Zipdial

Continued..But given that there are various other telecom or internet based information providers or engagement platforms - the Indiatimes 58888service being one of the most prominent ones - what makes Zipdial unique and saleable to clients? Clarifies Valerie, “For us being toll free and being a dialing service sets us apart and makes us frictionless and disruptive! Otherwise, consumers in India generally end up paying anywhere between INR 3 to INR 10 as premium SMS charges for seeking information. Also, SMSing is much lesser of a priority than simple dialing, in India.”

However, another important differentiator according to her is that, as a service they are more about creating a pull for the customer rather than pushing information into them. “You only get information only when you ask for it. There is no breach of privacy or pesky SMSes. This is a boon keeping in mind the recent TRAI regulations that prohibit SMS pushing,” she explains.
>br> The start-up is Bengaluru based, with a small team of around 14 people and offices in cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Ensuring global delivery to clients, Zipdial relies on cloud computing, while the IVRs are local to each region. Though the company and the concept is unique to India, they have done campaigns in the Carribean and very soon plan to get into Southeast Asia.
>br> And when it comes to hunting for talent, Valerie feels that anybody can learn technology, but what they look for is that, whether the person has belief in the business and finds any value in it.
>br> Having to hop across various cities in the subcontinent quite frequently for work, Valerie is quick to point out that her work is her life! She says, “The first thing I do in the morning is check my mail and that’s the last thing I do at night, too.” However, a gush of excitement overrides her as she shares her marriage plans in June this year and that the newly-weds plan to settle down in Bengaluru itself, as we reach the end of the conversation. Click here to read more...

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Prof. Shlomo Ben-Hur (Professor of Leadership, OB and Corporate Learning, IMD) advises how to Create an Environment where Employees Speaking out can lead to better decisions

This assessment is not a reflection on individual ability or motivation, but is because of natural group dynamics. Put your best people in a cohesive group and chances are that sooner orlater, group dynamics will get the better of them.

These are not faults that arise when someone does something wrong, but are instead natural occurrences that require extra steps to avoid.

Traditional learning mechanisms are insufficient in addressing the pervasive and deep-rooted challenges of good team decisions.

This is because many of the causes of the problem are default human behaviours – what most people are accustomed to do in a given situation.

Merely establishing processes is unlikely to deliver improvement. To help people do something other than what comes naturally to them requires more than just imparting awareness of how they should act and then leaving them to it.

It demands hands-on help and repeated practice and feedback: direct and individualised interventions that enable the development of new skills. It often requires an expert coach. Click here to read more....

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The Young and The Restless Today

The booming IT industry has been struggling with the daunting challenge of attrition. As the attrition rate in domestic BPOs fluctuates between 50 to 60 per cent, organisations have realised that employee-centric initiatives are very important. At Tech Mahindra, we have designed initiatives which focus on an individual’s professional growth, such as the GLC (Global Leadership Cadre) Programme for future leaders and the GSP (Graduate Scholarship Programme) for undergraduates. Considering the average tenure of a BPO associate, we introduced the GSP in August 2010. This programme offers BPO associates an opportunity to complete their graduation while pursuing their job. It provides 100 per cent scholarship to undergraduate associates. Driving our ‘learn while you earn’ philosophy and branding, the programme focuses on associates’ professional development. This also helped Tech Mahindra with a wider pool of associates who could be considered for leadership positions in the future. This programme has so far been unmatched in the BPO industry. Click here to read more...

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Doughnuts, Coffee and Soda do Contribute to a Good Meeting

continued...Fourth, ensure that the meeting is formally structured and controlled. Since we are not talking about a free-wheeling, brainstorming type of meeting where just about anything goes, a good chair will allow for five basic steps:

1. State the proposition clearly and concisely in terms that everyone will understand;
2. Produce the information that is relevant to the subject;
3. Have structured discussions about what the information proves;
4. Come to a conclusion upon which the majority is in agreement;
5. Decide upon the action.

Fifth, the chair or his/her designee must summarise and record the discussion in writing. If any action is taken, include the name of the person responsible and the time frame within which it is to be completed. Ensure that all participants receive a copy of this report.

Finally, when all these steps are taken and you still find yourself bogged down by trivial items, consider the advice by Robert Townsend, the late chairman of Avis Rent A Car and author of Up The Organization on how to keep meetings on schedule. He suggests that all participants stand up for its duration!

The author is President, Ken Moore Associates, and an adjunct professor at State University of New York at Albany and at the Union Graduate College. kmoore01@nycap.rr.com. Read More..

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Your MNC, your cancer!

MNCs are hailed as national treasures in some countries; but their devil-may-care attitude results in many tragedies – both industrial and health – making them reasons for global shame

Globalisation is inevitable as we reside in a ‘global village’. And the entities which benefit the most, perhaps, out of this phenomenon are modern day centres of affluence and influence – MNCs. As they profit and in the process, enhance employment and production, what goes unnoticed is that their drive to profit, which leaves many in pain, is encouraged by their lack of concern and efforts towards safe working of their industrial units across the globe.

A McKinsey report has exemplified that the cumulative market value of top 10 Fortune 500 companies is equal to the combined GDP of India and Brazil or total forex reserve of six leading Gulf oil exporting countries in 2006; at the same time, the clearly irresponsible, greedy and biased business policies and activities of these MNCs – and we tread quite firm ground when we partake of such suppositions – without considering people, environment and legal aspects, have brought a quasi-apocalypse in the form of fatal industrial accidents, environmental hazards and pollution related health issues affecting millions in innumerable ways. If the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1984 (which we dare say has become a staid benchmark) can be considered the most horrifying industrial catastrophe in history, claiming between 3,000 and 20,000 lives, leaving thousands with serious diseases and injuries, what we consider worse is the knee jerk reaction of Dow Chemicals – the global giant providing innovative chemical, plastic and agricultural products and services and responsible for this industrial catastrophe – which publicly disowned its accountability. Consider the amount with which Dow tried to console affected families – a mere $300-$500. And when some 200 women protested against Dow for its meagre response and for not really taking any proactive mechanisms to clean up the area stacked with dangerous toxic waste which spreads many gas related diseases in the small town Bhopal, Dow sued them in return for raising voice against the company using it’s political, monetary and muscle power. When an explosion and fire ruined a fireworks factory belonging to Bright Sparkles Sdn.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 

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Bringing on The New Numbers Game

Mobile Number Portability Promises to Usher in a New Paradigm in Indian Telecom. While New Players would benefit, The Real Advantage would be to the Customers

Mobiles have brought two significant changes with respect to numbers. One is that we do not need to, and therefore do not, remember phone numbers anymore – due to the convenience of address books for communication. On the other hand, our number moves around to so many contacts over time, that the very idea of changing our number fills us with dread, especially with respect to all that we may lose professionally in our immediate and extended network – add to it the cumbersome process of communicating the change. That becomes a natural barrier to customer churn – strategy lord Michael Porter calls it the customer’s switching cost – which has been hugely beneficial to players in this country, particularly the ones who were here first and got the cream. Another particular reason has been the emotional attachment that some people develop with their numbers.

Half of the Indian population is hooked on to their mobile phones, with penetration levels crossing more than 50% of the population. But the burgeoning mobile phone subscriber base every month (around 15 million people are added to the mobile network every month currently) hasn’t been supported with a similar rise in the quality of the network, and that has led to poorer connectivity and a greater dissatisfaction among the customer base. But despite the number of exciting offers that players keep coming up with – that can lead to a better and more rewarding consumer experience – there are many customer who refuse to cross the Rubicon and go to a competitor simply because of the number.

Apparently, not anymore. With the launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), the great Indian telecom success story has taken the next leap forward. The much awaited and long pending MNP has seen the light of the day in India thanks to the new Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal. After taking over the reins from the tainted former union telecom minister A. Raja, the first thing that Sibal did was implement MNP in Haryana – and he announced that MNP would reach the rest of India by January 20, 2011. “Everybody is taking the deadline very seriously as the minister himself has declared the deadline this time,” says J. S. Sarma, Chairman TRAI to B&E. What worked was nothing else but Sibal, as for so many years, despite TRAI continuing to recommend MNP, lobbying by the cellular service providing companies ensured that MNP was kept on hold. Operators, through their body Cellular Operators Association of India had been busy lobbying to delay the implementation of the service in the past. The main concern obviously had been that the cost of retaining customers would increase.

Read more.....

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 

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A Case Against Cloud Computing!

Cloud Computing has been Hyped Ever since its Evolution by Amazon. But Inherent Contradictions in the Concept Threaten its Potential as the next big thing in The IT Services Space.

The sky has been overcast in the global technology world for quite some time now, as cloud computing has been persistently hailed by technology analysts as the next big thing to hit the global IT space, almost like the new normal. The scalability and elasticity of the concept is expected to drive massive adoption. Pioneered by Amazon with modernized data centres during the dot com bubble in the US, cloud computing was quickly sensed as an opportunity as it reduced tremendous cost; and ergo, Amazon came up with the Amazon Web Service (AWS) in 2006 with a utility computing base. Cloud computing in generic terms is based on the Internet, whereby software, services and information is provided on demand and pay per use basis. In general, the user does not own the physical infrastructure and rents it from a third party.

In early 2008, Eucalyptus became the first open source AWS API compatible platform for deploying private clouds. Technology research firm Gartner expects global cloud services revenues to touch $68.3 billion in 2010, a growth of 16.6% yoy. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft has gone on record to say cloud is the future for Microsoft. Similar expectations are being raised even from the folks in India. The Indian IT industry – cloud computing supporters tells us – is aggressively looking to tap into the trend and unleashing plans for fast paced growth. All major players are apparently modelling their service deliveries on the cloud. The current local market is estimated to be worth $110 million and the industry is quite optimistic to reach the levels $1.08 billion by 2015, with SAAS (Software as a Service) contributing $650 million, PAAS (Platform as a Service) and IAAS (Infrastructure as a Service) cumulatively contributing $434 million.

On the surface, it seems that cloud computing is all set to steamroll the data centre industry and make legacy systems obsolete. Scratch the surface, and the hype comes off immediately. The cloud, apparently, has some unresolved holes and the challenges seem to be much bigger than perceived expectations in India. The biggest hurdle for the cloud market to develop is the low bandwidth in India (infrastructure, here too!). Cloud requires a regular high speed internet connection and the average internet speed in India is 772 kbps compared to a global average speed of 1.5 mbps; India, for records, is ranked at the 115th position in the world in the 2009 Akami Technology’s report. The ongoing 3G auction would have been seen as a ray of hope, but the players would still require at least 10 years to be able to make a pan India presence.

Read more......

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 

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