Shrikant’s Blog

(via Atanu Dey) New Zealand author Dr. Gordon Dryden, who showed Atanu and me around his home-country last year, breezed into India last month, and a week later flew out “head filled with a haze of contraditions”:

Air travel: Horrified at the Air India trip from Hong Kong to New Delhi (“Do they really have to spend several minutes, first up, showing what not to push bottles down the toilet? Have they not heard of the power of negative suggestions? Possibly my worst flight since the Soviet Aeroflot slog from Moscow to Tokyo in 1970.”) But thrilled at the Jet Airways flight from Delhi to Pune (“Great airline; beaut service.”)

Roads: “What roads? Enough said.”

Airports: “Take a trip to Singapore, guys. And the prices for a drink inside Mumbai International Airport? Wow! In New Zealand I can buy a full bottle of Italian Pinot Gris wine for well under half the price of half a glass there. Took time out to fill in the questionnaire asking customers to specific anyone in the bar needing strong praise. Nominated the company accountant for “the Nobel Prize for profiteering”.

Hotels: The Intercontinental and The ITT Sheraton Towers in Mumbai. Sheraton great in almost every way. Intercontinental: “Hey, if you’re going to charge at the very top end of international prices, how about some international service? Half an hour to get a coffee in the lounge and twenty minutes for a beer in the housebar – when no other customers around? Not for my money.”

Surprises? “The incredible sophistication, efficiency and all-round competency of your big pharmaceutical companies: Cipla and Emcure. Outstanding plants by any world standard. And the very best of your herbal nutraceutical operatons: Nisarga Biotech in Satara . . . doing some very surprising things in distilling extracts from Ayurvedic herbs.” (Gordon’s writing a new book called The Health Revolution – hence the interest.)

Double surprises: “Some of the information in Niranjan Rajadhyaksha’s new book, ‘The Rise of India’, which I bought at the Hong Kong airport. Good background. Amazed that 70% of the Indian economy is ‘informal’. After driving around Mumbai, Satara and Pune, no longer surprised.”

Most amazing statistic: “That Singapore’s Changi airport handles more passengers and air cargo every day than all the airports in India.”

Sport? “Or is it religion? Every the cricket-mad Australians don’t devote as much press space to this game as do the Indian newspapers. Amazed at how many executives, on learning my nationality, commented on the sportsmanship of the New Zealand cricket team and captain Stephen Fleming – and New Zealand not supporting George W (for woeful?) Bush in his idiotic invasion of Iraq.”

The IT industry: “Not really surprised at this. Most western business papers are full of it. But still impressed to catch up again, in his own head office, with Rajesh Jain, founder of Novatium.”

Hopes: “1: as a television producer, hope to persuade someone to sponsor an international TV program or series on how India’s world-class, low-cost pharmaceutical industry might just help the world to slash HIV-AIDS and some other diseases. 2: How about throwing imports open to second-hand Japanese taxis?”

(via GK Murthy) One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan’s biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, he did not get into complications of X-rays, etc., but instead came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line . He switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems. Always focus on solutions & not on problems.

Now look around and see how many of these simple solutions we require to make India a better place to live. Our roads, way we drive, our congested airports etc.

Airlines from today will levy a traffic congestion tax. Thanks to the slow growth of airport infrastructure and the rapid introduction of new airlines, metro airports in particular face high levels of congestion during peak hours. Planes hover around the airport, till they are give a landing spot, typical wait times can vary from 10-45 minutes. This is the state of affairs in India, where infrastructure lags growth. All infrastructure projects are plagued by corruption where all politicians and public officials want their cut of the pie. They will always want to pass each individual project rather than define a framework. India a global super power ? my foot. Every foreign company wants access to the billion Indian consumer and participate in infrastructure that is lagging. So they all shower hollow praise and we believe it.