Eat Baskin Robbins. But don't invoke national pride!

A blog post by Rajesh Kalra of the Times of India about a Haagen Dazs (ice-cream) outlet in Delhi has set off a nationalistic furore on Twitter and all over the Internet...

Nobody really knows what's the reason behind that poster which "restricted" access only to international passport holders (what does that mean by the way? is there a passport category called "international"?). In the 8 hours since Mr. Kalra posted his story, nobody from Haagen Dazs has clarified. Some websites have said that it was an over-enthusiastic franchisee who made a mistake, since corrected.


So, an ice-cream outlet doesn't want Indians to enter, and we are all crying hoarse? Our national pride is at stake? We want the Government to do something about it? We want Barkha Dutt to do something about it? We want MNS to do something about it? Did I hear that right - MNS?

There are many places that I am not allowed to enter. For various reasons. There are other places I choose not to enter. For various other reasons. What's that got to do with national pride? If a stupid ice-cream vendor wants to turn away 99% of his potential customers, then good luck to him. Remember him, and don't go there when he opens his doors to you. Teach him a commercial lesson.

But for God's sake, don't make this into a nationalistic issue. And, don't drag MNS into this, even as a joke! We want our freedom, right? To speak the language we want. To live where we want. To wear what we want. To call Mumbai Bombay. We don't want MNS involved in our life, isn't it?

Give that ice-cream wallah too the freedom. Eat Amul Ice Cream. Or Baskin Robbins. Whatever.

How many dissatisfied customers can you afford to have?

"You cannot satisfy every customer" the marketing manager said.

In a spirited discussion about the role of Web 2.0 in marketing, the conversation turned towards the large number of negative comments posted on websites and Twitter and such like. How do we know they are even for real? There are so many people out there saying what they want about our brand; we can't take everyone seriously. It could be competitors trying to malign us. Why couldn't the customer provide his mobile number in the complaint? Valid questions.

But are we trying to use these as excuses to delude ourselves that our customers are all happy and have no reason to vent their anger online? Are we using the (relatively) low penetration of the Internet (now) to treat it as a trivial medium? Most customers, when they have a problem, approach the traditional customer service channels. And most of them are willing to accept that a product or service could have a deficiency - nobody's perfect. What they do want are clear responses about what we propose to do about the situation and action to back that promise. It's only when they get automated responses ("thank you; noted; will get back; do not reply to this mail") or a stalling customer service agent ("our servers are slow/down; here's a trouble ticket #; pray") that some customers pour their sorrows in mails to the President of India or messages at mouthshut.com and Twitter.

In some cases, messages on Twitter / FB could cover issues / concerns that traditional customer service channels do not typically address ("xyz airline was late again #fail").

Marketers would do well to heed both types of messages. The first reflect angst or frustration that could lead to the customer not just complaning her case but becoming a brand un-ambassador (e.g. United Breaks Guitars!). The latter type are still not angry but gradually getting there. Registering the feedback and even involving the customer in designing a solution should be the proactive approach to managing the situation.

Every dissatisfied customer we leave out there is potentially raising an army of other similar people and can cause irrepable harm to our business. The Web provides them the platforms. Do we want to provide them a reason?

Politics of States. State of Politics.

So the Government has finally agreed to the formation of Telangana state. Rather, it was forced into submission by a politician who decided to sacrifice his life for the cause.

Does it make sense to have smaller states, maybe city states? Ramesh Srivats has written a very interesting piece and I have commented, largely in agreement.

But the sad part about the decision yesterday was the process that led to it. As ad-hoc and unilateral as ever.

One numbers politician threatens to commit suicide. Everyone watches, waiting to call his bluff. No way, he says, and reaches the edge of the cliff. Centre gulps. High Command weighs political consequences and blinks. Both of them live to fight another day. So this is what democracy is about. 

Of course, the alternative is not a pretty picture too. Creation of a Committee or a Commission, discussing the report a decade later in Parliament, discrediting the people involved, forming a Parliamentary Committee or better still a Joint Parliamentary Committee, discussing the report a couple of years later, discrediting the people involved...... merry go round.

I think I like the suicide err fast unto death approach. Decisions can be taken, either ways, in 12-15 days. Very efficient.

So, if you want your Bangalore city state or Mumbai state, form a party, find a leader who is willing to commit suicide, and attack!

I hate AB for making me cry so much on a Sunday afternoon #paa

... and laugh too!

There are very few films that I don't crib about - something or the other. Obviously perfect movies are hard to come by. An hour after leaving the theater, I can't find anything in Paa to crib about. Except that it made me laugh loud and cry louder. In public. On a Sunday afternoon. Like Leela, my 6yr old, said while giving the movie a standing ovation, Can we get the dvd and watch it at home again!

10 years after NTP 99

As I drive on the highway between Bangalore and Mysore two things strike me. I have not lost voice and data connectivity for even a minute since I left Bangalore airport. And every few minutes I can notice a hoarding, banner or display of one or the other telecom brand. In a country where it can take twenty years to build a bridge, the development in the telecom sector is tremendous. Yes, there are still many things that are not correct and the future maybe uncertain but the change it has created - at the grassroots level - should not be under-estimated. 300 million people (at least) are connected in a way they have never been in this country. The freedom movement is the only other thing that comes to mind. Critical observers will say that this happened in spite of the Government, and they would probably be almost correct. The only credit that I would give is for NTP 99 which really opened up the market; that was the first and last pro-active and coordinated policy work.

It is tempting to say that the next decade will be more exciting than the previous one. I really hope that it's true, for the sake of the 800 million others that are waiting to be connected.

Business of Education

Why isn't there a national chain of K12 schools in India? In fact, why aren't there many?

I understand that education in India is for non-profit only but is there even a debate on the topic? And I can't believe that all the politicians who have set up schools in their names have been done out of only good intentions!!

When a manufacturing major decides to set up a mega-plant, it asks the Government for mines and power and other essential raw materials. They look for vertical integration to protect their long term interests. Then why are IT and BPO majors depending purely on Government action to provide them their essential 'raw material'? Every year they are hiring tens of thousands each, yet they have no control over the quality or mindset of the people they employ. No wonder they have to invest in almost recreating their education. The Knowledge Economy is predicated on India churning out sufficient numbers of well qualified youngsters. Note we are not just talking of call center execs or software code writers; the opportunity is in design, animation, law, financial analysis, research, education, management.... almost endless, if only we had the right talent. After years of suffering whimsical and incompetent people, the HRD ministry seems to now have a leader who appears to have his heart and mind in the right place. But can we let India's future: Vision 2020 and beyond, be left to the luck of the political draw?

Shoot those I-Bankers!!!

The "vulgarest" of them all are the bankers! Most of them work for unlisted companies, so we don't even know how many digits are there in their salaries. And that, btw, is in US $.

So should we shoot them or easier still, take away their Mercs and sea-facing apartments?

Why are we grudging them their earnings in the first place? Nobody seems to be complaining that Dhoni makes Rs 50 crores for his skills and good looks or Akshay Kumar makes Rs 100 crore for neither.

And if that's what their customers paid them, then why would they look a gift horse in the mouth? Corporates are willing to pay bankers 0.5% to 2% of the deal value for any fund-raising activity or M&A deals... a bit like what real-estate agents earn from rental or buy/sell deals. The cost of doing the deal is quite limited - they just have to pay for plush offices and assistants to make wonderful slide packs. It's skills and good looks all the way.

Except when a deal goes sour after months of work (like the Bharti-MTN one), most bankers end up closing a few deals every year. Most large banks do not touch a deal if they cannot earn a minimum $1mn fees. If it is a large deal (by Indian standards), they ought to earn at least $3-5mn. Of course, that won't get split evenly... like everywhere, the big fish make much more than the junior analysts. An entry level banker (in India) should be making at least $50K (25L INR); successful senior folks wouldn't settle for anything less than $1mn. The CEOs obviously make several of those millions.

Do you need these guys to make deals happen? Many corporate executives will tell you, We don't really need these suits to come in; anyways we end up doing all the intelligent work. The bankers just look pretty at all the meetings. But, face it, can you do an M&A deal on magicbricks.com? Or launch your public offer at giveindia.com?

Corporates ought to re-look at the way I-banking fees are determined. Most companies don't want to pay for a failed transaction, and therefore, settle for a 1% success fee: if I am spending 100, what is 1 more? The i-bankers take all the risk of the deal, and end up getting a huge upside when a transaction is consummated. Perhaps, a fixed retainer that compensates the bankers for their work (like consultants get paid), even if a deal breaks, could reduce the super-normal upside of a successful transaction.

Till then, die you bankers!

Vulgar salaries down down!!!

... or so our politicians would have us believe.

Having imposed cattle class on their ilk, the high-priests of austerity have turned to a new, softer target: executive salaries. Never mind, that in our so-called "liberal" economy, the Government has no locus standi on determining or even influencing salaries in private sector enterprise.

It is the owners of the enterprise, the shareholders who must decide what they want to pay their managers. If they believe that a CEO is worth paying Rs 50 crores, so be it, even though it might be 12,500 times the per capita GDP of India (as TOI informed us recently). Remember, there are many CEOs, including those of blue-chip companies, whose CEOs get paid far less. Far, far less, in fact.

That is the question investors (and perhaps the Government as the regulator) must try and solve. Why can some companies attract CEOs - highly experienced professionals - for a compensation of about Rs 1-5 crores whereas other companies end up paying 10-50 times as much? It is very obvious that owner-CEOs have a significantly higher level of compensation than professional-CEOs. In a large Indian telecom company, the owner Executive Chairman received almost 8 times as much compensation as the professional MD.

Are the public and institutional shareholders exercising any control or influence over executive compensation, particularly when the "executive" is a significant shareholder himself/herself? The blame, if any, must then lie with the "independent" Directors who are letting the promoters decide how much to pay themselves. (Btw, politicians have the same problem: MPs vote for their own salary hikes in Parliament.)

So, Mr. Minister, the answer does not lie in "regulating" executive compensation and/or asking for "restraint". The Government needs to ensure, through regulation and education, that our publicly listed companies behave like public companies, with active public shareholders (represented by strong, knowledgeable and truly independent Directors). We have too many private fiefdoms masquerading as public companies in India.

TOI Full Page losing value?

Two pages in today's The Times of India caught my attention. The first page was a full page Yahoo! ad announcing that the Internet was now under my management. I thought that had happened a couple of years ago, isn't it? Web 2.0 and all that. Perhaps, Yahoo! Is doing a Rip Van Winkle on us?

A customizable homepage, an inbox that knows my likes (and dislikes) and mobile access. With these Yahoo! Would have us believe that things have changed... ah well...

The second page, somewhere inside, has a full page interview with Arundhati Roy. I know this is a Monday paper after a long weekend, and it's tough to get meaningful content to fill the paper, but this...? Roy maybe a famous Indian (Booker and all that) but today she's no more than a controversial activist. A lot has been said about the causes she thinks she represents and her style of activism; we need not go there. But a full page interview...? About three invisible elephants in my living room... and right, I am the fourth, visible one.

I have to seriously start breaking this morning habit...