Chevron Enters India

As FDI continue to flow in Indian Markets one sector which did not see any FDI inflow was the refining sector. Finally it will.

Chevron, A US energy major is planning to pick up some stake in the 27000 crore hallmark Jamnagar Refinery to become the first FDI in India's booming refining sector. RIL Chairman Mr. Mukesh D Ambani is in US to meet the top officials of Chevron and closing in on signing a pact.

Earlier media had reported that RIL was planning to sell its 10 % stake to some of the western oil majors in a bid to expand its reach into western countries and to ensure long term supplies from these markets.

Management Challenges

This post is on some critical issues which the organizations globally majority in the IT sector are facing almost every day.

If one looks at the IT sector in India we have very high performing companies such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro who started the business from the home ground and are now the global leaders in their respective areas. On the other hand there are companies which were once considered to be the best in their class but slowly they deteriorated considerably to yield neither profitable bottom lines nor shareholder value. Infact these low performing companies were not even able to retain the best talent which hurt the productivity massively in the long term.

This article tries to answer the question as to what factors contribute to an individual's success in the organization. How an organization can make a difference in an individual and how an individual can make a difference to an organization. At the end of the day any associate as most of the IT companies call their employees as wants is the job satisfaction than any other thing in this IT industry.

Employee retention is one of the key objectives of the HR department in the IT industry. The primary objective of the HR in any company should be to ensure that the goals of the individual and the organization are always in tandem with each other. But there is a kind of change which is happening now.

It has been observed that HR plays a key role only in the beginning that is at the time of recruitment where in the candidates interview and other formalities happen. But soon the focus gets shifted towards deploying the new resource in some project without first doing a role fitment exercise. The role fitment exercise is very essential because it keeps in mind the interest of the associate, uses his skillset to the maximum extent and overall gives him a feeling of job satisfaction. At any point in time if the above requirements are not met, the resource while at job does not feel contended and a question always gets raised in his mind saying that "Can I do something better than this".

Money is one major factor in case of any job shift. It has been figured out that close to 80 % of the people move from a low performing company to a high performing company not because of the company itself but because the latter can pay almost double the package. The resource crunch in the industry is so high that it is not possible to retain a resource and pay a higher package than the industry standards. More often one has to reach a compromise in terms of the affordability of the resource and the value which can be derived out of him. This is a critical piece of analysis which can actually alter all kinds of calculations.

To be continued.

Memorable Week

This week is one of the most memorable one's when I have completed one year since I passed out of the pedastals of my alma-mater TAPMI. Last year on 26th of March 2005, I was awarded the Post Graduate Diploma in Management at the 21st Annual Convocation held in Hotel Valley View. It was a great feeling for all of us who got convocated on that day. The feeling of elation is absolutely out of the world. The successful completion of the course which changed us entirely from top to bottom and gave a whole new dimension to our personality is a ecstatic feeling. The joy is although short lived since we have to also leave the place where we stayed, studied and toiled ourselves for 2 years to become what we call as CORPORATE citizens.

I was discussing this today morning with Vasudha since both of us take the bus in the morning from the same stop. Even she felt the same that time has passed away very fast and it will be soon when we will be completing one year of our corporate experience.

Meanwhile on saturday, I somehow stayed at home since there was no work outside neither I had a party to go. In the evening I completed the download of Oracle 9i which I was trying to do from the last 4 years ever since I wanted to install SQL in my PC. The total size of the download came to about 1.5 GB. But then I forgot that my PC is not capable enough to take the huge installation size.

The installation of Oracle 9i Enterprise Edition took close to 3.5 hours on my machine. Although I was able to use the SQL editor successfully but the system became very slow and was booting up in close to 10 min which is very high by all standards for a PC with 192 MB RAM. Anyhow I had to uninstall it at the earliest to get back my PC to speed up again. This was a huge exercise once again.

The second interesting thing I did in this weekend was the Beta Testing of Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 for Win XP SP2. I downloaded the extractable exe from the Microsoft site and ran the install. Now these days Microsoft is not allowing its products to be installed on any PC. They are allowing the installs only on PC which have the logo of GENUINE WINDOWS ADVANTAGE or the original key which normally of all PCs is an invalid one. Somehow I was able to circumvent the validation procedure and installed IE 7.0.

IE 7.0 on the lines of Vista spots a very sleek look. Its pretty decent in terms of the menus and offers a large space for viewing the webpages. Again on the lines of its competitors it spots tabs which is a standard feature of Opera, Netscape and the most bitter rival of IE FireFox. Loading of IE 7.0 does not take much time as such and is definitely less than what is the time for IE 6.0. I had browsed only for a few minutes immedietely an error popped up which said IE.exe has caused an unknown error. Hence I had to uninstall IE 7.0 immedietely and come back to the current version of IE.

One more important thing which happened in this week was the comeback of Amitabh Bachchan. After close to 3 months being out of action, Amitabh was back to the sets of Kabhi Alvida na Kehna, the latest venture of Karan Johar. It was reported that he was again unwell after the shoot but there is no serious issue with respect to that. The crowd or the fan following was more happier when Big B returned on to the sets than the Man or the producers themselves. I remembered the screen presence of the star of the millenium when he made a short appearance in the filmfare awards. It was majestic.

Also on Sunday Morning, I attended a seminar on CISM by ISACA. ISACA is a global authority on IT Governance and Audit and is the central body for the development of COBIT which defines control objectives for information technology for Sarbanes Oxley compliance. It was a good break for me from the usual stuff I do at office daily. Got to know about ISACA and CISM and CISA certifications.

The coming week looks extremely hectic keeeping in mind today. Lets hope for another challenging week ahead.

Windows Vista Shipment Delays

Microsoft in its latest release with respect to the Windows Vista has said that the business availability for the product would happen by November 2006 but the broad consumer availability has been postponed to early 2007. This is a major setback to the plans of Microsoft and its associate partners in the launch of Vista. It seems that the OS would go for broad consumer beta to approximately 2 million users in second quarter of 2006.

Analysts say it’s a smart move, given the products' importance and longevity — but disappointing and harmful to PC manufacturers, Intel, and retailers expecting a Q4 lift in PC sales. However, Intel gets an unexpected bonus: the opportunity to make Viiv the digital home brand that matters in 2006.

Microsoft has said that VISTA needs more fine-tuning, especially on security features – a core selling point of the new OS and it said that most of its partners said that the launch should wait till 2007. Given Windows' history as buggy and unsecured, it's just plain smart to delay the release rather than ship a flawed product. However, five years and counting between operating system releases and a steadily diminishing feature list does make Microsoft look a bit foolish. Ongoing sales of Windows XP, and the fact that Microsoft's fiscal year ends in June rather than December, protect the company financially.

Most of the PC retailers and companies like Dell, HP, Intel are real losers in all this. As the consumer spending peaks around the holiday season when the initial launch of Vista was planned. It will so happen that consumers wont be able to buy Vista powered PC and this will hamper the sales considerably. It is suggested that consumers be promised to buy the PC in the holiday season with a Vista upgrade coupon attached to the purchase. But a large administrative cost could have been avoided if the release would have happened at the scheduled time.

Since the launch is delayed Intel has a big opportunity to showcase their new technology VIIV as the centerpiece of the digital home, outcasting Vista. Launch of Vista with VIIV was considered to be a dual branding strategy by the market leaders. But then Intel will have a good opportunity to leverage on an early launch and make an impressive start before Vista comes into the market.

For the unknown, VIIV is Intel's new platform designed for the enjoyment of digital entertainment—Intel® Viiv™ technology—delivers the multitasking power of a dual-core processor and enables sleek new designs that fit your lifestyle.Key components of the VIIV technology are Intel Dual Core 64 bit processor, Advanced Chipset, and Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition.

Godavari Film Shooting

This is the second time that I was part of a movie shooting. The last time I was involved in a movie shooting was when I was in my Grandma’s house in the year 1998. It was the shooting of a Telugu movie by some name I do not even remember now. The shooting took place for about 2 weeks time but finally when I watched the movie the shooting at our place was their in picture for just about 30 sec to 1 minute. That time I realized the power of editing.

Recently one of our colleagues took us to a shoot sequence of an upcoming Telugu movie GODAVARI. Shekar Kammula one of the renowned director in the Telugu film industry and also the director of the movie Anand is directing this movie. He happens to be a good friend of my colleague so this gave us an opportunity to show our acting skills also. The first shot (If I can call it a shot) was the one, which we took near the HCU bus stand with the heroine. It was a very small still involving not much effort.

The second shot, which happened on Sunday, involved quite a few associates from our organization who participated in the shoot, which involved the Hero of the movie, Sumanth. The shoot was done in a conference room and was part of a song sequence. It was a nice break for me from the daily routine of going to the office and coming back. The shooting started at 8:30 in the morning and continued till 11:00 AM wherein we were part of close to 3 or 4 shots.

Shooting a movie is not an easy job. For a moment I felt that this is the toughest job, which one can think about since there are close to 100 things, which need to be done simultaneously. If someone wants to prove that he is a leader he should involve himself into shooting. All the leadership qualities of a person can be tested very well while shooting is in progress. The voice of the Director, the sequence of camera, action and cut, the control of the scene sequence, controlling the people out there, managing money, convincing the people, making sure the actor and actress are happy with what they are doing are some of the aspects which a director needs to take care. All in all, the director of the movie exhibits the true qualities of a leader.

Impossible is Nothing

Impossible is nothing. That’s what the South African team proved when they chased 434 against the top team of the world and three times world champion’s Australia. In a record-breaking one-day chase South Africa on Sunday chased 434 to win the series against Australia by 3-2. Australia made an impossible score of 434 way ahead of the 398 made by Srilanka against Kenya in 1996 World Cup. I remembered the star in that game was Aravinda De Silva who scored an impressive 148 to send shocks to Kenyan’s. But this contest was different

This contest was between one of the best teams in ODI. South Africa and Australia. Known for their all rounder’s these two teams always had a great contest. Some of the best memories of their contests are the World Cup Semifinal in 1999 wherein Australia won inspite of a tie because of a better run-rate.

A disbelieving crowd at the Wanderers in Johannesburg witnessed the greatest one-day international of all as South Africa hit a world record 438 for 9 with one wicket and one ball to spare to beat Australia. The fans were amazed at lunch, having seen the visitors smash 434 for 4, with Ricky Ponting making 164, they would have been pinching themselves when Mark Boucher hit the winning runs off Brett Lee after Herschelle Gibbs had led the way with 175.

This match proved it that Impossible is nothing, if one has that killer instinct to do it. No team could ever think of crossing 400 mark in one-day cricket. But then Australia did it and broke the previous record of 398 by scoring 434 and set an example. It was one of the most path breaking moments for Ricky Ponting where in he made his career best score. When South Africa started they always felt that probably they cannot reach that target but I must say that winning this match was a perfect example of team spirit where everyone in the team contributed equally to the success. Whether it was the one run of Makhaya Ntini or the winning shot by Mark Boucher everything in the match was awesome. In the past couple of months we have not seen such a finish for the match. India Pakistan series also went very dry. The feeling of elation for the team was absolutely par excellence and no one can ever expect to see that kind of stuff in one-day cricket. I believe no match will stand parallel to this match. And Then South Africa scored 438 with one wicket to go in 49.5 overs and won the match and grabbed the series. They made impossible possible with a great dedication, determination, a team effort and above all a killer instinct. But do Indian really possess it is the question?

First Anniversary

Its exactly a year now since I started blogging. So today my blog completes one year of its existence on the world wide web. It saw close to 4200 visitors in the year which makes an average of 12 visits per day. The maximum hits were on 19th December 2005 when my blog recorded close to 49 hits which were excluding the reloads. This was the day when I had posted the article on the murder of the BPO woman.

I started blogging in the last few days of my stay at TAPMI. I was very excited about writing the things about which I felt very strongly but was lazy enough to note them down in a piece of paper. That was also the time when I shifted from the notebook or diary to the electronic medium of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. Blog gave me a choice to express what I feel about the things around me. I believe that has driven me to write on the blog consistently in the last one year.

As I write this post I have posted close to 108 articles on my blog some clubbed under one heading of IT and related areas. Some on Compliance issues like Sarbanes Oxley, MiFiD and Clause 49. Others on Mergers and Acquisitions and some on my feelings and thoughts about certain issues which I feel very strongly about.

Blogging has been a great experience for me. I have been criticized several time and appreciated also many times. But more than that it has given me a lot of visibility and above all a presence on the web. Once someone types in the google, "Yashasvi Arun", immedietely he lands up on my blog homepage. Bitten by the blog bug, I went ahead and created a quiz blog for my Punchliners series. It has registered close to 4200 hits within a span of 5 months.

I believe, the quality of posts and also the time variation will improve considerably as I plan my time well enough to pursue my hobby in a better way. Thanks a lot to all those who visited my blog and if my Blog was helpful in providing some info to you I would feel the best satisfaction possible.

Thoughts Emotions Feelings Sentiments

It has been quite some time since I posted some stuff on the above words in which I used to believe very little until today. There are days in our lives which are just another days. But there are days which usually make a lot of impacts on our lives and take our view points to the extremes some times and make us think. Today was one such day in my life when I felt that yes that there are emotions, feelings and sentiments even in the worst of the business scenarios also.

I always felt that if we are good everything which will happen to us in the future will be good only. But often we forget that there are forces which act opposite to what we usually do. These are invisible forces which usually operate in vacuum till the time we are in our limits. But once we try to do something out of the system, these invisible forces come out of the vacuum and attack us in all directions possible and enervate us within no time. These negative forces tend to kill the enthusiasm, the dedication and the determination to make things perfect. The path to betterment is lost and suddenly the concerned human being feels that he is doing something which is not wished by others. The worst part of all this is that these invisible forces weaken you so much or hurt you so much that you sometimes start doubting as to why did you take this burden of improving the system at all.

Well the article as it sounds is not pessimistic. Its about the reality of life when we cross the system boundaries and do something which we believe is obvious and nevertheless good for the organization. But at the end we get entangled in such a web which stretches us emotionally, mentally and pscyhologically and literally kills the passion in us.

There have been days for me which always gave me a feeling that why should I suffer always in life. I questioned my existence in the organization. I questioned my education. I questioned by behavior. Above all I questioned my pursuit of perfection and belief in High Performance probably one thing in my life which keeps going me on and on. I could not never get the answer. Perhaps I can never get also.

To be continued.

Weekend

The weekend went by was one of the memorable weekends for me wherein I had to deal with some unprecedented issues. On Saturday my computer went into trouble without me having any clue of what has happened. For quite sometime the power on button of the computer was not working and it so happened due to Windows XP we need not have to restart the computer also quite often. The latter thing actually spoiled the restart button of the machine. So it does matter to use all the parts of the computer on time.

On Saturday evening it so happened that my computer got hung up and instead of restarting it from the main power, I used the spoiled restart button and then it was the end of it. My computer got hung and it did not start for the next few hours and then it so happened that even display was not coming on the monitor, CD Drive stopped working, Hard Disk was continuously blinking with the red light. I was like dead scared as to what happened to my life companion after spending close to 6 years. Somehow my dad got hold of a hardware vendor and he came and scrutinized the system for a while and concluded that it’s a chip level problem. I was like finished. Then he said RAM has gone and he won’t be able to do anything. He suggested taking the computer to Global Technologies in Secunderabad.

We reached Global Technologies somehow. The guy immediately within no time connected the required cables to the computer and was trying to figure out the error. Then when we were about to give it to him for repair, I told him the incident, which led to this problem. I must say the guy was intelligent and accordingly as per my description he removed the reset socket from the motherboard and the computer started working. I was like delighted very moment. Immediately, I saw this opportunity and somehow escaped from there without giving the computer for servicing. I believe the knowledge of the guy in repairing the thing shows the signs of High Performance, which delighted me a lot. I got the computer back home but then to my surprise, it looked like due to the deletion of restoration data the computer lost its display drivers and Windows XP started creating lot of problems. Norton got corrupted and the visual display went for a toss. All in all the computer became very slow and the Internet speed also got reduced tremendously. I decided that its time to format the hard disk. So I took the back up of the entire data on C drive and made the computer ready for the format process on Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, I formatted the C drive of my computer loaded Win 98 and Win XP and brought the computer into its original form. It took close to 6 hours for the process to complete. By night my computer was back into original shape and I must say this time the problems I encountered were really big.

Another eventful thing, which happened on Sunday, was our trip to Yadagirigutta. Yadagirigutta is about 70 KM from our house and is a religious place having a temple of Lakhsmi Narsimha Swamy. We drove till their in our new ESTEEM, and I am sure Tej enjoyed the drive a lot. It was a good one while going we touched the speed of 70. While coming I drove it in the night continuously for about 75 KM and it was an amazing drive. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was one of the pleasing moments for me, which I will cherish for life. The speed I touched was 85 and I was pretty happy about it. It took me just about an hour to complete the 70 KM stretch. Driving on Highway gives a totally different kind of pleasure and I enjoyed every moment of it.

WINNING by Jack Welch

Winning is my latest book which I completed close to two weeks back but then due to some preoccupations was not able to post my experience after reading the book. This is my, If I am not wrong, 7th Management Book, the last being India Unbound which is not very close to a Mangement book but it does have that kind of flavor.

Winning came into the market sometime in May 2005 and I wanted to read the book eagerly, right from the day when I read its review in India Today. I had spotted the book first in the LandMark Stores in Spencer’s Plaza in Chennai. But then it took close to 6 months for the book to come into my hand courtesy one of my friend. Albeit, the edition being partially pirated, the content being more important than the style or the design of the book, I was satisfied.

The book starts off with the favorite theme of every go-getter. Winning Does Matter. The essence of the book lies in the phrase stated above. Jack Welch using his past experiences tries to look into issues which are at the center of winning and which can make or break any game in life whether corporate or social. The book has come out when Jack Welch retired from GE and traveled across the world covering Asia, Africa, Europe, spoke at several places and conferences and had one to one meeting with several professionals on what it takes to WIN.

As with any management thought, the important part is to apply the thought in the real life rather than reading it through and have the pleasure. The real pleasure comes in when the Management idea gets into execution to give some real results. This time I had decided when I would read the book I will apply every idea in the text in my professional life and see whether it really works or not. Believe me it does work in 80 % of the cases.

The book is divided into 5 different parts altogether, which have a central theme that is – What Does it take to Win?. The first part introduction starts by talking about the various aspects of business and theories behind the business functions, the idea of Candor, which Jack Welch strongly advocates, and the issues like Differentiation. The second part of the book talks about the essential elements of Company. How a company should be structured and what are the issues to be kept in mind. It talks about the essentials of business like Leadership, Hiring, Change and Crisis Management. Next section talks about Competition in terms of strategy, budgeting, growth and M&A. The penultimate section in the book is titled “YOUR CAREER” which is one of the unique features of any management books I have seen till now. Generally we do not find a section dedicated specifically to the career. This section starts off by talking about what kind of job is a right job for an individual then the issues in performance appraisal to the issue of a bad boss and finally closing on one of the most important issues of 21st century – How to balance work and family life.

In the last section, Jack Welch talks about some of the questions, which cannot be part of any of the other four chapters mentioned above. Here in he covers issues like Threat of China, Diverity, Regulations like Sarbanes Oxley, Business response to AIDS, His successor Jeff Imelt and How he is doing together with the last question on whether Jack Welch will go to hell or heaven.

One of the topics, which Jack Welch forces the most and deals in extensively, is the issue of CANDOR. Candor is something, which we all will never wish to practice in our live's because we fear it immensely. But I did practice it in my professional life in a situation wherein I felt that the things are not going right and yes it did work it.

All in all, WINNING is a great read and is a must for every individual who looks at good career as a journey and not as a destination.

Narain Karthikeyan vs. Sania Mirza

This post is dedicated to one issue which I believe should be discussed in many forums in concern to its importance. Yesterday I was looking at Times of India where I read that Sania Mirza has been signed by Deutsche Bank as the Brand Ambassador for promoting its retail banking product since Deutsche Bank was operating in India only in the Corporate Banking space. Daily if one watches the television you can spot number of ads featuring Sania Mirza but is there a single ad which features Narain Karthikeyan. Leave alone ads. Think about other recognition.

Sania Mirza recently got the Padmashree.If we look at the statistics Rahul Dravid even after being in the Indian Cricket Team for more than 7-8 Years got the Padmashree only in the year 2004. We all know what has been the contibution of Rahul Dravid to the Indian Cricket and what he is to the Indian Cricket team.

Now look at one sport which is not very popular in India. Formula 1. This sport considered to be the hobby of only the elite class and was till a few years back not even seen widely on television is now a raging sport amongst the youth of the country. Infact Chandra Babu Naidu ex chiefminister of AP had a proposal to come out with the Formula 1 Track in Hyderabad. Our only image in Formula 1 amongst 1 billion people considering the past and the present records is Narain Karthikeyan. Till date he is the only driver from our subcontinent to break into the elite league of Formula 1 considered to be one of the costliest sport in the world. But no one not even media bothered to cover it in a very proper manner. The way hype has been created about Sania I believe not even 10 % of the hype was created for Narain. We all know how important is media for the growth of anything in this world. If media publishes wrong information about any company or some kind of news than the company's stock price will go for a toss. Similar is the case with the sports person also. Any news however small if hyped considerably can really make a person god within few hours thanks to the ever increasing influence of media in our life.

Does the fete of Narain Karthikeyan any less than the fete accomplished by Sania Mirza or is it that people do not want to recognize some sports as Cricket gets a lot more priority over any other sport in the country. Very recently Narain Karthikeyan was also signed up by William the team of stalwarts like Montoya and Ralf once upon a time as a reserve driver. This is not a small feat.

I think its high time the media recognizes the importance of every sport and does not brush away any sport which does not spot glamour in it. We also need to remember that with formula 1 we have one of the biggest corporate house's TATA's name associated.

SENSEX Touches 10000

India's stock market benchmark Sensex on Monday pierced through the magical 10,000 points level for the first time on aggressive buying by funds.

The market barometer was at 10,002.83 points, higher by 260.25 points. Similarly, wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty spurted by 66.55 points to set a record high of 3007.15.

The Sensex finally settled with a huge gain of 2.4% (238 points) at a record high of 9,980.

The Nifty surged by 60 points to close at 3,000.

The Bombay Stock Exchange's 30-sensitive index (Sensex) which set an intra-day high at 9993.92 points on February 1, remained sluggish thereafter and touched a low of 9,713 points before completing the last lag of its journey to the historic 10K level today.

The major support to the Sensex came from Reliance Industries, Infosys, ICICI Bank, ACC, Bajaj Auto, Housing Development Finance Corporation and Larsen and Toubro.
Any change in the share prices of Reliance Industries, Infosys Tech and ICICI Bank changes the market scenario as the trio enjoy over 30 per cent weightage on the index.

Major GainersICICI Bank rallied 6.4% to Rs 607. HDFC moved up 2.5% to Rs 1,338, and HDFC Bank added 1.7% to Rs 745. SBI was up nearly 1% at Rs 865.Ranbaxy soared over 6% to Rs 414 following the company's announcement that it has formed a JV with a South African firm to tap the African market. Dr.Reddy's and Cipla moved up 2.6% each to Rs 1,190 and Rs 496, respectively.Reliance gained 3.4% to Rs 720. ONGC ended with a gain of 2.5% at Rs 1,191. ITC surged 2.7% to Rs 157, and HLL advanced over 2% to Rs 194.TCS rallied 3% to Rs 1,680. Infosys gained over 2% at Rs 2,845 and Satyam added 1.8% to Rs 739. Wipro, however, ended a tad lower at Rs 514.The BSE Bankex zoomed over 3% (162 points) to 5164. The BSE Healthcare Index also moved up over 3% (113 points) to 3478. The BSE FMCG, Oil & Gas indices closed with gains of over 2% each today. The BSE Teck index gained 1.5% (35 points) to 2,442.
Advances were ahead of declines - out of 2,570 scrips traded, 1,443 moved up, 1,071 declined and 56 were unchanged today.While 302 scrips hit their respective upper limits, 177 hit the lower circuits today.

Recession

Ever heard of this word now in the boom economy where literally each and ever sector of the economy is doing very well and the global economy seems to be very vibrant. But everything does not seem to be going well for the US retailers who fear store closures as the retail business faces problems.

In one of the articles on CNN, I came across the plight of US retailer’s inspite of retail being one of the fastest growing industries globally. WALMART world’s biggest retailer is also world’s biggest company in terms of revenues and features above giants like Exxon Mobil with net sales of 346 Billion Dollars in the past fiscal year.

As per the research done by the Davidowitz & Associates recently, there are three factors that can be attributed to the downfall of retail stores in US. These are:

• Growth in Online Shopping
• High Energy Costs
• Overcapacity.

Some of the well-known names, which are planning to bring closures of some of their stores, are Zale Corp, OfficeMax, Toy R Us, Musicland Holding Corp. and a few others.

• Zale Corp., which is set to turn off the lights at more than 30 of its high-end Bailey Banks & Biddle stores.
• Office supplies seller OfficeMax announced it would close 110 of its 950 U.S. outlets this year as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts.
• Department store chain Mervyn's plans to close a third of its stores in 2006.
• Toy seller Toys R Us is closing 75 of its namesake stores, most of them by springtime, and converting 12 others to Babies R Us locations.
• Music retailer Musicland Holding Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, is considering a "significant number of closings of unprofitable stores" under the Sam Goody and Suncoast names

Some of the factors quoted by the research firm were concerning to the too much overstoring of the retail stores hence it has become a victim of its overcapacity itself. The report also says that there is about nineteen and half square foot of retail space for every shopper in the country. This calls for a debate on the ever-expanding mode of retail stores in US inspite of projections saying that consumer spending will come down in the future. There is actually another component of energy costs, which is actually coming over the head of every retail store.

It is so happening that only big retail stores like Walmart and Home Depot are able to sustain these costs and able to face the competition well. The other factor is the online stores. Online stores recorded sales worth $ 142.3 billion according to ComScore Networks, market research firm. Online stores like Amazon.com, Ebay have largely taken away a big market share of Brick and Mortars store.

Research experts suggest the only solution to this problem is the true convergence of the Online retailing with Brick and Mortar stores. Now just try comparing this problem with the story on Big Bazaar.

Konica Minolta Sell Camera Business

This has to be the biggest and most shocking news in the world of camera and photo business. Konica Minolta announced on 19th Jan 2006 that it is withdrawing from the camera and photo business. They will be transferring assets related to their camera business to Sony who will continue to develop digital SLR's based around the Konica Minolta lens mount. Konica Minolta it appears will continue to work with Sony (a relationship announced last year) in the development of digital SLR's and lenses but they will not be branded as or be sold by Konica Minolta.

This is the press release of the withdrawal plan.

Konica Minolta Announces Withdrawal Plan for Camera Business and Photo Business

Konica Minolta has long been a leading company in photo imaging business covering wide range of imaging from input to output. In addition, it has also provided inspiring products and services by fusing unique technologies.

In camera business, it has expanded picture-taking opportunities by developing innovative technologies such as the world’s first auto focus cameras. In 1962, our camera, well-accepted for its high reliability, boarded on the US’s first manned spaceship “Friendship 7.” Also, ever since introduction of the world’s first body-integral autofocus SLR camera, Maxxum/Dynax series, in 1985, SLR cameras have become more popular among picture-takers, and we have succeeded in selling 16 million units of interchangeable lenses since then.

However, in today’s era of digital cameras, where image sensor technologies such as CCD is indispensable, it became difficult to timely provide competitive products even with our top optical, mechanical and electronics technologies.

In photo business, represented by the silver-halide photography such as color film and color paper, we have produced Japan’s first photographic paper in 1903, and Japan’s first color film in 1940, thus pioneering joy of photography for more than a century. In 1984, we introduced the world’s first compact washless photofinishing system known as a minilab system. The minilabs contributed to the expansion of worldwide photographic market by making photos closer to consumers and amazingly shortening delivery time.

However, traditional silver-halide photographic market is shrinking astonishingly by the surge of the worldwide digitization. In such a changing world, profits for camera and photo businesses worsened in recent years, and it became necessary to drastically reform business structure for the further growth of Konica Minolta. Ever since we decided and announced restructuring guidelines of our businesses on November 4, 2005, we have been considering practical and detailed plan, and we would like to announce our decision made today as follows:

1) Camera Business

In camera business, we have reached an agreement with Sony Corporation(Sony), having numerous image sensor technologies such as CCD and CMOS, to jointly develop digital SLR cameras in July 2005. In order to continue to have our customers use Maxxum/Dynax lenses, and to maximize possibilities of the optical, mechanical and electronics technologies accumulated through development of SLR cameras in the years to come, we came to the conclusion that it was best to transfer assets concerning camera business to Sony. Since then, we have been negotiating with Sony, and as a result, we have reached an agreement with Sony to transfer a portion of assets regarding digital SLR camera system to Sony.

*1. In this relation, we have decided to withdraw from camera business

*2, such as film cameras and digital cameras, within Konica Minolta Group as of March 31, 2006.

Sony is planning to develop digital SLR cameras compatible with Maxxum/Dynax lens mount system, so that the current Maxxum/Dynax users will be able to continue to use them with Sony’s digital SLR cameras. In addition, we will consign camera service operations for Konica Minolta, Konica,Minolta brand cameras and related equipment to Sony.

2) Photo Business

In today’s shrinking photographic market represented by color film and color paper, we have been considering to scale back and to continue photo business at an appropriate size; however, when we foresee the photographic market, it is quite difficult to maintain profitability in this field, and we have decided to withdraw from photo business. As schemed below, we will, as much as possible, avoid causing any inconvenience in providing products to our worldwide customers in the course of withdrawal.

For color film and color paper, while considering our customer needs, we will step-by-step reduce product lineup and cease our color film and color paper production by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2007.

For minilab business, we will cease production of the system by the end of fiscal year ending March 31, 2006; however we will have such company as Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd to provide maintenance and customer services so as not to cause any inconvenience to our customers.

In line with the above scheme, with consideration to our customers and regional situations, we will step-by-step reorganize our sales offices and withdraw from all of our photo sales activities by September 30, 2007.

3) Personnel Management

As a part of Konica Minolta Group’s restructuring, we will proceed with withdrawal plan for camera and photo businesses and aggressively shifted their management resources to other Konica Minolta Group companies. While continuing this effort, in order to rationalize a number of employees, we have decided to reduce worldwide Konica Minolta Group employees by 3,700 from the current 33,000 including early retirement offering by September 30, 2007*.

* The early retirement offering is for Konica Minolta Group’s holding company, five business companies and two common function companies in Japan. The expenses to be incurred with this restructuring are already included in the forecast for fiscal year ending March 31, 2006.

Konica Minolta Group will make our utmost efforts not to cause any inconvenience to our customer due to the decision we made this time. At the same time, camera and photo businesses are our traditional businesses ever since our founding, and we wish to express our heartfelt appreciation to the worldwide Konica Minolta fans for their patronage to our products for more than a century.

Konica Minolta Group is aiming to become more powerful corporate group by swiftly meeting market changes and pursuing “selection and concentration”. We will, from now on, be concentrating our business resources on non-consumer businesses, such as the core “business technologies” field, the strategic “optics and display devices” field, and the growth expected “medical imaging” and “sensing” fields, increase competitiveness, and endeavor to further expand corporate value.

Rang De Basanti - A Generation Awakens

This is the first time ever that a movie name has appeared in my blog. Infact this post is dedicated to the movie Rang De Basanti. Rang De Basanti is one movie in recent times after probably Sarkar which I was able to appreciate and like a lot. But at the outset I can make one statement that this movie is not for the masses.

Rang De Basanti, one of the most awaited movie of 2006 was supposed to release on 20th but then as with any other movie this one also ran into some kind of trouble with the Censor board of India and finally got released on the eve of Republic day to packed houses. The movie stars Aamir Khan (DJ), Madhavan(Ajay), Soha Ali Khan (Sonia), Sharman Joshi (Sukhi) , Siddarth (Karan) , Kunal Kapoor (Aslam), Atul Kulkarni (Laxman) and Alice Patten (Sue). The music director needless to say is A R Rahman since we see the songs of the movie topping almost every chart.

The movie starts on a very slow note with the introduction of General Mckinney who felt the threesome Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad and RajGuru are different from the masses and starts writing the account of his experiences with them in his diary. His grand daughter who is Sue reads the diary of her grandfather and then decides to make the documentary film over it depicting the national heroes. But she does not get approval for the same from the senior people in the company so she all by herself comes to India where she has Sonia as her friend. They both do good number of auditions for the documentary film but in vain. This is shot in a very nice manner keeping in mind the big number of contests like Indian Idol and others happening over the television now and then. But it so happens that in a party Sue meets the five guys Sukhi, DJ, Karan, Aslam and decide that yes they are the heroes she is looking for her film.

But Sukhi, DJ, Aslam and Karan is one of the modern youngsters brad who believes that India is nothing but a useless country and nothing can be changed in this country even after the best attempts. They believe in living their life to the fullest and do not bother about anything in this world. Aamir Khan once again shines in the role superbly. He has got that terrific knack of posing as a spoiled guy who knows only how to have fun. As he says in one of the dialogues:

" Its been 5 years since I passed out of this University but then I do not want to get out of this place for a simple reason that, here there is some reputation of DJ but outside I would be nothing more than a street dog. "

The character of Karan suits Siddarth very well. He is a silent guy who does not talk a lot in the movie even but his shot at the radio station is amazing. Aslam looks more like a VJ than a Kranthikaari but the role suits him very well. Sukhi essayed by Sharman Joshi is the most energetic character of the movie. It suits Sharman very well and he gets into the shoes of Sukhi and plays the role. His death in the movie makes the mood really sad in the theatre.

These 4 guys are always together in the DU Campus and there is an activist of Swadeshi called as Laxman who is totally opposed to the idea of westernism exhibited by these people. He fights with these people but then it happens that Sue finds an excellent fit in this character and then he enters into the role of one of the freedom fighters. Then the rest of the movie revolves around these five characters together with some of the romance between Madhavan and Soha. After the intermission, the death of Madhavan shooks the five and then their mind starts thinking as to how they can make a difference in the society. The movie ends in a tragic way by the death of all the five people in an encounter. But then this movie gives a really big message to the audience and succeeds in it too.

This movie is different in number of ways. The way it has been shot. The ideal mix of youthful extragavanza and patriotism which no movie has portrayed as of yet. If we look at any of the movies in the past made on the History of India they never involved the youngsters as such. But this movie took a bold step to involve youngsters from present into the past of India and convey the message to the audience. The locales, the picturisation, the back ground score everything in this movie is so well done that one feels that all the strings are perfectly attached. Also this movie is different in a way that it portrays one of the important problem we are facing right now in terms of our defence strength. The MIG. The scandal happening in the area of MIG components is a major blow to the defence department of Indian govt. From the past in which our freedom fighters faced hell and gave us freedom to the present wherein our politicians are playing with our national security and filling up their pockets by way of corruption, the movie portrays it all. The best part of the movie is the time when the DJ and group get the message that they have to do something for their country after the death of Madhavan in a MIG crash.

Rang De Basanti stands out tall among the latest movies which are made on the theme of patriotism and national freedom struggle. Its the same story but presented in a lot different way and its also able to deliver the message across the audience. The music score of A R Rahman is extremely good and complements the movie in all possible ways. The character portrayal and the song sequence together with the selection of places is extremely well done keeping in mind the storyline every moment. The director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehara stands by his fine touch and delivers a masterpiece which the viewers were longing for quite sometime. One of the last dialogue of Aamir Khan is the most heart touching:

"Is duniya mein do tarah ke log rehte hain. Ek jo system ko maante hain aur chahe woh system kitna bhi gandha ho usi ke hisaab se chalte hain. Aur Doosre jo zimmedari lete hain system ko sudharne ki aur use perfect banane ki"

"Har desh perfect nahee hota. Use perfect banana padta hain."

Take my word Rang De Basanti is must watch for just everything it can offer to you.

100th Post

Here I am. 100th post on the blog. This blog has seen 100 posts till date starting from March 12, 2005 when I had posted my first article on this blog. It has been a long journey wherein I have written articles on numerous topics ranging from IT to Merger and Acquisitions to Politics to the trips I had undertaken last year and a whole lot of things.

Every article on this blog is special to me. Whether its about the Goa trip or its about my passion of Sarbanes Oxley. I believe one of the best posts on this blog has been the one on Oracle Acquisition of I Flex. This post is the most comprehensive post amongst all the posts I have made on this blog.

There was a time when I used to write just about once or twice in a month but then the frequency of posting has increased considerably thanks to DataOne broadband service.

I have not followed a single theme for the blog just because of the simple reason that it creates monotonicity which I hate a lot. I always wanted my blog to express what I feel every moment as the days pass by.

To take my quizzing to new heights I also started a blog on quizzes. This was titled Punchliners and is currently a very famous series among the quiz groups like quinkie, quizkrieg etc.

Hope the action on the blog will continue in the future with increasing amount of activity happening around me.

GOD SPEED.

Big Bazaar vs. US Retailers

Yesterday was a Maha Savings Day at Big Bazaar. Big Bazaar announced a week back that 26th January would be the day when its going to give ultimate discount on its entire range. One could buy a 21 inch television at just about 5890 bucks. VIP suitcases were available at just about 200 rupees and a whole lot of merchandise notably garments like the Ruf and Tuf jeans. A pair of Ruf and Tuf jeans were available at 499/- only which is close to 50 % less than the market. With this kind of offer Big Bazaar opened its stores on 26th of January, a national holiday, at a never before time. At 8:00 AM.

Some of the offers were as follows:
The offers were spread across categories from electronics to utensils to apparel to furniture to food. Pressure cookers will be on offer for Rs 299 while a pair of 2 Ruf-n-Tuf jeans for just Rs 499, Motorola C115 mobiles for Rs 1399, sofas for Rs 15,999 or a 21'' flat TV for Rs 5890 and many more such offers. Customers will get sugar for a year free on shopping above Rs 4000 and on shopping above Rs 8000, sugar and Charminar basmati rice will be supplied free for a year.

So to test the waters, I went to Big Bazaar in the evening at about 6:15 PM. As soon as we reached the lane close to the Mall, the traffic jam had started and I was getting the signals of it. We somehow got a parking space at a distance of about 200 m from the Mall and after parking the vehicle moved towards the Mall only to see the biggest surprise of my life.

This is what I observed. The Mall was locked out as if it was a strike of the worker's union. All the lights were shut down and the entire MPM Mall which used to shine like anything in the night turned into a dark place with only Police and security guards visible. The entire Mall was closed for any public entry by tying a rope from end to end which covered the entire structure. No citizen was allowed inside and Police was literally doing a lathie charge on the crowd which tried to make an entry into the Mall. No one was allowed to stop anywhere near on the road also and it was out an out a situation wherein once again our infrastructure was not able to serve the people. We came out of the place pretty early and went to CENTRAL. CENTRAL was ok since the crowd there is of some standard.

But then the title of the post does not reflect the story till now. A few days back I was working on a quiz where in I came across a site which was telling the story of big retailers in US. Globally the economy is doing really good and we are seeing consumer spending reaching new heights. new projects are getting kicked off and new opportunities are coming into focus in almost every direction. But in this point in time can we hear of some closures happening. Yes we do and here is the example. Instead of talking about their growth plans for 2006, many big-name retailers instead are announcing store closings.
Here are some examples

• Among those retailers closing locations are jeweler Zale Corp. which is set to turn off the lights at more than 30 of its high-end Bailey Banks & Biddle stores.
• Office supplies seller OfficeMax announced it will close 110 of its 950 U.S. outlets this year as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts.
• Department store chain Mervyn's plans to close a third of its stores in 2006.
• Toy seller Toys R Us is closing 75 of its namesake stores, most of them by springtime, and converting 12 others to Babies R Us locations.
• Music retailer Musicland Holding Corp., which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this month, is considering a "significant number of closings of unprofitable stores" under the Sam Goody and Suncoast names.

Only the big giants like Walmart and HomeDepot are looking into expanding their chain. Why is it that there is a rash of closings and cutbacks. Howard Davidowitz A retail analyst and, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, argued that the U.S. retail market was "too overstored" and therefore a victim of its own overcapacity. There's nineteen-and-a-half square foot of retail space for every shopper in USA which is a lot by any standard. The question raised in concern to the above is :

"Is it natural for companies to keep expanding when the market is already overcrowded with stores, especially when there are numerous projections calling for a slowdown in consumer spending?"

The problem for the brick and mortar store is increased due to the steady increase in the Online Retailing which is the second biggest group in retailing after Walmart. The movement is happening more towards consolidation of small stores as people move towards value stores like Walmart and Target. Its getting more into the hands of larger stores as the stronger is becoming more stronger. But the online retailing should be looked more synergestically with the brick and mortar stores in terms of adding value to the customer.

To be continued.

Google 2084

Something really interesting which I found on the web when I was searching for a few logos. This picture is Orwellian vision of Google in the future, published in the New York Times, 10th October 2005. You’ll be able to search the net, your brain, your future, basically everything everywhere…

AICC Plenary Session

If there was one news in the recent times which appeared on the front page of every newspaper, it was none other than the news of 82nd Annual Session of AICC. The plenary session was held in Hyderabad over a span of 3 days. The best part of this plenary session was the decorations which were done in the entire city because of this. But more than that the plenary session was a different one and dedicated totally to the Gandhi family.

Almost every part of city was decorated and there were only three colors visible on the roads, saffron, green and white and one symbol the characteristic of Congress "Hand". The plenary sessions were organized at Gachibowli Stadium which was once upon a time venue for the National Games. Soon thereafter it became a venue for election vote counting, music concerts and other events and not just sports. The event was held from 21st to 23rd of January and thank god that the Gachibowli stadium is pretty far from the city and near the IT Park but since it was a saturday and sunday, IT companies managed to save the business. Entire city had hoardings of all the past Congress presidents and prominently of Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. One could spot new gates coming up in Twin cities where each gate was named after one president of Congress in the past years. In all this our very own Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh was forgotten and it so happened that the presence of Rahul Gandhi shadowed the position of Prime Minister itself. There was no news item covering the speech of Manmohan Singh neither the banners or the posters were carrying the photograph of Singh. Even among the party workers the enthusiasm was with respect to only Sonia and Rahul Gandhi and not for any one else.

It so happened that I was in Lumbini Park on Saturday when the plenary session was in progress and we could spot atleast 2 dozen party workers passing time near the Hussain Sagar lake. I do not know what they had come for to Hyderabad. A good number of party workers went into clashes upon the issue of Rahul speaking or not. Rahul Gandhi had to come to the stage to control the crowd. I do not understand why the people are so mad about Rahul Gandhi and give him an eternal status as to he is the only sole saviour of the Congress party.

Jet Airways Acquires Sahara

In continuation to my previous post about Jet planning to buy out Sahara, this post fills the gap. In what can be termed as the biggest deal in the Indian civil aviation history, Jet Airways took over Air Sahara for nearly $500 million (about Rs. 2,300 crore) in an-all cash deal, executed on late Wednesday night.

Announcing the deal through a joint statement, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Sahara group Chairman and Managing Worker Subrata Roy said they were "pleased to announce the execution of a share purchase agreement for acquisition by Jet Airways India Limited of the entire capital of Sahara Airlines Limited subject to regulatory approvals.''

Though talks between the two leading private carriers on the subject had been in the air for the last few months, they preferred to term the exercise as discussions on forging a "strategic alliance.'' Shedding its initial coyness and shying away from the talk of buying out Air Sahara, Jet Airways stepped on the gas after Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya gave up his efforts, saying $500 million was too high a price. At present, the public sector carrier Indian Airline's market share is estimated to be around 34 per cent, Jet's share at 37 per cent and Air Sahara's is put at 12 per cent.

Addressing a press conference, Air Sahara Vice President Alok Sharma said that Air Sahara's equity value was put at about Rs. 276 crore. Mr. Sharma said there was no timetable set for a total integration as there were a number of processes to be undergone, including approvals and clearances from various government authorities. He said all the 27 aircraft of Air Sahara were on lease but other tangible assets like ground equipment, engines, spares and other inventories would be transferred to Jet Airways. The lease of Air Sahara aircraft was likely to end by 2010 and two new leased aircraft would arrive in February and March.

Sahara group Chairman Subrata Roy, in an internal communication to Air Sahara employees, numbering about 4,400, assured them full job protection. "If the employees find it difficult to work under the new management, the Sahara India Pariwar, in a true family spirit, shall be responsive to any of their genuine difficulties and would take all steps to mitigate their difficulties,'' Mr. Roy said.

Reacting to the acquisition, highly placed sources in the Civil Aviation Ministry said, "Since both are private companies, laws of the land, relating to acquisitions and mergers, will apply to their case. The Department of Company Affairs and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) may have a role to play,'' the sources pointed out.

At stake would be two crucial factors — the allocation of parking bays and the arrival and departure slots during the prime time in morning and evening in the four metros — that would favour Jet Airways after the new, rebranded entity comes into existence.