The Sun Still Shines

While returning from the Sunday church services, Karan Hasda Francis passionately sees his plot of red soil land by the side of the national highway. Francis patiently waits for the monsoon to arrive. He has followed the newspaper. It has already arrived in Kerala and within a month it will reach here.

 Karan Hasda Francis’s forefathers came from a place near Ranchi, Jharkhand. Now they have 17 acres of land at Raghunathpur in Purulia district of West Bengal. For irrigation they have to depend upon the monsoons and the ground water which is depleting every year.

 They are converted Christians. Though the education of his four sons and one daughter had been taken care of by the church, his second son has mostly run away from schools. Eldest son is a local school teacher; second one does odd jobs; the third one has passed ITI examinations (skilled labour) and is looking for a job; the youngest one is still studying in seventh standard; his daughter has eloped with her love to Delhi.

Its very hard times for Karan Hasda Francis wife to make both ends meet. She had been struggling to feed her family. Whatever crops they have from their land is equally divided between them and the tillers. Added to this are the numerous crops failure, wild elephants coming out from the forests and smashing the crops, erratic rainfall and low quality of seeds.

Karan Hasda Francis was toiling in the July sun trying to grow some vegetables in his backyard.  A cavalcade stops near his house. People in designer suits come out from the cars. Maps were spread across the bonnet. Karan was curious. What was the motive of these people?

He runs to the church. He looks out for the father. He is the only person in the whole village who has some knowledge. A fear gripped him as he came to realize the real motive of the people who came from the big city. Is he going to loose his land again. Once his forefathers were driven out from the village by the upper caste community as they failed to pay their debts. Lands were taken away forcibly and houses were torched. The Hasda family was shattered. They crossed over to Bengal. They were given shelter by the church. They got back the will to live in this world.

A car manufacturing unit is going to come up at his village. Karan Hasda Francis heaved a sigh of relief as his land is not among the 400 acres of land as requisitioned by the car manufacturers. Though other land owners got huge compensation, Francis was thinking of other ideas. Political parties held rallies. They demanded more jobs for the locals. Seven Hundred jobs in a car making factory is just too few for them.

One and half years went by. The factory took its shape. It looked monstrous yet beautiful. Electricity came to Raghunathpur. The roads were widened. Potable drinking water was available. Satellite T.V made its entry. The Banks were desperate to open its branches at Raghunathpur. More ancillary industries came up in its surroundings. Prices of land shot up. People came from outside to work here.  The population of Raghunathpur rose by thirty percent.

Money was flowing. Raghunathpur, once a dead village came back to life. Karan Hasda Francis wife was busy making food for the workers in the factory canteen. His eldest son is busy giving private tuitions. Second son of Francis now days drive a three wheeler through out the day ferrying people from railway station and bus stand to the factory. His third son has got a job in the factory. Francis has opened up a motel by converting a part of his house. All the rooms remains booked throughout the year.   

The Francis family now days go to the church every Sunday morning in their new car.

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

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Assessing Customer needs vs Collaborating to Co-create Wealth

Owens is a world leader in glass. It had ambitious plans in India. So it set up a few modern plants across India to produce glass bottles.

Its operation was ‘world-class’. They did everything by the book. No mistakes. But soon Owens lost out to its local rival Hindustan National Glass (HNG), a privately held Indian firm. And in a few years it was forced to sell its entire Indian business outfit except one plant to its rivals. Why?

The issue was inventory of finished goods. Owens went by the copy book style of having the minimum possible inventory, producing just what is needed as much as is needed at any specific point of time – all decided by their excellent management tools. But HNG held obscene levels of finished goods inventory, which other called – ‘insanely absurd’.

Theory informs that holding such insane levels of stock means death of the company. While Owens believed this, HNG didn’t. But in the end HNG won the race.  

HNG understood that their customers simply did not have a way of predicting and knowing how many bottles they might need and when they would need them. But there were certain times of the year when demand shot through the roof and stayed high for a few days.

HNG capitalized on this phenomenon. When such booms came HNG was ready with the necessary stock while Owens simply could not figure out a way to deliver the huge requirement in such a short time.  

Naturally customers preferred HNG to Owens and even paid the premium HNG demanded during such crisis periods. And they kept making obscene amounts of profits year on year.

Acquiring the Owens outfits made HNG still stronger and almost monopolistic in the market.   

Morale: Ship as much as possible and as quickly as possible when customers demand.

Are we collaborating with the customer to create wealth for both?

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RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

The world has been changing so fast that it scarcely seems to be the same every other day. In 1997, when India was punished for going Nuclear and letting the world knows about its nuclear capability; In Europe, the euro had not been introduced as a common currency; Amitabh Bacchan was still young and Madhuri Dixit was not so plump; Hong Kong had not yet been handed back to China; Google did not exist; the dragon’s  dominance in the world economic map was still a far cry and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were still four years away ---- Deepak was frustrated , why is his father not listening to him.

Deepak wanted to change his father’s old “Ambassador “car (a distant cousiin of 1941 model Austin) for a new Generation X car. The newspapers were full of advertisements. “Exchange your old car for a new one, and pay on easy monthly installments. Deepak was trying desperately to convince his father but he was adamant. What his son is not aware of are the many cherished memories attached to the car. When Deepak was born he was brought from the local hospital in this car. Deepak had grown up with this car.

Deepak graduated and got into a Post Graduate Business Administration course.

He wanted to change the world too soon. He has now acquired a new motorbike with a funky look. He has changed his attire and wardrobe. Everything he has changed with the passage of time but he is still not able to change his father’s outlook, attitude and business policies. His father still goes to the factory in a white sweat shirt and a cotton trouser. He still mingles with the factory workers. Tries to gauge their feelings. Hugs them when he is overjoyed and also hurls choicest abuses when angry.

Now India has opened up. Private bankers have come in. “Gone are the days when a nationalized Bank staff would talk to you rudely”. Smart young people are now manning the private banks with their plastic smile, trying every moment to access a customer in terms of business he would give. But India is different. People can differentiate between the artificial and the natural. The common man can do wonders. He can shun Ray-Ban, Reebok and prefer locally made under garments. He uses Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. The billions of middle class Indian market use their own thinking based on their sincere feelings for their families.  

Deepak comes to the factory in a Ford but his father still comes in the old car. People love his father more than him. Deepak had tried to implement all his “imported management policies” in the factory. His father had given him the required space. Some were successful while others miserably failed.

Deepak wonders why things don’t work here. He has tried to implement most of the case studies that he has learned. He is impatient. Why India is so averse to change? Is there a physiological factor playing among the Indians? A change is required but why there is so much resistance?

What he fails to notice are the small meaningful energetic changes that keep taking place against seeming changelessness.

He forgets that small changes are much more powerful than big artificial ones. There is actually no resistance. How can one grapple and fight against something that has no resistance at all. So, no big changes can be brought about in India by copying something or somebody else. It is always a state of becoming not being. That is the ethos of the land called India.

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Unlocking The Mystery

Their children have flown the nest. Connectivity is only through the landline telephone. They were expecting the children in the Durga Puja where they would all be united---Children, daughter-in-laws, son-in-law, grandchildren. The phone rings. It’s their second son. He has transferred an amount of Rs.60, 000/- to his father’s account. May be a bribe from a son for the excuse of not meeting his parents for the last two years. Enough ---- they thought, we will live our life to the fullest. The old couple decided to go to their friend’s house at Kalna near Burdwan to have a feel of the autumn breeze and also to escape from the jaws of boredom and may be “the impending death”.

A break-in took place at the wee hours. The burglars took away cash and gold jewellery. The door and cupboard locks had been ripped off. The old couple had informed their neighbor before leaving for Kalna. The neighbour did his duty of calling the police and informing them of the incident. The old couple seems shaken but unbothered by the whole incident. May be they have now seen a new meaning in life.

I, as a dutiful neighbor, went to a hardware shop to buy some locks for the old couple so as to replace the broken ones. The locks were of different types starting from mainly padlocks, mortise locks, 2-in-one door locks…. Different mechanisms were used for locks like lever type, pin cylinder type etc. What struck me was the place of manufacture of these locks. All were from Aligarh except Godrej. Why? Why other towns or cities in India were not into lock business. Why did this lock manufacturing cluster developed in Aligarh? Why we always associate locks to Aligarh? Why Aligarh had become synonymous to locks?  Was it a family tradition of expertise being carried out for generations and why were they the best in the business in terms of its affordability, design and utility?

This C tier city, located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, is roughly 130 kilometers, south-east of New Delhi. It has a population of about seven lakhs and is not only famous for its lock manufacturing and brass castings (sculptures) but also for Aligarh Muslim University. There are about 5 large lock manufacturers; 25-30 medium sized and more than a thousand small manufacturers. A lot of lock manufacturing work is carried out in Aligarh under job work system. There are only a handful of exporters in Aligarh. However, several Aligarh based lock manufacturers supply their locks to merchant exporters in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai as indirect exports. Some lock manufacturers supply their locks to hardware exporters who use the locks as part of their larger hardware shipments.

A utility item but business is carried out in an unorganized way. Without proper financial support the business is still being treated as a cottage industry. Almost the whole of Aligarh economy is directly or indirectly dependent on lock manufacturing. What prevents them from making it big?  Aligarh lock manufacturer competition mainly comes from Godrej who are manufacturing hi-tech computer aided design locks with non-decodable keys that are generally high priced and out of reach for most of the people in India.   May be the Aligarh lock manufacturers are helping billions of Indian households to procure locks at an affordable price to ensure safety of their “valuables” and peace of minds.

What makes this mature industry tick? The answer is that it effectively combines Chinese ‘Shan Zhai’ and Indian ‘Juggard’ principles to build and run the business without competition. This admirable combination sustains the industry and societies.

This is the sustainable business secret that unlocks the mystery behind the runaway success of the Indian manufacturing industries even in the most trying times – the key to unprecedented economic growth!

 

Sitendu De is the author of this post.

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