Navtej Kohli Business Blog

‘There is no education like adversity’ Navtej Kohli firmly believes in this statement.

A life without obstacles is as good as dead. Whether they are everyday problems or crisis situations, how we handle them will determine how good we are as a leader. The weak leaders crumble when the odds stack up and surrender even before any attempt to overcome the obstacles. The great and successful leaders on the other hand see adversity as a challenge. Against all odds, they rise above the difficulties and land up scaling greater heights than before. They do not merely survive the adversity, they thrive. Leaders should continually conquer adversity and, amid the chaos, look out for new opportunities to undertake and excel in. Like the old mule in our fable, once we have set our minds to clear all the obstacles, we will succeed in any endeavor.

Story:

Old Mule in Well

A farmer owned an old mule. One day, the mule fell into the farmer’s well. The mule brayed loudly and caught the attention
of the farmer. Upon assessing the situation, the farmer ruled out any possibility of a rescue as it was simply too much trouble to lift the mule out of the well. Out of sympathy for the animal, he decided to enlist his neighbors’ help to haul dirt into the well to put the mule out of his misery.

The old mule was hysterical upon learning that his life would thus end. However, as the farmer and the neighbors shoveled
the dirt into the well, a thought struck the old mule. He realized that if he could shake off every dirt that landed on his back, the dirt would hit the floor and he could step on the dirt.

Shovel after shovel, he continued relentlessly to shake off the dirt and step on top of it. He fought the sense of panic and
distress and just went on shaking off the dirt and climbing higher up the well.

With much determination and perseverance, the old mule eventually stepped out the well, battered and exhausted, but
otherwise triumphant that he had survived the ordeal. Through the way he handled the situation of adversity, the act of burying him in fact saved his life.

Moral:

There is a solution to every problem.
Never give up.
Adversity creates opportunity.

Mckinsey has given eight interesting business trends to watch. Here on Navtej Kohli business blog is a synopsis of the same. However, for your reference, the detailed version is available at the Mckinsey’s website (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/).

Read on to know how these trends can benefit business and IT sector.

1. Distributing co-creation
2. Using consumers as innovators

These are old strategies. Usual story about Linux and user generated content. The ‘consumers as innovators’ cites the case of a T-shirt manufacturer leveraging user talent / creativity to create new designs. But I wonder if it can help an IT company in same way. How is an IT company going to leverage user generated strategies?

3. Tapping into the world of talent

Now this is quite interesting. Business and IT are most of the times fighting. Business, on one hand, alleges that IT is not delivering enough value, IT, on the other, claims business people don’t know what they want and they keep changing their minds. Most of the time, the issue is simply a case of IT holding business hostage. Let me explain. In most organizations, the IT department is usually is the sole provider of IT services. Business does not have a second “service provider” to turn to. As classic economic theory predicts, with no competition, IT’s service quality declines. Businesses should be allowed to engage several service providers.

4. Exacting more value from interactions
5. Expanding frontiers of automation
6. Separate production from delivery

I wouldn’t be surprised if Google or Microsoft starts doing this in a big way. Amazon has led this field by letting companies tap into its big investments in IT. EMC has announced their own move into the “cloud”

7. Putting more science into management

8. Make business from information

Stop being late to work

There is a little bit of TOM in all of us says Navtej Kohli.

Tom had this problem of getting up late in the morning and was always late for work. His boss was mad at him and threatened to fire him if he didn’t do something about it. So Tom went to his doctor who gave him a pill and told him to take it before he went to bed. Tom slept well and in fact beat the alarm in the morning by almost two hours. He had a leisurely breakfast and drove cheerfully to work.

“Boss”, he said, ” The pill actually worked!”

“That’s all fine” said the boss, ” But where were you yesterday?”

 I’m sure poor TOM has learnt his lesson

Navtej Kohli business blog brings what’s up and coming in the global business arena. China is soon to excel South Africa and the United States in Gold production says Navtej Kohli.

China is all set to become the world’s leading gold producer in 2008, with output reaching 300 tonnes, the China Gold Association (CGA) said Tuesday.

“Recent years have seen a continuous drop in gold output in South Africa and the United States, traditionally big gold producers, while China maintains an annual growth rate of five percent,” said Hou Huimin, vice president of the association.

the recent CGA statistics reveal that the gold output of South Africa, which has led gold output since 1905, was 272 tonnes in 2007, while that of China was about 270.5 tonnes, 1.5 tonnes less than the former.

China has proven gold reserve of more than 650 tonnes in 2006, while another five gold deposits were discovered since the beginning of 2007, said Hou.

“With the improvement of exploration level and technology in processing ores, the output of gold will continue to increase,” he said.

Gold production increased in China, where the output stood at 4.5 tonnes in 1949 and 100 tonnes in 1995 today stands at whooping 300 tonnes.

China had been the fourth largest gold producer from 2000 to 2006.

Navtej Kohli business blog presents an interesting and factual story that again shows the basic human tendency of poking nose in matters of the other…
This is a true story. Some years ago a client engaged a consultant to help with a small postal mailing to the purchasing departments of blue chip corporations. The consultant sourced the list (which was provided on MSExcel) and drafted the letter. Thereafter the client was keen to take control of the project, ie., to run the mail-merge and the fulfilment (basically printing, envelope-stuffing and mailing).
The consultant discovered some weeks later that a junior member of the client’s marketing department had sorted the list (changed the order of the listed organisations in the spreadsheet), but had sorted the company name column only, instead of all columns, with the result that every letter (about 500) was addressed and sent to a blue chip corporation at another entirely different corporation’s address.
Interestingly the mailing produced a particularly high response, which when investigated seemed to stem from the fact that an unusually high percentage of letters were opened and read, due apparently to the irresistible temptation of reading another corporation’s mail.

Navtej Kohli came across an interesting survey conducted by American express. Below are some adverse findings of the survey, summed up by Navtej Kohli.

America’s small business owners are very determined and are constantly pushing ahead with plans to grow their business. Not withstanding the heavy loss of sales due to soaring energy costs they are optimistic and moving ahead with dogged persistence.

According to the American Express open survey only 45 % of US small business holders are positive and more than 70% plan to expand their business in next six months. In fact, half of them are ready to take on added financial risk to get it done, the survey said.

Despite of growing economic uncertainty throughout the US, the small business owners (almost 9 out of 10) see the sunny side. According to the survey, a majority of 75% small business owners would still recommend a friend or family member becomes an entrepreneur.

However, there still are those who can foresee the tight spot. Especially the retail business owners have the most negative attitude with nearly half expecting the economic environment to hurt their prospects. One in five small businesses in states located in the northern midwest think they’re in jeopardy of going under.
And 56 percent of small businesses are having cash flow problems, according to the survey.