In a few years, India will have the largest population in the world, so most companies don’t pay much attention to productivity. If you look at the revenues of major Indian internet companies , the revenue per employee is not very high. They seem to spend a lot of resources on marketing. So focussing on the world market is better at present.
Category: problems
Colonised minds
The colonised minds of the Indian Elite and media
quoting from this article
British colonisers in league with the Christian missionaries realised 200 years ago that the biggest obstacle to fully subjugating India was Hinduism.Simultaneously, they created in a span of two or three generations a class of Indians who looked up only to the West.
As a result, these Anglicised Indians became ashamed of their own culture. This Western/anti-Hindu outlook was handed down from generation to generation, right down to our age, where many of India’s brilliant and articulate Hindu-Marxist intellectuals, products all of institutions like jnu, or St Stephen’s, keep on repeating, as if by rote, what their hoary forebears were taught by the British
I interact with people from different countries online, and in no country do people take so little pride in their country or grovel for the approval of others . In the last few years call centres and outsourced jobs have only aggravated the problem. That is why most Indian tech companies only provide services, they don’t have too many products, it is basically an attitude problem.
Jobs and salaries
In the current economic conditions, companies are trying to reduce their variable expenses, and one of the first casualties are the jobs. I personally feel that salaries in the last few years have increased too rapidly and many people are overpaid for doing too little work.
The basic cost of living in India is still low, so most of the extra money people were earning was wasted on luxuries. Hopefully , the media will stop hyping that kind of lifestyle and people will learn some humility.
A job in a reputed company may have lot of status in society, but in a job however well it may pay, you have very little control over your future. One wrong decision by the management and you may end up jobless.
Indian corporates
As the media covers the Satyam fraud , they should spend some time introspecting. Most of the corporates in India, especially family managed businesses reflect the values of the society in which we live, and how honest are people today? In the last five years, people have become very materialistic, how much money they think you have defines how people treat you, not the kind of person you are. India never had a culture of dissent or independent thinking, so few people have their own opinion, they only ape other countries.
While starting my own business has been rewarding both financially and work wise, one of the things I find missing is the trust I took for granted while working in India’s largest professionally managed non-foreign MNC company. There were very good systems in place to ensure that no one tried to circumvent the system, but I think it is more related to the kind of people they recruited. Most of them were not conventionally smart as defined by the media today, but they were sincere, disciplined and got work done. Rules were the same for everyone, if a person was on probation and came to office more than 5 minutes later than the official timings too often, the job was not confirmed and he was asked to leave.
Doing business online, especially with some Indian companies has been nothing short of a nightmare for me. I have some domains that may be considered “valuable” and the underhand tactics used to get me to sell the domain names have been a revelation. What I can’t understand is that if you want anything from me, why not introduce yourself and tell me what you want. I do not care for contacts or references, and I find nothing wrong in directly approaching people for business related issues, after all you have to make a start some time.
If I find something fishy, I will try to avoid any interaction or keep it to the minimum possible. For a period of a few years or decades, you can make a lot of money taking short cuts , but in the long run honesty is the best policy. If you want to be the best in the world, it is not by adopting foreign accents, names or dressing codes, (or plastering your website with foreign female models) but by ensuring that the way you conduct your business is such that no one can point a finger at you.
Attitude
One of the reasons India is such a laggard in many fields is the attitude of most people. They have lead a very easy life and cannot take tough decisions quickly. Israel is such a small country, but they are able to defend themselves very well. As people used to tell me ” If you lead a difficult life, you become so tough that you can handle anything”
Tech/IT in India
A post on investing in India . What is interesting is most of the startups have founders with a software background or are NRIs. The problem with working in a software company, however big or famous it is, is that you never see the full picture. You are only handle the software coding part , the decision about the hardware , vendor finalisation, etc are taken by someone else. Most of the clients are not from India, so you do not know much about actual conditions in India.
On the other hand , if at least a significant number of engineering graduates from top colleges had worked as engineers in India, they would have had a better understanding of the market. Though the work is not glamorous, you handle entire projects, right from selecting and ordering the correct resistor with color code, minimising project cost and providing documentation so that the cement plant operator in Tehsil Gauriganj District Sultanpur (known in the media as Amethi), who you will never meet or communicate with , can understand and handle the equipment you designed without any problem.
They also underestimate the importance of the user / customer, you may have the best technology in the world, but if does not meet the market need , it will not succeed.
Indian internet startups
There is a lot of hype in the online and offline media about internet start ups in India. I have an internet business but I do not have a background in programming or the internet, so my way of looking at things is different.
When I started my business, I did not know any one personally from the internet sector and even now all my contacts are strictly professional, with companies who pay me for advertising on my websites.
With all the limitations I have , I am fairly satisfied with the money I make. I have been following the internet start ups and companies in India, some of the reasons why internet usage is still low and few will succeed are:
1. Most target a very small market. If the market size itself is Rs 100 crore, even if you dominate the market, growth is limited.
2. They are usually copies of successful websites in other countries, little thought is given to the actual market.
3. The reasons why people start an online business seem to be all wrong – because it is fashionable, to get venture capital funding , to become famous.
4. I have been tracking all major stories on start ups in India for the last year , all of them seem to think that having a nice software application and well designed website will make it successful and popular. They do not realize that for the visitors, the website should be useful , design is secondary.
5. Most start up teams seem to have very limited exposure – they only seem to be knowing people with a background very similar to theirs ( may be since people in India are very status conscious and rarely try to understand the viewpoint of others who are not as lucky), this makes it difficult to develop a product with a broader appeal.
6. The internet companies seem to think they are online clones of the Indian software companies – to grow they need to hire people. My idea of an ideal online business is one which I can control and manage anywhere in the world with an internet connection, once setup it should need little additional effort, but earn a regular income.
7. In the Indian startup scene today, from media reports it seems funding = success. But it appears that startups are exploited . If you believe in your idea, why go to others for money? Most software jobs pay well , if you lead a frugal life, you can save enough . Unlike factories which require an investment of hundreds of crores, you can start an internet / IT business with less than lakh rupees.
Electricity supply
Due to poor rains and maintenance work, there are a lot of problems in electricity supplied. Initially load shedding timings were in the evening – 4 p.m to 7p.m , then it was changed to 6.30 a.m to 10.30 a.m daily , but now they seem to have extended the timings from 6.00 a.m to 11.15 a.m.
And there are random 5 minute interruptions through out the day. It is very dark at 6.00 am, so you cannot do any other work also. Since there is no power supply for the main router for the internet connection, the UPS is also not of much help. In May, they had increased the electricity tariff , saying that this would ensure uninterrupted power supply, but now the situation seems to have become worse.
Maruti Swift Dzire delay in delivery
Some reported problems for Maruti Swift Dzire
1. High booking amount – some dealers charge Rs 100000 saying that by paying a higher advance, the car will be delivered faster. Other dealers ask buyers to pay a premium
2. There is a delay in delivery of the car: Delivery of the car within 3 months was promised initially, but it has taken a longer time for many customers.
3. The call centers are not very helpful or responsive
Followup by email is the cheapest and best way to get a response
a. First email to contact@maruti.co.in and crm@maruti.co.in
b. They may not reply to the first email. Keeping sending reminders stating that you need a immediate response.
c. You will get a automated/generic response from the customer support, which will not be helpful. However, this is needed for followup with the Higher management of the company.
d. If no action is taken ,an email can be sent to the following people
SatinderSingh.Bajwa@maruti.co.in Regional Manager
Manohar.Bhat@maruti.co.in Business Head
Shashank.Srivastava@maruti.co.in;
Raman.Malhotra@maruti.co.in
s.nakanishi@maruti.co.in
mpareek@maruti.co.in
oishi@maruti.co.in
tsuneo.ohashi@maruti.co.in
You need to follow up continuously till your work gets done.
FutureBazaar review
There are only a few reliable e commerce websites in India. eBay.in (earlier Baazee) is the largest marketplace, but many of the merchants there are unreliable. After one bad experience there , I stopped buying there.
Since FutureBazaar was advertised and backed by a big company (Pantaloon / Big Bazaar), I have purchased a few things from them. Atleast they will not disappear with your money. They promise delivery of goods in 7 to 21 days, but many times it takes much longer. Some times the goods they deliver are of poor quality (break within 2 days), they will replace it , but the entire process will take a few months.
They were running a big promotion a few weeks ago, and when you tried to make payment through their payment gateway, you were directed to a blank page. This problem continued for about a week. Initially, I thought there was a problem with my browser / PC and tried to make the payment repeatedly. After a few days, some one from FutureBazaar called and said there had been a problem with their system. If I wanted, I could place the order over the phone.
Though FutureBazaar has a very big advertising budget, they should start paying more attention to whether their website is functioning properly.