Kidnapping is Back

 Kidnapping as a nefarious activity got a boost from unexpected quarters- The White House, after the Venezuelan saga involving Maduro. Now, to watch if it becomes a trend. Someone suggested that Putin could kidnap Zelensky and put an end to that war. 

But as a marketing prof. I can suggest some product extensions- corporates who can get rid of competition by kidnapping their CEOs. In olden times, HUL (then without the U) could have kidnapped the upstart from Gujarat for eating into their detergents monopoly. Or one of the Haldiram promoter family could have kidnapped the other to end the battle for the question of who owns the right to their Soan Papdi.

Of course, in academia, you could kidnap that rival of yours who publishes obscene amounts of papers and makes you look small, or that consultant who has cornered all the major CEOs, leaving you with crumbs.

More ideas are available for a price.. why should I share them for free? Unless you kidnap me, of course.

P.S. Trump after Venezuela- Vene, Vidi, Vici. Inspired by good old Julius. 

Research Shows- 4

 My research shows that there are people who feel entitled in all walks of life.

First, are politicians at all levels. Few exceptions.

Bureaucrats, sometimes even more. Few exceptions.

Corporates high up in the hierarchy. With social media on the loose, sometimes even lower down the hierarchy. Not just in India. 

Academics who think they have killed it, but haven't. Lots of them around, if you look for them.

Students from rockstar colleges - read IIMs. There is an inverse correlation with the ranking of the college, in many cases.

Employers with no empathy, for whom employees are cogs in the profit-earning wheel. Both in academia and the corporates.

Employees who think the company/organisation revolves around them. It might not, except for a day or two.

Promoters-popularly known as Lalas in India, who micromanage stuff and run all good things into the ground, sometimes over decades, sometimes a lot faster.

 

Toxic Culture at Workplaces

 A recent death of a young worker at an Accounts/Audit firm has brought the culture of overtime work into focus. Mostly, this is unpaid labour, and therefore unfair.

Employees have a life beyond work, so if they do their fair share, they don't deserve extra work being dumped on them, unless it's a once-in-a-long- while exception. That may not have been the case here. 

Managers need to use empathy, especially while working with a new inductee. I have heard stories from some ex-students about work culture, and some are not so great. Some also want to know how to switch from corporate jobs to academia, in the hope that that will provide a better balance of work and life. True, mostly.

Success Stories of My Students

 Very regularly now, I see success stories of many students who choose to share them over the media. Some don't share them here, but one gets to hear them through a common friend, or somebody else.

Some that are on Social Media include Aditi Atre, Swati Sinha, Abhinav Kamal, Priyadarshi Matruprasad, Shrishail Deshnur, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Tanya Jakhar, Nikita Ray, Divya Singh, Shatakshi Tripathi, Savitha NK, Sunil Kataria, Ananya Nandi De, Ishita Modi, Sheetal Saxena, Shreya Sengupta, Shreyashi Chakraborty, Sandeep Das, Nishka Rathi, Bharath Shenoy, Sudeshna, Roopsha, ...

Some who I found out about indirectly or directly include Anupama Vadnagra, who I understand is with a fragrances company, based on her uncanny ability to spot fragrances of different kinds..like a wine taster or tea taster, in a way.

Makes me very happy, that they are doing well in their chosen fields.

Some Corporates I Encountered

 Worked for Living Media group, the publishers of India Today, in my first job. Before that, Widia who made cutting tools in Bangalore, for my internship.

Marketing Research company, MBA in my second job out of Bangalore and Mumbai. Met Muthu here, and we remain friends to this day.

The Kirloskar group, which founded KIAMS at Harihar. They had many engineering companies like KBL, KOEL and KPCL. We wrote a capstone case on KPCL, and did a BPR consulting project for KOEL.

We recently did MDPs for Whirlpool and the Tata Group (Retail) while I was at IIM Indore. This entailed some research into their operations. Of course, there were other MDP participants from various companies. At IMT Nagpur, we started an MDP for Asian Paints.

Successful Branding

 Branding involves Product + Image in case of physical products. Or, Service Experience + Image in case of service brands. The intangible part is mostly in the image, creating which usually takes a long time, and involves word-of-mouth plus imagery created through associations, communication etc. The tangible part can often be copied.

Some Indian brands that have done very well over the years include-

Amul

Asian Paints

Fevicol

D Mart

Flipkart

Coffee Day

Good Knight, Ujala, Krack, Moov

International Brands or Global Brands (people) include- 

Parasuraman of Services Marketing fame, CK Prahalad of BoP (Bottom of the Pyramid) fame, Raghuram Rajan of Chicago, Indra Nooyi of Pepsi, etc. 

Professors can brand themselves by publishing, consulting or writing books, apart from teaching well or uniquely. I can remember some from IIMB and Clemson (Cantrell, McNichols, Stahl) who were unique, after many years.

Students can excel in class, or in extra-curriculars. My suggestion is that you also do something unique, or much better than anyone, like blog, take photos, make films, play online games or create some, write cases or research papers.

A word about image of some politicians- 

Putin, Xi, Kim of North Korea, and the first Prime Minister of Singapore- Lee Kuan Yew. What's the word that comes to your mind when you think about each one? That's called Association, and can be a good test in reverse, as in "What's the brand that comes to mind first when given a word, say a 'crunchy treat?' "

And a word about Brand Value. There are many ways to estimate this, and for listed companies, one formula is Market Cap-Book Value. This measures the contribution of perceptions about the intangible value that can be attributed to the "Brand" that the corporation represents.

Marketing research can show you the health of a brand through Tracking studies done regularly. Unaided recall, Aided recall, loyalty, and perceptions against competing brands are some of the brand-related research studies done by many brands.

Bonus- Adding some Social Media Use Pointers (for better branding) from various sources- Guy Kawasaki is one.

1. Do more rather than less. Many reasons- it's an ocean, you are likely to get lost in it. Of course, this assumes you are sharing sense and not nonsense (from your followers' point of view, before you ask).

2. Be bold, and take positions. This establishes your credibility (assuming you want it).

3. Choose a good picture of yours for the Media, and stick to it for a while. If you don't have a good picture, God help you. Also, be visual, in general.

4. Don't use bad words. Bad words are bad on any medium. Learn to do without them, unless you are a teen trying to be cool. (Everything is pardoned THEN)

5. It's impossible to generate loads of new content regularly. Use curated stuff mixed with original content. Cite the source, where applicable.

6. Provide information, analysis, help or entertainment. They work better than other content, particularly if you are trying to build a large or regular following. How to Videos on Youtube are one example.

Some Colleagues from IIMB, IIML

We had a whole year-book dedicated to the IIMB batch, and I co-edited. But this is just a recounting of some that have been in touch regularly, and not an exhaustive one either-coz that would be exhausting!

Prabhakar- our interest in humour (Oscar Wilde, Wodehouse) brought us together after our PGDM/MBA, and our interest in spirited discussions to solve world problems over spirits like Single Malts have kept us fine-tuned. We HAD solved about 90% of the world problems, last time I checked. Remaining are piffling ones we'll leave to Modi and Trump.

Venky/Baddy. We reunited on a Badminton court and won a doubles match against opponents half our age on an IIMB court recently. He is the strong, silent type and I am neither, but it's great fun when we meet.

Parthos/Gopal Mahapatra. I went to work at XIMB because he was there, but he gave me the slip. No matter, I chased him down, and we are still good friends. He is the etrnal do-gooder, and just too good at it.

BK Mohanty. Not from the IIMB bunch.I have yet to see a prof like him. He teaches fuzzy logic, so that might explain it. A great friend, through thick and thin. Specialises in applying for jobs he doesn't want!

Harish Chaudhary. He is also an unlikely prof if there was one, but IITD students think he's great, and who am I to complain? His Muzaffarnagar jokes are the best.

Dash. The aforementioned co-editor of our year-book at IIMB. Was influenced by James Bond and turned a cop later. Continues to oversee the annihilation of various crimes and prevents many more. Has yet to achieve his other ambition-that of singing.

Snail. Known for his virtual dalliances (I mean with computers), he initiated us into our first e-group-it's still there, and alive in spite of WhatsApp.

Shanks. We played Golf in Chennai at times, with Bishop, another batchmate, and Paddy, a third. Used to be the talkative guy in G block back at IIMB, and on the net, but has since turned contemplative.

Sardie. We regularly met at his house in Goa for an exquisite dinner thanks to his wife, and one of my big moments was when his daughter, all of 19 at the time, announced she was a fan of my autobiography. I was thrilled no end!

To be continued. Another installment about the IMT colleagues and others will follow... 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Search for the killer in a serial murder situation. Countless books and films have done the honours before 'The Girl...', but this book has certain pluses going for it.

One, the setting is corporate (and journalistic) battles. One can identify with those shenanigans, as they are universal. Second, the locale is Sweden, an exotic land to most of us. Even within Sweden, the isolated village-island makes it even more interesting, with a cast of characters who are fairly weird. Most belong to the Vanger family, one of the corporates involved. The hero is an outsider hired to solve a disappearance from among the family, and how he does it is the story.

Then of course, the heroine. This is a singular (Holmesian terminology, but it fits in this case) character, well-developed by the author. And I think finally she makes it all different from the rest of the books in the genre. Rightfully, the title is based on her character. In a way, she is the hero too, or as much of one as the male lead, a journalist who is set up by a corporate rival whose shady secrets he tries to unravel.

Found it a good read, and might end up watching the film one day.

Why a Bandh is Socially Relevant

Rather provocative thought, eh? Well, I gave it a thought, and the conclusion was inescapable- that bandhs are socially relevant in our country. Not only that, they take you forward. Now for the people unfamiliar with this concept, it is this. Bandh means closed. The entire nation decides that it will shut down. This achieves many things. It brings into sharp focus that you were not doing anything useful on all the other days when you were ostensibly working- and getting paid. So now the employers can take a call on whether to retain you. And reduce their (corporate India's) losses.

Politically, it is like a jam session in the boxing rink. It separates the men from the boys. The number of buses burnt can be tallied like a cricket batsman's score, or maybe the older head hunter's score (we are not talking human resources here, but the old sword tricks). And the top scorers can hope to win the next election, unless there are better scores from others.

For the normal, harried human, this is his golden chance to go on a long drive with his family, his beloved or whoever he wants to drive with. Even alone, it is a pleasure. Avoid unruly mobs though.

The economy can take a breath and come back refreshed. Banks can take a break from incessant demands for cash and other services. Don't we need a holiday once in a while? Then the nation deserves one too, once in  away. Now if only mobile phones learnt to do so....