Thursday, July 31, 2008

Great words of Bharathiar......

"Anna Sathiram Aayiram Naatal, Aalayam Padhinaayiram Naatal,
Andam yaavilum Punniyam Kodi
Aangor Yaezhaikku Yezhutharivithal"

Consulting Books and Movies

List of favorite books on consulting :

Thinkertoys (Michalko)
Million Dollar Consulting (Weiss)
Leading Change (Kotter)
The Mckinsey Mind (Rasiel)
Shenson on Consulting (Shenson)
The Knowledge Society (Drucker)
The Trusted Advisor (Maister)
The Consultant's Calling (Bellman)
The Achievers (Bell)
How to Become a Successful Consultant in Your Own Field (Bermont)
How to build a successful consulting practice (Phillips)
The Emyth Revisited: Why Small Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About It (Gerber)
Managing the Professional Services Firm (Maister)


Million Dollar Consulting got the most mentions as the complete book consultants use both to start their practice as well as to serve as an ongoing reference book.


How about using some classic movies as the basis of discussion? Some movies have rich characters, plot and storylines that would make for fertile discussion among members of a management team. Here are a few:

Twelve Angry Men (1957) is a story of a jury deciding an apparent open and shut murder case. The character development and evolving story line reflects common interactions in management team negotiations.

The Caine Mutiny (1954) addresses weakness of command, ethical dilemmas, communication between ranks, and executive decisionmaking. And you though running a company was easy?

The Godfather (1972) is all about what is business and what is personal, transfer of control, and about the impact of traditions on operation of an enterprise.

12 O'Clock High (1949) is a look into leadership, betrayal, morale, discipline, and perseverance under duress. Strip away the war setting and you will find many elements of how teams behave under stressful settings and how they cope.

The Office - Not a movie but a weekly TV show with fertile representation of all too familiar personalities in many business settings. A smorgasbord of how not to manage.

Have managers watch these movies for discussion and comparison to their current individual and group behavior. Better yet, have the team watch them together on your next management retreat and discuss merits of the characters and team behavior.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Indian Prof at KSM and HBS

Ranjay Gulati is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Business School and the Michael L. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He is an expert on strategic and organizational issues in firms. His work has focused on intra and inter-firm partnerships with a focus on the patterns of network of ties that emerge over time. He has looked at a number of issues surrounding interfirm alliances including who has ties with whom, governance of those exchange relationships, and determinants of performance. His most recent book is Managing Network Resources: Alliances, Affiliations, and other Relational Assets. He is the past-President of the Business Policy and Strategy Division at the Academy of Management and has served as an advisor to start-ups and major corporations. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard Business School, a masters degree in Management from M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, and two bachelor's degrees, in Computer Science and Economics, from Washington State University and St. Stephens College, New Delhi, respectively. He has been a Harvard MacArthur Fellow and a Sloan Foundation Fellow.

Consulting
Ranjay Gulati is a recognized specialist on strategic and organizational issues in firms and has also done significant work on the creation and management of intra and inter-firm partnerships, including strategic alliances and mergers. He has also focused on issues related to achieving short term and long term organic growth as well as through mergers, acquisitions, and alliances. Most recently, he has worked with a number of firms on transitioning from product to market/solution centric models. He has consulted with wide array of firms on these topics on both short and long term assignments.

Executive Lectures
Ranjay has received several awards for his outstanding teaching. In 1998-1999 he received the Chairs' Core Teaching Award at the Kellogg School of Management and in 2003 was elected the Professor of the year by the executive MBA students in the Kellogg-HKUST program. Through executive seminars and open lectures, Ranjay creates a forum for the development and implementation of business strategies for the challenging market conditions we face today. Each lecture is customized to fit the audience and their circumstances. Some of the topics that Ranjay regularly lectures on include:

Building Market Driven Organizations

Spurred by visions of the future and haunted by intense competition, companies are rushing to realize the goal of creating a customer-focused organization. Despite the increasing need for a customer-focused strategy in a competitive business environment there are few paradigms of how companies can change their strategy and organization to become customer focused. This session presents a roadmap of the stages through which companies evolve as they embark on this journey towards greater market focus. Through a series of cases about firms in a range of industries that have successfully embarked on some of these changes, we will develop a comprehensive blueprint for the market driven organization. Topics will include:

• What is a market driven strategy?
• Is a market driven strategy right for you?
• Obstacles to formulating and implementing a market driven strategy
• The road to building a market driven organization

From Products to Solutions: When, Why, and How?

A new mantra for many organizations today is to become a solution-centered organization. For some firms it is about enhancing the service content associated with their products and for others it is about extending their reach from selling products to selling experiences. While there is much talk of moving away from the old product-centric form to a new solution-centric organization, there is limited understanding of what this precisely means and how to go about it. In this session w will discuss the multiple facets of effective solutions. Using several recent case studies, we will examine some of the key enablers that allow firms to architect, sell, and implement solutions. Topics will include:

• What is a solution?
• Key facets of an effective solution
• Pricing and selling solutions
• Building solution driven organizations

Relational Capital: Managing Relationships as Resources

Firms are now operating in an ever more interconnected world of business in which they have to connect with other organizations up and down the value chain. However, most firms have yet to measure and manage these key strategic relationships. This session will present the concept of “relational capital” – the idea that firms need to think of their relationships as key assets that must be managed effectively. The session will discuss how to manage relationships with customers, suppliers, alliance partners and across internal business units for competitive advantage. Topics will include:

• The imperatives of relationships
• Redefining external relationships: alliances, suppliers, and customers
• Transforming internal relationships: cross business unit, mergers and acquisitions
• Building interpersonal connections: enhancing trust and creating win-win partnerships

Increasing the odds: Building Strategic Alliances that Work!

Strategic partnerships have become central to success in the present economy, and yet there is evidence that more than half of them fail. By reviewing some of the best and worst practices, you will identify and discuss critical factors for the formation and management of successful alliances. Topics will include:

• The imperatives of forming alliances
• A classification of different types of alliances and the challenges with each form
• Why alliances fail?
• How to build alliances that work
• How to partner with competitors and win
• Creating trust in win-win alliances
• Managing a network of partnerships

Designing Next Generation Organizations

In the present context, firms are witnessing dramatic shifts in the competitive landscape with intensified competition and increasing commoditization of offerings. Consequently, firms are struggling with finding ways to organize themselves to be both product leaders while also getting closer to their customers. They must simultaneously be cost leaders while also being on the cutting edge of innovation. How do organizations deal with these seemingly competing sets of demands? In this session we consider some of the latest organizational strategies that industry leaders are pursuing. The topics discussed will include:

• The architecture of the new organization
• Linking your strategy with your organization
• Core business processes in the new organization
• The role of new leaders in these organizations

Leading and Managing Organizational Change

The vast majority of both major and minor change initiatives in enterprises fail. In this session we examine some of the typical pitfalls that firms face when they embark on change initiatives. We look at new models of successful change and consider both the role of leaders and also of followers in initiating and managing the successful transformation inside organizations. The topics discussed will include:

• How to define a change strategy inside your organization
• A roadmap for executing a change strategy that works
• Balancing top-down with bottom-up initiatives
• Key pitfalls in leading change efforts inside your organization

Strategic Thinking for Turbulent Markets

To achieve success in today’s volatile economy requires leveraging more than just traditional assets. Intangible assets in the form of customer relationship management, branding, organizational design and property rights have become important off balance sheet pillars of competitive advantage. In this session, we learn to think more creatively about leveraging your tangible and intangible assets as you develop strategies for building a sustainable competitive advantage. We will analyze companies in the present context, discuss case studies, and identify how and where you should make changes to the way you think about strategy and resource decisions. The topics discussed will include:

• Identify and explore the essential foundations for building competitive advantage
• Examine some of the newest organizational structures and strategies to continually modify those that work best in a dynamic environment
• Investigate how leading firms in a range of industries use creative strategies to build and sustain profitable market positions
• Cultivate an understanding of how to build competitive advantage through case studies

Transformational Leadership

What are some successful pathways to driving deep change within your organizations? This lecture will provide a comprehensive model for how to develop and guide change within organizations. It will also provide a detailed assessment of the attributes of successful leaders and some thoughts on how to develop such a leadership pipeline within your organization. The focus is not just on senior leadership but also on those in the middle. It will provide a personal leadership roadmap for those seeking to develop those skills in themselves. The topics discussed will include:

• Leadership as dynamic relationship between leading and following
• How to operate as a leader without much formal power
• Mobilizing and driving change from the middle
• Attributes and skill set of a real change leader

Executing on the Promise of Customer Focus

Companies looking to grow in commoditizing markets like to say that they offer customer solutions—products and services bundled into packages that are hard to copy and can command a premium price. But few companies can actually deliver on that promise. Most companies are organized into product-focused business units that allow them to develop deep knowledge and expertise, but that obscure a holistic picture of customers and their needs. Building on my recent research into the challenges of top- and bottom-line growth, I have found that creating customer solutions can be a powerful way to stimulate growth—but only if companies are able to transcend their organizational silos to marshal all of their resources, including new technologies, toward delivering customer-focused solutions. For marketers, making this shift will involve a rethinking of their roles, the development of new skills, and in some cases, and creative agreements with external partners to both keep costs in line and enhance the appeal of solutions.
Using case examples of b-2-b and b-2-c companies, this lecture vividly demonstrates how marketers can creatively develop higher value customer solutions. Topics discussed will include:

• Strategic dilemmas in commodity markets
• Rationale for the rise of customer solutions
• Market impediments to solutions as a key differentiator
• Internal siloes as roadblocks to customer centric solutions

Silo-busting: Transcending Barriers to Build High Growth Organizations

Those firms seeking to make customer centric solutions into something more than just a catchy corporate slogan, have to confront their internal siloes that are typically anchored around products or geography. They face the dilemma of whether to swap out their old siloes with new customer oriented ones or retain the old siloes but then seek out ways to transcend those existing siloes so that they operate in a more synchronous way. This lecture will not only elaborate on when firms should bust old siloes and when they should transcend them, but it will provide a detailed discussion of the tactics to manage such efforts. Managers will learn about to build internal bridges across siloes and gain insights into how to become those effective bridge builders. Some of the topics covered will include:

• When to bust and when to bridge existing siloes
• Strategies for connecting internal siloes to ensure synchronicity
• Individual strategies for managerial survival on the intersection of siloes
• How to become a bridge builder across siloes

Monday, July 28, 2008

Paths of Disparity ....



That way to the privilege of a school, this way to livelihood burdens. Two sets of children present a study in contrast on a Chennai thoroughfare. - Courtesy - The Hindu

Friday, July 18, 2008

Excerpt from AlwaysOn stanford summit ....

some good facts some bad facts is normal in new business ....

Innovation is change, making change happen, making breakthrough happen

Old business - things don't change ....

fundamental change in silicon valley

power of ideas powered by entrepreneurial energy and entrepreneurial passion

sometime the energy is distorted if its been done for monetary benefits ....

There is a lot of infrastructure available now ....... compared to past ...

Its much easier to fail and start now ....

mercenaries who are here just for money cause the distortion to the entrepreneurial energy ...

silicon valley is about ups and downs ..... the real important thing is that
"what is important? and whether the impact can be done to the world for a good cause ?"

innovation and entrepreneurship are the important social tools that can change the world .............

different people are driven by different motivations .... and different people are driven by different motivations at different stages of life

Entrepreneurship should be driven by passion and should NOT be just for money ..........

The above mentioned is an excerpt from AlwaysOn stanford summit by Vinodh Koshla

who runs Internet

WHO RUNS THE INTERNET?
Who controls this web, this cloud, this network of networks? Well, no one, really. The Internet seems to be both institutional and anti-institutional at the same time, massive and intimate, organized and chaotic. In a sense the Internet is an international cooperative endeavor, with its member networks kicking in money, hardware, maintenance, and technical expertise.

The U.S. government has had a big influence on the federally funded parts of the Internet. The National Science Foundation (NSF), as mentioned, initiated the NSFNET in the mid 1980s, a nationwide backbone in the United States that connected many mid-level networks, which in turn connected universities and other organizations.

Credit Risk ...

Crockford, Neil (1986).
An Introduction to Risk Management (2nd ed.).
Woodhead-Faulkner. 0-85941-332-2.

Charles, Tapiero (2004).
Risk and Financial Management: Mathematical and Computational Methods.
John Wiley & Son. ISBN 0-470-84908-8.

Lam, James (2003).
Enterprise Risk Management: From Incentives to Controls.
John Wiley. ISBN-13 978-0471430001.

van Deventer, Donald R., Kenji Imai and Mark Mesler (2004).
Advanced Financial Risk Management: Tools and Techniques for Integrated Credit Risk and Interest Rate Risk Management.
John Wiley. ISBN-13: 978-0470821268.

Bluhm, Christian, Ludger Overbeck, and Christoph Wagner (2002).
An Introduction to Credit Risk Modeling.
Chapman & Hall/CRC. ISBN 978-1584883265.

de Servigny, Arnaud and Olivier Renault (2004).
The Standard & Poor's Guide to Measuring and Managing Credit Risk.
McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0071417556.

Darrell Duffie and Kenneth J. Singleton (2003).
Credit Risk: Pricing, Measurement, and Management.
Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691090467.