Strategy - The Biggest GLOBE

What is strategy?

This is the opening line of a world famous and most quoted paper by Michael Porter and is the opening line of plethora of books on strategy by different authors, all claiming to be authorities on a topic which cannot be mastered by their own admission. The first page of any text book on strategy claims that it is not easily defined and is very subjective and open to interpretation. Yet isn’t it funny that they are writing a book of 1000 pages about something which they admit cannot be actually taught in a classroom? After reading all the 1000 pages, neither the author is clear about what is he talking about, neither the teacher who “facilitated “ this course nor the hundred odd students who were actually supposed to learn it.
To pile on the misery, we have the siblings or descendants ( I, being so weak on strategy could not figure out how the taxonomy works) of Strategy by really wicked names like Corporate Strategy, Business Strategy, Marketing strategy. HR Strategy, Transnational strategy and blah blah blah. To make the matters worse, we have derivatives on strategy like strategic intent, strategic positioning etc and etc. If defining the indefinable was not enough, people have added qualifiers just like they are adding prefixes to normal English words.
OK, now you may ask what is my opinion/ definition/view on strategy. To set the record right, I do not believe that there is anything called strategy. However, just to avoid loss of face to the questioner, I would say that strategy is simple common sense. All the gyan that are captured in fancy looking frameworks are just nothing but embellishments over some trivial idea which I am sure anyone can think of. But then we have a great obsession with all neat looking diagrams containing words which no one understands in beautiful shapes of triangles, diamonds and pentagrams.
Even if we assume that strategy is more than plain common sense, it raises a fundamental question what purpose does strategy serve in a business. It does not help us get more sales, does not help with financing or understanding the costs nor it deals with motivating the people. It does not help me wit my production as well. Then, do we actually need so many courses in strategy as part of the curriculum in an MBA program? Wont we be better off with a reduced load? Or if some people feel it’s a cardinal sin to have free time for yourself in a b-school, we can have one or two courses which encourage you to study some industry in great detail thereby helping you in making a career choice.
The only reason why strategy is taught in a b-school is because it keeps a specific breed of academicians relevant in the overall scheme of things and they continue to pile up garbage in the name of academic research. They come out with fancy ideas with fancier names which devoid of all embellishments is basically something that’s what everyone is supposed to do in business. These academicians come out with new and new theories which help them to make the text books thicker and thicker. The corporate then hire these academicians for consulting projects with the hope that their company name gets published as a pioneering practitioner of the latest crazy idea that a crazy professor has come up.

Isn’t it funny that all great strategies are known only in hindsight when the company has successfully executed its plans? For all the pedigree of the academic researchers, why can’t they predict if a particular strategy would be successful or not? They can always do a good post mortem but would be horrible if they have to stick out their neck out and say it would work. The greatest joke is when a particular strategy fails they take refuge in the fact that it was not poor strategy formulation but poor implementation that led to the downfall. If implementation is what actually matters, then why so much noise about strategy formulation in the first place?
If Wal-Mart is successful, its not because it has a low cost strategy but because its managers are good at finding ways to achieve lowest costs and are capable of doing it successfully. All the competitors of Wal-Mart are trying the same strategy but are unable to do so. If strategy actually mattered, then all of them should have been successful. The bottom line is its Execution that matters and not strategy in business. If the b-schools want to churn out entrepreneurs in large numbers, they should stop all the strategy courses and replace them with courses consisting of field work and execution challenges

Strategy - The biggest GLOBE

happy new year 2010

Happy New Year 2010
I wish all of you a very happy new year day. I hope everyone gets what he/she wants this year. This wish is even more pertinent to a class of species who are going to graduate out of a bschool and are wondering if the economy has recovered enough for them to get a job. With an average liability of 8Lac on each of the student, people are praying that they have a salary decent enough for them to pay off the EMI. He he, just kidding guys. The economy has recovered and everyone would have multiple offers.

Year 2010 started off in a very unusual way as I was caught in a traffic jam at 00:00 hrs on Jan 1. I had gone for dinner with my closest bunch of buddies to Mint and had a nice dinner( It was nicer as it was sponsored by a friend). We all wanted to be in campus on time for the new year as this would be the last new year that I can celebrate in my beloved Hel(L). But then as they say, man proposes and God disposes and we were all wishing new year to each other in a taxi. Few of my friends tried to do a "LEAD INDIA" by playing the role of traffic constable and clear the traffic jam. However, they forgot that its Lucknow and to expect people to have road sense is like asking a bit too much. Anyways, I used this opportunity to lay down full stretch in the ambassador taxi and had a power nap for 30 minutes.

We finally reached the campus at 00:30 and then wished everyone we met and it was such a happy moment. I generally don't give much of a significance to any particular date be it Jan 1 or Feb 14 or Apr 21 ( to the uninitiated, I was born on this day. I know you would have guessed it as you are a smart ass but then even smart asses like a pat on their back ). However, it was nice to see so many smiling happy faces around you, all of them forgetting their own tension, sorrows for a fleeting second and just celebrating the arrival of a new year as if it is the arrival of a new epoch.

I hope 2010 would be really lucky for all of us. I am praying for few things this year which I have not done so in earlier years. I am pretty excited about this year as I have lots to look forward to. Au revoir 2009 and welcome 2010

Back to blogging

Its been almost 18 months since I Blogged. I think with the eurotrip, and few intellectual discussions, I have enough content to talk about.
I think time has come to fill up the pensieve again.

My Expectations

I am into the last week of one month notice period in the office. I am itching to get into IIM Lucknow and begin the most important phase of my life. I feel like a batsman padded up and waiting for the play to start.

If I look back at last few years of my life, I feel the four years of engineering in NSIT was a big let down. I could have learned a lot more but squandered the opportunity. Why did it happen? One reason as I see now is that I was not clear of my objectives. Mine was a journey without a destination and a clear sense of purpose. No wonder, I covered great distance but displacement was paltry.

Wise men never repeat the mistakes. So I have decided to put in writing what I expect from this course. It would serve as a template, a reference which would guide the route I choose in this momentous journey. Let this be the light that leads my way…

My expectations are:

1. Good understanding of all functional areas of management.
2. A structured thinking process. The ability to define a problem out of thin air.
3. To further refine my thought process
4. To discover new facets of my personality
5. A network of great individuals to march with in the professional life.
6. Buddies for life. NSIT introduced me to some people whom I respect a lot. I hope IIML gives me a larger number.
7. The confidence to do anything.
8. Time management
9. To prepare me for battles in corporate life. I should never quit because of inability.

Delhi, My Love....

I am leaving Delhi for IIM Lucknow in just about eight days i.e. on 20th June. Just four more days of office for me. Though I was born in a village called Kallidaikurichi in Tirunelveli in southern Tamil Nadu, I have spent all my life here. My schooling and my engineering were in this historic city. For my job, I wanted to move out of the city so that I can meet up new people and learn new language and culture, but as luck would have it, I got the job in Greater Noida itself.

So, I wanted to move out for the last two years but now that I am actually moving, I feel a bit uneasy. Leaving this city is emotionally more difficult that what I imagined it would be. I would be missing my family, friends and above all my daily dosage of “Gol Guppa and other chats”. Traveling in DTC buses seems pleasurable and this sweltering heat bearable.
Though I am just going to a near by city that I can reach in six hours and one which is similar to mine in terms of climate and culture, I still feel the pain. I am thinking about the people who have to leave their motherland and go to some strange place permanently. How difficult it would be for them.

Now I understand why NRIs are more attached to this country than the average resident Indian. Now I understand why they say “Janani Janmabhoomischa Swargat api gariyasi”. I always supported Nasser Hussain when he complained about British supporting Asian cricket teams in England. Now I am a bit skeptical. You just can’t cut away the roots.

If planned emigration by choice is tough, what about the forceful displacement of millions of people in war torn areas. These people are forced to cut their roots and move to a strange place on account of the ego of a single man, an emperor or a political leader. What emotional turmoil do they go through? When I talked to a Kashmiri pundit, I see a glint in his eyes as he talks about his ancestral home. Now I understand the affection for Pakistan amongst the elder Punjabis. Imagine the plight of Hindus and Muslims at the time of partition as they moved to a strange land. Imagine the dwellers of the “City of Peace” (Jerusalem) during those chaotic years of late 1940s. Imagine the situation of people of Africa who have civil wars as the only constant thing in their life.

These thoughts further enhance my love for ahimsa. Why can’t the world be a happy place where there is no conflict, hunger or poverty? My Lord! When will you answer my prayers of “Loka Samasta sukhino bhavantu, Sarve janaha sukhino bhavantu”?

PS: This should qualify as my most random post. I started with something and I ended up this way.