IIPM - ARTICLE AND PUBLICATION

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Obama does a Putin with BP!

...and arm-twists BP with open threats – is this ethical, if not illegal?

In a sequence of events reminding one more of the mafiosi-like Putin administration, Obama and his White House staff – with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel leading from the front – first hounded BP officials (read a detailed story on BP in our strategy section in this issue), then threatened them, and finally arm-twisted them to set up an escrow account of $20 billion for providing relief to the claims arising out of the BP oil spill.

There are many reasons why this particular case of money jostled out by Obama from BP is unethical and even illegal – despite the general public viewpoint – and one believes done purely for playing to the galleries for benefit at the hustings. Firstly, in the capitalist setup that the United States operates in, it is the insurance company (Jupiter Insurance Inc. in this case) that covers the spill that needs to be steamrolled by Obama and not BP. It doesn’t matter that Jupiter Insurance is more or less owned by BP; equity ownership always comes with zero additional liability – that is, BP cannot be legally asked to pay a penny more than its investment in Jupiter Insurance.

Secondly, if 11 people died in the BP spill, the 440,000 who die every year in the US due to tobacco use and the $200 billion this industry costs US every year are bigger reasons why Obama and Emanuel should be threatening the powerful cigarette manufacturers to pay much more than the total of $206 billion they have to pay over 25 years under the Master Settlement Agreement they brilliantly signed with 46 US states in 1998, when the Democrats were in power.

Is Obama doing that? Not at all. While the BP CEO Tony Hayward was chastised openly by Rahm Emanuel for attending a yacht race and publicly humiliated by Obama (who said his meetings with affected parties have educated him on “whose ass to kick”; and that he would have kicked out Hayward), Obama himself was playing golf at Andrews Air Base. And Putin? He was watching with amusement the Moscow court proceedings against oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
“We will change your outlook” - The Sunday Indian on B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED! A must read...
The Sunday Indian:-
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
For Exclusive Footage by Sunday Indian Click Here

Outlook Magazine's B School Ranking Scam Exposed
Business Standard Exposes the Outlook Magazine Money Editor
Don't trust the Indian Media!

IIPM enters into media education
IIPM makes record 10,000 placements in five years
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here
Pioneer Exposes the fraud called Mahesh Sharma and Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Barbel Schwertfeger of mba-channel.com
IIPM: An intriguing story of growth and envy
Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Are you satisfied with the performance of your Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh? How would you rate his performance?

The economist seems to be going from strength to strength. The soft-spoken, mild-mannered Sikh gentleman has a picture-perfect clean image. Though perceived to be pro-reforms, he has maintained a balance between sweeping economic reforms and populist, pro-poor measures. Not the proverbial Indian politician, Dr. Singh keeps away from party matters as far as possible and concentrates on running the government. Having faced a lot of flak for his non-interference in the manner in which the Union agriculture ministry has handled the price rise issue, his government has been crucially undecisive about ways to tackle the growing Maoist influence. However, a weak Opposition has been God-sent for this man of few words.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Cooking-up new rules for the game!

The introduction of the word ‘career’ in the lives of women is swiftly redefining the virtues of a good relationship for today’s new-age couples…

“Shalabh was asked by his mom if the girl he had chosen for marriage would let go of her pursuit of happiness through lifework (read career) whenever needed, and he immediately replied in the affirmative to avoid further discussion,” recollects 30-year-old Priya Madaan when talking about the over-rated virtue or vice (depending on which school of thought one subscribes to) of women’s decisions regarding their work-life that gives them a high in life. Today’s women are caught between the traditional people, who are utterly disdainful of women who choose their careers over becoming the 24/7 homemaker and support system for the family even when there are no financial constraints, and the other more modern people, who are instead frowning upon the ladies giving up their work-life for the simple pleasures of life such as one’s marriage, motherhood or for simply managing the household.

25-year-old Shruti Bhatia, a recipient of the excellent performer award, quit her job at the mere confirmation of her eight-months-later wedding date. Unusual in the professionals’ world, the simple reasons, tells Shruti “of wishing to make a home, socialise more with old and new families and figure out a comfortable way of pursuing a career” invited surprise and criticism from those who for a decade or two have only epitomised the ‘perfectly juggling’ avatar of women.

But what Shruti did is somewhat closer to what 41-year-old Jennifer Wilkov and 42-year-old Kimberly Mylls, authors of a recent book, Boys Before Business: The Single Girl’s Guide to Having It All, suggest. Advising the wives (as well as the husbands) to ‘put themselves first, their relationship second, and their career last’ for having a lasting relationship, the authors feel that this way the women would actually perform better because of the love and comfort back home. So, according to the authors, staying late at work and cancelling a scheduled date with the spouse to stay behind the desk for longer are actions that must be avoided! Also, the advice usually given to men apply equally to career women – do not bring workplace problems back home with you!

While one may crib about the title of the book that anticipates how most often women are required to put the men first and not vice versa, there are a lot of privileges that women enjoy and men don’t complain about. For instance, several organisations in our country allow women comfortable work hours. “Lesser number of working hours for women is not a part of our mainstream Human Resource policies, but my team manager with the help of HR has revised my working hours to suit my responsibilities and priorities at home. This hasn’t affected my performance at all. In fact, I am more focused and grateful to my organisation because of this concession at work,” says 33-year-old Shweta Pandey (name changed) working in the sales division of a Telecom company.

Albeit all contentions and advises lead to ‘considering’ the relationship a top priority, what probably is worth introspecting is that nothing can slip off one’s priority list unless you actually don’t hold it there anymore!

Swati Hora

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
“We will change your outlook” - The Sunday Indian on B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED! A must read...
The Sunday Indian:-
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
For Exclusive Footage by Sunday Indian Click Here

Outlook Magazine's B School Ranking Scam Exposed
Business Standard Exposes the Outlook Magazine Money Editor
Don't trust the Indian Media!

IIPM enters into media education
IIPM makes record 10,000 placements in five years
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here
Pioneer Exposes the fraud called Mahesh Sharma and Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Barbel Schwertfeger of mba-channel.com
IIPM: An intriguing story of growth and envy
Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Monday, August 09, 2010

Water Woes Intensify

When it was predicted about a decade back that the next World War would be fought for control of water, sceptics dismissed it as a mere hyperbole. Now, with killings over water being reported from across the country, the spectre of the past is becoming a scary reality. The team of anil sharma, raju kumar and nishant bhadreshwar take stock of the situation

This year the first incident of killing over water was reported from the Bakshibagh locality of Indore on March 31. A 16 year old girl, Poonam Yadav, was stabbed to death by one of her neighbours. On April 7, Ramchandra of Alot was shot dead by his neighbour. On May 9, a few people killed 60 year old Madholal of Dhakora village in Rajgarh district following a squabble at the village well. A similar incident was reported from the Naryavali village in Sagar district a day earlier where a few people attacked with an axe and injured one Pushpabai at a well. This is besides the daily squabbles over water in the state capital Bhopal where water is being supplied only once in 48 hours. People have to unfailingly wake up very early in the morning to fill their tanks. Others choose to keep a vigil whole night lest they miss the chance.

Water is hard to find even at 600 feet at some places in MP. Scores of rivers and water bodies have dried up. Gauri Shankar Bisen, a minister in the MP government, accepts that the crisis in the state is real. “There is acute water crisis in the state. We have allocated sufficient funds for the supply of drinking water to all the districts. We are paying special attention to the districts where the situation is more serious such as in Shyopur and Neemach,” he informs B&E.

In Maharashtra, farmers are the worst hit because of the water scarcity. “I had 3,200 trees of pomegranate on my farm. Of them, just 600 are left now. I had to cut down most of them due to lack of water,” says Ranjeet Patil who owns 30 acres of land at Chakur town, 13 kms. off Latur. It’s not that Patil did not try to get water. There are as many as 17 bore wells on his farm but there is no water. The first bore well was 300 feet deep and the 17th one was dug at 625 feet.

Presently, about 36,65,000 hectare of land is under irrigation in Maharashtra. The figure was12,20,000 hectare in 1960. With no considerable change in the rainfall pattern during the last 50 years, farmers had to rely on the underground water to meet the increasing need. But that too is now out of sight. Ecological Expert Atul Deolgaokar says, “According to a report by ‘International Water Management Institute’, if the use of water for drinking and farming continues in same way, then 70% of the groundwater would be used up by 2020.”

In a survey done in March by the ‘Maharashtra State Groundwater Survey and Development Department’, it was found that out of 47 towns in Konkan division, groundwater level in 11 towns has gone down by one metre. In Aurangabad division it has dipped by one to three metres at different places. And this is what has affected farmers like Patil.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

The page 3 of the BPO industry’s here

One could clearly see a sudden increase in the number of M&As in the Indian BPO industry over the last year. What is it that is actually prompting players to go for a kill? by Ashutosh Harbola

But then there are contrarians who feel that these M&As have nothing to add on to the growth story of Indian BPOs. As per them, it’s actually a fight for survival. Though, at present there are over 110 BPO captives operating out of India, the number is expected to reduce to just half in the next five years. “M&As in the BPO industry, particularly in the voice vertical, are an outcome of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. It’s the crisis that has made the survival of small players really hard. These players are now allowing bigger players to acquire them as they can no more take the pressure on their balance sheets,” says Anuj Gupta, Angel Trade.

Further, there are many who feel that with time India has lost its price competitiveness that tempted multinationals to offshore their business to India. While Indian BPOs could complete an assignment at one-tenth of the compensation a few years ago as compared to their US counterparts, the difference today is becoming marginal year by year. The major contributor to this rising cost has been the wage inflation, which was hovering over 8% in 2009 and is expected to touch 10.9% by the end of 2010. “With time, India’s price advantage has diminished; it now needs to find a niche and to reinvent the business models, services and enabling technologies,” says Vishal Deep Dhillon, Regional Director-Asia, CSC, to B&E.

That countries like China, Vietnam and Philippines too are emerging as a big threat to India’s dominance in global offshoring industry, is actually old news. But now, as Gartner analyst Diptarup Chakraborty tells B&E, “Destinations like Philippines, Israel are almost coming neck-to-neck with India as they are offering cheaper rates to the outsourcers.” Then there is the slated withdrawal of STPI scheme in FY2011. The sunset clause u/s 10A and 10B of the Income Tax Act gives a tax holiday to IT-BPO companies operating under an STPI, where the tax rate works out to be 20% for a BPO at present. This is expected to go up to 33% if the scheme is withdrawn.

Considering the fact that there have been many domestic entrepreneurial ventures, not particularly backed by large scale IT organisations, that ventured into setting up BPO outfits in an attempt to become bigger simply on the basis of the boom that was, in case the government withdraws tax-holiday sops or increases the tax rates, that surely would put these newbie BPOs on the selloff block, if not immediately bankruptcy. Worse would be the case with Indian BPOs that, hoping for a sudden revival in the US economy (which accounts for clost to 60% of all global BPO projects), have attempted to invest in buying out American BPO units to leverage their physical US presence to get more BPO projects. Deeply submerged on loans and funding from financial institutions, such BPOs will have no option but to themselves be sold off to large scale buyers.

The lessons from all this is that it is inevitable that M&As in the Indian BPO sector would continue to rise; but what would also happen is that the likes of CSC, Infosys, Convergys, Accenture, Genpact, would only go on to become much larger entities than they are now.

Ashutosh Harbola

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.