Serendipity

Mittal Steel Fact Book

Posted by in Index, Management, Management

I was searching for some information on the Steel Industry and came across this interesting fact book published by Mittal Steel on their history, organisation and the Steel Industry in general.

0

Never take the last penny from every deal

Posted by in Management

Here (PDF) is an interestnig story told by Vivek Paul, who quit Wipro last week from his time in Pepsi. He talks about how he won a great deal for Pepsi by selling a unit – worth nothing for USD 35 million and which soon led to the bankruptcy of the buyer. He learned the lesson never to take the last penny out of any deal. This is a lesson I learnt as well early on in my career in purchasing. Its in our interest to make sure that all…read more

1

Munjal’s great management lessons

Posted by in India/Kerala, Management

Hero group: Hero cylces, Hero Honda and so on has had a lasting impression on me – not least because I grew up partly in Ludhiana, the home of Hero group, but also I had the opportunity to meet some of the members of the Munjal family while there – the days that perhaps formed my mind to get into Management. I was still a school student then. I was reminded of those days when I read this article in Rediff.com about Brij Mohanlall Munjal the head of the Hero family….read more

1

A misleading obsession with share prices

Posted by in Management

I have been of the opinion that a total obsession with share price – and the associated view of maximisation of shareholder value is eroding the western economy faster than any other cause. One of the first lessons I learnt when I joined for my MBA was that good profits is a natural consequence of doing good business. But what we are seeing these days is everythign is being manipulated so as to achieve higher quarterly share prices.  A huge amount of research has gone into actually figuring out how…read more

6

Are you lucky?

Posted by in Life, Management

Sometime back I had written about a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. One of the characteristic the research for that book found is that most of the leaders of great companies tended to put luck as one of the key factors for their success. While at the control group – companies under similar circumstances which did not achieve the greatness though – the leaders were more characterised by preference to talk more about themselves and yes they too talked about luck – but this time bad luck….read more

2

Systematic innovation and thinking

Posted by in Management

I just laid my hands on an interesting book called Hands-on Systematic Innovation for Business and Management by Darrell Mann. This book is not yet available from Amazon. I came across the previous book written by Darrell Mann – Handson Systematic Innovation, which is a popular book among those who follow the concept of TRIZ for creative/innovation processes. One of my friends, an gas turbine design engineer with Alston, Anurag introduced me to the concept of TRIZ and I was looking around for some reading on this subject – but…read more

2

Learning from real life – presentation by CTO of Amazon.com at Bangalore India

Posted by in Management, Technology

I came across this rather long presentation by Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com that he made to Amazon India development centre last month (March 2005). First part of the presentation presents some interesting facts about Amazon’s activities and their products. Good general knowledge. But what I found even mroe interesting is the second part of his presentation, slides 27 onwards. He talks about organisational systems and how we can learn from various real life (read biological) systems. In summary he talks about questioning our assumptions, learning from real life, letting…read more

0

My ideal company!

Posted by in Management

What you will hear from me if I were a CEO today! (I am reading Who says elephants can’t dance by Lou Gerstner these days!) Dress Code It is advised that you come to work dressed according to your salary. If we see you wearing Prada shoes and carrying a Gucci bag, we assume you are doing well financially and therefore do not need a raise. If you dress poorly, you need to learn to manage your money better, so that you may buy nicer clothes, and therefore do not…read more

0

Are corporations psychopaths?

Posted by in Management

Just read this review of the book The Corporation at The Economic Times. While I find these books very thought provoking – they do ask some very pertinent questions – especially about the role of people like me who work and give life to these corporations – what I find to an extent irresponsible is the high moral ground these authors take. While it is true that the system is not perfect - and in fact has lots of imperfections – just accusing Corporations and thus people like me is not very helpful. I have read…read more

0