7 great strategies to succeed

   Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Nicholas Piramal India Limited, reveals how he achieved phenomenal corporate growth in a new industry by implementing a differentiated strategy.
   You cannot fool yourself, reality will strike.

   Five years ago, my management style was radically different from what it is today. I was a hands-off manager and had entrusted the running of the company to a professional manager.
   However, over a period of time I realised that though the company was profitable it was not performing to its fullest potential. Delving deeper into the issue I recognised that the company was not moving in the right direction in terms of sustainability of profit levels, quality of people and retaining market share.
   The first thing I did was to change the CEO and personally get involved in the management of the company. I took a step back, understood the basics, hired McKinsey to evaluate our strategy and then implemented it. My top management was restructured and we improved the quality and depth of management across the company.
   We got out of unprofitable businesses and worked on maximising the value of the assets we owned. This was a huge challenge for me and it made me more detail-oriented and quantitative. I spend a fair amount of my time now in planning and thinking in order to identify performance levers, growth engines and the root causes of poor performance.

   1. You have to think big. Because ultimately you are what you think you are.
   2. The values of the employees should be harmonious with those of the organisation.
   3. You must keep stretching your employees more and more.
   4. It is essential to break barriers.
   5. Every company reinvents itself over a period of time.
   6. Believe in your strategy and stick to it even if you are criticised for it.
   7. It is important to have milestones to motivate your employees.
   
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E-commerce set to boom in India

Rediff reports :
   The total value of e-commerce activities within India has exceeded Rs 570 crore (Rs 5.70 billion) during 2004-05, according to a research conducted by Internet & Online Association of India, a not-for-profit Industry trade organisation.

   The report estimates a 300 per cent plus growth rate during the next couple of years and has targeted a whopping Rs 2,300 crore (Rs 23 billion) worth of e-business conducted within the country by the year 2006-07.

   The IOAI research report conducted in association with Cross Tab Marketing Services has tracked Internet user's proclivity for shopping online. The research was undertaken with a view to understand the profile, Internet usage, products purchased along with propensity to buy along with the nuances of shopping online with the shopper's affinity and aversions to online shopping.
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Uniform bank A/C numbers soon

Rediff report says :
         Bank account holders will soon have a standardised unique individual account number with the introduction of real time gross settlement and straight-through processing in the banking sector.
         This is because the electronic network of RTGS is, at times, unable to read alpha-numeric or complete numeric account numbers.
         "Accounts numbers vary across banks," said R Gandhi regional director (Andhra Pradesh), Reserve Bank of India. Different banks have different customer identification numbers based on legacy issue and systems. Read More...

Ownership of cars to double by 2009-10

Rediff report says :
         The rapid rise in the country's middle and upper income classes, more than overall GDP growth per se, is likely to lead to a dramatic hike in the demand for big-ticket items like motorcycles, refrigerators and cars/jeeps, according to the National Council of Applied Economic Research's latest report, "The Great Indian Market". Read More...

Kumar Mangalam Birla's 9 Big Lessons

   Under Kumar Mangalam Birla, the $6-billion Aditya Birla Group did not just acquire a new logo, it transformed itself. From a commodity-based organisation steeped in babu culture it is today an aggressively modern multicultural transnational with more than 72,000 people drawn from twenty different nationalities.
Read the complete interview