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Thursday, May 20, 2010

Three Drawer Management


Victor Benjee got an offer of appointment from Traditions Galore Ltd. The offer was undeniably very attractive in terms of money and position offered. He started contemplating in terms of the change. However he was not very sure whether the change would be a right move in his career growth.

He was quite in friendly terms with his existing boss Jawahar Kurios in his present company Genuine Systemic Ltd. So he could discuss his personal matters with Jawahar Kurios. While generally changing a job is kept quite a secret by almost all the people, Victor found it OK to confide such things in Jawahar. He trusted Jawahar fully in such matters too.

Therefore, one evening when Jawahar was quite free from his work and was resting in his cabin, Victor dropped in.

He asked, “Jawahar, do you have about an hour to spend with me? I wish to discuss something personal. Do you remember that you had given me a good reference while I was applying for a senior position in your previous company Traditions Galore? I want your advice in that connection?”

Jawahar got curious, “Can I congratulate you? I guess they have offered you a job.”

Victor said, “Yes, they have. And the offer is brilliant. I will get some 55% more money than what you give me here. The designation is more appealing and I stand to get a bigger house, car and cabin.”

Jawahar laughed, “Then where is the problem? Jump in.”

Victor said, “But I am not sure about the culture of Traditions Galore Ltd. They say that it’s quite different from Genuine Systemic Ltd. One could find it difficult to work in this new company after having worked for a more professional company like Genuine Systemic. Now you have worked for Traditions Galore for quite some years and you have the first hand information about it. Then who could be a better person than you to guide me on this change?”

Jawahar replied, “OK. OK. I will tell you all. But that’s based purely on my observations and experience. I will not tell you whether you should leave Genuine Systemic and join Traditions Galore. That will be strictly your decision. But surely, I will fill you with some data.”

Then Jawahar went on to elaborate, “What you heard is correct. Though it’s huge company by all standards but it is one of those family owned types where family members or their inner circle people have strict controls over all the company activities. In nutshell, Traditions Galore’s Culture is almost opposite of what we do here. For example, our company believes lots in processes and systems where as in Traditions Galore most of the decisions are discretionary. While we have at least some semblance of delegation of power and one can take decisions at different levels, in Traditions Galore the decision making is highly centralized. We are more transparent here but Traditions Galore is full of secrecy. Yet let me hurriedly say that they have their own brand of systems too and they too make huge profits.”

Victor interrupted, “Jawahar, can you give me some examples from your own experience?”

Jawahar said, “OK. I will tell you this one experience and you may get a lot of insight. I had joined Traditions Galore after working for a good length of time in a professional multinational company. This multinational company had everything defined on paper and things went strictly in accordance with those things. For example, if I wanted to buy some material or some equipment, the system was very transparent. If I gave convincing justifications for the purchase, I was sure to get it or the sanctioning authority will seek further clarifications from me. And timeline for this type of decision-making and execution was clearly defined. So it was that simple and straight forward.”

Jawahar took a pause and then continued, “So after joining Traditions Galore, I tried to follow the same system in absence of any systems manual telling me what to do. The CEO of the company had given me a mandate to improve the efficiency of the manufacturing departments by a certain percentage within an year’s period. For achieving this, I needed to induct some specific equipment of the latest technology in the organization. So I made a justification note, attached it to the purchase requisition form and sent it to the CEO. After a week or so, the justification note with the purchase requisition was returned to me via company’s finance department.”

Victor asked, “Why, did not you have an approved budget for it?”

Jawahar replied, “I had made provision for it in my budget but finance people used to revisit the budget provision once more on case to case basis when the actual purchase was about to be made. As per them the budget was just a rough guideline. Now this was quite different from my previous organization. In my previous company once a budget was sanctioned, it became sacrosanct for all purposes. But here the CEO passed on my requisition to finance department without even informing me. It was quite strange for me. I had to spend many hours spread over many days to satisfy finance chief. Finally he signed on the dotted line. After this I sent the whole thing once again to my CEO. I waited for almost two weeks but I did not get any approval of the CEO.”

Victor was surprised, “Then, when did you get the approval?”

Jawahar replied, “I did not get it. Couple of times I reminded him about my requisition but he posed very busy. Then after repeated follow up from me, he asked me to meet him and explain my plans on how I aimed at increasing the plant efficiency with the new equipment. But every time I requested for his time to do so, he made some excuse or the other and kept on postponing our meeting. Then I got fed up. I was already running out of time and being the first year of my employment I could not risk not achieving the mandate given to me. So I worked out some alternate plans without this technologically advanced equipment and somehow started implementing efficiency improvements.

Victor got puzzled, “You mean to say that you stopped sending all of your proposal to your CEO and still worked.”

Jawahar replied, “No, later on I knew the trick of how to get my proposals passed. Somehow with my keen observations I came to know about my CEO’s "Three Drawer System" which in fact was a top secret. Only intelligent people like me could decipher it. I told you earlier that even companies like Traditions Galore have their own brand of systems. My CEO there had a system which I branded as “Three Drawer System”.

Victor mentioned, “Jawahar, can you throw light on this ‘Three Drawer System’ please?”

Jawahar said, “I am coming to that. After getting clearance from finance your proposal goes to CEO. The scrutiny by finance itself is the first step of control on the expenditure proposed by you and wasting a couple of weeks. You have to explain a lot to finance people. Only if you are serious about your plan, you will take pains to convince finance department or else you will give up. So finance tests your patience and your seriousness about your proposal. Then your proposal goes to the CEO. Immediately on receiving the proposal, without even looking at it (forget about reading it), he shoves it into the top drawer of his table. Then as I did in my first encounter, you start reminding him about it. He tells you to meet him and explain the whole thing but for a few weeks or sometimes even for a few months he does not give you any time slot for the meeting. At this stage if you go slow on seeking his appointment, then after a few days he transfers your proposal papers to the second drawer (the middle drawer). Then he waits for you to push him for a meeting with him or convince him to give approval without the meeting. For some reason if you shy away from meeting him or you are incompetent to get his ears and convince him, he transfers your proposal to the third drawer (the bottom most one). In fact, since you have already waited all these days, weeks and months getting nothing, most people may totally give up. However few people still may try hard with him and in such a case the proposal papers may start a reverse journey through the drawers. However if you are not able to achieve this, you papers stay in the third drawer and soon find a way in the waste paper basket or the trash bin.”

Victor was amazed to hear this story, “My god, what an amazing control system! I could have never believed it unless it came from you. So, should I drop the idea of joining them?”

Jawahar said, “Why, are not they offering you 55% more salary; it’s quite high, one cannot ignore it. And what about the lucrative designation and bigger house, car and cabin? If you refuse, your wife and kids will miss all the fun. You already tasted this culture, why not taste the other culture too? Won’t it be fun for you too?”

Victor threw up his hands in desperation, “Jawahar, aren’t you joking? Damn it, I am totally confused.”

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Fifty Percent Cutter


Babu Kutter got the fame as “50% cutter” in the new unit of Famous Expo Industry. The new unit of this company was in its project stage and obviously it had yet to breakeven and to start making profits.

The President of the unit was indoctrinated into Famous Expo’s very important dogma of thrift. Famous Expo was famous for its economy initiatives and managers of other organizations were deputed to Famous Expo to learn those tricks of the trade which saved enormous money for Famous Expo and earned for it one of the best profit figures in the industry.

The President of the unit had come up from the ranks in the company and swore by its principles of frugality. The motto of the company was, “Save wherever and whenever even remotely possible”.

The new unit of Famous Expo which was in its commissioning phase had employed people from various outside organizations. Therefore, they were yet not so conscious about the economy principles of the company.

Being a new unit, the activity of purchasing this thing or that thing was one of the highest order activities. All kinds of employees from all kinds of departments of the unit used to raise purchase requisitions for various materials required for the completion of the project. Absence of a budgeting system (the unit being new, this system was yet to be formulated for implementation) and absence of consumption norms (again, the unit being new) made it difficult to find out a basis for approval or disapproval of the quantities of materials requisitioned.

Yet, the President found out a way of controlling the incessant purchases by installing Babu Kutter in the unit’s budget control department. Babu Kutter was a carbon copy of the President at least in the matters of respecting money. He had earlier worked under the shadow of the President in company’s other units. The President was confident that Babu Kutter was a system in himself and that system had a way of controlling the expenses. The President himself did not know exactly how Babu Kutter used to control expenditure in the company; but he knew for sure that it worked thoroughly though it always remained an enigma to him. Yet…….

As soon as Babu Kutter was brought in the saddle, all the purchase requisitions started getting routed through Babu Kutter before they landed on the desks of the buyers of the unit. Babu Kutter invariably slashed down the quantities on the requisitions. For example, if a user department’s manager asked for purchase of say 100 kilograms of some material, he invariably was made to get a surprise by receiving only say sometimes 70 kilograms or other times say 65 kilograms. When enquired about the short purchases, the buyers would direct their fingers at Babu Kutter of budget control. When they asked Babu Kutter about it, he simply used to say, “Start working with 70 kilograms. Right now the funds are a bit of a problem. Whenever and if you feel the necessity for the rest 30 kilograms, you can always raise a supplementary purchase requisition.”

The user department’s initial reaction to this was, “Fair enough.” But soon they realized that this story of Babu Kutter was going on and on; short purchases became a rule. Short purchases were creating problems in the expeditious completion of their work. On the other hand constant pressure was created by the President all the time to expedite the project.

Whenever, the user managers took up this case of short purchases pointing out to Babu Kutter as the reason, the President used to laugh out and say, “Come on. He is doing his job. You should do yours.” And the matter died there.

Soon user departments learnt a new trick. They would inflate the figures of materials to be purchased by around 25% to 30% over and above what was actually needed, on the purchase requisition slips. And after the cut by Babu Kutter, they would finally receive exactly the quantities of materials they needed. Soon, people stopped complaining to Babu Kutter or the President.

Babu Kutter and the President were no fools. Stoppage of complaints from user managers alarmed them. They conferred with each other and secretly worked out a new system of budget control.

From that day onwards, Babu Kutter started cutting the quantities on the purchase requisitions by exactly half. He started applying his well tested formula of 50% cut. Babu Kutter’s job became simpler and more effective. He did not have to think about whether to cut 20% or 25% or 30% or any other percent, he had just one figure to apply i.e. 50%.

It created havoc amongst the user managers. But they could not do much about it. They had played a trick and now Babu Kutter played a trick. Tit for tat- nothing wrong about it. So, they ganged together to teach Babu Kutter a lesson. And soon an opportunity came their way.

The President had decided to shift from his make shift city project office to his new permanent factory office. The office needed furnishing and decoration befitting a president of a highly reputed and huge organization of the scale of Famous Expo. Unit’s administrative manager was in charge of this.

Administrative manager performed his job of furnishing the new factory office of the president meticulously.

And one fine day, the President wanted to inspect his new factory office and also inaugurate it formally before physically shifting there. All the heads of the departments of the unit along with their key subordinates including the administrative manager and Babu Kutter were invited to attend this inaugural ceremony.

The president cut the ribbon. Everyone present clapped. And the president entered the office along with all the invitees. The curtains in the office attracted his attention first before he could look at anything else. He noticed that all the curtains were half in length of the standard length really required of those curtains. All the curtains started from the ceiling alright but invariably abruptly ended somewhere in the middle of the window or middle of the wall. They looked like rags and incomplete.

He was furious. He was fretting and fuming. He looked at the administrative manager accusing him with his eyes gone red and watery, “What’s this joke?” He could not speak any more; he was feeling so very humiliated in front of so many of his subordinate employees.

The administrative manager said with a calm and quiet disposition, “Sir, I had asked for the full length curtains on my purchase requisition alright but I understand that Mr Babu Kutter cut it by 50% as an economy measure. That’s why.”

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Cool Initiative


During the worst worldwide recessionary time, lots of pain was felt by lots of people though some rich and famous were unaffected by it as usual since they had already transferred lots of money from others in their coffers through various creative means.

And in the plethora of pains among majority of people, the specks of funny absurdities could surely make one laugh occasionally and forget the pain momentarily.

This is what exactly happened in the Ultimo Efficacy Inc.

Ultimo Efficacy was doing pretty well and making good amount of money even in recession. But recession provided a great and valid excuse to many companies including Ultimo Efficacy to cut out even on the otherwise normal expenses of the corporation and get the employees at various levels to work in highly constrained conditions. Idea was that they would easily accept such a thing under the hoax of recession. Rather they would be happy doing it, feeling all the way like martyrs and would soon get habituated to it. That way even after the recession was over; they would not grudge the absence of perquisites, facilities and money withdrawn from them during recession.

So, Ultimo Efficacy which was already adept at converting threats into opportunities, used recession to suddenly impose one of the most important management principles i.e. cost reduction or cost control. Though they could have very well used cost reduction to their advantage even in non-recessionary or normal times of business but did not do it because at that time they were soaked in unimaginably high profits and cost control was thrown out of the windows as an obsolete management principle or unnecessary distraction.

They got reminded of cost control mainly to achieve the objectives enumerated in one of the earlier paragraphs. So, top management of the company issued out a circular to each and every employee which read as follows. The measures contained therein were addendum to the cost control that was already being exercised by the company through the customary layoff of employees practiced as a part of recession time ritual. The contents of cost control circular issued in Ultimo Efficacy are given below:
  • Under compulsions of difficult circumstances of recession, all the employees at all the levels are requested to concentrate on cost reduction throughout the organization.
  • In view of this company has decided to go slow on promotions and salary raises for the next two years; the budgets on this count are being slashed by 75%. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management got away with bigger packets of fat (underserved) salaries and obscenely high bonuses during these two years later on).
  • Avoid travel. All the employees will travel by the cheapest modes of travel if travel is at all essential. It will be in the interest of the employees to walk if the distance travelled is at least 5 miles or below as you may be aware that walking is the best exercise to keep oneself fit and healthy. If any employee wishes to walk for over 5 miles, it will be highly appreciated. (Not on the office circular: It was another matter that the CEO and other top executives of the inner circle of management continued with their earlier habits of traveling by private or chartered aero planes or by the first class in commercial airlines and using limousines).
  • Everyone will start using both the sides of the paper for writing. Pencils should be used to write rather than pens. The advantage of using pencil is that you can erase what is written by it and thus use the paper again and again. Company is glad to provide a pool of erasers for this purpose as an extra facility.
And the instructions in the circular went on and on.

Employees had a fun-day reading the circular and savoring its contents. It brought to them some momentary pleasure amidst the pain created due to bleak recessionary environment.

A particular junior officer Simple Simpson in company’s purchase department got hyper after reading the circular. He decided to contribute his might to the laudable company wide cost control efforts.

It was summer time and the region where Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s offices and factory were located; the summer could be very severe. So the employees were provided cool water to quench their thirst in such severe summer. The company used to provide many water coolers at different locations in the offices and factory premises. Every year company used to replace the worn out water coolers with the new ones. The purchase requisitions for replacement water coolers were made by the user departments and sent to purchase department. Simple Simpson in purchase department used to process the purchase requisitions of water coolers, contact the water cooler manufacturers and buy them.

However, in view of the cost control measures, Simple Simpson suggested to the user departments that instead of water coolers he proposed to buy the earthen pots. He had seen such earthen pots being used by the people who could not afford to buy refrigerators or water coolers, particularly in the poorer countries. The water filled in the earthen pots got cooled pretty fast and remained cool for unlimited period.

User departments were too happy to go along with this proposal of Simple Simpson. They thought that in doing so they too would thus contribute towards top management’s cost reduction plan. If price of a water cooler was equivalent of $350 to $400, price of an earthen pot would be mere $1 or so. The proposal had tremendous potential of cost reduction.

A total of 100 earthen pots were requisitioned. Simple Simpson started processing this requisition for purchase of earthen pots. He sent out enquiries, got the commercial terms from the makers of earthen pots, compared various quotes thus received and finally zeroed in on one supplier who offered the minimum price per earthen pot.

As per the formal authority delegation chart of the company, a junior officer at Simple Simpson’s level was not authorized to negotiate with the suppliers. Only his boss was authorized to do so. But Simple Simpson wanted to be true to his salt at least on this occasion. He wanted to respond to the call of cost reduction of top management all by himself. After all it was his suggestion to buy earthen pots in place of water coolers and save for company thousands of equivalent dollars. So, he decided to stick his neck out and decided to negotiate with the shortlisted supplier of earthen pots to get a still better deal from him.

The maker of the earthen pots did not reduce the price further but agreed to give away 20 earthen pots over and above the 100 on the purchase order. He mentioned that he had no use of those 20 pots and could as well give them away to Simple Simpson. Simple Simpson was mighty happy with his first stint at negotiations.

The 120 earthen pots were received by Simple Simpson and he got them positioned inside Ultimo Efficacy Inc’s premises. People liked the cool water of these earthen pots and employees at grass root levels appreciated the creative brains and efforts of Simple Simpson and the resultant enormous savings. Simple Simpson became a hero for the time being.

But his glory did not last long. The period during which these 120 earthen pots were purchased was the physical inventory checking period of the company as per its laid down systems. A sharp young auditor did an audit on the earthen pots. He had the numbers on the earthen pots on the material requisition slip reading at 100 and the same 100 number was found on the purchase order. But despite physically counting a number of times the physical inventory of earthen pots came to 120 on every count. Several hours over a few days were spent by the auditor in counting the earthen pots again and again because the physical count was not tallying with the numbers mentioned in the documents and he thought that he was making some mistake in counting. Finally he decided that the physical count did give him a figure of 120 earthen pots and he was not making any mistake in counting. As per him it was a serious audit discrepancy- how the company could have more material than what was ordered? That showed slack internal controls. Then after doing a detailed research on the causes of this discrepancy, he ultimately stumbled on the fact that the discrepancy was the outcome of the negotiations carried out by Simple Simpson. And that was another serious violation of internal controls since Simple Simpson had no business to negotiate with the suppliers as per company’s policies.

As per the auditor a number of violations of systems and procedures of the company were found in the transactions of earthen pots. He documented them in his formal written report as follows:
  • As per the company requirements and budgets approved, water coolers were to be purchased and not the earthen pots. No approved or otherwise budget was available to purchase earthen pots. And there was no written authorization of any competent authority to authorize the purchase of earthen pots.
  • Discrepancy was found in the number of earthen pots actually physically found in the company’s premises as against the ones requisitioned and ordered. It was a grave violation of the internal controls.
  • On enquiry we found that Mr Simple Simpson who was in charge of processing the requisition insisted that he took all these actions as per the management’s directive of cost reduction. Therefore, he took initiative even to negotiate. This again is another violation. Company’s formal delegation of authority does not permit employees at Simpson’s level to take such decisions of purchase of earthen pots in place of water coolers on their own and also to negotiate, all by themselves, with the suppliers.
The audit observations were forwarded to the top management of the company. Top management was not used to getting such sort of audit reports.

Top management of the company felt terribly offended by such irregularities committed by its employee and ordered an enquiry against Simple Simpson. He was wondering as to what wrong did he do in saving such a lot of money for the company- he did not commit a fraud, he did not commit a crime, he did not squander company’s money, he did not take bribe- all he did was to take initiative and save money. And for this was he being pushed in front of the firing squad?

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Friday, May 14, 2010

Screwed-up Thinking Patterns


(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

Mahima Styler was excessively high in her ambitions to become rich and famous in a very short time. Her formula to achieve her objectives was: “do it by hook or by crook”. She had very low opinion of the people who advocated the so called “value based” life and she hated them. For her, the new mindset was “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life”.

Her new mindset started getting firmed up when she did not get the grades she deserved in her undergraduate school days despite her being the most intelligent and diligent student in the class. Another classmate of hers who was definitely inferior to her in studies and intelligence overtook her when it came to getting awarded the final grades by the professors. This classmate of hers knew how to impress the professors by other means; she had a way to charm the professors who were mainly of male category of human species. And so, Mahima experienced this kind of failure in her undergraduate school time repeatedly. And then she migrated from “value based” paradigm to the new paradigms of “everything is fair in achieving one’s objectives in life” and “do it by hook or by crook”.

Intelligent and hardworking she already was and now coupled this, were her new mindsets in action. She felt that now with her new approach towards life, she had started meeting successes after successes, pretty easily and with more surety. She had learnt the art of charming the male population around her in different ways and reaching her destinations faster than anyone else. And she was intelligent and hardworking, no doubt.

Her excessive ambitions did not allow her to start her professional career in a normal way, i.e. starting at a lower rung and then stepping up the higher rungs gradually. She wanted to reach the top of the ladder in just one high jump and sit there and rule.

So she took the route of doing MBA from a famous management institute whose ex-students were holding powerful positions in various reputed companies. She took a huge loan from a bank and sought admission by paying a very heavy sum towards the capitation fee required by the institute for the out of turn admissions. She did not want to go to a run of the mill school. She knew that an MBA from only such a famous institute would land her in a very high profile job with very handsome salary and she could pay off the loan in no time.

With her newly acquired beliefs, she could work out her charms and made sure that she topped her MBA batch leaving behind a large numbers of better than her students. While doing her MBA, rather than just wasting her time only on curriculum, she used her time networking with professors and ex-students of the college who were now the powerful men of various industries. That helped her in getting the highest grade in MBA and also bagging a prestigious job with an extraordinarily high designation and salary in a company of high repute.

People around her congratulated her on getting such a lucrative offer. She joined her new employer immediately after completion of her MBA course. Her very first job gave her a spacious cabin type office and even a personal assistant of her own. She was definitely an upstart the way she had dreamt of it all along. She got on famously with her boss who was an ex-student of her MBA school. He had also interviewed her in the school campus and apart from professional relationship, soon they developed an intimate personal relationship too.

However this association did not continue for a long period because her boss got transferred to an overseas assignment. That put a stop to their personally intimate association but they kept in touch via other communication channels .

A new boss took over. His name- Tez Dev. Well equipped with engineering and MBA degrees from moderately well known institutes, not necessarily the most reputed ones, he had climbed up the hierarchical ladder in the company starting as a junior manager and working his way pretty rapidly by his sheer intelligence, smart and hard work and value based working. He was a no-nonsense manager, quite demanding as far as the results were concerned and appreciated people if they followed value based clean business processes. He could not be easily tricked by sycophancy or by street smartness.

Mahima Styler found her new boss Tez Dev quite interesting and set out to win him more with her charms and also with her sharp mind though to a limited degree.

Tez Dev assessed Mahima to be a very capable lady. However, it did not take him many days to realize that Mahima was spending too much of her time in trying to please him by many other ways which could not be strictly called the professional ways. In the process, she was slipping on the work targets given to her.

As per her own assessment Mahima thought that she was progressing towards putting Tez in her pockets but the progress was far slower than what she had achieved with her earlier boss.

Days, weeks and months passed and Tez was pushing Mahima to the deadlines and results and Mahima was pushing him to start liking her as a person more than as a professional. Both were finding it hard to move forward in their efforts. Two years passed.

The promotion time came and Mahima was not promoted by Tez Dev. She was highly disappointed. Yet she continued with her efforts to please Tez Dev in her own ways. Tez Dev did not buy that nonsense.

Another promotion time came and Mahima lost out again. She was furious with Dev this time. People who she thought were inferior to her were getting promotions and she did not get any. She felt humiliated. How come Tez was ignoring her when every other male was always influenced by her positively? She decided to teach Tez Dev a lesson of his life.

Two years went by and this morning the police were handcuffing her in her own apartment. They had a warrant to arrest her for committing industrial espionage.

In these two years many significant events took place which finally led to the arrest of Mahima. Her earlier boss had joined the competitor company whose line of business was the same as his earlier company where Mahima Styler continued working. Rejected by Tez Dev, Mahima set out her new mission of teaching him a lesson. She wanted to destroy Tez professionally and personally. She needed to work closely with her previous ex-boss to achieve this. So she met her ex-boss and started intimate association with him once more.

Of late Dev was working on a top secret project of the company. It was related to the product development of a revolutionary new product from the company. Mahima got the hang of it. And soon she started passing on all the secret information to her ex-boss with whom she had re-established her personal intimate relationship. Her ex-boss was mighty happy- he was getting very valuable information from the competitor company and he would use it to his professional advantage in his new company plus he had Mahima for the bonus; he was a much married man though. So, he went along with Mahima; he had nothing to lose. This continued for nearly two years. The company secrets were being transferred to the competitor by Mahima Styler.

Tez Dev was a very observant person. He felt that someone was shuffling the papers in his office in his absence from the office though very carefully so as not to leave any trace of it. So, his sharp mind made him to probe into it further. He alarmed the senior company security officers to be on the alert twenty four hours. And one night when Mahima was going through the secret papers in the cabin of Tez, she was caught red-handed by the security chief. With adequate proof of charge of industrial espionage against Mahima, the company lodged a complaint with the police authorities.

And this morning Mahima Styler was arrested.

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
(Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Grandeur of a Strategic Plan (The Sabotage)


(It is a totally fictionalized anecdote in the management and business field. Any remote resemblance to anything in real life will be a sheer coincidence)

It’s about Youngistan. It’s around the time when Youngistan- a developing nation- was making remarkable progress economically. Eyes of the whole world got focused on this country. It was fast emerging as the new and dominant player in the world economy.

The country had the highest population of young people on the earth, percentage wise (though the name Youngistan was given to this country hundreds of years before this phenomenon actually took place). The new generation people of the country were enthusiastic, entrepreneurial and creative. They desired to conquer the world. They were setting up for themselves lofty ideals to achieve.

One such young generation leader and dreamer was Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation, one of the few automotive companies of Youngistan. The company was engaged in manufacturing and selling various variants of cars and trucks. He set out a brand new vision for his organization. He wanted the company to design a people’s car that everyone on the earth could afford. As per him every family on earth should possess a car just like everyone should possess a graduate degree and a mobile phone.

With the existing designs of cars and the price tags on them, it felt as if cars were meant only for some limited classes of human beings. And others who were not a part of those classes of human beings should not be able to afford to buy and maintain a car. It was one important strategy adopted by those shrewd people of the world who wanted to make sure that the class differences are maintained so that one class of people always remained superior to others and always ruled the inferior ones.

But CEO Yul Bright was made of different and brand new cerebral material. As soon as he took over the reins of Auto Delight Corporation, he started using his unique cerebral elements. He put forth his ideas to the heads of the departments of his company, “Our company will do a great service to the entire humanity of this earth if we can give to each family on the earth a right to buy a four wheeler which can be used for the entire family. That will increase the safe and fast mobility and therefore, comfort, effectiveness and efficiency of each family. It will also give them a sense of moving to places together as a family. It will facilitate growth of those people who are deprived of all of this because they cannot afford to buy and maintain the existing types of cars. If you agree with me, put together your minds to conceptualize, design, develop, manufacture and sell such a car. It should be damn good in efficiency, functionality, looks and most important- it should be easy on pocket- it should be dirt cheap. We will meet here in this conference room at the same time exactly after a week. Please share your ideas with me then.”

And then they met and set out the objective of giving such a gift to the people of the world. They set out a period of three years to achieve it.

Within one year, the blue prints of the wonder car were already shaped into a prototype. The prototype was thoroughly tested for all the standard and mandatory parameters in the company’s test laboratories and test tracks and also on the real roads against all types of terrains, loads and distances etc. The prototype was certified as fully capable and successful. It was ready to be mass manufactured.

Under the guidance of Yul Bright, the company decided to set up a brand new factory to roll out these cars. Around this time Bright made the formal announcements about bringing out such a car in the world market within next eighteen months. The press lapped up the news and it spread as breaking news in all kinds of media all over the world. The car’s price was fixed marginally more than a two wheeler’s price. It was declared as the cheapest car of the world that every family on the earth could afford to possess. It was termed as “car revolution” by the automobile experts.

That evening four sets of people got busy.

First set of people, obviously, consisted of the potential customers of the cheapest car and their families who got busy dreaming about possessing the car. Otherwise, they could have never dreamt of possessing a car in their life.

Second set of people were the politicians in power in each state of Youngistan. They started working out strategies to woo this project for their states. They were busy working out the allotment of land for this project in their state and offering various attractive business incentives to Auto Delight Corporation. Each head of the state wanted to have this new factory of the cheapest car of the world in his state. It would definitely benefit the people of that state and more important- also the politician and his political party.

Third set of people were the local automotive companies of Youngistan- the local competitors of Auto Delight Corporation. Their top bosses’ first thought was how to meet the competition thrown up by the people’s small car project and the second thought was soaked with sinister intentions of how to sabotage the project of Auto Delight Corporation.

Fourth set of people were the international players in the world’s automobile business. They too were busy thinking seriously. Their smooth sailing dominance of so many years was suddenly threatened by the advent of this cheapest car of the people. They were quite disappointed with themselves realizing why they could not think of such a project beforehand? And their line of thinking of how to meet the competition and how to sabotage Auto Delight’s plan was no different than the line of thinking of Youngistan’s other local auto manufacturers.

And the most sinister plan developed.

A smart top level executive of one of the local competitor companies started coordinating with all the interested agencies. We will call this smart top level executive “Mr X” in order to keep the secrecy. Willy-nilly, Mr X also became the leader of the crusade whose objective was to stall the cheapest car of Auto Delight Corporation. He contacted many multinational automobile company CEOs and also the CEOs of the local automobile manufacturers. Likeminded they already were and so, it was easy to form a cartel between them. A huge pool of money was created by the contribution of all the members of this crusade. There would be heavy expenses involved in this kind of sabotage and they soon got ready with the required finances. Mr X was also coordinating in a very secret manner with the political chiefs of various political parties of Youngistan. The plan could not have been executed without the active support and involvement of local politicians.

The central theme of the plan to be developed by the cartel was that every member of the plan as well as the participating politicians must get benefitted in enormous proportions either in kind or in cash. And the entire plan must be kept a top level secret.

The plan worked out with finesse and perfection.

As per the plan, the chief of one political party had a meeting with Yul Bright, the CEO of Auto Delight Corporation and invited him to commission his new factory in his state. He offered him as much land as he needed for the factory and also extremely attractive business incentives that no other state could even think of offering. In turn, the political chief of the state was enormously compensated in cash and kind for his this act of benevolence from the cartel’s common finance pool.

The construction of the factory started and was completed within fourteen months.

In this intervening period local and international automobile companies of the cartel had aligned themselves with each other to form alliances and collaborations and thus they got themselves organized to bring out their own small and cheap cars of the people. The competition among them was kept to the barest minimum. But they needed some more time to design and manufacture their respective wonder cars.

So around the time Yul Bright was ready to start rolling out the small cars from his newly commissioned factory, as per the master plan of the cartel, Mr X got the chief of the opposition political party in the state to start and lead an agitation against the production of the cars from the factory. The chief of the opposition political party was enormously compensated in cash and kind for leading the agitation from the cartel’s common finance pool. The opposition leader alleged that the land was forcibly grabbed from the residents of that place and allotted to Auto Delight Corporation under false promises of good amount of compensation against their lots of land and an assured employment to the members of the families who originally owned the lots of land. However, in reality none of this was happening; none of the promises were being executed. What was being offered to the local residents in lieu of the lots of their land was pittance. They wanted much more. Massive support to this agitation was bought by Mr X by paying very decent amounts to each of the thousands of agitators. Agitators under the leadership of the political chief of the opposition party became violent and physically manhandled many of the executives of the factory and made sure that they could not enter the factory premises. The work inside the factory came to a complete halt. Not a single car got produced.

Yul Bright got a shock of his life. He conferred with the political chief of the state to solve the issues and problems. It was state’s responsibility to deal with the local residents as per the agreement between the state government and Auto Delight Corporation. But Yul Bright found out soon that the state’s political chief’s approach towards solving this suddenly created problem became quite lukewarm; now he was not demonstrating the kind enthusiasm that he had displayed while inviting Bright to build his factory in the state. Yul Bright was highly disappointed by his reactions. The chief of the state said, “I am really very sorry Mr Bright. Someone in my administration has goofed up badly. In the larger interest of my state now, I may not be in a position to intervene as forcefully as I would have done otherwise.”

The agitation continued for two long months. Factory remained closed. Life of the executives of the factory was constantly under threat from the local residents- the agitators. Not a single car got assembled.

Having waited for two months without getting any satisfactory solution, finally Yul Bright took the toughest decision of his life- close this plant in this state and look out for another venue either in other states of Youngistan or even in any other country. He mentioned that it would mean delaying the project of the cheap wonder car by some eighteen months. He announced it formally. It was breaking news in the entire media of the world.

That evening members of the cartel were enjoying a gala party in a seven star hotel with abundance of finest wines flowing recklessly. Now they would be in position to roll out their versions of the cheap cars ahead of the cheap car of Auto Delight Corporation. They had bought sufficient time for it. Their businesses were saved; nah, their businesses would now flourish like nobody’s business.

Related Books
1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Ethic, Human Beings and Corporate Exploitation


Sandy Grover started her company Interior Designs and Decorations to prove something to her husband Joe.

Joe Grover was a brilliant electronic engineer and after working as a senior executive in a well known automobile company got laid off during the recession. He applied to several organizations for job but could not get any. Recession was too severe and rather than getting jobs, even bright professionals were being laid off in hundreds.

Having tried his hand at seeking job and seeing no scope of getting one till the recession was phased out; he decided to go on his own. With his decent savings during the first twelve years of employment, he could think of starting his business. He had the seed capital and additionally he borrowed money from his bank. He set up a small electronic factory to manufacture and supply components to the larger corporate companies in diverse industries. Electronic components were needed everywhere. Joe Grover was an ace designer and he could easily customize his products to his customers’ requirements.

We all know that any big business starts with it being small to start with. And there are always initial teething troubles. First few years of inception can be very trying both from work point of view and also from the revenues point of view. Joe Grover was no exception.

As the days passed, Joe Grover’s business started growing but only at snail’s pace. The income was not much. Joe’s strength was electronic design and his designs were robust. That did create interest in many prospective customers but still the orders were not coming in bulk; they just trickled.

Sandy Grover was watching the progress of Joe but was not very happy with it. She was not happy with the rate of growth and more particularly with the income- the income which was far lower than the salary Joe used to bring home when he was a senior executive.

Sandy concluded that it was a hopeless sign. She anticipated that the financial burden on her family would start mounting in the near future and soon enough she might be forced to accept a situation when the income would not be enough to take care of even the monthly installments of repayment of loans as well as to pull on with family’s day-to-day expenses.

She needed money to take care of the bills towards grocery, electricity, gas, telephones and school fees of their two children and what have you. Plus Sandy had got used to the standard of living that they could easily afford when Joe was employed as a senior executive. It was not possible for her to get used to the new idea where now Joe was self employed and at least for the time being the income had dwindled and she saw no signs of it increasing in the near future.

If that kind of scenario continued, she thought that they might not be left with any alternative but to dip into the savings of all these years. And that wasn’t proper. She just couldn’t allow it to happen. She thought to herself, “I must start thinking to make sure that such a thing does not happen. I must involve myself more seriously into saving the family from it much earlier than it would finally happen.”

So, Sandy started complaining. She said to Joe, “You are not getting enough orders. You must concentrate on marketing rather than on designing. I understand that designing is your favorite area but you should spend less time there and spend more time in building up a good customer base. You must develop more contacts and build up your network. I hear that it is the networking and personal contacts that really help getting the business. You seem to be doing nothing about it. I have seen some real smart people who started their own businesses and within a very short time they have flourished. I see them throwing parties, meeting various people in the clubs and playing golf and they are busy developing contacts and making friends. Now I call that as real marketing.”

Joe replied, “I fully appreciate what you are suggesting. But the competition is quite severe and after entering into business field I can see that the corruption is a real phenomenon. For getting a break with big sales orders, the outsourcing chiefs of some of our client companies are demanding kickbacks. The kind of networking and personal contacts you are talking does help in breaking the wall that the buyers build around them but for making them to sign on the dotted line for placing orders on us, they expect from us more than a clean business; they want the money under the table and I do not wish to compromise this way. My product designs are perfect, our manufacturing quality is superb and we have reached a large number of clients through various means that are pretty effective. Do not say that I am not marketing at all. I am doing a pretty serious marketing too. But the true story is that if you wish to get a quick bulk order and make quick bucks, you have to learn to compromise. You may call that as my weak point- I cannot learn to compromise.”

And then these arguments became more frequent and always ended with a fight between Sandy and Joe.

That is when sandy thought of starting her own business. She just could not see all of their savings go away before Joe really started earning the real money. And as per the serious assessment made by Sandy, Joe was not smart enough to do business. She concluded that he would remain where he started and with Joe’s ways of working he would never be able to make money. She branded him as incompetent in her own mind. She was losing respect for him and also her love for him.

She thought that she was an interior designer and decorator and she would launch her own business immediately. They still had more than adequate money in their savings right now to launch such a business and soon with her ideas on how to acquire big business in short time she would multiply the money in no time, she was very sure of it. She was also aware that she was quite attractive and that too was her plus point and in men’s world it mattered.

So, she started off. She opened her office in a plush location and inaugurated it by throwing a huge party. Among many people she met in the party, one gentleman influenced her a lot. She particularly liked that person since she knew that he was a very successful builder and owned an enormous real estate and construction conglomerate. She took initiative to get introduced to him and made him to agree for a meeting with her in his office.

She said, “So, I will see you in your office the coming Monday. Mr Jay Robbins, you must not disappoint me when I meet you in your office. I am looking forward to long term professional association with you and your company.”

Jay Robbins said, “Please call me Jay. I look forward to our meeting Mrs Grover.”

Sandy Grover said, “Please call me Sandy. I will be there pronto.”

Monday came and Sandy Grover was with Jay Robbins discussing business propositions.

Jay Robbins made a remark, “Sandy, your timing has been perfect. I have launched a project of gigantic proportions and we are at the stage of doing the interiors of these luxury apartments. My present interior decorator has not been quite up to her mettle and I was seriously looking out for her replacement. You will have to meet me couple of times to understand my requirements and then you can start off with interior designing and decoration of the apartment houses. Why not meet tomorrow evening in my club?”

Then there were series of meetings between Sandy and Jay and they went on getting closer and closer with each other not only professionally and business wise but also personally and as a result, very intimate relationship started growing between them. Sandy got an enormous business contract from Jay Robbins and within a period of an year Sandy’s monthly income soared very high. She was becoming rich literally overnight. She found no need to develop any new clients. Work coming from Jay’s company kept her and her ever growing staff fully busy.

As Sandy and Jay started getting more and more intimate, Joe and Sandy started falling apart more and more. Sandy thought that Jay was smart and competent and she also thought that Joe was dull and incompetent.

Joe noticed the changes in Sandy and their relationship with each other and he was intelligent to understand the reasons. Yet he put in his efforts to save his marriage, to keep the family intact; he loved his two kids lots and he also loved Sandy as his kids’ mother and his wife. He decided to hold his family together despite the pain he was suffering because of Sandy’s fling. He was sure that she would get over it in due course.

In the mean time Joe was gradually gaining fame due to his creative designs, excellent quality of manufacture and his professional marketing and also more and more clients started placing more and more orders on his firm. Yet his income levels just could not reach anywhere near the income levels of Sandy.

Eight years went by. Through this period Joe was sad, Sandy was jubilant. Sandy and Jay continued with each other; Joe was lonesome.

Then, one evening when Joe returned home from his factory, he heard Sandy’s uncontrollable sobbing and hiccups. He sat near her and held her hand in his. Sandy dropped her head on Joe’s shoulders and spoke out incoherently with lots of effort, “……Jay Robbins has cancelled all my contracts with his company and he has found out a new and younger interior designer and decorator and he has now placed all the contracts on her firm. He says that I have been messing up with things lately and he suffered huge losses due to it and so he cannot continue with me. He had done the same thing with the earlier interior designer and decorator when he had fired her and took me instead. Now the history is repeating. He has also replaced his old secretary with a much younger and more beautiful girl. The older secretary was hysterical and was blurting out that Jay is a play boy. He likes only younger women…..”

Related Books

1. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)

Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.

2. "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" (available from Amazon, get it online as a paperback or an eBook)
Read many more management anecdotes/management case studies in the eminent author Shyam Bhatawdekar's best selling book "Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Volume 2)" available online from Amazon as an eBook as well as a printed book.
Other Related Reading
For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com/
Also, refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/
For “out of box thinking” articles by Shyam Bhatawdekar, refer: (Out of Box Ideas) http://wow-idea.blogspot.com/
Read other blogs of Shyam Bhatawdekar at: (Home Page for Writings of Shyam Bhatawdekar) http://writings-of-shyam.blogspot.com