John Pierpont Morgan, legendary American banker, had it right. When you expect something to happen, he said, strangely enough, it does. Most people were resigned that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) would not cut the repo rate – the policy rate at which banks borrow from the RBI – and the central bank obliged.The rationale for the RBI’s staying put on its monetary policy stance was widely debated even before today’s mid-quarter policy review.. ‘Headline’ inflation – as measured by the wholesale price index (WPI) is declining, as is ‘core’ inflation (headline inflation minus that in food and fuel, which are quite volatile). But consumer price inflation isn’t, and stuck at about 9.5 per cent.The RBI’s policy statement points to external factors and the current account deficit as big drivers of the policy stance of not cutting rates; because of the trade imbalance, the rupee has depreciated by nearly 7 per cent in the last three weeks. With a depreciated currency and a persistent and high trade deficit, imported inflation becomes a threat.The other guidepost for the central bank — inflation being the first — is growth, and while that is a big concern, it’s still 5 per cent (well below the potential 8 per cent it could be). Blame part of the problem on the slow process of monetary policy transmission: in other words, past rate cuts have not been passed through to industry, which the RBI admits to being worried about.Read Also: Rupee Falls After RBI Keeps Rates On HoldAs the RBI’s policy statement also points out, global growth hasn’t been great either: the US recovery has been slower than anticipated, so American demand for our goods and services, which drives our growth in both sentiment and fact, will slow. Europe is still very focused inward, so expect o help from that quarter.But If the value of the rupee is going to become the principal factor in not cutting interest rates, then we may be in for more trouble than we think. Here’s why.The US Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC), the US monetary policy-making body meets tomorrow and Wednesday (18 and 19 June), and three questions dominate financial markets debate on the outcome of the meeting: will quantitative easing, or QE3 taper off, as US Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke suggested before the US Congress? When will the tapering off begin? By how much?Currently, the US Fed’s bond buying programme (the form of QE used) is about $85 billion a month; that keeps the economy growing at about 2.5 per cent, though unemployment at 7.6 per cent against a target of 6.5 per cent, has been much slower to achieve. The good news: inflation in the US is at less that 2 per cent. The fiscal side cannot spend because of the sequester, or automatic spending cuts that came into play because the Congress and President Obama couldn’t reach agreement on the federal budget.Similar as it is to the Indian situation — low or falling inflation, combined with lower than expected growth — the US today looks very like the US in 1994, when a face-off between then President Bill Clinton and a Republican Party dominated Congress shut down the Federal government: again, the fight was over budget cuts and fiscal discipline.But in February 1994, fearing the return of inflation, Alan Greenspan’s Fed suddenly began to raise interest rates – the Fed funds rate, much like our repo rate – for the first time in 5 years; it went on to raise the Fed funds rate over and over for 10 months, a thereto unprecedented increase of 2.5 per cent.US analysts have been comparing the two periods, and wondering if the same thing could happen (along with or instead of a tapering off). The net effect would strengthen the dollar against other currencies, and depreciate the rupee even further: some extremist views put it at between Rs 65-70 to the dollar, should that happen.Back within our own shores, businessmen are suggesting that no rate cut is the equivalent of a rate hike when currency depreciation is included in the calculus. Granted, the RBI has little choice but to stick to the status quo. But as Bob Iger, chairman of The Walt Disney Company once said, “the riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo”.srikanth(dot)srinivas(at)abp(dot)insrikanthsrinivas66(at)gmail(dot)com(at)shrisrinivas
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When US President Barack Obama met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a private California estate for a chat in shirt sleeves, a heart-to-heart chat on cyber espionage was definitely on the agenda.He was to tell Xi that the Americans were extremely unhappy with Chinese antics after it was allegedly found that Beijing was involved in cyber-attacks on key U.S. institutions.Obama probably had an upper hand in the discussions until a certain Edward Snowden decided to play hooky and give the winning card to the Chinese. When Snowden went public with information that the American administration was merrily spying on the world after pressing various large Internet companies to share information, Obama and his team lost the plot to the Chinese.What made matters worse was that Snowden leaked the information in Hong Kong, giving the Chinese government ample ammunition to fire cyber missiles back at the Americans. Now, a gleeful Chinese state media is at work – enthusiastically blaming the Americans for being a rogue state that peeps into emails and conversations of individuals across the world, without their permission of course.Companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!, Facebook and Apple are being asked seriously embarrassing questions. Did you play along with the US government? Did you know this was happening? Shouldn’t you have told users? Isn’t the Internet supposed to be secure and closed?Errr… the truth is that these companies had as much choice to say a big fat no to the American government, as they had to not come under pressure from the Chinese who also tap their citizens’ Internet chatter. In reality, both governments are as culpable to the charges of spying and poking their nose into private lives of people. The difference is that while the Americans do it in the name of protecting themselves and their democratic institutions, the Chinese are a bit more blasé about it: they do it because they are scared of a revolt against the Communist Party.While there are institutions in the United States that could potentially take the government to task, in China, the game is slightly different. There is nobody to question the Chinese government within China. And that’s a problem because while the Americans now can’t question China, American citizens and China and just about everybody else across the world can definitely question the U.S administration.A full-throttle media onslaught by the Chinese has already begun. The Chinese are accusing the Americans of hypocrisy, and probably rightly so because while Obama wagged his finger at Xi, U.S. agencies were up to little good. The China Daily quoted a researcher as saying that while “Washington has been accusing Beijing of cyber espionage, the biggest threat to the individual freedom and privacy in the U.S. is the unbridled power of the government.”A country that hates whistleblowers is now happily batting for one because it is in it interest. China is now playing the victim, as it prepares to negotiate with the Americans the return of Snowden who is in hiding. Americans won’t stop their programme, as it will always find political support in a country permanently scared and scarred by the 9/11 attacks.That leaves individuals like us who carelessly and many times a day open ourselves to others on the Internet, without for once realizing that every time we do it somebody, somewhere is watching us. It’s a spooky feeling, if you ask me, but what’s the way out? We are prisoners of our digital environment and we aren’t going back to communicating with each other as we did some years ago when the Internet was a beast available to scientists to ponder over.Tai Ming Cheung, director of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, recently wrote in that the Chinese and U.S. approaches to surveillance and how each of their security apparatuses goes about organizing and carrying out such activities were fundamentally different. “It might be useful to label them into two distinct models: the U.S. approach can be described as the democratic security state model and the Chinese version is the authoritarian surveillance state model.”That could be one of the explanation of where things stand, but the big issue for individuals is that at the end of the day the two governments are doing the same thing though apparently for different reasons, which are open to interpretation in any case. One man’s freedom fighter can always be another man’s terrorist and vice versa. The choice is between the devil and deep sea and a glass half full or half empty.Just because the devil inhabits the “democratic world” and is subject to media, judicial and legal checks doesn’t make it any better than the “authoritarian surveillance state model.” However, it is not about a cyber-war between the United States and China.It is, eventually, about state power and its use. It is about how much a state trusts its people. And governments, by nature suspicious, don’t trust their people – not in the United States, not in China, not in Russia and not in India. There is very little that can be done to stop governments from intruding into people’s private affairs and cyber-espionage because governments can make and change laws to suit their intent and plans.So, the next time when you type an email or post a photograph or a video online, just remember that somebody somewhere is watching it or reading it. It could possibly be for your larger safety or because you are considered a threat. You might never know which.(The columnist, a former newspaper editor, is President, Public Affairs, Genesis Burson-Marsteller and co-founder of Public Affairs Forum of India. He has a keen interest in China and Southeast Asia. Views are personal)
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The $2-trillion global telecommunications industry that is currently focusing on rising data revenues could be in serious trouble if the plans of global search engine Google fructify.Google launched Project Loon — it’s most ambitious project ever — from close to the scenic, 87 square kilometre Lake Tekapo near Christchurch, New Zealand. Project Loon aims to make planet Earth a single giant wi-fi spot. To do that Google has launched a small network of solar powered, high altitude balloons that will float 12.5 miles initially above New Zealand — about twice the height that aircraft fly today, but well below the path of satellites.By installing a red-colored device on the rooftop, users will be able to be connected all the while. It is something on the lines of televisions direct to home (DTH) connectivity. But the big difference is that this time round, Google will be in a position to cover the entire globe all by itself. What it means is that people in the remotest parts of the world could get uninterrupted connectivity.But this is where the game changes. Since Google will be operating on the unlicensed spectrum, it need not bid for expensive spectrum like telecom service providers. Two it does not need to take permissions from national telecom regulators. It will be in a position to provide internet connectivity quickly across the world.This move by Google could well be the death knell for the global telecommunications industry. While it will hit service providers immediately, it could over time pose a huge challenge to submarine cable companies and telecom vendors that cater to the optic fibre, telecom towers and equipment industry.As thing stand, each balloon is expected to provide connectivity to an area about double the size of New York City. Since the balloons will be at a high altitude, it will be able to provide connectivity in rugged terrains where telecom operators have desisted from entering all along due to high capital expenditure issues.Google has not mentioned anything about the cost of the project. But, the global telecom industry does have some time to find a Plan B. After all, it will take quite a few years for the globe to be covered with the Google balloons. That time could be critical, or the telecommunications industry as we know it today may simply not exist.But will the world want to rely on one service provider? Seem unlikely.anupjayaram (at) gmail.com anup(dot)jayaram(at)abp9dot)in9at)anupjayaram
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Peptel's Chairman & CEO Suneet Thomas was reading the Q4 results of the company. For the second consecutive quarter, the company had posted losses. The performance in the previous two quarters had also been bleak. This was perhaps the worst year for Peptel, since the private telecom giant started its operations in the year 1983. Thomas was worried. The industry data was also lying on his desk and it did not have anything to raise his spirits either. The data clearly showed that the company had lost almost 1 million mobile customers in September. As he looked outside the window of his plush office on the 25th floor of the Peptel House located in the heart of the commercial capital of India, Mumbai, he wondered what went wrong. The competition had definitely increased, the political and policy scenario had changed but all this had been taken in stride by Peptel in the past as well. Then what was wrong? Why was the company posting losses? Why was it losing customers? Could the loss of customers be attributed to the number-portability policy brought by the government, whereby mobile consumers could change their operator without really changing their mobile-number .But then number portability has been there for quite some time now and Peptel's customer retention in the early days of number-portability had been quite impressive, compared to other operators. In fact last year, Peptel ended up gaining more customers than losing them to competition. Then, why this suddenly this exodus? Was there any correlation between the financial performance of the company and the erosion of the customer base? Thomas realised the need to go down to the root of the problem and fix it before it was too late. Thomas had called for a meeting of the entire top leadership at 3 p.m. later in the day. The Chief Marketing Officer Govind Natarajan, the Chief Financial Officer Ishaan Kapoor, the Chief Operating Officer Vinay Murthy and the Director — HR Meeta Guha had been summoned by Thomasfor the meeting.Early Days Of Peptel There was still time for the meeting but Thomas could not concentrate on anything else. He was restless and did not want to relax until he understood the real problem. He reminisced how he had started this company almost 30 years back. Suneet Thomas founded the Peptel Group. In 1983, Thomas was in an agreement with Germany's leading company to manufacture push-button telephone models for the Indian market. Thomas incorporated Peptel Telecom Limited (BTL), and his company became one of the first in the country to offer push-button telephones, establishing the basis of Peptel Enterprises. By the early 1990s, Suneet Thomas had also launched the fax machines and its first cordless telephones. In early nineties Thomas won a bid to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. Soon Thomas incorporated the cellular operations as Peptel Tele-Ventures and launched service. By the end of the decade Peptel had extended its service to almost entire the nation. In 2000, Peptel acquired control several small telecom companies. Peptel Enterprises went public soon after and the company was listed on the Stock Exchange. The cellular phone operations were rebranded under the single Peptel brand. In 2009, Peptel launched its first international mobile network. In 2010, Peptel made international acquisitions that made it the largest cellular service provider in in the country and the third largest in the world.Recently, Peptel announced that it had deployed Mobile Broadband Charging (MBC) solution and completely modernized its prepaid services for its subscribers in India. As a part of the deal, multi service MBC suite allows prepaid customers to have personalized profile based data charging plans. Prepaid customers will be able to customize their data plans across mobility, fixed line and broadband by cross bundling across multiple domains (2G, 3G, 4G/LTE & Wi-Fi). It will also offer flexible multi service charging in geographical redundant mode, making Peptel the first operator to implement geographical redundancy at such a large scale.The MeetingSuneet Thomas was very particular about time and everyone in the company was aware about his penchant for punctuality. Besides, the importance of this meeting had not been lost on anyone. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Govind Natarajan, the Chief Financial Officer(CFO) Vinay Kapoor, the Chief Operating Officer(COO) Vinay Murthy and the Director - HR MeetaGuha were all in the conference room good 10 minutes before 3 p.m. Suneet Thomas was widely respected in the industry as well within the company for his innovative business model. In the early days of mobile telephony in the country high tariff rates were a norm. This was largely due to high cost of setting-up of the network. A 'subscriber-led' model had been replicated from richer economies of the developed world that were the first to launch mobile phone services, Europe in particular. Since it was a new technology, the cost of setting up a network was high. In the 1990s, most mobile operators wanted well-heeled customers who would be willing to pay $1 a minute. However such a business model meant that while the cost of setting up the network remained high, very few subscribers signed up because the cost of making or receiving a call remained very high, almost eight rupees a minute. No one in the business was making any money. Suneet experimented with an outsourcing model. The model meant that all of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance were outsourced.Customer support, back-office services, voice-based services, tower infrastructure, software, hardware & IT operations needed for Peptel's operations, network, base stations & microwave transmissions, thought core to mobile telephony till that time, were outsourced by Peptel. The result was a sharp drop in call rates. Consumer base spread like raging fire in the woods and Peptel became a phenomenon. However, low call rates were not the only advantage of this business model. Network availability also improved drastically and anytime, anywhere availability became a reality. The move that had been criticized by the industry stalwarts at a time when Suneet was introducing it, proved to be the shot-in-the-arm of Peptel. Peptel became a household name. Suneet knew that in the future, network management, IT management etc. thought to be the core of mobile telephony would be default strength of any operator. However the leadership would be defined by market share and consumer base. Peptel focused on the same and became the undisputed market leader.The meeting started with usual pleasantries but the mood definitely was more sombre. Suneet Thomas, CEO: Dear Colleagues, I will not mince words. The Q4 results are no secret. We definitely cannot let it slip this way. We have had abad year. Is it just a bad year or there is something deeper in this? I am not sure. I am worried and am sure that all of you are as well.Vinay Murthy, COO: I share your sentiments. I also think there is a sense of urgency. And we have to put our act together. Suneet Thomas:: We need to get to the bottom of this mess and find out where the rot is…else we are doomed. More than the loss that we have posted, I am more worried, with the loss of customers. A million customers! Is this some kind of joke? We are a becoming a leaking bucket. How much time and money would be required to win over a million customers! Losing them happened much faster…and am sure it cannot be just portability factor.Vinay Murthy, COO: I hope I am not being perceived as being defensive. But according to the latest Telecom Regulatory Authority of India data the Teledensity - the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area, has dropped sharply. The teledensity stood at 72.9 per cent in February 2013.This was a 6.7 percentage point decline from a record high of 79.6 per cent just nine months ago in June 2012. The number has been falling steadily month on month. A sharp reduction in the number of mobile connections has been primarily responsible for the falling teledensity.Ishaan Kapoor CFO:: Yes, I have also read the report. Large-scale cancellation of telecom licences, following the apex Court's orders after the telecom scam, has resulted in some operators downing shutters in certain areas and others exiting the business altogether. It may be some time before customers, who were left in the lurch after service providers ceased operations, can sign up for a connection again. Since, in our case this does not apply, so how do you attribute the loss of customers to reduction in teledensity?Vinay Murthy:: But that's not all. Look at the industry report regarding the average revenue per user (ARPU), a measure of the revenue generated per user. As of December 2012, the average revenue per user (ARPU) amounted to just Rs 98 for GSM players and Rs 80 for CDMA service providers. This is a far cry from the peak of Rs 366 per GSM user and Rs 256 from CDMA user in March 2006. This indicates that in general the strategy of achieving higher volumes through lower tariffs may have gone a step too far. And like us, our competitors also keen to improve their profitability, have terminated pre-paid connections that were lying idle for long. Then, the monthly mobile phone usage by subscribers indicates that the number of minutes spent by the average user talking on GSM networks has fallen from 505 minutes in June 2008 to 359 minutes in December 2012. And please do not forget that we have increased their mobile tariffs too in the last four months.Suneet Thomas:: Ok, granted disconnection of idle connections, reduction in mobile usage by our subscribers and increase in tariffs would have resulted in loss of some customers. But can we attribute the loss of all 1 million customers to these? Mr.Kapoor, do you have any estimate by which we can qualify these million odd customers that we have lost?Ishaan Kapoor:: In fact, as I told you earlier I have also read the report and had done some research before coming to this meeting. The reasons cited by Mr. Murthy have definitely played a part in drop in number of customers, not only for us but for other operators as well. But in our case, adding-up all these factors, on a very safe estimate the total loss that can be attributed is not more than one-third. In other words, we still do not know why we lost two-third of this 1 million. break-page-breakSuneet Thomas: That's the point. We clearly have around 0.75 million defections that do not fall under any category stated by Mr. Murthy. I appreciate the analysis both by Mr. Murthy and Mr. Kapoor. But as I said before, my concerns are not misplaced. There is something more than that meets our eyes. We need to find out. What do you think Mr. Murthy?Vinay Murthy: You are right. There are other areas to be fixed. In my opinion, one of the best ways to know how we are doing is to ask our customers. I have gone through some customer feedbacks in the recent past, and I can tell you that most of them have not been very kind in their comments. In fact some of them are even alarming!Vinay handed over the customer feedbacks copies to all those present for the meeting.Suneet Thomas: Look at the first three comments from our customers. No one seems to be happy with our customer service, especially with our call centre response. [pointing-out to these three comments]Comment 1:"One of the worst services in the whole world, worst ever response from any mobile service providers.my friend who doesn't know Tamil had problems with communicating with the Peptel person. I called the concerned person and asked him about the status of the request. He replied me "I can't tell u all the time, don't call me now and disturb me, If u want to change our service please do". Already Peptel is suffering from Crisis; my free advice for Peptel would please remove these kinds of cheap employees and recruit better talent who would really serve the company. I am not using any harsh or bad words which any one in my situation will do. Let us see what action Peptel takes."Comment 2:"I am tired of this Peptel service, if I want to talk with customer care people, the phone will never connect and balance will be deducted. You will never get clear ideas of the plans & tariffs. I am paying 2p/1sec for local mobile. All the plans are too much costly compared to others. Please, please port your numbers and teach Peptel a lesson."Comment 3:"Facing the problem for last 90 days but not solved yet! Customer care representatives are so dumb and untrained that they are not able to understand my problem and hang-up! I have got the complaint registered more than 8 times and my problem has not yet been solved. MR PEPTEL GUYS YOU CHEAPSTERS AND LOOSERS MY COMPLAINT NO IS GP**3**08130*** "Govind Natarajan, CMO: But our frontline sales people and customer care executives are poorly trained and do not know on many occasions how to deal with customer, especially when the customer is unhappy with our plan or service. Our marketing team is doing its best and that is why we are in number one position.Suneet Thomas: Mr.Natarajan, I have never been unappreciative of the efforts of your team. In fact we strategically focused on sales and marketing and it continues to be our key focus. But I have a feeling you are being offended by the feedback of our customers. [Turning towards the Director - HR] Ms.Guha why is this training-gap with respect to our sales and customer care people?Meeta Guha, Director-HR: With due respect, I have always struggled to get participants for the training programs that my training team had organised. We have had training programs on technical aspect, product & plan aspects, sales training, and customer care training and even on soft skills. But getting participation is the biggest challenge. The sales and marketing managers are not ready to release their team-members to participate in the training program. It is only after several rounds of requesting that we manage to get some participants. What can we do?Govind Natarajan: That is because the training programs designed by your team are far from reality and do not cater to our needs. These training programs are of little use as they are highly theoretical. Practical training is a far cry. In fact we feel that our team-members get better trained by spending time with clients than in your training roomsMeeta Guha: You have never told me this before. In fact, we have always received very positive feedback from the few participants that we have got. Additionally no one from the sales & marketing team has ever cared to spend time with us to define the requirements! break-page-breakSuneet Thomas: Wait, wait! Let's not engage in mutual punching and finger-pointing. The idea is not fault-finding. Instead it is to collaboratively find out real problem and then work towards the solutions. In fact, your reactions themselves give me an inkling of a problem that may be systemic. Anyways, I will come to that later, please read the next two comments. It seems that we have been successful in annoying and turning-away first time customers. This is equally worrisome. Why is this happening Mr.Natarajan? Please do not get me wrong, when I ask this question particularly to you, but I need answers. Two new customers who came to us with expectations were exasperated and left us. This is bad publicity. Why couldn't we retain them?Comment 4:"It was my biggest mistake to go for the Peptel offer to port my aged old number to Peptel in the expectation of a better service, but to my utmost despair, today my very old number (nearly 9 years old) is disconnected permanently and is wasted now. First of all Peptel dealer offered a plan and when I opted for it and got my number ported, I found that Peptel has activated wrong plan on it having lesser benefits, and when I complained against it, they debarred my outgoing with reason that address could not be verified, However Peptel executive himself verified address and confirmed to me that address has been verified. When I further inquired about it then Peptel verification department girl told me that since I was not satisfied (as promised plan and offer was not given), so they sent negative address verification report. When I escalated the issue to Nodal officer, (YOU ALL WILL BE SHOCKED TO READ), Peptel permanently disconnected my number with same reason of address verification. Now my number is not active with either of operator, this is all because of Peptel and its poor services, Instead of taking action against dealer for making false promises, they are harassing consumers."Comment 5:"When I took a broadband connection from them a year ago there were 3 different people from three different sections of the company running after me to provide me the connection..... After 6 months there were some connectivity issues with their broadband. I complained three times, their technical personnel visited my place thrice but was unable to trace the problem all the three times and he got his job sheet signed by me telling me the problem will be solved within 24 hours and if I don't sign it he will be in trouble. I was exasperated. When I called them for disconnection of my line ironically I was told to visit their outlet to do so because according to them it cannot be done over phone! Why should I do that? They were running after me to take this connection and now that I do not feel satisfied with this connection they want to deflect me for further harassment! So I refused to do so ......since the last 5 months I am using another pre-paid dongle for internet. But the Peptel recovery team is constantly harassing me over phone. Why should I pay them when I am not using there broad band. Sadly, I am a witness of the downfall of my favourite brand and a victim of the same. I had 7 different Peptel connections in my family a few years ago as I am a fan of Mr.Suneet Thomas but now only 4 have survived, others have been replaced by ideas and bodafone. Let's see how long the remaining four survive!"Govind Natarajan: I think our sales and marketing people lack motivation. We have to relook at their compensation structures. The variable portion needs an rejig. We must reward performance more.MeetaGuha, Director-HR: We have a proposal on similar lines for consideration of the senior management and the board. We were about to table that in our meeting to prepare the strategic plan for the next financial year, to be held next month.Ishaan Kapoor: I do not refute the need to have a relook at the need for having a look at the variable component for the next fiscal. But I have a sneaky feeling that we need to redefine performance as well. Suneet Thomas, CEO: That's a bit of a puzzle Mr.Kapoor. Would you please clarify?Ishaan Kapoor: Right now, the compensation, especially the incentives, have been linked to targets achieved by the sales and marketing team in terms of new connections, more sales, more profits. But we have never linked compensation to customer retention or customer satisfaction scores. Somehow I feel we have led our people to believe that get as many new customers as possible. But what happens, once we get them? Who takes care of them? No one really cares about the latter part as there is no incentive in doing that. So the customers are more or less 'orphaned' once they are 'in'. Suneet Thomas: But aren't our sales and marketing fellows supposed to do that? I mean we have set no different expectations from them.Ishaan Kapoor: Yes they are, but such expectations do not reflect in performance metrics nor do they reflect in the way incentives are doled-out. I read this comment (Comment 6) on a social networking site and boy, it worries me![Shares comment 6 with other members attending the meeting]Comment 6:"Peptel management people are best blood suckers. Only positive thing they have on their side is having a good network, which just happened because they were the first network providers in many areas, due to which they have a good network. They really don't care about providing customer service to the public. If such service was provided in other developed countries their consumer court would have ordered the management people to be prosecuted."Suneet Thomas: Hmmm! Worries me as well. Pretty strong comment! What do you say Ms.Guha? Do you concur with Mr.Kapoor's remark and observation? break-page-breakMeeta Guha: I think it is a valid point. We need to work on that. In today's discussion everything seems to be converging on a HR problem. I have no problem with that and I am ready to take the ownership of the same as well. But before we rush to conclude that HR needs to be rejigged and everything else is hunky-dory, we must read this comment by a customer (comment 7). And you won't believe where I found this one— in a website that allows customers to freely share their bad experiences with a product, service or brand.[Shares comment 7 with other members attending the meeting]Comment 7:"My brother has anPeptelpostpaid connection for 5 years. Recently his Simcard was damaged. He called the call centre of Peptel. They told him to visit one of the Peptel offices in Bangalore with an address proof, ID proof and a photo. He did the same. Incidentally for the address proof he took a copy of his SBI passbook. When he reached the Peptel office near Raheja Arcade, Koramangala, he was asked to fill-in another application form, which he did. The form was submitted, and the lady at the post-paid counter was processing the request. Suddenly she said that she required the latest transaction details of the bank account which my brother had given as address proof. My brother asked why it was required. The lady simply threw the application form and said if he did not have it the request cannot be processed. My brother tried to reason, he was shown another person to speak to. This person repeated the same thing. My brother told him that it was incidental that he had brought the bank passbook photocopy as the address proof and this was never told to him by the Call Centre executive.In a busy city like Bangalore, to go back without getting the Sim and to have to come again next evening is almost unthinkable. Besides, my brother told him that they had the bank account number, his pan card copy (as ID proof), and they could simply verify with the bank if they had any doubt. To this the Peptel executive replied, why they should verify. (Then why the hell were they asking for transaction details). After some argument this executive led my brother to another person, who was supposedly the manager in that office. He was busy on phone and simply refused to listen. When my brother tried to reason with him, he said that he is busy on conference call. For a manager the conference call is more important than the customer? The manager was the rudest my brother had ever seen. My brother's contention was very logical:1. In first place, address proof and id proof are already verifiable documents. Then why should a mobile service provider ask for further documents.2. If further documents were required, why wasn't he told when he called the call center?3. Why no one in the Peptel office would could listen properly to the customer and solve his problem?In short Peptel office appeared like hostile camp. After lot of argument the manager softened and surprisingly he now gave the sim card to my brother. My brother was also asked to pay Rs. 25/- as duplicate sim charge, which he did. He asked my brother to submit transaction details of some other bank and send the same by email to him.Once back home, my brother sent him an email with a copy of the transaction details of another bank to the manager of the Peptel office Mr.Ganapati.Although his call service was activated, to his surprise he found that his sms service was barred. Next day he called the Peptel customer care (really?) number 121 to enquire about the same. He called several times and he was told different reasons every time but his sms service was not restored. Some of the reasons that Peptel's customer care told him were:1. 'Sir, document verification is being done that is why your sms service is barred ' (This is not a new connection. It is a 5 year old connection for God's sake! Why should verification require Peptel to bar the sms service?)2. 'Sir, due to some technical reasons, the sms service is barred' . (What technical reasons?)3. 'Sir, this is our process at Peptel, it will take 48 hours' time' (Is process more important or the customer? Process should be to help the customer not to harass a genuine loyal customer. And then what is the process, no one explains!)4. 'Sir, migration of passwords is going on your sim card and hence it will take time to restore your smsservice' . (This is false. Being a IT engineer, my brother knows that such migrations do not require any service to be held-up)And finally when my brother would give valid counter arguments to each of their excuses, they could simply say - 'Sir, I am from accounts, I cannot do anything' , or, ' Sir, I am helpless, this is the process, I cannot do anything' .If everyone at Peptel is so helpless, then who would help the customer?Peptel does not seem to be 'one-company'. It is broken into dysfunctional silos. Call Centre is one such silo, the Peptel offices in the city is another, the manager is another and perhaps the corporate office is another. In all this the customer is being taken for a ride."Meeta Guha:: I know that we cannot reach any conclusion based on one comment. But I picked this comment because of two reasons - one this looks more analytical and second it talks about something that we need to ponder, I feel. I request you to focus specially on the last paragraph of the comment. 'Peptel does not seem to be 'one-company...' There has to be internal collaboration and integration amongst various functions for the customer to get a unified experience. Collaboration is something we can really explore in our organization - both in terms of quantum and quality of collaboration currently in place. Suneet Thomas: I do want to believe that we have excellent collaboration in our organization between our various functional departments and teams. However, I do see a merit in Ms.Guha's suggestion in exploring the same. If you can recall at the beginning of the meeting, I had said that judging by your reactions, I almost have an inkling of the problem at hand. I feel fault finding is less when collaboration is a norm. Next month, we have a week dedicated to drawing the strategic plan for the next year. We have to fix everything before that. We cannot afford similar run for another year. I request all of you to prepare detailed presentation and report. However, I would particularly request Ms.Guha to draw-up a detailed HR plan and present it next month. Call it a transformation plan or a redesign, but I need the plan to produce results. I on my part assure you of all support and flexibility to change, if required. [meeting ends, members disperse]Suneet Thomas is staring at the framed Vision and Mission statements of the company —'We will enrich lives by putting the customer at the core of everything we do. We will meet and exceed their expectations based on our understanding of their needs and drives and provide them state-of-the-art, affordable and customer friendly communication services. We will build a truly world class company value for our stakeholders that includes our customers, employees, shareholders and the larger community.'He wondered how much Peptel had been able to live-up to that and how will it be in the future.Dr. Debashish Sengupta is Professor & Chair- Organizational Leadership & Strategy Area at Alliance Business School, Alliance University, Bangalore.
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July 15. Full Stop. Telegram will die.Nostalgic obits are being written to the soon to be obsolete telegram. Several die-hards are even frantically sending telegraphic appeals to the Prime Minister urging reconsideration. Code 100 - the number in the telegraph system denoting grief - has been much invoked.But take heart all those heartbroken by the news of the telegram’s imminent demise. When one business goes obsolete, it also opens windows of opportunity to another. Take www.telegramstop – a smart dotcom spawned in the US. It recreates the telegram of yore and allows people to send off momentous news in the old historical way. “Our telegrams are made to look and feel like a classic telegram from the original days,” is the promise.Of course, the service comes at a cost - $7.15 says the site.In the US, Western Union telegram services were closed in 2006. But nostalgia clearly rules even in this age of twitter and instant messages going by the number of telegrams the site claims to have sent off. It even has a iPhone app, by the way. Over 5,700 Wedding telegrams, over 6,600 anniversary messages, over 7,000 birth messages – but hold your breath, the maximum telegrams going out are “marketing” messages. Go figure!Significantly, no condolence messages are listed. Retro is purely for good news.In India, of course, the telegram was mostly regarded as a portent of bad news – and the arrival of the post man bearing the telegram was greeted with a bit of trepidation.Not so in Britain, where a much awaited telegram is from the Queen herself – she wishes every centenarian in the country. Though now, even the Queen’s anniversary telegram has got converted into a card delivered through normal postal channels. Telegram TriviaShortest telegram ever sent. Oscar Wilde wanting to know how his book was doing sent his publisher this message - ?The reply telegram he got - !Brevity might have been a virtue when sending telegrams, but many old timers recall long-winded messages. It was common enough in newspapers. Old timers on the news desk recall how in the 80s election news despatches would be sent by outstation reporters via telegram and some would run into 800-1000 words. It was left to the poor sub editor to decode the punctuation in caps (Bihar chief minister, COMMA, ...) and unravel the garbled report.Everyone has their favourite telegram stories – but nothing could be more priceless than this fictional exchange between Bertie Wooster and Aunt Dahlia in P G Wodehouse’s Ring for Jeeves. It starts off with Aunt Dahlia summoning Bertie to the stately country manor where she resides - Brinkley Court.Come at once. Travers.Perplexed. Explain. Bertie.What on earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. Travers.Three cigarettes puffed in an agitated fashion later, Bertie responds:How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie.Obviously, the reply is heated.I mean come at once, you maddening half-wit. What did you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt's curse first post tomorrow. Love. TraversWhen you say "Come" do you mean "Come to Brinkley Court"? And when you say "At once" do you mean "At once"? Fogged. At a loss. All the best. Bertie.Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It doesn't matter whether you understand or not. You just come at once, as I tell you, and for heaven's sake stop this back-chat. Do you think I am made of money that I can afford to send you telegrams every ten minutes. Stop being a fathead and come immediately. Love. Travers. And speaking of obsolete messaging services, guess which one stands threatened next. Telegram gone, could it be Email next?With the advent of instant messaging services, that’s the prediction doing the digital rounds.Sounds unthinkable? But don't worry - somebody somewhere will come up with a smart retro marketing opportunity like our telegramstop friends. Chitra(dot)narayanan(at)abp(dot)inchitra (dot) narayanan@gmail.com(at)ndcnn
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Three. That's the number of years Infosys Executive Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy said the company would take to show better results and turn an improved performance. The 32nd Annual General Body Meeting (AGM) of Infosys held in Bangalore on a windy and wet Saturday saw the company's shareholders express their opinion on a range of subjects from Murthy’s return as the Executive Chairman, the quantum of dividend paid, the acquisition policy of the company and even the parking habits of the driver of the former CFO came in for comments. "The challenge is daunting and the task is tough, therefore the task of rebuilding a desirable Infosys will take at least 36 months, even with a high quality team and full dedication of every Infosian," said Murthy. "In the process there will be some tough decisions that we have to take and that will result in pain as we move forward." While Murthy spoke about the turnaround plans, a subdued and tired looking S.D. Shibulal presented about the year gone by but also admitted to Infosys specific challenges. However, the most interesting part of the AGM was when shareholders took turns to quiz, praise and criticise the management. Read: Infosys Surges On Murthy's Return As Chairman Picture by Bivash BanerjeeWhile most shareholders welcomed and praised the return of Murthy, one shareholder felt that it was a wrong move and set a bad precedent. “Now you have returned, what about after another 5 years? Also, why did you bring your son into the company? Among 120 crore people in the country wasn’t there anybody available to lead the company? Does your return reflect good on your leadership and the company?” The AGM was held at the Christ University auditorium but this aggrieved shareholder demanded why the AGM couldn’t be held in Mysore (where the company has a sprawling 325-acre campus?). “Is there a legal bar in holding AGM there? If not, why isn’t it being held in other cities?.” He also demanded to know that just like Murthy had been recalled would former CFO Mohandas Pai, now the Chairman on Manipal Universal Learning, also be recalled to the company? Just two years after he stepped down from a leadership role at Infosys, a company he co-founded with six others, one of Indian IT’s tech titans Narayana Murthy returned as the executive chairman of the company. K.V. Kamath, who was the chairman of Infosys, stepped down took up the role of an independent director on the board. Murthy has requested for just a token compensation of Rs 1 per year. Murthy's son Rohan Murty will be his executive assistant. In the past, Infosys founders had deliberately chosen not to involve their children in company affairs. Read: The Return Of Mr Murthy by BW's Prosenjit DattaGrievances GaloreMost other shareholders defended Murthy’s return saying that Infosys was a private sector, meritocratic organisation and age shouldn’t be a bar if somebody was fit and able to add value to the company. A common grievance was about the 30 per cent dividend paid out. “The company has Rs 24,000 crore in cash and cash equivalents. If it is not being deployed for acquisition, then payout higher dividends, issue bonus shares or at least announce a buyback,” said another shareholder. A few others also expressed apprehension on the Bill in the US which is likely to limit the flexibility of Indian IT services companies in deploying their personnel. They wanted Infosys to work with Nasscom in lobbying to ensure that this bill did not impact the company. Several of the shareholders compared Infosys performance over the last few years and contrasted it with that of TCS, Cognizant and HCL. They felt that return of Murthy was a good augury and he would work towards improving the company’s performance. Some of them said that they had not received notice of the AGM and had to depend on media to find out the date and venue. K.V. Kamath spoke to Shibulal on the dias and intervened to say that this was a serious matter and would be addressed. A shareholder who said he had travelled all the way from Pune complained that a few hundred employees of the company were seen smoking outside the company’s campus on the footpath. “How can they smoke on the footpath which is a public place. I hope company discourages this practice of the employees.”Another shareholder said that he regularly saw the driver of the audi which ferries V. Balakrishnan the former CFO and currently the head of its India business, park the car on the footpath opposite to the company’s campus in electronics city Bangalore. “Occupying the footpath opposite to the company and impeding pedestrians, is it a right move?”. The management including Narayana Murthy patiently heard out all the shareholders and responded to some of their concerns.Surprisingly the AGM was relatively sparsely attended. venkatesha(dot)babu(at)abp(dot)invenkatesha(at)gmail(dot)comTwitter: (at)venkateshababu
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As a recent study by Gartner on BYOD trends among organisations predicted, by 2017 half of employers across the globe will require employees to supply their own device for work purposes. The benefits of BYOD include creating new mobile workforce opportunities, increasing employee satisfaction, and reducing or avoiding costs. However, CIOs in many companies have raised security concerns over corporate data. Kalyan Kumar B, VP & Chief Technology Architect, HCL Technologies ISD, talked to Businessworld Online's Poonam Kumar on the new set of challenges faced by CIOs in the age of workforce mobility and mobile device management and how HCL helps CIOs battle the growing challenge.Excerpts:Why do we need BYOD? What are the pros and cons of BYOD in the industry? Do you have any figure of how many employers have been using this technology in India?BYOD – “Bring Your Own Device” – is the latest trending and vital technology that has captured the attention of consumers and IT organisations equally. An individual today is addicted to his/her device(s) , as he/ she works seamlessly with a range of devices including smart phones, tablets, notebooks and laptops at the workplace for use and connectivity on the corporate network.The adoption of this concept has a lot of convenience factors attached to it such as the fact that it is a great management (especially from HR perspective) tool which aids in bringing new human resources on-board at the same time impacting the retention of employees on the better side because it gives more freedom and autonomy to the users. Another key element involved here is the mobility of the workforce that is using these devices which allows an organization to reach out to its employees 24X7 thereby increasing the scope of flexibility of work, enhancing employee productivity as employees are able to respond to work requests outside of work hours that has a direct impact on operational efficiency.However, the concerns regarding BYOD are inevitable solely due to the scope of this rapidly evolving technology concept and security.What are the main concerns of CIOs in setting up BYOD? Does it involve an extra cost to the company? One of the biggest challenges that CIOs face today when it comes to BYOD is the industry consensus of defining the scope of BYOD, as organisations today are not limiting the scope to only considering mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets, phablets etc. which was the inception point of BYOD but also allowing users to choose their own laptops. Another key concern that needs the CIO’s attention is the level of security of corporate data that is being used on personal devices, having a security policy framework in place that can allow an organisation to monitor the exchange of sensitive corporate data taking place between various users, keeping a tab on the IP addresses, browsing information etc. are issues that need to be looked into specifically while setting up a BYOD framework.In the years to come, BYOD will not be an option but an indispensable requirement by clients and customers for which almost every CIO will have a BYOD offering to be implemented as majority of CIOs in US and Europe are already implementing or evaluating to implement right now. From a cost perspective, we can confidently say that HCL has already worked with large and SMB customers in implementing BYOD very successfully because our customers took consumerisation of IT as a win-win opportunity to optimise their IT costs and enhancing user satisfaction while from users perspective they felt it as freedom and flexibility of IT along with ownership passed to the users for various components which were earlier supported by IT. Having said that, there are also factors such as the receipt of stipend that some users expect in lieu of bringing their own devices to work while implementing a BYOD policy. Therefore, the company’s management needs to be cognizant of this fact while putting in the efforts of planning such an initiative.What is HCL's role in implementing BYOD? Can you name a few companies which have already started it?When it comes to implementing a BYOD environment, there are mainly two types of solutions that support its implementation. One which simply allows users to access business and productivity applications via MDM (Mobile Device Management) solutions which includes Mobile Application and content management directly through user’s mobile devices. The other solution is primarily based on server-based Computing like VDI integration with right authentication and authorisation mechanisms along with necessary appropriate network access controls to check the health of personal devices before they even access the server based environment, making the access to IT completely isolated and secured from the device itself hence making the need of controls on personal devices irrelevant.At HCL Technologies, we have witnessed significant maturity on both types of solutions as implementations globally suggest that the use of personal devices is not a concern anymore as long as the right solutions and policies are in place.Why is Mobile device management's (MDM's) importance growing? If we have our system connected to the phone, how can we save our mobile devices from malware activities?MDM enables the bridging of consumer mobile IT to the enterprise policies and systems for a secure consistent access of application and services. MDM also enables content policies and secure zone in a mobile device which interacts with the enterprise systems and ensures that malware is not entering corp systems. Also MDM combined with an IAM (identity and access mgmt) platform enables that vision of true secure enterprise mobility and DLP."
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The consumer is evolving and evolving fast. In a game where marketers have to often play catch up, how can they bridge the gap? The answer lies somewhere in understanding the behaviour of children and their parents, both in the physical and online world.The average Indian consumer will have six times more disposable income in their hands by 2020. However, the ability to spend need not be equal to willingness to spend, said Nimisha Jain, principal at consulting major The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Jain was addressing a select gathering of consumer goods industry executives at the CII National Retail and FMCG Summit 2013.The one factor that will drive purchase behaviour of the younger set of consumers is the influence of children. Studies show that children currently account for 30 per cent of the population in India, but account for as much as 45 per cent of the consumption in India. And if you thought pester power, the power of children to influence buying decisions, was only restricted to certain categories, BCG executives point out that a massive 80 per cent of consumption decisions are influenced by children (barring investment decisions, of course). What makes the segment even more attractive for marketers is that at least 40 per cent of households with children trade up their consumption patterns for children.For India, the influence of children is only set to get bigger. By 2020, children will make 36 per cent of the population in India compared to 25 per cent in the US and 22 per cent in China. That’s where the ability of a marketer to tune in to the needs of the segment gets critical.Globally brands like Lego use the digital world as an active listening post to know the preference of children and make changes in their product design or develop new products accordingly. In India various estimates suggest that the number of Internet users is going to move up from 125 million as we speak to about 330 million by 2020. Even today, one of the largest online shopping categories is baby products, points out Prakash Iyer, managing director for Kimberly Clark Lever in India. In a way it’s a natural fit because nursing mothers do not want to travel for buying a supply of baby diapers.Even in categories like food, the online world is playing a large role in growth of certain categories says Geetu Verma, executive director-foods, Hindustan Unilever. For instance, Pasta and Chinese cuisine are among the most searched recipe items on the Internet from India. So it’s not a coincidence that a category like Olive oil, used in Italian dishes, is growing in excess of 23 per cent every year. It’s very likely that most of these internet searches are made by anxious mothers eager to tickle the taste buds of their children. One could well say, child is the father of the marketer. prasad(dot)sangameshwaran(at)abp(dot)in, alertprasad(at)gmail(dot)com, (at)alertprasad
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