The Finishing School for Business & Admin Professionals". We continued till 1.00 pm when I took half an hour off to prepare lunch - Dal, Rice and Zeera Aaloo. We had lunch and continued with the Presentation. In the meanwhile, Mona got an e-mail for a "Train the Trainer", Training Programme. We liked the contents of the course and after a bit of bargaining (Thanks Rajeev for the tips!) enrolled ourselves for the 3-day Programme from 12-14 Feb 09. Also, made some calls to fix some meetings for tomorrow.
We completed the Presentation by 5.45 pm and Mona just left. I have mailed it to my friend for help and am now sitting to write about my first day as an ENTREPRENEUR!
All in all a VERY POSITIVE start and I loved being at home and working and having lunch with Farokh - he too was happy as he didnt have to just have a sandwich or soup alone. Am now going to prepare dinner.
Veera
"Success doesn't come to you, you go to it" .....Marva Collins
The First Milagrow Entrepreneur...
-an e-mail from Veera Mavalwala
Here is an email we received recently from one of the Milagrows.. It represents our entrepreneurial spirit
Dear Friends,
I am very happy to inform you that Milagrow has its first Entrepreneur!
Here is an email we received recently from one of the Milagrows.. It represents our entrepreneurial spirit
Dear Friends,
I am very happy to inform you that Milagrow has its first Entrepreneur!
Today I 'retire' after 42 years of service but not from work! I have decided to fulfil a dream of mine which has been 'resting' for a long time but now I think is taking shape - a friend of mine and I are starting an Academy or a 'finishing school', primarily focused on training Executive Assistants of CEOs, MDs and Company Directors. The training will also include Personality Development, Grooming and other related aspects. We will be based in Delhi and hope to commence classes from 1 May 2009. I will keep you posted.
Veera
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, head and hands
…… Robert M. Pirsig
Please do keep in touch. It has been great working with all of you and I pray Milagrow grows to greater heights and Rajeev remains a 'Role Model' for all past and present Milgarowites!
Thanks Rajeev and Shobha for your inspirational and kind words today. All the best!
Best regards
Veera
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, head and hands
…… Robert M. Pirsig
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ethics for SMEs
-Contributed by Kanak Dutta, Knowledge Buddy
Business ethics set the standard for how your business is conducted. They define the value system of how you operate in the marketplace and within your business. With legal scandals concerning insider trading and employee theft making the news, it is no wonder that businesses are increasingly giving attention to the ethical basis of their business and how to lead in an ethical way. While the examples above seem to be clear-cut breaches of ethics, many ethical dilemmas that are not so clear-cut are faced on a daily basis in business. In fact, there may not even be a “right” or “wrong” answer to the dilemma, but how you deal with it will says much about you and your business.
These decisions are often referred to as being in the “gray” area. They are not black-or-white, but could be argued appropriately either way.
Importance of Business Ethics in your company
There are definite advantages to owning your own business when you want to establish an ethics policy. Basically ethics come from the top. Without setting an example at the top, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to convince your employees that they too should be ethical in their business dealings. A well-defined ethics policy along with an outline of related standards of conduct provides the framework for ethical, moral behavior within your company.
What is the benefit of developing such a policy, you may be wondering. The benefit is higher employee morale and commitment that in most cases leads to higher profits. But higher profits should not be your motivating factor in defining your ethics policy.
An ethics policy should look at the bigger picture of how we relate to society as a whole and what our responsibility is to the greater good. Of course, in these days of downsizing and increasing change, some may argue that these ideals are unrealistic. However, it is important to note that most of the opponents of good ethics are focusing on short-term versus long-term results.
Many organisations, which have participated in the downsizing mania, are beginning to realise that they have traded long-term employee morale and productivity for short-term profit margins.
The bottom line is “what goes around, comes around”. If you treat your employees with disrespect and distrust, chances are they will do the same toward you.
When you are developing your ethics policy, you must decide what it is you want your company to stand for, put it in writing and enforce it.
How to develop an ethics policy for your company
Consider 4 P’s before you draft the ethics policy for your company.
• Purpose
• Pride
• Patience
• Persistence
• Perspective
Implications of not following ethical policy for your company
To give a live example for this, Satyam scandal raises serious questions about the business ethics. Ramalingam Raju (Chairman, Satyam), being a MBA from Ohio and a course in the Harvard Business School, how it is that people with such elite education are involved in such unethical conduct?
Two things come to mind while answering this question.
• Unethical practices of auditing and accounting.
• Despite of having the above mentioned qualification, this didn’t help him in his transition from the mode of governance suitable for a Small Entrepreneur, which he was before starting satyam, to the kind needed to run a public limited company, where one deals with other people’s money.
As Edward Freeman, who suggested the stakeholder theory, says, “it’s not useful anymore to separate questions of business and questions of ethics.” An integrated way of thinking about business and ethics is via responsibility of action. That is, “businesses and executives are responsible for the effects of their action. They are responsible precisely to those groups and individuals that they can affect or be affected by...”
Importance of ethics for Small and Medium Enterprises
SMEs are characterized by informal understandings and shared expectations among the workforce of how business is done. Any values and ethical principles will usually be implicit rather than formally expressed through ethics policies, codes and programs that are familiar in large companies. The ethics of a small organization is typically influenced by the owner-manager or managing director. Through their very visible presence, their personal attitudes and behaviors will set the tone of the business and have the potential to signal to employees how seriously ethical behavior is to be taken in the organization. SMEs are not typically able to devote as many resources to building an ethical workplace culture as larger organizations.
Ethics in Milagrow
At Milagrow, our values are mainly based on 4 dimensions:
• Ethics- Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
• Trust- Believe in people
• Respect- For all stakeholders
• Commitment- Own everything we do
Rajeev Karwal, Founder, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions strongly believes that “values are something which have to be lived from day one. At Milagrow I have always made sure that we follow ethics and integrity with a 360 approach. You can't be corrupt on one day and then say that you will be ethical the other. We have not only lived a corruption free life ourselves but have made many clients who approached us change their unclean ways. We have never manipulated profits to save taxes or manipulated revenues or costs. We have also adopted sustainability as part of our ethical value system”. He firmly believes long-term success occur only if an organization constantly aligns to/shapes the consumer needs/expectation. In an ethical business the essential thrust is on social values. Business is conducted in consonance with broader social values and the stakeholders' long-term interests. This ranges from concepts of nation-building and trusteeship that are demonstrated in the business practices of the Tatas and Birlas, and new generation enterprises such as Infosys, Wipro, Dr. Reddy's and Ranbaxy, where less emphasis is on minimising negative impacts and more on maximising the positive spill-over effects of corporate development. Thus, it is the need of the hour that business houses become more careful and know their responsibilities towards the society as hurting the sentiments of the consumers can really be hard on their finances, profits, share prices and their mental peace.
References:
http://www.smallbusinessjourney.com
http://www.bitc.org.uk
http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/operating/leadership/ethics.html
http://www.goodcorporation.com
White paper from Institute of Business Ethics
Business ethics set the standard for how your business is conducted. They define the value system of how you operate in the marketplace and within your business. With legal scandals concerning insider trading and employee theft making the news, it is no wonder that businesses are increasingly giving attention to the ethical basis of their business and how to lead in an ethical way. While the examples above seem to be clear-cut breaches of ethics, many ethical dilemmas that are not so clear-cut are faced on a daily basis in business. In fact, there may not even be a “right” or “wrong” answer to the dilemma, but how you deal with it will says much about you and your business.
These decisions are often referred to as being in the “gray” area. They are not black-or-white, but could be argued appropriately either way.
Importance of Business Ethics in your company
There are definite advantages to owning your own business when you want to establish an ethics policy. Basically ethics come from the top. Without setting an example at the top, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to convince your employees that they too should be ethical in their business dealings. A well-defined ethics policy along with an outline of related standards of conduct provides the framework for ethical, moral behavior within your company.
What is the benefit of developing such a policy, you may be wondering. The benefit is higher employee morale and commitment that in most cases leads to higher profits. But higher profits should not be your motivating factor in defining your ethics policy.
An ethics policy should look at the bigger picture of how we relate to society as a whole and what our responsibility is to the greater good. Of course, in these days of downsizing and increasing change, some may argue that these ideals are unrealistic. However, it is important to note that most of the opponents of good ethics are focusing on short-term versus long-term results.
Many organisations, which have participated in the downsizing mania, are beginning to realise that they have traded long-term employee morale and productivity for short-term profit margins.
The bottom line is “what goes around, comes around”. If you treat your employees with disrespect and distrust, chances are they will do the same toward you.
When you are developing your ethics policy, you must decide what it is you want your company to stand for, put it in writing and enforce it.
How to develop an ethics policy for your company
Consider 4 P’s before you draft the ethics policy for your company.
• Purpose
• Pride
• Patience
• Persistence
• Perspective
Implications of not following ethical policy for your company
To give a live example for this, Satyam scandal raises serious questions about the business ethics. Ramalingam Raju (Chairman, Satyam), being a MBA from Ohio and a course in the Harvard Business School, how it is that people with such elite education are involved in such unethical conduct?
Two things come to mind while answering this question.
• Unethical practices of auditing and accounting.
• Despite of having the above mentioned qualification, this didn’t help him in his transition from the mode of governance suitable for a Small Entrepreneur, which he was before starting satyam, to the kind needed to run a public limited company, where one deals with other people’s money.
As Edward Freeman, who suggested the stakeholder theory, says, “it’s not useful anymore to separate questions of business and questions of ethics.” An integrated way of thinking about business and ethics is via responsibility of action. That is, “businesses and executives are responsible for the effects of their action. They are responsible precisely to those groups and individuals that they can affect or be affected by...”
Importance of ethics for Small and Medium Enterprises
SMEs are characterized by informal understandings and shared expectations among the workforce of how business is done. Any values and ethical principles will usually be implicit rather than formally expressed through ethics policies, codes and programs that are familiar in large companies. The ethics of a small organization is typically influenced by the owner-manager or managing director. Through their very visible presence, their personal attitudes and behaviors will set the tone of the business and have the potential to signal to employees how seriously ethical behavior is to be taken in the organization. SMEs are not typically able to devote as many resources to building an ethical workplace culture as larger organizations.
Ethics in Milagrow
At Milagrow, our values are mainly based on 4 dimensions:
• Ethics- Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
• Trust- Believe in people
• Respect- For all stakeholders
• Commitment- Own everything we do
Rajeev Karwal, Founder, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions strongly believes that “values are something which have to be lived from day one. At Milagrow I have always made sure that we follow ethics and integrity with a 360 approach. You can't be corrupt on one day and then say that you will be ethical the other. We have not only lived a corruption free life ourselves but have made many clients who approached us change their unclean ways. We have never manipulated profits to save taxes or manipulated revenues or costs. We have also adopted sustainability as part of our ethical value system”. He firmly believes long-term success occur only if an organization constantly aligns to/shapes the consumer needs/expectation. In an ethical business the essential thrust is on social values. Business is conducted in consonance with broader social values and the stakeholders' long-term interests. This ranges from concepts of nation-building and trusteeship that are demonstrated in the business practices of the Tatas and Birlas, and new generation enterprises such as Infosys, Wipro, Dr. Reddy's and Ranbaxy, where less emphasis is on minimising negative impacts and more on maximising the positive spill-over effects of corporate development. Thus, it is the need of the hour that business houses become more careful and know their responsibilities towards the society as hurting the sentiments of the consumers can really be hard on their finances, profits, share prices and their mental peace.
References:
http://www.smallbusinessjourney.com
http://www.bitc.org.uk
http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/operating/leadership/ethics.html
http://www.goodcorporation.com
White paper from Institute of Business Ethics
At the Emerging Business Forum – Footwear Industry in Agra
-Contributed by Kanak Dutta
Zee Business along with Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions presents ‘Emerging Business Forum’- an exclusive 10 city initiative that aims to enable and empower SME clusters to achieve sustainable development and growth. A buoyant India today is witness to many successes of small and medium enterprise. Their role in terms of employment creation, upholding the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation has been crucial in fostering competitiveness in the Indian business and economy.
Beginning December 17th 2008 (Agra), this forum is in the format of panel discussion which would be continued across ten important cities which includes Agra, Ahmadabad, Delhi, Jaipur, Indore, Ludhiana, Merrut, Moradabad, Pune and Tirupur.
The forum was first initiated in Agra which is known for Taj Mahal world over and has an enormous leather industry. This city is catering to the huge demand of footwear in the country.
Zee Business along with Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions presents ‘Emerging Business Forum’- an exclusive 10 city initiative that aims to enable and empower SME clusters to achieve sustainable development and growth. A buoyant India today is witness to many successes of small and medium enterprise. Their role in terms of employment creation, upholding the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation has been crucial in fostering competitiveness in the Indian business and economy.
Beginning December 17th 2008 (Agra), this forum is in the format of panel discussion which would be continued across ten important cities which includes Agra, Ahmadabad, Delhi, Jaipur, Indore, Ludhiana, Merrut, Moradabad, Pune and Tirupur.
The forum was first initiated in Agra which is known for Taj Mahal world over and has an enormous leather industry. This city is catering to the huge demand of footwear in the country.
From Milagrow, Kavita Joshi(Knowledge Mentor) and myself were appointed to attend the forum. The main objective was to network with SMEs in Agra and spread the awareness about the Milagrow services among the entrepreneurs. We wanted to understand their problems and try to explore how we could contribute to solving them. A short questionnaire was prepared by me to investigate the hindrances companies have been facing with regards to the smooth running of their business (like taxation, export, economic recession, association benefits etc).
Attendees of this forum were mainly the manufacturers and exporters of leather in Agra who have already established their business but due to various obstacles, are not satisfied.
The panel members included Kavita Joshi- Knowledge Partner, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, Gurgaon, S N Ganguly- Director, Central Footwear Training Institute, Agra, Shiraz Ahmad Farooqui- Vice President Marketing, Indiamart.com, Noida, Sharad Sharma- General Manager(Network-2), State Bank of India, New Delhi, Capt A S Rana- President, Agra Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Chambers, Agra, Opinder Singh Chhatwal, President, President, Agra Shoe Manufacturers Association.
Kavita Joshi discussed about the overview of the footwear industry, problems faced by the footwear industry and recent initiatives taken by the government. She also discussed as to how Milagrow can play an important role in enabling and empowering SME clusters to achieve sustainable development and growth.
Agra Footwear cluster is a prime example of a rooted low-tech cluster with predominantly small producers. The cluster has predominantly small scale of operations & the industry thrives on footwear making artisans/skilled workforce available in plenty in the cluster, but suffers from acute shortage of managerial and supervisory staff with technical qualifications. Footwear in Agra is a very labour intensive industry and almost no mechanization exists.
Problems faced by the industry are similar to those faced by many small scale clusters.
• Chinese footwear
• Labour shortage
• Technology
• Current status of Information communication & technology
• Taxation issues
• Weak Dollars
• Spiralling input cost
Now the question arises as to how Milagrow can be of any support?
As “consultants” for Small and Medium Enterprises, Milagrow plays an important role in providing the right solutions (“not just ideas, execution also”). Our mission only clarifies that we partner with aspiring enterprises as a Venture Catalyst and build best-in-class managerial and organizational capabilities in them. There may be various measures by which we can help the SME Cluster in growing their business.
• Understanding the business and working along with the footwear companies as partners in their growth.
• Doing a comprehensive cluster research study on the loopholes present in the system and giving the remedial measures to overcome.
• Milagrow can also help by arranging the growth capital required by SMEs
• Help in screening for the best manpower for managerial and supervisory work with technical qualifications.
• Provide a cost effective and quality mailing solutions service.
Before signing off, I would like throw some light on the response which we got after the discussion was over. After Kavita gave a wonderful insight into the world of Milagrow, the audience (entrepreneurs) started approaching us even before the networking session could begin. These entrepreneurs had various questions to ask - for instance, how to market their product, expand their sales across territories etc. At one point of time, there was a queue waiting to be attended by Milagrow team. I am sure that Milagrow has the answers to all their doubts. This was just the beginning and we hope to make a significant impact on the cluster in the near future.
There were many entrepreneurs coming from different parts of business. Since Milagrow is in itself an SME, I was able to understand the passion and ambition of today's entrepreneurs. Through this initiative we were successful in reaching out to our target audiences. I felt as if our mission was accomplished. Thanks to Kavita Joshi and Milagrow for such a wonderful experience.
Attendees of this forum were mainly the manufacturers and exporters of leather in Agra who have already established their business but due to various obstacles, are not satisfied.
The panel members included Kavita Joshi- Knowledge Partner, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, Gurgaon, S N Ganguly- Director, Central Footwear Training Institute, Agra, Shiraz Ahmad Farooqui- Vice President Marketing, Indiamart.com, Noida, Sharad Sharma- General Manager(Network-2), State Bank of India, New Delhi, Capt A S Rana- President, Agra Footwear Manufacturers and Exporters Chambers, Agra, Opinder Singh Chhatwal, President, President, Agra Shoe Manufacturers Association.
Kavita Joshi discussed about the overview of the footwear industry, problems faced by the footwear industry and recent initiatives taken by the government. She also discussed as to how Milagrow can play an important role in enabling and empowering SME clusters to achieve sustainable development and growth.
Agra Footwear cluster is a prime example of a rooted low-tech cluster with predominantly small producers. The cluster has predominantly small scale of operations & the industry thrives on footwear making artisans/skilled workforce available in plenty in the cluster, but suffers from acute shortage of managerial and supervisory staff with technical qualifications. Footwear in Agra is a very labour intensive industry and almost no mechanization exists.
Problems faced by the industry are similar to those faced by many small scale clusters.
• Chinese footwear
• Labour shortage
• Technology
• Current status of Information communication & technology
• Taxation issues
• Weak Dollars
• Spiralling input cost
Now the question arises as to how Milagrow can be of any support?
As “consultants” for Small and Medium Enterprises, Milagrow plays an important role in providing the right solutions (“not just ideas, execution also”). Our mission only clarifies that we partner with aspiring enterprises as a Venture Catalyst and build best-in-class managerial and organizational capabilities in them. There may be various measures by which we can help the SME Cluster in growing their business.
• Understanding the business and working along with the footwear companies as partners in their growth.
• Doing a comprehensive cluster research study on the loopholes present in the system and giving the remedial measures to overcome.
• Milagrow can also help by arranging the growth capital required by SMEs
• Help in screening for the best manpower for managerial and supervisory work with technical qualifications.
• Provide a cost effective and quality mailing solutions service.
Before signing off, I would like throw some light on the response which we got after the discussion was over. After Kavita gave a wonderful insight into the world of Milagrow, the audience (entrepreneurs) started approaching us even before the networking session could begin. These entrepreneurs had various questions to ask - for instance, how to market their product, expand their sales across territories etc. At one point of time, there was a queue waiting to be attended by Milagrow team. I am sure that Milagrow has the answers to all their doubts. This was just the beginning and we hope to make a significant impact on the cluster in the near future.
There were many entrepreneurs coming from different parts of business. Since Milagrow is in itself an SME, I was able to understand the passion and ambition of today's entrepreneurs. Through this initiative we were successful in reaching out to our target audiences. I felt as if our mission was accomplished. Thanks to Kavita Joshi and Milagrow for such a wonderful experience.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Internal Maintenance Contracts - A Best Practice?
-Contributed by Sarath Srinivasan
Recently I visited the facilities of a 'service' retail outlet in a small town in Nagpur. The interesting aspect was that the owner of this enterprise had trained his employees to perform maintenance on the equipment. The innovation from his side was that he had done with by awarding maintenance contracts to individuals within his organisation. So if there were 4-5 machines to be maintained in a shop, each had a maintenance contract which was given to a person working at the shop. This person was then trained to perform the job. By providing a monetary incentive for maintenance in the form of a service contract he was able to ensure that his equipment was taken care of. This would also ensure that preventative maintenance is undertaken on a regular basis. Esepcially if the maintenance contract is on a fixed fee basis, it make so much more sense for the person to maintain the equipment and ensure no failures rather than spend inordinate amount of time trying to repair failed equipment under time pressures.
This approach stands out for two reasons. One it creates an entrepreneurial culture in the organisation - even for a task such as maintenance there is a monetary incentive that drives employees to upgrade skills and learn more about the tools they use on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps this can be backed up by reasearch but I think the productivity on his machines would have been far higher than any other shop. In fact anecdotal evidence points to the fact that the down time on his machines has been far lower since he implemented this scheme. The second reason this stands out is the reliance on performance based compensation. In most companies in India there is a much lower component of variable pay compared to fixed pay. This must change in the coming years and perhaps this small enterprise is showing the way for the future.
Compare this situation with a typical office setting - when the internet in office does not work or when a person's laptop does not work, often the immediate reaction of a number of people is to put their feet back, relax and let the IT person handle the job. This is a typical scenario played out in a number of offices around the world. Especially when it comes to work laptops etc, employees always feel that it is someone else's job to maintain the asset. I think in today's world employees must be expected to upgrade their skills to be able to perform basic trouble shooting and maintenance of their laptops. In case the internet is not working they should know how to fix it. It is not rocket science, it requires a bit of effort. Perhaps the right set of incentives or disinectives need to be provided to ensure that people maintain their own laptop/ desktop. In other words you Make the 'User' the 'Owner.'
Can this same principle be applied across industries? For every asset a single person who uses it the most also needs to know enough to be able to do its basic maintenance. My understanding is that in all such cases the productiviy of the asset in question will increase.
Recently I visited the facilities of a 'service' retail outlet in a small town in Nagpur. The interesting aspect was that the owner of this enterprise had trained his employees to perform maintenance on the equipment. The innovation from his side was that he had done with by awarding maintenance contracts to individuals within his organisation. So if there were 4-5 machines to be maintained in a shop, each had a maintenance contract which was given to a person working at the shop. This person was then trained to perform the job. By providing a monetary incentive for maintenance in the form of a service contract he was able to ensure that his equipment was taken care of. This would also ensure that preventative maintenance is undertaken on a regular basis. Esepcially if the maintenance contract is on a fixed fee basis, it make so much more sense for the person to maintain the equipment and ensure no failures rather than spend inordinate amount of time trying to repair failed equipment under time pressures.
This approach stands out for two reasons. One it creates an entrepreneurial culture in the organisation - even for a task such as maintenance there is a monetary incentive that drives employees to upgrade skills and learn more about the tools they use on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps this can be backed up by reasearch but I think the productivity on his machines would have been far higher than any other shop. In fact anecdotal evidence points to the fact that the down time on his machines has been far lower since he implemented this scheme. The second reason this stands out is the reliance on performance based compensation. In most companies in India there is a much lower component of variable pay compared to fixed pay. This must change in the coming years and perhaps this small enterprise is showing the way for the future.
Compare this situation with a typical office setting - when the internet in office does not work or when a person's laptop does not work, often the immediate reaction of a number of people is to put their feet back, relax and let the IT person handle the job. This is a typical scenario played out in a number of offices around the world. Especially when it comes to work laptops etc, employees always feel that it is someone else's job to maintain the asset. I think in today's world employees must be expected to upgrade their skills to be able to perform basic trouble shooting and maintenance of their laptops. In case the internet is not working they should know how to fix it. It is not rocket science, it requires a bit of effort. Perhaps the right set of incentives or disinectives need to be provided to ensure that people maintain their own laptop/ desktop. In other words you Make the 'User' the 'Owner.'
Can this same principle be applied across industries? For every asset a single person who uses it the most also needs to know enough to be able to do its basic maintenance. My understanding is that in all such cases the productiviy of the asset in question will increase.
World SME Conference Event Flow
-Contributed by Veera Mavalwala
Day 1 of the World SME Conference organized by Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions kicked off on 12 December 2008 with a simple ceremony of Release of Milagrow Study “State of India MSMEs 2008” by Dr Jagdish Sheth, Charles H Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, followed by an inaugural address by the Founder Director Mr Rajeev Karwal welcoming the august gathering of Speakers – from India and overseas - Government officials, media and a hall full of delegates from all over India. During the day other Milagrow Studies were released -“Government backed initiatives and the progress of MSMEs in India” and “Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Clusters in Hyderabad – How Women bettered Men”,
The Emcee then introduced the first Speaker of the Day, Mr Pravir Kumar, Jt Secretary, Ministry of MSME. He was bombarded with questions, which he tried to answer in a diplomatic way. He apprised the audience on the steps being taken by the Ministry to help the MSMEs in the country. The Media thronged him after his talk to get ‘bites’ for their TV and newspapers.
Mr V Vaidyanathan, Executive Director, ICICI Bank then gave a bank’s perspective of “Winning in difficult Times” – he explained how the bank functions in these difficult and “Rocking Times”. He too had to answer a lot of difficult questions which the media and audience wanted answers for.
With some humor the Emcee introduced the next Speaker of the morning, Mr Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, Director SMEs from WIPO Geneva, who gave his views on intellectual property and how this can be used as a sustainable competitive tool by the MSMEs.
This was followed by release of the Milagrow Study on “Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Clusters in Hyderabad – How Women bettered Men” by none other than Ms Sudha Pillai, Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Dr Rajnee Aggarwal, President, FIWE and Dr Liyan Zhang, Prof of Finance & Economics, Tianjin University of China. Ms Sudha Pillai then gave a very interesting talk on “Get Skilled or get Killed – Attracting, Acquiring, and Developing & Retaining Human Resource”. Her Presentation was an eye-opener and very exhilarating to see how over-whelmingly well the women in Hyderabad were faring over men.
After lunch the Emcee introduced the star Speaker of the Day – Mr Douglas Tatum, Founding Chairman of Tatum LLC of USA. His insight into “What to do when your Company is too big to be small, but too small to be big” was his own personal experience of running an organisation, taking smart decisions and financing the business, effectively. He explained how he started as a very small enterprise and has since grown into a multi-faceted company.
After this interesting Session we had the privilege of having amongst us the High Commissioners of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Trade Commissioner of the Pakistan High Commission – this Session was anchored by Mr Kamal Nath, Director & CMD of AIMA and the discussions centered around SAARC and SAFTA and the Opportunities for SMEs to collaborate and cater to the emerging domestic economies in this potential region. It was very clear that the objective of all the countries present was to promote their SMEs and all are striving very hard to develop the SME space.
This was followed by yet another interesting Panel discussion – this time we had Dr. Liyan Zhang, SME expert and Professor of Finance and Economics, Tianjin University, China, Mr. Vittorio Mecozzi, Director, Trade Commissioner, Italian Trade Commission, Kolkata, Mr. Windu Matoka, SME Director, Zambia Development Center, Mr. Phil Baldey, CEO, Baaldi & Baaldi, New Zealand and Mr.Giovanni R.van der Lugt, Counsellor, Economic & Commercial Affairs, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands discussing “Collaborate to Compete: Lessons from Developing and Developed Economies”; the Panel Moderator was Mr. Kirtan Patel, Managing Partner, Kumar Pathak, LLC from USA. Each one gave their point of view pertaining to their country and how they have gained success through learnings from developed countries and outlooks.
The last session of the day, and certainly the most thought-provoking was a discussion by two stalwarts of the Indian Industry, Mr. Ishan Raina, CEO, Out of Home Media (OOH) and Mr. Anurag Batra, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Exchange4Media. Both with a very similar thought process (and physical build!) discussed “Frugal Marketing during Recessionary Times”. The discussions centered on the importance of marketing tools during a recession period and how the right kind of branding and marketing can keep companies from going under.
With this the Day ended with Mr Rajeev Karwal giving an overview of the day’s proceedings and gave a glimpse of what was in store for the next day.
Day 2 began with the release of the Milagrow Study on “Sickness and Rehabilitation of MSMEs in India”, followed by a very stimulating Mentoring Workshop by Dr Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University on, where he apprised all the delegates, on how to avoid building a self destructive culture in a company and the blind spots which lead to the eventual destruction of a successful organisation. He explained the principles of keeping a company ‘alive’ and not getting complacent and avoid certain “Self Destructive Habits of Owner Driven and Small Companies” which are the downfall of most good running organisation. A very inspiring session indeed.
This was followed by another star speaker of the day - Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Power & Industries and Commerce – the delegates and media were awe-struck with his views on “Opportunities and challenges for Indian MSMEs in today’s globalized and open market economy.” A lot of questions were raised by delegates and media and Shri Jairam Ramesh did full justice to their curious minds as to the actions being initiated by Government in the SME space.
Another Panel comprising the IT fraternity was next on the agenda. We had IT gurus like Mr. Rajeev Mittal, Group Director, Small and Medium Enterprises, Microsoft India, Mr. Bikky Khosla, CEO, Trade India (Infocom Network Ltd.), Mr. Neeraj Athalye, Director, Solutions (Sales & Operations), SAP - Asia Pacific Japan, Mr. Jyotish Kumar Ghosh, President (SME), Times Internet Limited, Mr. Anish Tripathi, Partner, Markets & Strategic Services, Grant Thornton, Mr. Abhas Abhinav, Founder, Deeproot Linux and Panel Moderator, Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman of the CyberMedia Group, South Asia's first and largest specialty media. A heated discussion took place on "IT solutions for MSMEs: Lip Service or Real Solutions?” – lot of questions from the audience as a lot of SMEs seem to have IT problems and need very specific solutions.
After this yet another Panel discussion took place with Panel Chairperson, Mrs Ranjana Kumar, Vigilance Commissioner, CVC and former Chairperson NABARD, with Panelists, Mr. Sudhir Sethi, Founder & CMD, IDG Ventures, Mr. Vijay Chandok, Head, Small Enterprises Group, ICICI Bank and Mr. Jasjit Sawhney, CEO, Net4India. Mrs Ranjana Kumar made a Presentsation on "Sustaining growth in tight monetary markets" to kick off the discussion and the audience were happy with the conclusions and suggestions made.
Post lunch the group split into two – a Mentoring Session ensued on “Accelerating Growth with Acquisitions” Mr. C.N. Madhusudan, Chief Executive Officer, VectorSpan Inc. and Former President and Chief Operating Officer, NIIT (USA Operations) and another one on “Grooming India’s Readiness to Run the World”, by Dr. Rajiv Tandon, Ph.D. Founder and Chairman of Adayana, Inc, USA.
In the other group - Paper Presentations on “ Issues in SMEs” were made by Professors from Institutes; we had received 59 Papers out of which 7 were shortlisted and these were presented to be judged by Dr. BS Sahay, Director, Institute of Management Technology (Ghaziabad), Professor Liyan Zhang, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, China, Mr. Anurag Batra, Editor-In-Chief, Exchange4Media, Mr. Vinay Hegde, Knowledge Mentor, Milagrow, and Ms Shobha Ahuja, Senior Economist, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Winner and 2 Runner-up Awards were given during that afternoon session; all Professors were also awarded trophies.
The groups met once again to hear a very heartening talk on “Women Entrepreneurship and the support system in India” by Dr Rajnee Aggarwal, President, Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs. She spoke about how she was one of the first woman entrepreneur and how she had to struggle to make a place in this male dominated society.
A Panel discussion then took place on " Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Exports from MSME sector in India", the panelists being Mr. KT Chacko, Director, IIFT, Dr. K.Rangarajan, IIFT, Mr. Ajay Sahai, Director General, FIEO
Mr Rajeev Karwal, Founder Director, Milagrow, Mr. R. Seshadri, Director, Tilda Riceland Pvt. Ltd., Mr. AS Kumar, Super Steel flexible hose Ltd and Dr R.Bhola, Managing Director, Bholasons Enterprises.
The Valedictory address on “How India can become an innovation superpower and set benchmarks for the World” by Prof Anil Gupta, Hon. Value Ombudsman, Milagrow, Professor, IIM – Ahmedabad, was the breath-taker of the Conference and everyone thoroughly enjoyed this session which left a lasting impact on not only the delegates but also all the Speakers present.
The Conference ended but not before Mr Rajeev Karwal invited everyone for the next Milagrow World SME Conference 2010 – in January 2010 when the theme remains “Get Set Grow” and will also hold an Exhibition with the theme “Grass Roots to Global”. See you in January 2010!
Day 1 of the World SME Conference organized by Milagrow Business & Knowledge Solutions kicked off on 12 December 2008 with a simple ceremony of Release of Milagrow Study “State of India MSMEs 2008” by Dr Jagdish Sheth, Charles H Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University, followed by an inaugural address by the Founder Director Mr Rajeev Karwal welcoming the august gathering of Speakers – from India and overseas - Government officials, media and a hall full of delegates from all over India. During the day other Milagrow Studies were released -“Government backed initiatives and the progress of MSMEs in India” and “Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Clusters in Hyderabad – How Women bettered Men”,
The Emcee then introduced the first Speaker of the Day, Mr Pravir Kumar, Jt Secretary, Ministry of MSME. He was bombarded with questions, which he tried to answer in a diplomatic way. He apprised the audience on the steps being taken by the Ministry to help the MSMEs in the country. The Media thronged him after his talk to get ‘bites’ for their TV and newspapers.
Mr V Vaidyanathan, Executive Director, ICICI Bank then gave a bank’s perspective of “Winning in difficult Times” – he explained how the bank functions in these difficult and “Rocking Times”. He too had to answer a lot of difficult questions which the media and audience wanted answers for.
With some humor the Emcee introduced the next Speaker of the morning, Mr Guriqbal Singh Jaiya, Director SMEs from WIPO Geneva, who gave his views on intellectual property and how this can be used as a sustainable competitive tool by the MSMEs.
This was followed by release of the Milagrow Study on “Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Clusters in Hyderabad – How Women bettered Men” by none other than Ms Sudha Pillai, Secretary, Ministry of Labour & Employment, Dr Rajnee Aggarwal, President, FIWE and Dr Liyan Zhang, Prof of Finance & Economics, Tianjin University of China. Ms Sudha Pillai then gave a very interesting talk on “Get Skilled or get Killed – Attracting, Acquiring, and Developing & Retaining Human Resource”. Her Presentation was an eye-opener and very exhilarating to see how over-whelmingly well the women in Hyderabad were faring over men.
After lunch the Emcee introduced the star Speaker of the Day – Mr Douglas Tatum, Founding Chairman of Tatum LLC of USA. His insight into “What to do when your Company is too big to be small, but too small to be big” was his own personal experience of running an organisation, taking smart decisions and financing the business, effectively. He explained how he started as a very small enterprise and has since grown into a multi-faceted company.
After this interesting Session we had the privilege of having amongst us the High Commissioners of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Trade Commissioner of the Pakistan High Commission – this Session was anchored by Mr Kamal Nath, Director & CMD of AIMA and the discussions centered around SAARC and SAFTA and the Opportunities for SMEs to collaborate and cater to the emerging domestic economies in this potential region. It was very clear that the objective of all the countries present was to promote their SMEs and all are striving very hard to develop the SME space.
This was followed by yet another interesting Panel discussion – this time we had Dr. Liyan Zhang, SME expert and Professor of Finance and Economics, Tianjin University, China, Mr. Vittorio Mecozzi, Director, Trade Commissioner, Italian Trade Commission, Kolkata, Mr. Windu Matoka, SME Director, Zambia Development Center, Mr. Phil Baldey, CEO, Baaldi & Baaldi, New Zealand and Mr.Giovanni R.van der Lugt, Counsellor, Economic & Commercial Affairs, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands discussing “Collaborate to Compete: Lessons from Developing and Developed Economies”; the Panel Moderator was Mr. Kirtan Patel, Managing Partner, Kumar Pathak, LLC from USA. Each one gave their point of view pertaining to their country and how they have gained success through learnings from developed countries and outlooks.
The last session of the day, and certainly the most thought-provoking was a discussion by two stalwarts of the Indian Industry, Mr. Ishan Raina, CEO, Out of Home Media (OOH) and Mr. Anurag Batra, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Exchange4Media. Both with a very similar thought process (and physical build!) discussed “Frugal Marketing during Recessionary Times”. The discussions centered on the importance of marketing tools during a recession period and how the right kind of branding and marketing can keep companies from going under.
With this the Day ended with Mr Rajeev Karwal giving an overview of the day’s proceedings and gave a glimpse of what was in store for the next day.
Day 2 began with the release of the Milagrow Study on “Sickness and Rehabilitation of MSMEs in India”, followed by a very stimulating Mentoring Workshop by Dr Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University on, where he apprised all the delegates, on how to avoid building a self destructive culture in a company and the blind spots which lead to the eventual destruction of a successful organisation. He explained the principles of keeping a company ‘alive’ and not getting complacent and avoid certain “Self Destructive Habits of Owner Driven and Small Companies” which are the downfall of most good running organisation. A very inspiring session indeed.
This was followed by another star speaker of the day - Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Power & Industries and Commerce – the delegates and media were awe-struck with his views on “Opportunities and challenges for Indian MSMEs in today’s globalized and open market economy.” A lot of questions were raised by delegates and media and Shri Jairam Ramesh did full justice to their curious minds as to the actions being initiated by Government in the SME space.
Another Panel comprising the IT fraternity was next on the agenda. We had IT gurus like Mr. Rajeev Mittal, Group Director, Small and Medium Enterprises, Microsoft India, Mr. Bikky Khosla, CEO, Trade India (Infocom Network Ltd.), Mr. Neeraj Athalye, Director, Solutions (Sales & Operations), SAP - Asia Pacific Japan, Mr. Jyotish Kumar Ghosh, President (SME), Times Internet Limited, Mr. Anish Tripathi, Partner, Markets & Strategic Services, Grant Thornton, Mr. Abhas Abhinav, Founder, Deeproot Linux and Panel Moderator, Mr. Pradeep Gupta, Chairman of the CyberMedia Group, South Asia's first and largest specialty media. A heated discussion took place on "IT solutions for MSMEs: Lip Service or Real Solutions?” – lot of questions from the audience as a lot of SMEs seem to have IT problems and need very specific solutions.
After this yet another Panel discussion took place with Panel Chairperson, Mrs Ranjana Kumar, Vigilance Commissioner, CVC and former Chairperson NABARD, with Panelists, Mr. Sudhir Sethi, Founder & CMD, IDG Ventures, Mr. Vijay Chandok, Head, Small Enterprises Group, ICICI Bank and Mr. Jasjit Sawhney, CEO, Net4India. Mrs Ranjana Kumar made a Presentsation on "Sustaining growth in tight monetary markets" to kick off the discussion and the audience were happy with the conclusions and suggestions made.
Post lunch the group split into two – a Mentoring Session ensued on “Accelerating Growth with Acquisitions” Mr. C.N. Madhusudan, Chief Executive Officer, VectorSpan Inc. and Former President and Chief Operating Officer, NIIT (USA Operations) and another one on “Grooming India’s Readiness to Run the World”, by Dr. Rajiv Tandon, Ph.D. Founder and Chairman of Adayana, Inc, USA.
In the other group - Paper Presentations on “ Issues in SMEs” were made by Professors from Institutes; we had received 59 Papers out of which 7 were shortlisted and these were presented to be judged by Dr. BS Sahay, Director, Institute of Management Technology (Ghaziabad), Professor Liyan Zhang, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, China, Mr. Anurag Batra, Editor-In-Chief, Exchange4Media, Mr. Vinay Hegde, Knowledge Mentor, Milagrow, and Ms Shobha Ahuja, Senior Economist, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Winner and 2 Runner-up Awards were given during that afternoon session; all Professors were also awarded trophies.
The groups met once again to hear a very heartening talk on “Women Entrepreneurship and the support system in India” by Dr Rajnee Aggarwal, President, Federation of Indian Women Entrepreneurs. She spoke about how she was one of the first woman entrepreneur and how she had to struggle to make a place in this male dominated society.
A Panel discussion then took place on " Impact of Global Financial Crisis on Exports from MSME sector in India", the panelists being Mr. KT Chacko, Director, IIFT, Dr. K.Rangarajan, IIFT, Mr. Ajay Sahai, Director General, FIEO
Mr Rajeev Karwal, Founder Director, Milagrow, Mr. R. Seshadri, Director, Tilda Riceland Pvt. Ltd., Mr. AS Kumar, Super Steel flexible hose Ltd and Dr R.Bhola, Managing Director, Bholasons Enterprises.
The Valedictory address on “How India can become an innovation superpower and set benchmarks for the World” by Prof Anil Gupta, Hon. Value Ombudsman, Milagrow, Professor, IIM – Ahmedabad, was the breath-taker of the Conference and everyone thoroughly enjoyed this session which left a lasting impact on not only the delegates but also all the Speakers present.
The Conference ended but not before Mr Rajeev Karwal invited everyone for the next Milagrow World SME Conference 2010 – in January 2010 when the theme remains “Get Set Grow” and will also hold an Exhibition with the theme “Grass Roots to Global”. See you in January 2010!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Milagrow Values
-Contributed by Team Milagrow, Compiled by Sarath Srinivasan, Knowledge Guide
When the entire Milagrow team got together in July 08 to define the Vision of the company we also listed what we believed were the values and culture that bound us together.
Our Values
This blog is a compilation of the proverbs and quotations that we at Milagrow have shared with one another because those words reflected the values and culture that we believe in. I hope that this will be the first of many such blog posts and that this tradition continues for a long time at Milagrow.
Don't miss the beauty of the journey by focussing only on the destination
" If you are not a part of the Solution, You are part of the problem" - Peter Madden
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, head and hands" - Robert M. Pirsig
"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes." —The Buddha
"People may not always believe what you say, but they will believe what you do."
"Ships are safest in the harbor but they are not meant to be there. They have to sail long and hard and face stormy seas to reach the comfort of a desirable destination" - N.R Narayana Murthy
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, but two things stand like stone, kindness in another's trouble and courage in your own" -Princess Diana
"Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable." -Denis Waitley
"Within each of us is a hidden store of energy.Energy we can release to compete in the marathon of life.
Within each of us is a hidden store of courage.Courage to give us the strength to face any challenge.
Within each of us is a hidden store of determination.
Determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost".
-Roger Dawson
"Our thinking and our behavior are always in anticipation of a response. "— Deepak Chopra
"If someone feels that they had never made a mistake in theirlife, then it means they had never tried a new thing in their life…"- Albert Einstein
1) Life is not tough enough, that is why we complain
2) If you are responsible, you have the power
3) If someone tells you your dream follow it
4) Acceptance gives peace
5) True value of business is vision. Without that it is project management.
-Yossi Ghinsberg
When the entire Milagrow team got together in July 08 to define the Vision of the company we also listed what we believed were the values and culture that bound us together.
Our Values
- Ethics – Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
- Trust – Believe in People
- Respect – For all Stake Holders
- Commitment – Own everything we do
- Entrepreneurial thinking is a way of life
- Belief in Youth
- Equal Opportunities to all
- Thirst for Knowledge
- Respect and Recognition for Expertise
- Accessible, Straight forward,
- Collaborative approach
- Making things happen
- Passionate and Professional at the same time
This blog is a compilation of the proverbs and quotations that we at Milagrow have shared with one another because those words reflected the values and culture that we believe in. I hope that this will be the first of many such blog posts and that this tradition continues for a long time at Milagrow.
Don't miss the beauty of the journey by focussing only on the destination
" If you are not a part of the Solution, You are part of the problem" - Peter Madden
"The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart, head and hands" - Robert M. Pirsig
"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes." —The Buddha
"People may not always believe what you say, but they will believe what you do."
"Ships are safest in the harbor but they are not meant to be there. They have to sail long and hard and face stormy seas to reach the comfort of a desirable destination" - N.R Narayana Murthy
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, but two things stand like stone, kindness in another's trouble and courage in your own" -Princess Diana
"Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable." -Denis Waitley
"Within each of us is a hidden store of energy.Energy we can release to compete in the marathon of life.
Within each of us is a hidden store of courage.Courage to give us the strength to face any challenge.
Within each of us is a hidden store of determination.
Determination to keep us in the race when all seems lost".
-Roger Dawson
"Our thinking and our behavior are always in anticipation of a response. "— Deepak Chopra
"If someone feels that they had never made a mistake in theirlife, then it means they had never tried a new thing in their life…"- Albert Einstein
1) Life is not tough enough, that is why we complain
2) If you are responsible, you have the power
3) If someone tells you your dream follow it
4) Acceptance gives peace
5) True value of business is vision. Without that it is project management.
-Yossi Ghinsberg
The Journey from a Distributor to a Brand
Lessons learned from a distributor who ventured to launch his own brand....
- Contributed by Akash Kumar, Sales Buddy
Recently I was handling one of our clients (let us call it Ram Pvt. Ltd.) from the IT hardware industry. They were into IT networking products, under which they were mainly focused on IT networking cables i.e. CAT5E, CAT6, CAT6A LAN cables and Fiber networking cables. It was interesting to work with this client due to two reasons. First, Ram Pvt. Ltd was the only Indian company that had a presence in this specific product category. They were competing against MNCs who were having a stronghold all over the world. Second, they were changing their image from Trading Company (Distributors of MNCs brand) to a branded company with their own global brand.
While handling this client, I came across a number of new challenges which I feel that one can learn only through experience. Based on my learning, I am presenting those precautionary steps which a distributor firm must take before launching their own brand.
Image transformation of Trading Company to Branded Company should be Gradual Process. Even though Trading Company would be having sales staff, reach, supply chain, efficient working capital, it should not stop their entire trading operations suddenly and start selling only their own branded products. Typically the driver for the firm to launch their own brand is a higher margin. Although the distribution business will continue to offer lower margins the trading business will be crucial for the survival of the business.
Brand: Ram is well placed but one thing which one needs to remember is that until Ram decided to launch their own brand they were selling other’s brand (say ABC).Customers (with whom Ram is having good relations) are purchasing that ABC product and not Ram’s product. Ram is only a service provider for customers. If tomorrow, Ram will stop selling ABC brand and start his own brand; his customers will stop purchasing from him and will start purchasing from those, who will be appointed as a new distributor for that particular ABC brand. The question that arises here is why are customers so loyal to particular brands in Network Cabling Industry? Because, it is being used in critical applications and thus to protect the entire data and huge investment, companies prefer to go for those brands that are well established and have market acceptance in terms of huge past orders. In order to build a known brand in market, SMEs should not think that giving print ad or TV or Radio ad is the only solution. They should think of innovative solutions such as how to leverage maximum out of web 2.0. They can create differentiation by sending out newsletter to their prospective customers, putting online queries, using website optimizing techniques etc. Such techniques can especially be effective in sectors like the networking industry where close to 100% of the buyers would be internet users.
Working Capital: When Ram was in trading business, it used to get good credit from ABC Company. Therefore, Ram used to sell in market at 30 days of credit at the same time he used to get 30-45 days of credit from Branded (ABC) companies. Thus, Ram was using ABC’s money and generating profit from it. During this whole process, he was having almost Negative working capital. But when Ram started his own brand he had to procure goods on low credit periods and was forced to give long credit periods in the market to push distributors. Thus, Ram Pvt. Ltd. had come from Negative working capital to huge Positive Working Capital. Due to this its cash flow got affected.
Therefore, to protect your cash flow you need to go for gradual parallel process of increasing the share of the own brand business and at the same time reduce the inventory of the other brand’s goods.
Sales Team Transformation: In Ram Pvt. Ltd., the management was of the opinion that the functions of sales and marketing were one and the same. Creating and establishing a brand is a difficult thing to accomplish. Creating a logo does not mean that a brand has been created. Brands require proper launch in market. The Sales team needs to understand how the company is trying to present the brand in the market. In my case, I found that Ram just had good knowledge of product and began procuring the products and attempted to build a brand by putting a new logo on the products. This did not work partly because his sales team was not familiar with the brand, presentation of technical differentiation, Knowledge Up gradation etc.
This example brings out the importance of training your sales staff, so that they can take your brand in to market without any fear of any competition from giant competitors.
Market Selection and Entry Strategy: For any brand, there should be proper target market. When Ram Pvt. Ltd. launched their brand, they had a well established network with distributors. Although initially they managed to convince them to start selling Ram’s brand by giving a longer credit period and other distributor friendly policies, after a certain duration, Ram found that due to some other problems (mentioned above) his brand was not able to command any substantial market share. Thus, distributors stopped paying back to Ram. In this way, Ram’s working capital got increased and finally cash flow was affected badly. Therefore, when a company launches their own brand in the market it must be very focused about the segment to be targeted. There should be a clear entry strategy as well as an exit plan for future.
In conclusion, my suggestion to entire community of distributors, who are also integral parts of SME eco-system, is that everything is possible. There are a number of live cases around us which always reminds us that trading firms can also become branded companies. Samsung, which at some point of time was a trading company associated with some of the World’s renowned brands, is today’s global giant in Consumer Electronics.
- Contributed by Akash Kumar, Sales Buddy
Recently I was handling one of our clients (let us call it Ram Pvt. Ltd.) from the IT hardware industry. They were into IT networking products, under which they were mainly focused on IT networking cables i.e. CAT5E, CAT6, CAT6A LAN cables and Fiber networking cables. It was interesting to work with this client due to two reasons. First, Ram Pvt. Ltd was the only Indian company that had a presence in this specific product category. They were competing against MNCs who were having a stronghold all over the world. Second, they were changing their image from Trading Company (Distributors of MNCs brand) to a branded company with their own global brand.
While handling this client, I came across a number of new challenges which I feel that one can learn only through experience. Based on my learning, I am presenting those precautionary steps which a distributor firm must take before launching their own brand.
Image transformation of Trading Company to Branded Company should be Gradual Process. Even though Trading Company would be having sales staff, reach, supply chain, efficient working capital, it should not stop their entire trading operations suddenly and start selling only their own branded products. Typically the driver for the firm to launch their own brand is a higher margin. Although the distribution business will continue to offer lower margins the trading business will be crucial for the survival of the business.
Brand: Ram is well placed but one thing which one needs to remember is that until Ram decided to launch their own brand they were selling other’s brand (say ABC).Customers (with whom Ram is having good relations) are purchasing that ABC product and not Ram’s product. Ram is only a service provider for customers. If tomorrow, Ram will stop selling ABC brand and start his own brand; his customers will stop purchasing from him and will start purchasing from those, who will be appointed as a new distributor for that particular ABC brand. The question that arises here is why are customers so loyal to particular brands in Network Cabling Industry? Because, it is being used in critical applications and thus to protect the entire data and huge investment, companies prefer to go for those brands that are well established and have market acceptance in terms of huge past orders. In order to build a known brand in market, SMEs should not think that giving print ad or TV or Radio ad is the only solution. They should think of innovative solutions such as how to leverage maximum out of web 2.0. They can create differentiation by sending out newsletter to their prospective customers, putting online queries, using website optimizing techniques etc. Such techniques can especially be effective in sectors like the networking industry where close to 100% of the buyers would be internet users.
Working Capital: When Ram was in trading business, it used to get good credit from ABC Company. Therefore, Ram used to sell in market at 30 days of credit at the same time he used to get 30-45 days of credit from Branded (ABC) companies. Thus, Ram was using ABC’s money and generating profit from it. During this whole process, he was having almost Negative working capital. But when Ram started his own brand he had to procure goods on low credit periods and was forced to give long credit periods in the market to push distributors. Thus, Ram Pvt. Ltd. had come from Negative working capital to huge Positive Working Capital. Due to this its cash flow got affected.
Therefore, to protect your cash flow you need to go for gradual parallel process of increasing the share of the own brand business and at the same time reduce the inventory of the other brand’s goods.
Sales Team Transformation: In Ram Pvt. Ltd., the management was of the opinion that the functions of sales and marketing were one and the same. Creating and establishing a brand is a difficult thing to accomplish. Creating a logo does not mean that a brand has been created. Brands require proper launch in market. The Sales team needs to understand how the company is trying to present the brand in the market. In my case, I found that Ram just had good knowledge of product and began procuring the products and attempted to build a brand by putting a new logo on the products. This did not work partly because his sales team was not familiar with the brand, presentation of technical differentiation, Knowledge Up gradation etc.
This example brings out the importance of training your sales staff, so that they can take your brand in to market without any fear of any competition from giant competitors.
Market Selection and Entry Strategy: For any brand, there should be proper target market. When Ram Pvt. Ltd. launched their brand, they had a well established network with distributors. Although initially they managed to convince them to start selling Ram’s brand by giving a longer credit period and other distributor friendly policies, after a certain duration, Ram found that due to some other problems (mentioned above) his brand was not able to command any substantial market share. Thus, distributors stopped paying back to Ram. In this way, Ram’s working capital got increased and finally cash flow was affected badly. Therefore, when a company launches their own brand in the market it must be very focused about the segment to be targeted. There should be a clear entry strategy as well as an exit plan for future.
In conclusion, my suggestion to entire community of distributors, who are also integral parts of SME eco-system, is that everything is possible. There are a number of live cases around us which always reminds us that trading firms can also become branded companies. Samsung, which at some point of time was a trading company associated with some of the World’s renowned brands, is today’s global giant in Consumer Electronics.
World SME Conference 2008, A "first" in the truest sense of the word..
-Contributed by Tapan Bhatnagar
The Milagrow World SME Conference concluded successfully on the 13th of December 2008. The conference was a tremendous success, and I'm not shooting off the cuff here. The success of the conference is measurable in terms of the number of speakers, number of delegates, Press attendance, number of Partners, profitability, number of press ads etc.
The conference to an outsider would look like Mission Impossible part I - II - III combined, but here at Milagrow, as with any other projects, we are strivers. The conference was properly conceived and though we were on a road less travelled, we were sure of the positiveness of the outcome. The idea was conceived almost a year back with basically two ideas:
I. Bring Global MSMEs on a common platform to interact with each other as well as with industry captains and govt officials to interact and understand the challenges faced by the MSME ecosystem.
II. Take a leap as an authority in the MSME space in India
Based on these ideas, the development of the conference began. This started with creation of the compilation of the ideas and output we expected to achieve from the conference and what was our plan to achieve the same. Mind you, at this point in time, Milagrow was just a young organisation - less than 1 year old! But, the difference between Milagrow and any other organization is that we dream big and then strive to achieve that dream.
Once we created the compilation of the ideas, expected output and our plan for achieving this into our event abstract, came the next step of setting up our advisory board. The advisory board plays an important role in the success of any conference. The advisory board not only plays the role of being a mentor to the entire conference but at the same time from their experience and expertise and network open doors which were previously inaccessible and unreachable.
Once the backbone of the event was in place, came the setting up of the skeleton of the conference. A painful, step-by-step time consuming process. This included developing the proposed schedule for the event based on the event abstract, getting the comments of the advisory board on the proposed schedule and their recommended speakers for the same. This was followed by the arduous task of actually inviting the speakers and the Government officials. Before proceeding further, I must point out that at the beginning of the preparation of the conference we had decided that our event would be world class or we would not do it at all. Leading from here you can well imagine the level and seniority of the speakers we were looking at. Each and every speaker was a expert in their field and was either in meetings or travelling 300 days in a year!!
At the same time that speakers were being invited we parallely started the development of Government Linkages and partnerships for the event and also scouting for sponsors and partners for the event. All this parallel work was possible only because the event was conceptualized well and the plan was made in pain staking detail. In case of sponsorships we had already planned for the kind of paid sponsorships and the proposals for the same even as we were preparing the abstracts. Similarly all possible partnerships in kind and with associations were thought out and proposal for each created. Not only that, the team had brainstormed and selected the target organizations/associations for each of the proposed partnerships. This was the reason that even though we were a lean team we were still able to achieve much more than most of the organizations.
An important cost incurred in any marketing budget is the advertising budget. And considering the fact that we had to at all points in time keep our budgets in check this was a major factor of concern. Now if we consider that we placed ad couple of advertisements in the print media our expenses would have been 10 times and if we added television advertisements then - good bye profitability! This is where our carefully laid out plans worked and we made the most effective utilization of our database of 6.6 lakh users and also effective usage of digital marketing. This not only helped us achieve many more eye balls but also allowed us to leverage the print media effectively. Our planning in advance helped us tremendously, since we had built in the factors into our budget and also considered planning for partners in it. As a result, we were able to effectively target and get the correct partners to assist us in the marketing and promotion of the event.
We also decided that we will always over deliver to our partners and sponsors and even though based on previous experiences we were expecting some unpleasantness from the sponsors. Surprisingly since, as a matter of principle, provided so much more than they were expecting, we
had our sponsors praising the event long after the conclusion of the event.
There are many other aspects and insights into the conference which include the "special roles played by Apex industry bodies", the "Venue Story", the Government story, the story of the Advertisement timelines etc. The story of WSME are many and each more interesting and planning is already underway for the next World SME Conference, Get Set Grow, There will be more to share from this side in the near future, until then
Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there."
The Milagrow World SME Conference concluded successfully on the 13th of December 2008. The conference was a tremendous success, and I'm not shooting off the cuff here. The success of the conference is measurable in terms of the number of speakers, number of delegates, Press attendance, number of Partners, profitability, number of press ads etc.
The conference to an outsider would look like Mission Impossible part I - II - III combined, but here at Milagrow, as with any other projects, we are strivers. The conference was properly conceived and though we were on a road less travelled, we were sure of the positiveness of the outcome. The idea was conceived almost a year back with basically two ideas:
I. Bring Global MSMEs on a common platform to interact with each other as well as with industry captains and govt officials to interact and understand the challenges faced by the MSME ecosystem.
II. Take a leap as an authority in the MSME space in India
Based on these ideas, the development of the conference began. This started with creation of the compilation of the ideas and output we expected to achieve from the conference and what was our plan to achieve the same. Mind you, at this point in time, Milagrow was just a young organisation - less than 1 year old! But, the difference between Milagrow and any other organization is that we dream big and then strive to achieve that dream.
Once we created the compilation of the ideas, expected output and our plan for achieving this into our event abstract, came the next step of setting up our advisory board. The advisory board plays an important role in the success of any conference. The advisory board not only plays the role of being a mentor to the entire conference but at the same time from their experience and expertise and network open doors which were previously inaccessible and unreachable.
Once the backbone of the event was in place, came the setting up of the skeleton of the conference. A painful, step-by-step time consuming process. This included developing the proposed schedule for the event based on the event abstract, getting the comments of the advisory board on the proposed schedule and their recommended speakers for the same. This was followed by the arduous task of actually inviting the speakers and the Government officials. Before proceeding further, I must point out that at the beginning of the preparation of the conference we had decided that our event would be world class or we would not do it at all. Leading from here you can well imagine the level and seniority of the speakers we were looking at. Each and every speaker was a expert in their field and was either in meetings or travelling 300 days in a year!!
At the same time that speakers were being invited we parallely started the development of Government Linkages and partnerships for the event and also scouting for sponsors and partners for the event. All this parallel work was possible only because the event was conceptualized well and the plan was made in pain staking detail. In case of sponsorships we had already planned for the kind of paid sponsorships and the proposals for the same even as we were preparing the abstracts. Similarly all possible partnerships in kind and with associations were thought out and proposal for each created. Not only that, the team had brainstormed and selected the target organizations/associations for each of the proposed partnerships. This was the reason that even though we were a lean team we were still able to achieve much more than most of the organizations.
An important cost incurred in any marketing budget is the advertising budget. And considering the fact that we had to at all points in time keep our budgets in check this was a major factor of concern. Now if we consider that we placed ad couple of advertisements in the print media our expenses would have been 10 times and if we added television advertisements then - good bye profitability! This is where our carefully laid out plans worked and we made the most effective utilization of our database of 6.6 lakh users and also effective usage of digital marketing. This not only helped us achieve many more eye balls but also allowed us to leverage the print media effectively. Our planning in advance helped us tremendously, since we had built in the factors into our budget and also considered planning for partners in it. As a result, we were able to effectively target and get the correct partners to assist us in the marketing and promotion of the event.
We also decided that we will always over deliver to our partners and sponsors and even though based on previous experiences we were expecting some unpleasantness from the sponsors. Surprisingly since, as a matter of principle, provided so much more than they were expecting, we
had our sponsors praising the event long after the conclusion of the event.
There are many other aspects and insights into the conference which include the "special roles played by Apex industry bodies", the "Venue Story", the Government story, the story of the Advertisement timelines etc. The story of WSME are many and each more interesting and planning is already underway for the next World SME Conference, Get Set Grow, There will be more to share from this side in the near future, until then
Leaders establish the vision for the future and set the strategy for getting there; they cause change. They motivate and inspire others to go in the right direction and they, along with everyone else, sacrifice to get there."
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Delegates at the Conference
-Contributed by Charu Gupta, Knowledge Buddy
The 1st World SME Conference organized by Milagrow was a huge success and went off very well. I was a part of delegate registration team where we approached various Associations, Banks, Retail and IT Companies specifically dealing in SME sector who could participate as delegates and gain from the conference. The Mumbai blasts tragedy had just struck the whole country few days before the conference but that too didn't deterred us and also our participants and we saw massive participation from the industry and the event was attended by more than 250 delegates.
The task of delegate registration was started in the last week of October which was a little late but still we managed to get pretty good response. We tied up with various prominent associations and portals which helped us to create the buzz and seek active participation for our conference. The whole delegate registration process involved getting the delegates, making follow-up calls to prospective delegates, receiving the payments of confirmed ones and sending them invoice and an acknowledgment mail immediately, sending the reminders to those whose payments were due, sending final mail informing about the venue, timings and the final schedule to all the delegates and also meanwhile maintaining a complete excel sheet of the same.
On the day of the conference the delegates were received at the registration desk where we had prior segregated list for press, special guests, paid delegates and delegates from sponsors and partners. The names were cross checked and the delegates were handed over the delegate kit and the schedule of the conference. On the second day, the names were again cross-checked to avoid any chaos.
At the end of each day, we distributed a feedback form where delegates were askedto rate each session and give their suggestions which we compiled after the conference. Most of the sessions were rated "Good" and the delegates appreciated the well managed conference and its format. Attendees gained a lot of valuable insights on the issues faced by Small and Medium Enterprises and how they could make their businesses more competitive in the current scenario.
Active participation from SMEs as panelists where they can share their own experience, Awards to SMEs in various areas, Success stories of SMEs, Session focusing on exports from SMEs, Session on business development services for promotion of first generation entrepreneurship, Keeping more time for Q&A and networking, etc. were some of the suggestions which were given by the attendees.
On the operational part, we faced a little difficulty due to the absence of specific badges. We hadn't created specific badges for delegates, press and partners which created a little hassle. Also, I feel that if we would start a little early to register delegates, we would be able to generate much more participation from SMEs for our next World SME Conference 2009 and could make it a greater success.
The 1st World SME Conference organized by Milagrow was a huge success and went off very well. I was a part of delegate registration team where we approached various Associations, Banks, Retail and IT Companies specifically dealing in SME sector who could participate as delegates and gain from the conference. The Mumbai blasts tragedy had just struck the whole country few days before the conference but that too didn't deterred us and also our participants and we saw massive participation from the industry and the event was attended by more than 250 delegates.
The task of delegate registration was started in the last week of October which was a little late but still we managed to get pretty good response. We tied up with various prominent associations and portals which helped us to create the buzz and seek active participation for our conference. The whole delegate registration process involved getting the delegates, making follow-up calls to prospective delegates, receiving the payments of confirmed ones and sending them invoice and an acknowledgment mail immediately, sending the reminders to those whose payments were due, sending final mail informing about the venue, timings and the final schedule to all the delegates and also meanwhile maintaining a complete excel sheet of the same.
On the day of the conference the delegates were received at the registration desk where we had prior segregated list for press, special guests, paid delegates and delegates from sponsors and partners. The names were cross checked and the delegates were handed over the delegate kit and the schedule of the conference. On the second day, the names were again cross-checked to avoid any chaos.
At the end of each day, we distributed a feedback form where delegates were askedto rate each session and give their suggestions which we compiled after the conference. Most of the sessions were rated "Good" and the delegates appreciated the well managed conference and its format. Attendees gained a lot of valuable insights on the issues faced by Small and Medium Enterprises and how they could make their businesses more competitive in the current scenario.
Active participation from SMEs as panelists where they can share their own experience, Awards to SMEs in various areas, Success stories of SMEs, Session focusing on exports from SMEs, Session on business development services for promotion of first generation entrepreneurship, Keeping more time for Q&A and networking, etc. were some of the suggestions which were given by the attendees.
On the operational part, we faced a little difficulty due to the absence of specific badges. We hadn't created specific badges for delegates, press and partners which created a little hassle. Also, I feel that if we would start a little early to register delegates, we would be able to generate much more participation from SMEs for our next World SME Conference 2009 and could make it a greater success.
Learning Experience – “Call for Paper” @ World SME Conference 2008
Contributed by Neha Bhatia, Knowledge Assimilator
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. - Benjamin Spock
Hard work, sincerity and trust in ourselves sometimes make us achieve what we think we would never be able to do. This spirit was seen at first of its kind truly global “World SME Conference 2008”. Two of my most enriching experiences during this time were handling the deliverables with Industry associations and working on Paper presentations by best scholars of India at the “Call for Papers”. This experience taught me certain practices to follow in everyday routine like
Follow up is the key to execution
Deliver what you promise and thrive for what you deserve
It is the result in the end that matters, small achievements might not yield the final product. Try/Fight until you don’t succeed
The last point takes me back to how each reminder for a mailer to be sent out to the association would get us delegates. With each delegate confirming we would get energized to get more. But it was the end which made us satisfied when we saw packed conference hall.
Call for papers was in itself an inspiring task. Starting from marketing to get scholars to write papers, confirming the Jury Panel, accepting the abstracts, informing to each dignified scholar of acceptance or rejection of their abstracts, reminders for deadlines of submitting Papers, accepting papers, sending papers out to the Jury, awaiting their results and finally getting the best scholars on board for Paper Presentation on 13th December 2008.In between these we also faced some minor issues which taught us very meaningful lessons like changing of our Jury at the last moment. With all these I not only came in contact with such well researched papers and scholars but also got to explore new activities everyday.
I would like to give light on post conference comments by few of our Professors who submitted well researched papers
It was a pleasure attending the conference. Thank you for all the arrangements and hospitality. Prof. Subhash Kasturi ,e4e Business Solutions
You people were wonderful. Thanks for the hospitality. Looking forward to meet you again. Dr. Sheenu Jain IBS Goa
In the end, there were few next year suggestions for paper presentation that we should target 250 final papers from 1000 initial contributions and they should be majorly contributed by SME practitioners.
Well done Team Milagrow!
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. - Benjamin Spock
Hard work, sincerity and trust in ourselves sometimes make us achieve what we think we would never be able to do. This spirit was seen at first of its kind truly global “World SME Conference 2008”. Two of my most enriching experiences during this time were handling the deliverables with Industry associations and working on Paper presentations by best scholars of India at the “Call for Papers”. This experience taught me certain practices to follow in everyday routine like
Follow up is the key to execution
Deliver what you promise and thrive for what you deserve
It is the result in the end that matters, small achievements might not yield the final product. Try/Fight until you don’t succeed
The last point takes me back to how each reminder for a mailer to be sent out to the association would get us delegates. With each delegate confirming we would get energized to get more. But it was the end which made us satisfied when we saw packed conference hall.
Call for papers was in itself an inspiring task. Starting from marketing to get scholars to write papers, confirming the Jury Panel, accepting the abstracts, informing to each dignified scholar of acceptance or rejection of their abstracts, reminders for deadlines of submitting Papers, accepting papers, sending papers out to the Jury, awaiting their results and finally getting the best scholars on board for Paper Presentation on 13th December 2008.In between these we also faced some minor issues which taught us very meaningful lessons like changing of our Jury at the last moment. With all these I not only came in contact with such well researched papers and scholars but also got to explore new activities everyday.
I would like to give light on post conference comments by few of our Professors who submitted well researched papers
It was a pleasure attending the conference. Thank you for all the arrangements and hospitality. Prof. Subhash Kasturi ,e4e Business Solutions
You people were wonderful. Thanks for the hospitality. Looking forward to meet you again. Dr. Sheenu Jain IBS Goa
In the end, there were few next year suggestions for paper presentation that we should target 250 final papers from 1000 initial contributions and they should be majorly contributed by SME practitioners.
Well done Team Milagrow!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Milagrow - Venture Catalyst to Private Equity
-By Sarath Srinivasan
There have been quite a few SME focussed private equity funds that have set up shop in India in the last few years. This trend has been driven by the significant demand for growth capital in the SME sector which has been growing at a rapid rate during the sustained economic growth period of the last few years. The private equity investors, besides providing the growth capital, help their portfolio companies grow by providing strategic insights and instilling corporate governance standards. But in the SME sector, lack of management capital is a significant barrier to growth. Management skills, critical to the success of an enterprise, are in short supply and this problem is even more acute in the SME sector. Many private equity investments are in owner driven companies which need to make the transition to a professionally managed enterprise. For the owner of such companies, the transition is fraught with risks due to the possibility of high attrition rates. An SME owner might hire professionals into senior management positions in his firm but in case the new hire leaves within a short span of time it leaves the owner in a worse situation than he was previously in.
While private equity investors would have the management skills essential to the success of the companies that they have invested in, providing management support to the portfolio companies is not high on the priority list of things-to-do. The typically small PE firms, remain focussed on increasing the number of investments that they make. They are in no position to provide the intensive management hand-holding that SMEs require. SME managers learn best when they are taught with a hands-on approach. They learn best in the context of environments in which they are comfortable – this means learning on the job. This is where the venture catalyst approach works. With one of our clients we were able to clearly understand the market scenario was vastly different from how the client had imagined it to be. But it was hard task to communicate our ideas and build consensus within the client organisation. It was only when we made joint visits with sales team members to some of their stores that we could convince them that we were right. The client was not convinced about our suggestions and insights until he learned it in the context of a store visit.
With the venture catalyst approach we can make a real difference to the portfolio companies of private equity firms. The companies could need management support in either scale-up stage, operational excellence setting. In certain cases it could even be a turn-around for investments that have gone bad. A key question to be answered here is the mode of operation of the venture catalyst in such firms. In companies where the PE owns a minority stake they can only suggest and recommend the services of the venture catalyst whereas in case of a majority stake they can make the decision to bring in external support. Once the decision is made a process has to be put in place to follow through on the strategic initiatives that the company requires. This is taken care of by constitution of a Decision Management Board (DMB). The improvement initiatives/ projects that need to be launched in any company will have to report to a Decision Management Board that includes a senior member each from the PE firm, Milagrow and a representative of the promoter. The DMB will set the strategic agenda for the company. Project teams are formed with team leaders from within the client organization. The teams will report to the DMB during review meetings. Knowledge Guides from Milagrow become team members in these initiatives and drive the change by adopting a hand-holding approach with the SME managers.
The benefit of the approach is that it allows the PE firm to focus on what they are good at and allows them to ensure that the strategy is having an on-the-ground impact on the organization. The cultural transition that the promoter-centric organization has to go through is facilitated by this arrangement. The ability of the organization to deliver on the expectations of the DMB are enhanced allowing the PE investors to feel much more in control and yet not be involved on a day-to day basis. The management capital acts as a second pillar to support to the financial capital provided by the PE firm.
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