IndianMaze

It was a noble effort by my banker to invite youngsters for financial awareness programme for the wards of their clients. A renowned financial expert was the star attraction. In an interaction after the programme, I was talking to a participant and asked about the efficacy of the programme and compared to the objectives set by the bank. - need for saving - no additional learning - types of investment - marginal gain in knowledge - how each type of investment grows in future - went over my head - "X" bank takes care of investments - OK, what's the big deal The table turned, when I asked that what were the biggest learnings from a day's programme and the response was stunning: - we need to plan - we need to draw our future - have high interdependence amongst experts - all my peers are struggling with same problems but not sound them off - its easier than I thought! A skill enhancement programme worked as a behavioral transformation programme. Consumer...

Interesting case narrated by a friend. Jaguar sales were very low in this part of the country with petrol version (circa 5 a year). With diesel version launch it is 5 a month. Car costs Rs 50L plus. Any insights! India continues to amaze me every day.

It was a pleasant surprise experience after moving to Mumbai when on a couple of occassions public transport (regular black/yellow or silver/blue taxi and auto rickshaws) returned me the precise amounts due to the nearest rupee. I had tweeted about the same experience and the overwhelming response to me was that it was an odd experience and I must have been extremely lucky to have met such people. I was warned that I should not get carried away with this experience. Bottomline - lack of trust between commuters and public transport. Now in the last 3 months or so, I have used public transport almost about 100 times and nearly 95+ times I have been returned the change nearest to the rupee. The repeated experience that I have in the last 3 months is completely contrary to what others have told me. The sample size is not small enough for me to classify this as a coincidence. I think this is a case of either a blind spot or a fixated mind. Going through this, I recall many instanc...

I have recently moved from NCR to Mumbai. I have spent a sizeable time living in Greater Mumbai for over 7 years earlier leaving the city about 12 years back. In these 12 years, India has undergone a lot of changes and so have her cities. I see that Mumbai has changed but at the same time retained some of her key characteristics. Public transport remains the backbone of the city and is not only easily available but has the customer convenience at its heart. Its a fact that Mumbai is the only city where a customer just hails an auto/taxi and just sits without asking about the readiness of driver to go to a particular destination. They will charge as per the tariff card and give you the balance in coins. Impressive. Bravo Mumbai. Equally what has not changed is the cleanliness levels of Mumbai and that is a disappointment. The city's professionalism stays but the difference viz other cities has narrowed down and unless Mumbai does something about it will have the danger of losi...

I was travelling in two different trains last week, each journey lasting about 5 hours but that is where the similarity ends. First was in the Executive coach of Shatabdi patronised by so called elite and the next one was in a secong class coach of an express train patronised by so called middle class. Shatabdi covered nearly 300 kms in the 5 hours whereas the express train covered nearly 100kms in the same time. The Indian consumer in Shatabdi was self indulgent - books, magazines, ipods, music on mobile, laptops and and occassional phone call or conversation within the family or work group. Her world was confined to self and inanimate objects. The Indian consumer in Express train was seeking similar knowledge and enjoying as much but with a big difference - it was all done in a community way. Source of music was a CD player/radio and the songs played were the choice of all and sundry in the compartment. Newspapers were split into 2-3 parts and shared. First time visitors shared appre...

Entrepreneurship is the new buzzword amongst Indian literati. However, the truth is that Indian Entrepreneurship has had a very long history and has always been flourishing. The only difference now is that this is turning into corporatisation and scaling up with external financing. There was a great 3 hour conversation I had with a 30 something entrepreneur who is into his 3rd business model. His acumen in keeping it low cost as well as taking risks has been phenomenal. As I have said earlier, Indians are one of the greatest value seekers and therefore, entrepreneurs also need to deliver extra value. This gentleman told me - he was 21 when he started - Gold interested him so he got in jewellery retailing in a large (1m+ city) - got fed up with customers spending a lot of time before buying and that even with aconversion rate of about 1.5% (mind you he rattled these statistics) - he started a new business after disposing off his assets in the shop being a supplier to shops in the same t...

It was 25 years ago to date that I started my journey in the corporate world. This journey has taken me not only through the dramatic changes in the way corporate world has changed but also through an unprecedented change in India and use of technology. India - 25 years ago - no mobile phones - no PCOs except in post offices. Calls to be booked for intercity connections. - no faxes (except in a few multinational company HQs) - no computers (except in universities and a few corporate HQs) - no organised couriers - no private universities - manual railway and airline bookings - Telegrams were still in use - there were 2 airlines in india - Delhi and Mumbai had about 6 flights a day (60 on the last count) - there were 3 car manufacturers and a total of 8 models - nobody had heard of CNG - maximum speed on highways was 40kmph I started with a monthly stipend of Rs 1650 with a very prominent multinational company. Amazing journey. I am looking forward to more amazement in the next 25 years ...