Isn’t this the right time, to plan, on shifting to India?

Isn’t this the right time, to plan, on shifting to India?

Ony of my US friend and successful entrepreneur, Anthony Mitchell from Seattle, wants to Shift back to India. Anthony helps Indian companies to expand their presence in the U.S. market through traditional marketing campaigns, institution building and management training, and through acquisitions of U.S. businesses that have not made strong tie ups with Indian ITeS service providers. For additional information, see: http://www.internationalstaff.net .

He recently wrote some thought provoking articles on the Job transformation scenario of India middle managers in high tech companies :

Customer Relations Managers Face Job Transformations - Part 2
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/47057.html

Customer Relations Managers Face Job Transformations - Part 3
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/47784.html

He also wrote something about how middle managers will upgrade their skills to face this job transformation . Test Your Global IT Business Skills,
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/38358.html


India has emerged as a significant player in the international landscape. The perception of the outsider about India ‘as a land of opportunity’ is obviously creating positive image to engage more investor in the ‘Indian Economic Development’ process. We are moving towards better life standards collectively. Data wise, we are having significant growth which I suppose , will continue ,while we move towards next Union Budget which is the ‘Nation’s largest Financial plan’ on 29th Feb, 2008.

However, there are lots of question, about whether the economic growth is trickling down to the agricultural sector. Farmer suicide has become common phenomenon, largely due to inability of paying back of loans, which shows again that economic development is limited to certain key sectors of population. We still do not show a good picture on terms of ‘Human development Index’. Apart from certain ritual exercise on certain significant days, the thinking on ‘nation building’ is rare.

There are few, who pinpoints conceiving and implementing economic liberalization, as only element for India’s recent growth. They had to be reminded, that we did not choose the starting up of economic liberalization process. We were forced to do so, due to our sad economic state at 1991.

The fact is , India is one of the oldest civilization in the world , and during time ,it had its own process of material growth, which was not dependent in any key people or policy . We had cycles of spiritual and material growth throughout the history. There are foreign invaders who came, destroyed, and ruled. However, India continued its spiritual and material journey, without bothering about who came and who went away. As Vivekananda, pointed out that the greatest quality of India, is its tolerance. Sri Aurobindo said it as “Unity without uniformity” which is better described as India’s tolerance to all sorts of culture, nationalities, and communities and how they are united together without loosing their own identity. Due to this , India was prosperous earlier, and it will be the world’s most powerful nation, within a decade .It is destined to be so.

So, welcome back again to India … the land of prosperity and peace. Spirituality and materiality. For all the Indians, who have shifted abroad in search of prosperity. In addition, to all the others, who wants to come to India, for search of prosperity.

Business Risk= Business Execution – Business Planning?

Risk management is a structured approach to managing uncertainty through, risk assessment and developing plans to manage it, and mitigation of risk using managerial resources. The plans include transferring the risk to another party, avoiding the risk, reducing the negative effect of the risk, and accepting some or all of the consequences of a particular risk. However, there is another non-standard way to manage risk. That is the way, entrepreneurs manage risk. Alfred Hitchcock, the famous director also used to manage risk in that way.
More information about Hitchcock style of managing risk, and application of it, in our Business and daily life, is available in AIL online course category “Entrepreneurship and Business Planning”. Please use this link if you are interested to enroll for this course.
http://allindialive.org/course/category.php?id=13

1 minute in planning is 10 minutes saving in execution ?

Fifth year plan is a system, originally invented by former USSR, were a series of centralized exercise, are done for rapid economic development. India has implemented this planning process, after its freedom, and we are going through XI five year plan (2007-2012).
There is a lot of debate on whether these five-year plans, and their benefit, could be trickled-down to the people of India, on the level of execution.

At least, it could be on the level of saving time. Think the situation we would be facing in executing any national development projects, on a nation as big as India, without a proper planning process.

Isn’t it, 1 minute in planning is 10 minutes saving in execution?

Should we educate to Plan or Plan to Educate?

A Thiagarajan, Deputy Chief operating officer of a MNC bank, and an Independent writer (http://www.boloji.com/writers/athiagarajan.htm) have some interesting insights, on the AIL Daily wisdom topic ‘Do need education on planning’ ?. I am, quoting his response below.

“Yes, we do need education in planning to change the misconception about what a plan is: I am quite convinced about it. My 35 years experience in the banking sector confirms this. About 30 years ago, when I was looking into SSI sector as a field officer, an appraiser and as a manger, it was obvious. This is proved by the thriving business of consultants. We also saw some initiatives by banks - where institutions like IIT subsequent to which the banks helped with the non_technical aspects evaluated the first generation entrepreneurs who were technically qualified. This initiative did no go for long because of the priorities being different for banks .Quite often; very many ventures did not fare well for lack of the planning part”

I also received a lot of response, who had a similar message, and there was a consensus that we should educate to plan.

However, before that it is also important that we plan to educate more people. We see, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed the 11th five-year plan as “India’s educational plan” and emphasized on the fact that over 19 per cent of the total central gross budgetary support would be spend on the sector during the plan period.

“We have increased the outlay on education from 7.7 per cent of the total central gross budgetary support in the 10th five year plan to over 19 per cent in the 11th plan,” Singh said addressing the 20th convocation ceremony of Goa University. “The actual outlays have been raised five-fold. This is an unprecedented increase in allocation for education in the history of our country,” he said.

For further details, you can check this link http://www.freshnews.in/11th-five-year-plan-will-be-indias-education-plan-pm-19825

What would be our priority? Should we educate to plan, or plan to educate?

Do we need education on planning?

Mr. A.S Rao Advisor, Department of Scientific, and Industrial Research (DSIR), Government of India, mentioned about DSIR starting new scheme, where they will provide angel fund to innovative startup companies, in his recent mail. Later, he also sent his blog address, where you can find further details, about it http://myangelfund.wordpress.com/.

The format of the application, for fund, is send, to couple of entrepreneur who is planning to start up. They where little overwhelmed, with the extensive financial information, the format of the application require. After couple of weeks also, there is no response from those would-be entrepreneurs.

Previously, the perception was that, there is a lack of funds available for supporting startups. However, the reality is different. Right now, the funding situations are getting better and better. There are also people who are planning to start their own business, and there is a lot of energy into that. While working on different process in i2i2008 of IIMC, and TieGER08 Bplan Competition of TiE Kolkata, and while being invited to Judge the Kshitij08 Business Plan competition of IIT-Kgp, there was a remarkable revelation.

The lack is not in the fund. There are also people who have the fire in belly. They are passionate about starting up. The lack is on understanding about the process of planning, which could lead to the process of funding. The plans people made, are not the plans investors want to see. They were just static project timelines, with activity sheets. Most plans lacked the strategic focus, which is so important for generating fund. There are few exceptions obviously.

There are also mental blocks. There are quite a lot of passionate young stars, who thinks planning is a one-time process. It is like building a resolution on the first of every year and throwing it in second. However successful entrepreneur have a different take on it. They feels planning is a continuous process. You have to plan, at the same time you have to adapt. You cannot successfully adapt, without a plan. Neither, you can make a successful plan without adapting it time to time.


Do we need education in planning to change the misconception about what a plan is?

Is the education model, successful for one country, has to be necessarily successful in other country also?

Is the education model, successful for one country, has to be necessarily successful in other country also?

Anthony Mitchell, a successful entrepreneur from Seattle, has sent a link after receiving ‘AIL Daily wisdom newsletter’. The link, originally from New York Times reflects, about how US universities, are expanding abroad.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/education/10global.html?em&ex=1202878800&en=74783ecf65600179&ei=5087%0A

Is the education model, successful for one country, has to be necessarily successful in other country also?

While taking Management classes in different institute of India, I see a blind following of US case studies and authors. Lot of the people, who comes out from these classes, is never going to work in US environment. However the problem here is different, we do not have good cases and books on Indian management scenarios, again leaving the exceptions.

Therefore, on the context of management education, there is no question that US education model and content will be a great help. However, Will that be same in other academic disciplines too?

Will Integral Education help to create entrepreneur and teach lifeskills?

I have another successful entrepreneur from kolkata, Mr. Abhishek Rungta, who really wrote about Entrepreneurship Education, and to what extent that could be taught in his blog.

http://www.abhishekrungta.com/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught/94

He, actually informed about it, after receiving ‘AIL daily wisdom’ mails that he has been thinking on these lines, long time back.

Extending to his thought let’s ask the following question

What could be the education model that would create entrepreneurs?

A man, who wants to exercise his freedom on creating new ways of doing things, would require a different kind of mind. The mind has to think originally. This is an essential requisite, to become innovative. He also has to see things integrally and see the bigger picture.

There has been an education model known as ‘Integral Education model’, which is conceived around the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo. The Mother (Mira Alfassa) later implemented it.

Based on a principle thought that “Nothing can be taught. “ Integral Education is somewhat aligned how entrepreneur learns things – by exploring and experiencing.

A video footage from Sraddhalu Ranade from Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, talks about Integral Education in more detail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1vPJXnsjjs

Can this be a solution?