India's First and Truly Global SME Conference

World SME Conference 2008

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I plan to make it a marquee event in the calendar of all in the SME Ecosystem.

Thankyou SMEs for teaching me so much in last 18 months. I am committed to the your cause.

It is the Values Which Bind

Recently we had a two-day Workshop where people from all our offices came to discuss the Vision, Mission, Values, Culture and Objectives of MILAGROW.

We spent enormous time in discussing each and every aspect and settled each point. We agreed to the following Values:

Ethics - Integrity, Honesty and Transparency in what we do
Commitment - Own everything we do
Trust - Believe in People
Respect - All Stake Holders

Every person made his/her own commitment to each and every value. Its been a much change since then – I can see that every person’s commitment and effectiveness has gone up a few notches from the already high levels which they demonstrated.

The magic lies in the “VALUES” which bind the people and everyone now sees the 'larger purpose' and the magic has just begun!

My gratitude to all my people to make me learn this lesson firsthand though I always knew the phrase “It’s the Values which bind”!

We are all 'Alike'

Three Huntsman program students from Wharton joined us for Internships last month. Two have joined recently. All are international students and none of them of Indian origin.

I have watched all of them closely - in professional and personal situations. I have worked closely with other youngsters in our team from IITs, IIMs, Symbiosis, IMT, DCE, ICFAI, BIMTECH etc. The more I observed them the more all of them seem alike in their attitude to professionalism. All are pretty hardworking and don’t want to rest on the fact that they have come from good academic institutions. All of them respect ethics in much the same way. They are willing to experiment and stick their neck out for their dreams.

Last night I got a mail from the mother of a ‘Wharton’ intern. She had been talking to her son on every detail of his stay in India. She wanted us to drive him hard on learning and also celebrate his birthday. In her mail I could see the care, love and blessings and dream for her ‘grown up’ child much in the same way as an Indian mother would. It made me happy

I Thank God for making us all alike!

Read when a Tear is Near

I have always been a very driven professional. The work of the company always came first. In the Mid 80's when I had people reporting to me for the first time I got good results through my people. Under me never ever cried.

As I progressed and a track record was established I wanted to raise the benchmark after benchmark. I kept driving myself and my team harder but I always took good care of the team ....with them I enjoyed the weekends, monthly closings and after hours etc...Fpr about a decade I never noticed that some may have had more needs/issues than I was addressing as a boss. I never noticed somebody crying (I mean distressed).

A few days ago, a young team member came to me on some issue and I could 'read' an unshed 'tear'... I never let it fall.

I do not know why...I remembered the few occasions in the past when I could not prevent the tears from being shed in my room. I wonder whether I could have been a bit more 'compassionate' or 'considerate'.

I thank those colleagues of mine who shed those tears for me and my organizations, which I failed to notice. They made huge contributions and sacrifices.

Today I express gratitude to this young 'expressive' colleague who taught me how to 'read a 'tear' without shedding one.

Don't fail your audience

I was recently at Wharton India Economic Forum to speak at the Retail and Consumer Panel. Just before that I spoke to the Huntsmen Program Students at UPenn Wharton. The Presentation went very well and I even picked up 4 Interns from there. The Director of the Program wrote:

“Thank you ever so much for an inspiring and most informative lecture and discussion in the Huntsman Program. Our students were impressed with your insights and knowledge and your professional path. It was a real privilege to have you speak in the Huntsman Program.”
I had taken special care to prepare and practice the Presentation before I made it on D’Day.

Ten days later I spoke at the first day of the Asia Retail Congress on “How Small can be Big” at Mumbai. The Presentation did not connect and I knew instantly that I did not make an impression or had probably made a poor impression. No wonder I got this feedback:

“You were very tight on time and for tomorrow I think you will need to shorten it. Also you had great content but I feel too many charts and words on them. The audience could read the words quicker than you could present them moving to bullet point on the key items will help a lot.”

I had not taken enough care and did not time my Presentation. I was open enough to admit and realised later that I had been over confident. I made amends and on the next leg at Delhi with the same but edited and well rehearsed presentation. It connected with the audience. Someone came up and said “This is the best and most productive presentation of the day”. I also made it a point to even go through the list of attendees to give relevant examples.

So many of us never go through the basics. Failure and over confidence taught me a lesson – I will never repeat it ever again. After all there are so many people who leave so much work to come and listen to us and we must be careful. Their time is as valuable as ours.

Repackaging and Renovating Timeless Ideas is Good

Indian film industry apart from making very good original stuff has from times immemorial also ‘copied’, ‘remade’ or ‘stolen an idea’ from India and abroad. While I am all for copy right protection and am not dwelling into that aspect in this write-up, I am all for ‘repackaging’ timeless ideas and powerful social messages. I hate cry babies and critics who dismiss such attempts without a thought.
Look at ‘Rang de Basanti’, which has so beautifully packaged the idea of patriotism and placed it in the context of modern India. ‘Jab We Met’ could have been dismissed as just another love story as also would have been ‘Bobby’, ‘Love Story’ and ‘Rocky’ etc but look at how well they did. The audience and the consumer has a way of dealing with ‘fake’ products, services, ideas and fake ‘attempts’.
The Indian market place is a place where most of the consumer class is getting exposed to products and services for the first time in their life. Not only that, even in existing products and services they are realizing 'world class' for the first time. Companies which are operating on seemingly ‘simple’ and ‘copied’ ideas are also doing very well. Nothing wrong with that and I personally would welcome more and more such attempts as long as it doesn't infringe IPRs.
Stability will however come in such businesses and ideas with full commitment, dedication and if an attempt is made to actually better these benchmarks. Indian market today offers ‘scale’ and ‘timing’ advantage which only China can rival and businesses must take full advantage of it.

Thank you Anger

How do I get control of my anger? I must stop believing that it helps. I must stop rationalizing this behaviour. There is no one else but myself who can help me. When I hurt others and myself with this anger I realise.

Thank you anger for making me realise the value of things I have in my life.

A World Power will Emerge from Across the Border

Early morning on Sunday 16 March 2008 I woke up with a call from my colleague with a bad news. The factory of one of our client Partners in Pakistan, Dawlance had a massive fire, which was still raging. Their Manufacturing and Operations Director had just arrived the previous night in India to meet with potential suppliers from India and next day their Marketing and Service chiefs were supposed to land in India with the objective to learn, benchmark and probably outsource a few functions to India like CRM and communications.
For a few seconds I was numb but quickly regained control and called the Manufacturing Director. The first thing to be put in place was the return schedule for him. He had reached Nagpur – within an hour that was put in place. I gave a call to the Finance Director who was on the spot to learn the latest. Both of them seemed fully under control of their emotions and that in fact calmed me down too. I had by then spent enough time with myself and called Mr Bashir the Promoter, who was in Dubai at that time. He picked up the phone at the first ring and in a self-assured tone said he was trying to work out the schedule of reaching back from Dubai. Then almost simultaneously both of us said that the first objective is to get the production back within a week. The reason was simple that with the season of refrigerators round the corner and Dawlance being the leader, there was no way that we could let our consumers and employees down. Mr Bashir was completely calm and in control. I have never considered our client in Pakistan as business partner alone and after keeping the phone down I called up the Marketing Head. We talked about the need to manage the internal and external communications and about their impending India visit. He also was under control and reassured me. Of course all this was easier said than done. I spent the rest of the day thinking and worrying about 2 things. How much would have been the damage to the factory, equipment, raw materials and how would the Dawlance employees rise to the occasion. On top of that was the morale of our own team which was working on Dawlance. On Monday early morning we took stock of the damage, shortage on finished goods and raw materials and urgent tie-ups required. While Mr Bashir and his most dedicated team were managing the ground and the contacts they had, we started to contact India, China and Thailand suppliers we knew. I myself spoke to Mr Gulu Mirchandni of Onida and Mr Pradeep Dhoot of Videocon to seek their support and both of them responded very positively. Within 3 days the plan of sourcing was put in place and a team of Milagrow and Dawlance flew into China. Mr Bashir in the meantime himself flew to their Thailand supplier of gaskets and sorted out the last issue on component supplies. Within a week the production could start.
To express our solidarity I extended to work the next few months without any charge which Mr Bashir gracefully refused but that small gesture in fact had an amazing impact on the team at Milagrow. They knew with this small gesture that Milagrow is not just after money but works as a partner in happy as well as difficult times. Dawlance is more than a client ! I trust it will be one of our major milestones when we look back a couple of years later.
The unity, calmness, clarity and speed with which the Dawlance team overcame the setback, I am sure will go into building Dawlance into a much greater force in the appliances not in just Pakistan but the whole world.
In this entire episode I drew from not only my own heart and mind but also from the leadership which Mr Sonu Mirchandani had demonstrated in a similar fire at Onida in 1990-91. I was also inspired by the speech which Mr Robert Guiliani had made a couple of years ago just after 9/11.

This incident gave me and my team a better understanding of Dawlance & its inner steel. It also gave us a chance to actually walk the talk of our 'values' which we hold dear at Milagrow.

I only wish that the business procedures between Pakistan and India become a bit easier so that the benefits of this 'high people to people goodwill' can be converted into economic gains for not only India, Pakistan but rest of SAARC as well.

Thank you Bashir Bhai for being a role model, I wish you peace and success always.

World Class, World Best Aamir

I have been wanting to write about this amazing movie called “Taare Zameen Par” for some time but due to lack of time I could not.
It is a path breaking movie and I am sure would change the way we bring up children in this country for ever. The sensitivity with which it has been portrayed is amazing. I wont write about the movie more but I will write about Aamir. Having seen him in QSQT, Lagaan, Sarfarosh, Dil Chahta Hai, Mangal Pandey, Rang De Basanti and now Taare Zameen Par, I feel that he is one of the greatest 'intuitive social change agent' India has produced. I hope he gets his due from the Indian public. His relationship with media and his intolerance of everything which is superficial must not deny him his rightful place in history.
Thanks Aamir you are one in a billion!

Children Make you Grow - It's not one way traffic

I met Saksham my elder son after two months at UPenn last week. I was there for about 30 working hours and hardly got to spend 10 hours with him. He was busy with his studies etc. I could see the emergence of a strong man and an independent human being in him who knows what he is doing and has his own ambitions. My heart longed to be with him more but every time I let him go. The heart and the mind apparently were speaking in a dichotomous language but yet I know that the objective was one because in his happiness lies mine.
I am not sure whether I understood the full meaning of the loving eyes of my mother and my father when I was Saksham’s age but I think I do now. Thank you Dad, Mum and Saksham for helping me grow.

Youth are willing to Experiment - Good hires for small business

How to hire good people for a small business? This is the question every small business owner grapples with. They have small offices, small pay packets, less time to go out and sell their organisation’s abilities or potential, no or practically non-existent HR offices. But hire they must, because without people they will practically end no where. My personal experience says that today’s environment for recruitment is much more open than ever before. Today the youth of India and elsewhere in the world are willing to experiment and learn. Only thing which they need to see is an entrepreneur who ‘lives what he says’ and believe you me the ‘word of mouth’ catches like wild fire. Work environment, office size is important but is not a make or break factor to such an extent that people won’t join you. They know that as long as you ‘live what you say’ the small size of office is a temporary phase. One more thing which works in favor of small businesses is the fact that they provide all round learning opportunities for people who have an ‘entrepreneurial’ streak in them. Some small businesses fear that such people may not last or stay long but I suggest that they look at the benefits of having such people. Let them learn and go if they must and even help them with their ideas. In my business in fact, I have an open offer to all that if they want to start their own business they can and we will incubate them.

I recently read a small piece by Robert Kiyosaki in which he says that as they number of people grows so do the number of relationships exponentially. For example, when you have just one person its ‘0’ relationship. Add a second person and the relationship dynamics kicks in. Add another person, 3 people, 3 relationships, add 4 persons and look what happens : 4 people and 6 relationships. Look what happens when it reaches 7 people – 21 relationships – and when it reaches 100 people, it is 4950 relationships! Many business owners get scared of this or are simply not able to manage the dynamics and hence either recruit and then reduce or simply stop growing.

One thing which needs to be kept in mind is that ‘Networking’, ‘living what you say’ or ‘all round development’ is not enough to attract or retain top talent. It is the ‘values’ which bind and act as a magnet. My firm is now 1 year old and we have had 5 IITians, 2 IIMs, 10 people from Institutions like Symbiosis, ICFAI, BIMTECH, DCE etc. working with us. We have just finalized 4 interns from ‘Wharton-Huntsman Program’ who should join by May end. We havn’t paid even a single paise in bribe in our business and deal only with businessmen who promise transparency. I think ‘values’ are our magnet and the young want to be different by joining organisations like us.

Any one can do it and so could the small businesses. Starting my own business has made me learn so much more about myself and on what inspires today’s youth.

Thank you Milagrow! Thankyou Youth.