Management Musings

Tien Tzuo, the CEO of Zuora, has written a powerful book that is wholeheartedly and unabashedly about subscription monetization. Brilliantly structured and extremely well researched and written, it makes for a compelling read. Of course, the author was at Salesforce.com before he founded the company, Zuora which specializes in the subscription economy. It is hard to argue with the points made by the author and the book is undoubtedly thought-provoking. As he asks repeatedly in the book, "what product or service do you have, that cannot be moved to a subscription model?" It is difficult to find an answer to that question. A few did come to my mind - something like a TV or a Washing Machine - surely, these cannot be on a subscription model. But, I am wrong, of course. There are any number of online sites that nowadays rent TVs. A simple Google search for "TV on rent" threw up 4 advertised results, followed by numerous hits. I even know that I can rent a 40 inch TV ...

Coming from a Hindu family, rituals have been a constant through my life. Not necessarily happening with any defined frequency, these ceremonies take up different forms and ways. My father was never a person who necessarily believed in God, or at least he did not make his feelings known to us. My mother, on the other hand, is as pious as they come. Her ultimate, argument-ending dictum on every topic where we push her to do something is "If He is willing, it will be done", or "I have put my faith in Him. He will make it happen". Once that is said, there is no force on earth that can budge that immovable stone of faith. So, in all the cases of rituals and religious ceremonies, my mother has been the driving force. She, of course, firmly believes that she does not know enough to perform one, so she would simply say, "whatever we do, is for Him", thereby justifying the innumerable short-cuts taken during these occasions. We would celebrate all the festivals w...

One of my hobbies is reading. As long back as I can recall, I have loved reading - started off with the Amar Chitra Kathas of the world, devoured comics such as Batman, Tarzan, Phantom of course and moved on to more comics such as Archies, Tintin, Asterix, etc. Phantom was, and remains, an all-time favorite for me. The various names and the mystique remains a fascination - The Ghost Who Walks, Devil, Walker, Skull Cave and his horse - do not recall that name. The beauty of it was that it transported me to a world where it seemed that anything was possible. Live in the jungles of Africa, fighting the bad guys, move like a Ghost, have a Wolf for a pet and live behind a waterfall, move like lightning, etc. At that age, I could dream of a possibility - maybe even I can become like the Phantom, strong, mysterious, intelligent, fighting injustice and invincible. Books held that power. Then, it was the turn of Amar Chitra Katha and abridged versions of the classics. I am proud of my collec...

Very many people have dealt with loss of a loved one in their lives. Death is inevitable and irrespective of how much anyone may have read about it, when it comes calling on someone close to your heart, confronting the loss square-on and dealing with it, is entirely another matter. Theory is so easy. It is practicals that is more challenging. How much anyone is missed, I think, comes down to each individual. Some cope with it far better than others. We are often quick to judge others on how they are looking and reacting following a loss. Many of us are quick to the draw in being judgmental anyway, regardless of the situation, but I will leave that topic aside for another blog post another time. Is the person crying? Is he looking forlorn? Is he looking the same? Is he/ she able to remain stoic after the event? So many questions and like so many other things, the answers to all these questions is purely dependent on the perspective of the person answering these. The pain and the loss...

News channels and media outlets have been awash with reports of the sad demise of a 8 year old boy inside the school premises in Gurugram. As can be expected, there is an outpouring of indignation and anxiety from many quarters all across the country. Times like these spark a conversation around security in schools. The bigger problem, to me, seems to be that this happened in a private school, which has a majority of students from middle to upper middle-class families only. There may be many such incidents happening throughout our country in schools in the hinterlands. Those go unreported and perhaps, happen to the less privileged, hence the lack of media coverage. As parents, even my wife and I will inquire about the measures that the school that our kid goes to, is taking, in the wake of such an incident. We want our child to be safe. Over the past many years, news of sexual abuse of kids ranging in age between 3 and 16 have become more frequent. The first few times, I was shock...

Off late, there have been so many instances of intolerance in our country that it has become a daily news item. There is anger at seemingly innocuous happenings such as a very normal tweet by a celebrity politician about how people in a neighboring country are "just like us". It is another matter that that nation could take umbrage at this comment! In Bengaluru, we have the intolerance against the Supreme Court verdict of granting water from the Cauvery river to a neighboring state. The city has been witnessing strikes and shut downs intermittently for a few weeks now for a number of varying reasons. It is quite a fashion nowadays to seethe at injustice and display the anger at soft targets. Sonu Nigam was the victim of social media trolls for airing a Point of View on loudspeakers and their misuse in India. I am reading the book "Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari. He makes such poignant remarks on humankind and our ability to believe in myths that we create. He argu...

Recent events that played out in Tamil Nadu following the demise of the erstwhile Chief Minister proves how power hungry people can be. To even suggest otherwise, to think that the only motivation that contenders for the Chief Minister's post had the welfare of the state or the people in mind, would be to live in fool's paradise. The assembling of the MLAs at a resort, cut off from the other faction, the drama surrounding each person worth his salt visiting the grave of the deceased CM, oh boy! If this wasn't all played out for power, then I am the King of La La Land! The entire episode, which is still not done, lasted for a few days and shows, once again, the insatiable thirst for power in so many of us. And who can be blamed for wanting it? I am reminded of a story that I used to listen to as a kid, in Kannada. The narrator, while describing a scene in the Mahabharata, mentions that when the protagonist claps his hand and shouts, "Who's there?" (Yaaru All...

For those living in Bengaluru these days, the one major source of discomfort is traffic on the roads. It is remarkable how much vehicular traffic seems to be increasing by, every few months! Obviously, we have not done a good job with executing on plans to improve the infrastructure in time for this increase. The Metro project may well be one of the most delayed of its kind, anywhere in the world. It seems like the Namma Metro has been in progress forever and all we see are new dates for completion every few weeks in the newspapers. The whining about the traffic is never ending, just as the traffic on the roads. For a daily commuter, the stream of vehicles, the abrupt lane shifts, the late decisions to turn, the bus and/ or truck breakdowns seem never ending and ubiquitous. Sometimes, I look at newcomers to the city, from smaller towns and villages and notice their lost look. They cannot fathom the volume of traffic and complexity involved in reaching a destination that is in line o...

I look at my daughter as she goes around testing waters every where. Given a pencil and told to not write on the walls, she tests us out. She spends a little time scribbling on paper and then, slowly, she starts scribbling on the wall. She runs a test on us. Are we watching? What repercussions will she have to bear? Given a new toy, she will play around with it for a little while before trying to take it apart. The curious mind of the toddler is fun to watch. Quality Assurance is very much like that. I am reminded of an ad for the LYF phones on TV nowadays. They bounce a Table Tennis ball off the screen, the drop it down from a height and show that it still works. How fun is that? The child in us would love to try all these little antics with our phones or whatever other equipment that we may have. Drop a phone from a table top - sure! Drop the phone in a bucket full of water - definitely. Does it still work after that? Yes, then the test passes. Nope? Oh too bad - the guys will hav...

My grandmother passed away recently, after spending the last few years of her life fighting all sorts of maladies. She was touching 90 years of age.   From the last 15-20 years or so, she would always bring up her impending death during every conversation. She would have one thing to say – “when will I die? I want to die”. Of course, the curse (or blessing) of choosing the moment of death was only given to Bhishma in the Mahabharata. So it was, that my grandmother would spend her years lying in wait of the moment when it would come to pass. Her last 4-5 years were spent on the bed, with a nurse/ maid for company. She had lost her memory, could only eat semi solid food and was yearning for a life support system. Eventually, old age and fever conspired to relieve her of her bond with life. Her condition towards the end begs the question – do humans really deserve this? We talk of quality of life being good and all the work that we do to maintain a dignity in life. What dignity ...

Every day news is replete with stories of someone being beaten up by a mob, road rage incidents, a winning presidential candidate basing his campaign on bigotry and division and more. Over the past few years, I get the distinct feeling that I have become more and more conscious of the various castes, religions and race that exist in our society today. I struggle to understand if I should be blaming the environment I am in, or is it just me? The older I get, the more risk averse and orthodox I become? If I take the stand of blaming the socio-environmental factors for my condition, I find enough evidence helping me out. Take the case of sedition filed against Kanhaiya Kumar of JNU, Delhi. Or the multiple cases of abuse of couples that happens every day across the country and which is reported by the media, quite unfailingly. At a global scale, IS and terrorist organizations carry out attacks in cities across the world. Over in the United States, Donald Trump is en route to becoming ...

  Reading this article from the CEO of YatraGenie, I cannot say that I am surprised by his analysis. He talks about how the current Taxi Aggregator model in India is bound to collapse since the operators (drivers who are also the taxi owners) are not cared for and not paid on par with the efforts that they put in. There is no doubt that it is a tough life for the taxi drivers. They have to work at least 12 hours in a day and often chose to do a night shift also so their family can lead a life better than their own. They are, in essence, no different from majority of the population in the cities, especially, who sacrifice their own health, time and joys in favor of a hope for a brighter life for their families.   Some basic napkin stuff math tells me that assuming that the car is a Toyota Etios (running on diesel as invariably all taxis do) which probably returns a mileage of approx. 18 km per liter, the running cost per kilometer factoring in the cost of diesel at Rs. 45/-...

And so it has come to this. Sleep - that wonderful part of our daily life that we yearn for and look forward to, is now part of extensive research, more so than ever before. What started off in the 1930s as a research in a University that would later become Carnegie Mellon, has now been quantified as a potentially 79 billion USD business! Really?! We talk about out-of-the-box thinking so much and here, all we need to do is break down everything that we do every day and it is a topic of immense research and potential for business. A recent article on this topic in the Fortune India magazine gave me food for thought. Companies such as Fitbit report millions of dollars in revenues quarter over quarter thanks to their wearable Tech products which basically charts how much sleep and seemingly more importantly, how much quality sleep you are able to get. How much it helps us is debatable, of course. It definitely helps Fitbit! They now have data from millions of hours of sleep across geog...

I have recently started commuting a longer distance to work as the office has shifted to a new location. It is at a place in Bengaluru that has "developed" in the past 10 - 15 years only. Developed is only a euphemism here since it only means that there are more buildings in that place and there are more people there than there once were. In the short time spent there thus far, I am taken aback by the dreariness of it all there. All I see around me is buildings, traffic, dust and pollution. There is no water body and there are a few trees dotting the landscape - all of which are, what I call the nouveau landscaping type. Palm trees, perfectly grown else where and transplanted to provide life to what is otherwise a sad location. This location is no different from any other suburb in other cities around India. Admittedly, I am no expert in new areas being added to cities and my sample size is small. What I have seen saddens me. Gurgaon is a hot, dry place with only concrete ...

An interesting read in today's newspaper had to do with the proclamation by a cognitive scientist that a Pencil eraser is the Devil! Who would have thunk it?! The innocent little eraser, the scrubby little thing, the chocolate toffee sized, multi-faceted pencil eraser is a devil?? Really? As you read along, you would realize that the pencil eraser is used to correct mistakes made and give an appearance of cleanliness, almost as if the contents were all written clean and good at the first time of writing. It encourages children to seek perfection in their presentation at the cost of making mistakes and learning from these mistakes. The act of erasing misspellings or hastily scribbled, illegible notes indicates a need to cover up and not own up to faults and/ or mistakes. Ah! Now that makes sense. When I was encouraging people to make mistakes so they learn from them, I did not realize that the devil of playing it safe and presenting a clean picture to the world germinates from t...

While driving in the streets of Bengaluru (or anywhere else in India, for that matter), it is common to see vehicles coming down the wrong direction in a 4 lane road that is divided by a concrete road divider. Often, it is to "save" on a precious few milliliters of fuel because the option of following the rules would force them to travel a few kilometers more. Auto rickshaws, taxis, bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes, cars, buses and even trucks are guilty of doing this. For an independent observer, it can be quite startling to see how little these vehicle drivers care for their lives as well as others'! As it is driving in India is an exercise in alertness and road awareness and all those who drive down the wrong side of the road, be it in city traffic or on the highway, endanger their lives and those of others in their endeavor to save a few Rupees. The Indian consumer's mindset is completely price driven. Coming from a colonial past and the era of License Raj and a cl...

In an interesting blog post by Paul Krugman this week, he lays into Amazon and the power that it wields in the books marketplace today. Amongst many other points he makes, he mentions that while Amazon is not a monopoly in trying to use its power as a dominant seller to increase prices but instead, is a monopsony - using its power to keep prices low for its customers. In the particular example of Amazon v/s the book publisher Hachette, Amazon was able to squeeze the publisher into giving a larger share of the book sales to Amazon by disrupting the sales of their books on its website. Books from Hachette would take longer to be delivered when compared to books from other publishers and such. Amazon used its power to influence the market place to benefit itself and also its customers. In the Indian landscape, Amazon has not yet achieved the kind of power that it ostensibly wields in the American market place. E-commerce websites such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and even Junglee were alre...

Reading this article on the Economist recently got me thinking on the possibilities of the future. While movies such as the Fifth Element have thrown a glimpse at the future where cars operate in air without the need for roadways, a very feasible scenario is developing on the existing roadways. The connected car as described in the article is capable of understanding the distance between itself and other vehicles on the road, does not need a driver and creates a an accident-free on-road experience as the possibility of human error while driving is removed. It is another story that the possibility of human error now resides in the hands of the Engineers who design and develop these driverless cars but let's assume that we are able to achieve a degree of unparalleled safety via rigorous testing and years of prototyping. The scene depicted makes for compelling viewing - trucks would operate on their own criss-crossing the country as if on remote control. There would be a certain deg...

Having recently been through the experience of choosing a name for my daughter, my thoughts went to the identity formed by a name. There have been careers built around the spelling to be used in name - ask the numerologists. In the traditional South Indian tradition, the sound or the syllable that the new born baby's name should start with, is decided by the way the stars align at the time of birth. It is not uncommon for parents in this part of the world to look for names that begin with "Re", "La", "Shi" or "Tha"after a baby is born. The English translation of some of these syllables is intriguing. As made popular in the movie "Chupke Chupke" about 30 years back, why are "go" and "to" pronounced so differently in English? An exact pronunciation of a Sanskrit word in English is not easy. Nowadays, more visible than ever before is the change in the spelling of the name that ostensibly makes a difference to the...

I begin with a search for an item. I log into my favorite website, click a few times, search, narrow the search down a little further. In the time that the search engine at the website narrows down the selection, my fingers move to open a new tab - another website opens, more items are listed and the same operation continues. I revert to the main tab - this time, I spend some time looking at the items there. Hmmm. Maybe I should look at what others looking for this item also bought. I might find something I (don't) need? Click on that item. Switch back to the other tab. Scroll through the entire list. Naw! Not what I want. This site sucks anyway. I should try this another website. Maybe they have something that I missed the last time. They must  have updated their stocks by now! Surely, if they are serious about doing their business, they must! Hours can easily slip by in this search for the elusive perfectly priced item that is just the right fit for what I had in mind. (Or ...