Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Which industries will florish in 2011 - CEOs say all but VCs are cautious

An excerpt from a trusted source... 

The VCs' cautious tone changes when it comes to certain investment sectors. They overwhelmingly expect dollars to increase for consumer Internet and cloud-computing software companies (82% and 80%, respectively). Those sectors also happen to be the two that VCs labeled as most likely to see investment "froth," meaning over-funded.

Likewise, a majority expects investment to rise in health-care IT, mobile and software-as-a-service. But they were much less optimistic about more capital-intensive industries such as energy, medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, financial services and hardware.

So, which industry do you belong to?

Courtesy - McKinsey & Company

In this, our final Top Ten Newsletter of 2010, we've rounded up the most popular articles among readers this year. Topics they were most interested in include decision-making biases, digital marketing, and management in uncertain times.
Global forces: An introduction graphic 1. STRATEGY
Global forces: An introduction
Five crucibles of change will restructure the world economy for the foreseeable future. Companies that understand them will stand the best chance of shaping it. A related video highlights the value of tracking global forces and how to build them into corporate strategy.
Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch graphic 2. BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY
Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch
Advancing technologies and their swift adoption are upending traditional business models. Senior executives need to think strategically about how to prepare their organizations for the challenging new environment. In a set of accompanying podcasts, leading experts offer their views on how these trends will evolve and change business models.
A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing graphic 3. MARKETING
A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing
Assessing its impact as well as its volume will help companies take better advantage of buzz. An accompanying podcast focuses on how marketers can use word of mouth to influence consumer behavior.
4. STRATEGY
The case for behavioral strategy
Left unchecked, subconscious biases will undermine strategic decision making. Learn how to counter them and improve corporate performance, and explore an accompanying interactive showing the biases most pertinent to business and the ways they can combine to create dysfunctional patterns in corporate cultures.

Plus, take this brief survey on how you make decisions, and we'll send you feedback on how your decision-making style compares with those of other respondents and on how to avoid any biases you may be prone to.
5. GOVERNANCE
Why good bosses tune in to their people
Know how to project power, counsels Stanford management professor Bob Sutton, since those you lead need to believe you have it for it to be effective. And to lock in your team’s loyalty, boldly defend their backs.
6. ORGANIZATION
How centered leaders achieve extraordinary results
Executives can thrive at work and in life by adopting a leadership model that revolves around finding their strengths and connecting with others.
7. CORPORATE FINANCE
Creating value: An interactive tutorial
In this video presentation, McKinsey partner Tim Koller explores the four guiding principles of corporate finance that all executives can use to home in on value creation when they make strategic decisions.
8. ORGANIZATION
Retaining key employees in times of change
Many companies throw financial incentives at senior executives and star performers during times of change. There is a better and less costly solution.
9. MARKETING
Unlocking the elusive potential of social networks
To realize the marketing potential of virtual activities, you have to make them truly useful for consumers.
10. ORGANIZATION
Boosting the productivity of knowledge workers
The key is identifying and addressing the barriers workers face i

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Five new roads to look into

Five forces, or crucibles, where the stresses and tensions will be greatest and thus offer the richest opportunities for companies to innovate and change:
  • The great rebalancing. The coming decade will be the first in 200 years when emerging-market countries contribute more growth than the developed ones. This growth will not only create a wave of new middle-class consumers but also drive profound innovations in product design, market infrastructure, and value chains.
  • The productivity imperative. Developed-world economies will need to generate pronounced gains in productivity to power continued economic growth. The most dramatic innovations in the Western world are likely to be those that accelerate economic productivity.
  • The global grid. The global economy is growing ever more connected. Complex flows of capital, goods, information, and people are creating an interlinked network that spans geographies, social groups, and economies in ways that permit large-scale interactions at any moment. This expanding grid is seeding new business models and accelerating the pace of innovation. It also makes destabilizing cycles of volatility more likely.
  • Pricing the planet. A collision is shaping up among the rising demand for resources, constrained supplies, and changing social attitudes toward environmental protection. The next decade will see an increased focus on resource productivity, the emergence of substantial clean-tech industries, and regulatory initiatives.
  • The market state. The often contradictory demands of driving economic growth and providing the necessary safety nets to maintain social stability have put governments under extraordinary pressure. Globalization applies additional heat: how will distinctly national entities govern in an increasingly globalized world?

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Movies and pork bellies

Working for Options Clearing Corp taught me many things. Among those was an introduction to the history of Chicago's top exchanges. CME or Merc, originally started with futures contracts on frozen pork bellies, will soon see its first intangible commodity trading. Movies, will soon become the first intangible commodity to be traded on exchanges that allow future contract trading. Thinking of them as high risk commodities (is it really a commodity?), our Govt. is structuring regulations for these newly recognized commodities.

Why regulation? This commodity can be "manufactured" by two bound to doom Mr. Joes and the buyers of futures would lose all their money. To ensure that does not happen, we need regulation. But, how many times have we been able to capture all exceptions under regulations? Alright, no producer/director intends to make flop movies, BUT, only until there is no indirect payoff. And who suffers at the end of the day? Consumer - with potentially more flops shows than before and futures buyer whose money is snatched by the banker selling that security.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Delhi Airport to Chandigarh or Amritsar/Jalandhar

You can get the latest time table of haryana roadways volvo (and other buses) for all routes here

The enquiry numbers for the volvo services are :
Gurgaon Roadways Enquiry No. 0124-2320222
1) Punjab Roadways : 0172 - 2704023
2) Himachal Roadways : 0172 - 2704015
3) Haryana Roadways : 0172 - 2704014

http://sushubh.net/856-chandigarh-to-delhi-in-volvo-bus

Saturday, January 9, 2010

INFLUENCE: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini

Answer the following before moving forward.
1. If you have to present two products to a client, which product will you present first - costlier or cheaper?
2. Is it better to tell you client what they stand to gain by moving in your direction or what they will lose if they do not?
3. If you have a new piece of informaiton, when will you tell that its new, before or after delivering information.
4. If your product has strengths and weaknesses, will you present weaknesses early or late?
5. If someone praised your product/service, what do you do immediately after you have said Thankyou?
6. If you want someone to cooperate with you, what is the single most important thing you can do before you influence that person.

The principles:
1. Reciprocation - Give and take - You give so that the other person is obligated to say yes to you.
a) There is a moment of power after someone says THANKYOU: When you do a favor and someone says thankyou....you say....No problem, I know if the situation will ever reverse you will do the same for me (Gaining the credit for future basically).

· Another consequence of the rule, however, is an obligation to make a concession to someone who has made a concession to us.

b) Within the situation, provide concessions. There is a moment of power after someone says NO to you. at that time you need to provide concessions and DO NOT RETREAT.

2. Scarcity - People want to have more of what you cant have.
3. Authority - If an authority or an expert says it, it must be true.
4. Consistency / Commitment : People are likely to follow what they have said  i.e. committed to in public. Restaurant example.

5. Consensus - People follow others. So, people respond to something that everyone is doing.
6. Liking - People tend to follow others who are like them - look, actions, culture etc.
 · People simply like to have reasons for what they do

SOME EXAMPLES
· The point is that the same thing – for instance, room-temperature water – can be made to seem very different, depending on the nature of the event that precedes it.
· Sell the suit first, because when it comes time to look at sweaters, even expensive ones, their prices will not seem as high in comparison.
· “The house I’ve got them spotted for looks really great after they’ve first looked at a couple of dumps.”
· The technique is a simple one that we can call the rejection-then-retreat technique. Suppose you want me to agree to a certain request. One way to increase your chances would be first to make a larger request of me, one that I will most likely turn down. Then, after I have refused, you would make the smaller request that you were really interested in all along. Provided that you have structured your request skilfully, I should view your second request as a concession to me and should feel inclined to respond with a concession of my own, the only one I would have immediately open to me – compliance with your second request.· For a variety of reasons the percentage of successful door-to-door sales
increases impressively when the sales operator is able to mention the name
of a familiar person who “recommended” the sales visit.
· If a customer refuses a purchase ask for referrals
· Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal
and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.
· For the salesperson, the strategy is to obtain a large purchase by starting with
a small one. Almost any small sale will do, because the purpose of that small
transaction is not profit. It is commitment.
· Look at it his way – when a person has signed an order for your merchandise,
even though the profit is so small it hardly compensates for the time and effort
of making the call, he is no longer a prospect – he is a customer.
· The tactic of starting small with a little request in order to gain eventual
compliance with related larger requests has a name: the foor-in-the-door
technique.
· Once you’ve got a man’s self-image where you want it, he should comply
naturally with a whole range of your requests that are consistent with this view
of himself.
· Apparently the mere knowledge that someone viewed them as charitable
caused these women to make their actions consistent with another’s
perception of them.
· The enormously successful Amway Corporation, for instance, has hit upon a
way to spur their sales personnel to greater and greater accomplishments.
Members of the staff are asked to set individual sales goals and commit
themselves to those goals by personally recording them on paper.
· Something special happens when people personally put their commitments on
paper: They live up to what they have written down.
· “25-, 50-, or 100 words or less” testimonial contests
· ...express their opinions with a visible show of hands rather than by secret
ballot. Once jurors had stated their initial views publicly, they were reluctant to
allow themselves to change publicly, either.
· “persons who go through a great deal of trouble or pain to attain something tend to value it more highly than persons who attain the same thing with a minimum of effort”
· During this time, the dealer knows, customers automatically develop a range of new reasons to support the choice they have now made.
· We can learn, from the way the other witnesses are reacting, whether the
event is or is not an emergency.
· We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behaviour for ourselves,
especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves.
· Thus the most influential leaders are those who know how to arrange group
conditions to allow the principle of social proof to work maximally in their
favour.
· As a result, the Indian realised, it was possible to kill tremendous numbers of
buffalo by starting a herd running toward a cliff. The animals, responding to
thundering social proof around them – and never looking up to see what lay
ahead – did the rest.
· Once again we can see that social proof is most powerful for those who feel
unfamiliar or unsure in a specific situation and who, consequently, must look
outside of themselves for evidence of how best to behave there.
· Each new prospect is visited by a salesperson armed with the name of a
friend “who suggested I call on you.” Turning the salesperson away under
those circumstances is difficult; it’s almost like rejecting the friend. The
Shaklee sales manual insists that employees use this system without fail: “It
would be impossible to overestimate its value. Phoning or calling on a
prospect and being able to say that Mr. So-and-so, a friend of his, felt he
would benefit by giving you a few moments of his time is virtually as good as a
sale 50 percent made before you enter.”
· Research has shown that we automatically assign to good-looking individuals
such favourable traits as talent, kindness, honesty, and intelligence.
· Several studies have demonstrated that we are more likely to help those who
dress like us.
· Another way requesters can manipulate similarity to increase liking and
compliance is to claim that they have backgrounds and interests similar to
ours.
· Many sales training programs now urge trainees to “mirror and match” the
customer’s body posture, mood, and verbal style, as similarities along each of
these dimensions have been shown to lead to positive results.
· Conjoint efforts toward common goals steadily bridged the rancorous rift
between the groups.
· Compliance professionals are forever attempting to establish that we and they
are working for the same goals, that we must “pull together” for mutual
benefit, that they are, in essence, our teammates.
· ...like the new-car salesman who takes our side and “does battle” with his
boss to secure us a good deal.
· “known by the company we keep”
· Research has shown that an attractive model posing with an automobile will
make the car appear more desirable. Some advertisers apparently believe
that the same holds true for all sorts of items
· It is the extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the
command of an authority that constitutes the chief finding of the study
· It was found that with each increase in status, the same man grew in
perceived height by an average of a half inch, so that as the “professor” he
was seen as two and a half inches taller than as the “student”
· The percentage of compliance when he was in uniform – 92%
· Three and a half times as many people swept into traffic behind the suited
jaywalker.
· Finely styled and expensive clothes carry an aura of status and position, as
do trappings such as jewellery and cars
· People seem to be more motivated by the thought of losing something than by
the thought of gaining something of equal value
· The “deadline” tactic
· ...invoke the scarcity principle three separate times in just five words that
read, “Exclusive, limited engagement ends soon!”
· The advertising copy included the statement, “a book for adults only,
restricted to those 21 years and over”
· Those who learned of the age restriction (1) wanted to read the book more
and (2) believed that they would like the book more than did those who
thought their access to the book was unlimited
· The customers who received this last sales presentation learned that not only
was the availability of the product limited, so also was the news concerning it
– the scarcity double whammy
· The fact that the news carrying the scarcity of information was itself scare
made it especially persuasive
· As we have seen in the case of political freedoms and (especially pertinent to
the present discussion) chocolate-chip cookies, people see a thing as more
desirable when it has recently become less available than when it has been
scarce all along
· The results showed that those whose cookies became scare through the
process of social demand liked them significantly more than those whose
cookies became scare by mistake. In fact, the cookies made less available
through social demand were rated the most desirable of any in the study
· The feeling of being in competition for scarce resources has powerfully
motivating properties
· Scarcity plus rivalry
· The joy is not in experiencing a scare commodity but in possessing it

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A word of advice: grammar is not math

Univ. of Chicago: We've selected the sites on this list because on the whole, we think they're pretty good. But "rules" in writing -- unlike, say, rules in Newtonian physics -- are not written in stone. They are established by agreement among experienced writers, even though experienced writers can and do disagree all the time. You'll find, then, that grammar books and sites can offer conflicting advice. Sometimes a source's advice may even conflict with your professor's or boss's favorite grammatical beliefs. But although we cannot endorse any single source, on-line or off, as the last word on words, the sites we've chosen here do offer solid grammatical advice -- and some of them manage to be pretty amusing as well. So surf away, but arm yourself first with your native skepticism and common sense.

http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/grammar.htm

Articles on Corporate Strategy and General Management Roles

http://www.chicagobooth.edu/parttime/groups/csmg/resources.aspx

Articles on Corporate Strategy and General Management Roles