Listening to a Professor from IIM, A

I had an invitation to attend a dinner meet with a professor from IIM, Ahmedabad, organised by CBRC (Centre For Business Research and Counseling) at Kochi on 26th January 2010. He has about 25 years of experience in management education, but looks younger in spirit and in body. One of the dinner participant mentioned an observation that rarely the Professor's elder family members have grey hair.

It has been a great experience listening to the unfiltered and authentic dialog with the Professor. We the small gathering from CBRC were immersed in the discourse by the Prof. for almost two hours.

The Professor highlighted the themes of value creation and the importance of intellectual capital in a B School. According to the Prof. every B school must differentiate itself from others through the demonstration of their unique intellectual capital. He suggested a B School must build intellectual capital by taking up sponsored research projects from governments, Industries and other funding agencies, by providing Executive / Management development programs and by doing consulting projects with the industry. A B school should be a sequel to these activities. He informed us that IIM, A was fully engaged in Executive development programs before starting the Post Graduate Program.

He said one of the key aspect of education at IIM, A is that the students are put to such experiences so as to develop independent thinking and ability to bring new perspectives to the issues under consideration. He confidently said that any student who attend the PGP at IIM, A will achieve this state by the end of first year.

By interacting with Professor, we were all able to experience a slice of stimulating life at IIM, A. It was a very engaging and fruitful evening. Thanks to the Professor for spending time with us.

contributed by: sasikanth prabhu

Offering service and creating an experience

Is offering service and creating experience to a customer same?

It is very difficult to articulate the difference. It is very difficult to convince a scholastic person and to explain to a business owner the difference between these two.

Mostly, the B school erudition treats the service and experience offering as same. The B school scholars may prove it with their entire intellectual bulk that experience is all service and experience is created by service.

Yet there is difference in subtle way. The difference is felt in our hearts and I am struggling to find ways to explain it.

Once the difference is felt by the business owners and if the focus is shifted from just service orientation to experience orientation, the structure of business and organisation will qualitatively and quantitatively change.

contributed by: sasikanth prabhu

Experience with Alappuzha BDS (2009 -2010)

My association with Alappuzha BDS project of DFID – SIDBI, being implemented by Cluster Pulse began from November 2008 with a presentation to the Cluster manager Mr. Pankaj Ahir. I presented about our Business strategy workshops and the ‘Chai Board’ to the organisation. A patient listening was provided to the presentation by Mr. Pankaj and I had been asked to register Marg Atreya using a standard form with details of contact and the services offered. It seemed at first our services were not understood fully by Alappuzha MSME’s but I was kept informed about the planned activities and the schedules of the forthcoming events of Alappuzha BDS project.

In March 09’ I was given an opportunity to present our services to a group of 100 MSME’s from coir industry. The presentation time allocated to us was at the end of an award distribution session on ‘Best design award’. We presented our services. After seeing the event, we felt that Alappuzha BDs is doing quite a lot of good work for the Coir Cluster and many of the beneficiaries the Coir companies are feeling grateful about their presence. Also, we had noticed that the programs/events coordinated by them had an energizing effect on the audience.

From May 2009, our interaction with Alappuzha BDS project deepened and a program called “Management Gyaanam 09’ for the co operative societies was planned and conducted in June 2009 at ACCDS premises.

Prior to conducting the six day “Management Gyaanam 09’ we had a session with the representatives of the co op societies to understand their challenges. We were able to shortlist about twenty challenges faced by them. The most acute challenge was that they had very less business orientation, which prevented them from becoming self reliant and always dependent on the government support.

Hence, the main objective of the workshop was to give business orientation to the co-operative societies and raise their awareness about the day-to-day management aspects. The program was a challenge to us, as we had to deal with grass root people/ organizations.

On the scheduled day the honorable Secretary of ACCDS Mr. Kumaraswamy Pillai inaugurated the program. As we delivered the program, we were amazed to see the enthusiasm and the eagerness of the participants. In the first day itself business orientation was implanted in the minds of the participants and they picked up the key concepts of the business and the daily management. We also announced a ‘best participant award’ for the program. The six days went like a bullet and on every passing day we were able to see a glow of confidence in their faces. Immediately after the six day program Alappuzha BDS project organized a session to confer the ‘best participant award’. Special invitees, the participants, SIDBI officials, the Alappuzha BDS project team and of course we as BDS providers were present for this evening program. The participants were given a chance to share their experiences of the program. At least five participants shared their experience, which made us feel that we have created value at the grass root level. There is nothing greater than the feeling that we were able to add value to somebody else’s life. In the process we also learned that we can do something significant for the grass root level too. Our credo “every person can be business person’ and “every ordinary person can do extraordinarily” is strengthened.

Similarly, Alappuzha BDS project arranged a meeting with a very old coir company which has a corporate set up. We did a two-day in house workshop for their CEO’s & staff. We were able to rekindle and rejuvenate the fundamental elements of their business that gave them confidence that they can win in the market and elsewhere. Their written & verbal appreciation for our services gives multiplier effect to our confidence. We feel fulfilled that our methodologies are effective in bringing instant learning and sustainable effect. This company very soon brought into the market their branded products.

We provided our services to other organisations in the coir sector that helped them to revive their business.

The one-to-one meetings, the short service presentations, the banner promotion, field visits in BDS van, the voucher schemes, BDS training and the special programs arranged by Alappuzha BDS project creates a confidence in the minds of MSMEs and creates an opportunity for BDS providers to interact with the MSMEs openly in co ordination with trade associations which will carry on these activities in future for sustainability.

Now we are in a position to independently approach and present our innovative services to the MSMEs, state govt. & trade associations of coir cluster and also we feel that the coir companies are accepting the services by the BDS providers more openly. All the credit goes to the work of Alappuzha BDS project.

Contributed by : Sasikanth Prabhu,Consultant / Facilitator

Business Definition

We have been using the question “What is your business” in our strategy workshops. We have been feeling that this is a very important question to be answered before we make strategy. But many times we have experienced that our clients wish to hurry to look for ways to improve their current operations than spend some time reflecting on this question and answering it genuinely. We feel in our heart that this is an important question to be answered before we renew the strategy. When clients show hurriedness in looking for ways to generate profits, we mercilessly try to bring them back to this question and do not allow taking forward our interaction to other business issues. Of course, our client seemingly feels irritated and sometimes we doubt ourselves having obsessed with this question.

But we feel now consoled when we read the breakthrough article by Theodore Levitt “Marketing Myopia” (1960). The main theme of this article was the question we ask our clients. The question introduced by Theodore Levitt was ‘What business are you really in?’. He says in the article those who define their business incorrectly are bound to stagnate in the market until they correct it. Also he suggests in the article a shift from product orientation to customer orientation will determine the winning position.

We feel encouraged that we belong to the school of this great thought leader. The importance of our question”what is your business?” is strengthened in our scheme.