Starting very early tomorrow (May 16), India prepares to count the electoral votes post the elections. I'm sure enough has been said about the world's largest elections - however, am not sure if people have spared a thought on the sheer amount of data processing that is going to be used.
First is the result computation. The entire vote bank split on an average of 11 different ways (I'm told that the average number of candidates inclusive of the independents is 11)
Then, the psepologists that will get onto the TV and media. We are talking about 5-6 major media groups and about 50-60 regional groups, all slicing and dicing the numbers !
While elections probably started the computing revolution with the early counting machines, I think for sheer volume, this election is probably a record !
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tech Mahindra + Satyam : A tale of two...
As most people (atleast the IT folks in India) would know by now, Tech Mahindra has won the bid for Satyam. While, the current debate on valuation is expected to continue for a while, I thought, I'd just pen my own SWOT from a Tech Mahindra perspective.
Given that I own a few shares of Tech Mahindra (although NEVER did for Satyam), this may be seen as the "informed" view of an industry outsider ?
Strengths (read Advantages)
- TM has traditionally been in the telecom vertical and is perceived as a "vertical industry" player. This has meant that for a while, TM has been missing out on the broad "general business" areas of Retail, distribution, manufacturing, services etc. This would add considerable breadth
- Satyam supposedly has a fairly strong "fixed price" model (profitability unknown :-)) that should be good for TM
- Satyam's reach in both the middle east and AUS / NZ markets
Weakness (read Disadvantage)
- Management /Thought leadership : Especially in the areas of Packaged applications (SAP, Oracle, MS Dynamics), Custom development (non-product) and managed services
- Culture : Not sure how they'd be able to reconcile the bottom load model of Satyam at cheaper rates to the vertical strength model that TM has
- Parity : This just has to do with employee status and relationship management ?
Opportunity
- The biggest opportunity for TM would be the opening of the horizontal "multinational" enterprise - ranging from Travel industry to retail to pharma/healthcare
- The opening of the COTS (read as ERP/ CRM) market
Threat
- Client / customer and account retention (and this one needs no elaboration)
- Cost advantage ? (esp. given that most of the contracts that Satyam needs to deliver on would be on a very aggressive P&L) and the market perception / environment
However, what is very clear is that this is probably the start of a clear sign of consolidation.
Given that I own a few shares of Tech Mahindra (although NEVER did for Satyam), this may be seen as the "informed" view of an industry outsider ?
Strengths (read Advantages)
- TM has traditionally been in the telecom vertical and is perceived as a "vertical industry" player. This has meant that for a while, TM has been missing out on the broad "general business" areas of Retail, distribution, manufacturing, services etc. This would add considerable breadth
- Satyam supposedly has a fairly strong "fixed price" model (profitability unknown :-)) that should be good for TM
- Satyam's reach in both the middle east and AUS / NZ markets
Weakness (read Disadvantage)
- Management /Thought leadership : Especially in the areas of Packaged applications (SAP, Oracle, MS Dynamics), Custom development (non-product) and managed services
- Culture : Not sure how they'd be able to reconcile the bottom load model of Satyam at cheaper rates to the vertical strength model that TM has
- Parity : This just has to do with employee status and relationship management ?
Opportunity
- The biggest opportunity for TM would be the opening of the horizontal "multinational" enterprise - ranging from Travel industry to retail to pharma/healthcare
- The opening of the COTS (read as ERP/ CRM) market
Threat
- Client / customer and account retention (and this one needs no elaboration)
- Cost advantage ? (esp. given that most of the contracts that Satyam needs to deliver on would be on a very aggressive P&L) and the market perception / environment
However, what is very clear is that this is probably the start of a clear sign of consolidation.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Electricity conservation : Smart Metering with Smart pricing ?
Today, I saw another article on smart metering in ET's online edition that prompts me to write out this post.
For most people in Bangalore, power cuts are a routine thing. Infact, a telling and poignant photo in the local newspapers a couple of weeks ago had school children protesting that the power cuts were impacting their studies / exam results !
On their part, the government is trying to "buy" power from neighboring states to make up the deficit. This, when, the power dept is running under deficit and is owed millions by other government departments themselves ! Anyway, that is a digression.
Coming to governance, I think the best way to regulate power usage is to come up with a time based power tariff. Reasoning is simple, we Indians love to save money and if it means we have to switch on our "boilers" / "storage water heaters" in the middle of the night - we will. There just has to be an incentive.
Some of you may remember that the explosion of telecom (not the current mobile one, but, the earlier STD / landline one) owed a lot to the then prevalent incentive ie. ALL calls made between 10 PM in the night to 6 AM in the morning would be at 50% discount.
I still remember the long queue that would develop at some phone booths 15 mins or sometimes even 30 mins before the 10 PM deadline.
We would still need to upgrade our meters by making it time aware. All I'm stating is that it is NOT necessary to make the meters internet / online, but, it is sufficient for us to be able to get the meter to count at different rates based on time. Maybe we can pass that information on the grid itself so that the meters reconfigure on their own based on demand ?
Another idea to work on in my free time (when it happens!)
For most people in Bangalore, power cuts are a routine thing. Infact, a telling and poignant photo in the local newspapers a couple of weeks ago had school children protesting that the power cuts were impacting their studies / exam results !
On their part, the government is trying to "buy" power from neighboring states to make up the deficit. This, when, the power dept is running under deficit and is owed millions by other government departments themselves ! Anyway, that is a digression.
Coming to governance, I think the best way to regulate power usage is to come up with a time based power tariff. Reasoning is simple, we Indians love to save money and if it means we have to switch on our "boilers" / "storage water heaters" in the middle of the night - we will. There just has to be an incentive.
Some of you may remember that the explosion of telecom (not the current mobile one, but, the earlier STD / landline one) owed a lot to the then prevalent incentive ie. ALL calls made between 10 PM in the night to 6 AM in the morning would be at 50% discount.
I still remember the long queue that would develop at some phone booths 15 mins or sometimes even 30 mins before the 10 PM deadline.
We would still need to upgrade our meters by making it time aware. All I'm stating is that it is NOT necessary to make the meters internet / online, but, it is sufficient for us to be able to get the meter to count at different rates based on time. Maybe we can pass that information on the grid itself so that the meters reconfigure on their own based on demand ?
Another idea to work on in my free time (when it happens!)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The much talked about Spirit of Mumbai or Why do I like Mumbai ?
For a lot of parents who worry about their child going out of town for their job, my suggestion of " let the individual start their career with a job in Mumbai - it is the best thing that that can happen" raises a lot of eyebrows. There is however a reason for this. Infact, I was reminded of all these reasons encapsulated as the spirit of Mumbai last week when I was talking to a colleague that has prompted this post.
The first thing that Mumbai teaches is "value of money". Purists will argue that we should focus on the word "value", we should replace the word "of" with "for" etc. but, Mumbai actually, I believe teaches one the value "of" money.
This is clearly demonstrated by the concept of "Shared autos and Shared cabs". Brilliant !!
It is a pleasure to walk up to any of the shared cab areas outside a train station to get into a shared cab where you get to talk to and interact with strangers. The best thing in the model is that it is a perfect example of "win-win" positioning. The individual rider wins by having to pay less, the cab driver wins by collecting slightly more than a straight "share".
Then, there is the Equality of money that the local 1st class bogie teaches. I'm actually NOT being demeaning by marking the term 1st class !!!. While I do recognize that there is a daily struggle and the bulk of the people move in the local's second class bogies, there is something magical about the 1st class bogie and that is "Aspirations"
If you sit in one of these morning / evening commuter bogies, you will get to see people from all classes of the "working hierarchy" rub shoulders. There will be the senior managers in a public sector / a bank to the rank newbie (still wet / green behind the ears) working as a trainee in an MNC. ALL of them are very open and discuss their career aspirations and hopes candidly using the co-commuter as a bouncing board. It is simply amazing !
After you spend a few months in Mumbai, you get to appreciate the term "Jugaad". In Mumbai, people learn the "yes" attitude and it grows on you. While the same attitude almost borders on "chalta hai" in other northern cities, I believe Mumbai has always had a "Can Do" set that is quite distinctive.
These 3 examples / attitudes of Jugaad, Save while you can and hold high aspirations make Mumbai an unique experience.
Let me repeat, if you ever get a chance to spend a few months working in Mumbai - irrespective of all the other troubles / issues - please do grab it !
The first thing that Mumbai teaches is "value of money". Purists will argue that we should focus on the word "value", we should replace the word "of" with "for" etc. but, Mumbai actually, I believe teaches one the value "of" money.
This is clearly demonstrated by the concept of "Shared autos and Shared cabs". Brilliant !!
It is a pleasure to walk up to any of the shared cab areas outside a train station to get into a shared cab where you get to talk to and interact with strangers. The best thing in the model is that it is a perfect example of "win-win" positioning. The individual rider wins by having to pay less, the cab driver wins by collecting slightly more than a straight "share".
Then, there is the Equality of money that the local 1st class bogie teaches. I'm actually NOT being demeaning by marking the term 1st class !!!. While I do recognize that there is a daily struggle and the bulk of the people move in the local's second class bogies, there is something magical about the 1st class bogie and that is "Aspirations"
If you sit in one of these morning / evening commuter bogies, you will get to see people from all classes of the "working hierarchy" rub shoulders. There will be the senior managers in a public sector / a bank to the rank newbie (still wet / green behind the ears) working as a trainee in an MNC. ALL of them are very open and discuss their career aspirations and hopes candidly using the co-commuter as a bouncing board. It is simply amazing !
After you spend a few months in Mumbai, you get to appreciate the term "Jugaad". In Mumbai, people learn the "yes" attitude and it grows on you. While the same attitude almost borders on "chalta hai" in other northern cities, I believe Mumbai has always had a "Can Do" set that is quite distinctive.
These 3 examples / attitudes of Jugaad, Save while you can and hold high aspirations make Mumbai an unique experience.
Let me repeat, if you ever get a chance to spend a few months working in Mumbai - irrespective of all the other troubles / issues - please do grab it !
Monday, January 19, 2009
Emirates Terminal 3 in Dubai - being in the belly of a snake ?
Most of my transits in Dubai terminal 3 ever since it opened have been in the night where I've not had a chance to see it in its' full glory until this trip.
This time, I had a distinct feeling that I was getting into the belly of a giant desert SNAKE !
You see, the design (see above) has the distinct pattern of a desert Snake. Once you walk in, you need to traverse for a looong loonng time across the belly of this snake to get to immigration.
The planes on either side almost seem to be the equivalents of small ants / insects coming in to take a dig at this dead snake !
I think in this case, there was an attempt to force fit into the design as I see a clear issue with the loading of passenger traffic. All focus is on the center or this belly where the lounges + the shopping area is. This means the extremes of this snake has a LOT of free space with a vauge emptiness to it, while the middle is the swollen "hippo for breakfast" in this snake.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Satyam Fiasco : Meeting market expectations
Did not want to jump in and comment with all the noise. However, there seems to be a MAJOR point missing in all that I've read - MARKET EXPECTATIONS
If one reads Raju's letter carefully, there seems to be an invisible struggle within the "Mea Culpa" tone that is saying - I did what was expected of me by the market ? Is this true ?
I've sat through a number of earnings calls / shareholders meetings (Disclosure : I own shares in quite a few IT companies - but, never had SATYAM) where the analysts are always asking just a common set of questions. These being
- What has been your revenue growth and what will be your revenue growth ?
- What has been your margin % and growth ?
These questions themselves are fine - however, the expectation of benchmark is that revenue will grow at almost 100% Y-O-Y and margin will always be upwards of 40% !!
These are not sustainable in the long run and are unrealistic benchmarks.
As long as the expectations of analysts and market watchers are not "reasonable" expect the response to it to be correspondingly "un-reasonable"
The market has to realize that 30% revenue growth, 15-30 % margins are all "GOOD" and "REASONABLE" in a growth market and these are sustainable values that show good governance.
Is it the expectation / is it mandatory to have 40% + margins to tell the market that you have a well run company ?
If one reads Raju's letter carefully, there seems to be an invisible struggle within the "Mea Culpa" tone that is saying - I did what was expected of me by the market ? Is this true ?
I've sat through a number of earnings calls / shareholders meetings (Disclosure : I own shares in quite a few IT companies - but, never had SATYAM) where the analysts are always asking just a common set of questions. These being
- What has been your revenue growth and what will be your revenue growth ?
- What has been your margin % and growth ?
These questions themselves are fine - however, the expectation of benchmark is that revenue will grow at almost 100% Y-O-Y and margin will always be upwards of 40% !!
These are not sustainable in the long run and are unrealistic benchmarks.
As long as the expectations of analysts and market watchers are not "reasonable" expect the response to it to be correspondingly "un-reasonable"
The market has to realize that 30% revenue growth, 15-30 % margins are all "GOOD" and "REASONABLE" in a growth market and these are sustainable values that show good governance.
Is it the expectation / is it mandatory to have 40% + margins to tell the market that you have a well run company ?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Managing managers : The art of whitewash ?
A couple of evenings ago, during dinner with a visitor from the US - someone I know very well, the issue of outsourcing to India and the problems experienced came up as a natural point of debate.
Background
- A major networks product company has outsourced their product development to an Indian vendor. The vendor has been late in delivering the project to such an extent that the original US company has lost it's competitive advantage in the market and with the downturn it may have also lost the window of opportunity.
We started to discuss the different approaches that are taken and why this has either worked / not worked in this particular case
- Getting a 3rd party to validate work : This is being done by an US company and the process has not been effective : could the main reason be that that this "validation" company does not
a) Understand the onsite-offshore play and is hence stuck in-between with no value add ?
or b) The intermediary is not involved in the product development process and hence is always having to fall back on "process" compliance / status reports to understand viewpoints ?
or c) A combination of the above 2 with a the real issue being that the intermediary is playing a "relay" role only and is not capable / empowered to make decisions ?
- Ensuring that a senior person capable of making decisions is working with the offshore team to validate delivery.
On this point, the discussion moved to the next question ie. "what is the value then of the offshore delivery team ?"
- Ensuring that someone from the offshore team acts on-behalf of the onsite team ?
Apparently, this was tried with very little success and the main reason for this being
a) Tendency of the senior management of the offshore team in taking the status mechanism and obscuring the real status !
b) Mixed messages between the team on ground and the reviewers
c) Incapable team leadership in terms of priority of issues to be addressed / sequencing (always supply driven sub-optimal solutions)
Notice though, that at NO time during the discussions, was there a question on the CAPABILITY of the delivery team ?
In the end, does it mean that we have just incapable project managers / general managers in the system ?
Or, are they supremely capable in "whitewashing projects" ?
Background
- A major networks product company has outsourced their product development to an Indian vendor. The vendor has been late in delivering the project to such an extent that the original US company has lost it's competitive advantage in the market and with the downturn it may have also lost the window of opportunity.
We started to discuss the different approaches that are taken and why this has either worked / not worked in this particular case
- Getting a 3rd party to validate work : This is being done by an US company and the process has not been effective : could the main reason be that that this "validation" company does not
a) Understand the onsite-offshore play and is hence stuck in-between with no value add ?
or b) The intermediary is not involved in the product development process and hence is always having to fall back on "process" compliance / status reports to understand viewpoints ?
or c) A combination of the above 2 with a the real issue being that the intermediary is playing a "relay" role only and is not capable / empowered to make decisions ?
- Ensuring that a senior person capable of making decisions is working with the offshore team to validate delivery.
On this point, the discussion moved to the next question ie. "what is the value then of the offshore delivery team ?"
- Ensuring that someone from the offshore team acts on-behalf of the onsite team ?
Apparently, this was tried with very little success and the main reason for this being
a) Tendency of the senior management of the offshore team in taking the status mechanism and obscuring the real status !
b) Mixed messages between the team on ground and the reviewers
c) Incapable team leadership in terms of priority of issues to be addressed / sequencing (always supply driven sub-optimal solutions)
Notice though, that at NO time during the discussions, was there a question on the CAPABILITY of the delivery team ?
In the end, does it mean that we have just incapable project managers / general managers in the system ?
Or, are they supremely capable in "whitewashing projects" ?
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