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Rise of the E-commerce of-course is a disruptive innovation with far reaching impacts on the future.

The rise of Amazon (Globally), Alibaba (China), Flipkart (India), Snapdeal (India), Jabong (India), Indiamart (India) is phenomenal. 

What are we looking at then in coming years.

E-commerce will impact a range of regular life common things.

1. Now Factory is next to the door of the end user. All the middle men role is getting eliminated. Result e-commerce is already able to pass on 30-50% savings to the customers. Which is huge. Perhaps long lying idle items in the remote inventories are being offered even at discounts of 80%. The beauty is that a person can simply buy a product of its use which was lying unused in a shop 1000 km away. That is the power of e-commerce.

2. E-commerce will encourage innovation on a whopping scale. For example, we have seen how hotel booking websites are reaping benefit of this technology. Rooms lying in inventory in non busy area hotels (not on the main streets) are now on offer for cheap, and consumer is happy to lodge there in order to save big bucks. Hence, an hotel with innovative customer pleasing abilities other than savings also now have huge chance to make money which earlier was not possible. Lets take another example, a painter now stands chance to showcase his paintings to the global audience rather than to few hundred that too at a costly rented hall.

3. Death of show rooms and shops:

I see this as the biggest impact of e-commerce.

It looks to me that now it is almost impossible to run a show room say of electronic goods or mobile handsets in the era of e-commerce. The inroads is not only limited to the high end items. Now e-commerce companies are delivering children napkins, day to day toiletries items,any thing you say.

Obviously slowly slowly running a shop can no longer be a profitable and feasible option.

My worry is what these people will do in near future.  A mass level un-employment can get generated out of this lieu. In country like India, a big chunk of population is engaged in this day to day small scale shop businesses. India has yet not matured to the kind of economies which is in USA or other OECD countries. So what these people will do.

If one recall, there was good degree of protest and Govt. of India finally never allowed global big retailers like Walmart, Carrefour, etc. to enter into India despite these companies great lobbying efforts. However now this is passe. I think in e-commerce era, the impact has been already way higher than anything else.

Its both positive and negative. On one hand it is removing inefficiencies while on the other hand a big number of people (in millions) will have to consider earning options in a new manner.

4. Death of Malls: in last 10 years in India, Malls witnessed a splurging business environment. But no longer external factors look in their favor in the era of e-commerce and big LED TVs.

The generation Y is fond of watching movies in halls. However with affordable 50 inches 4K TVs coming down the line and HD Dish Services, movie watching patterns will change for sure.

Similarly people going to Malls for shopping will no longer be motivated that much. With the kind of discounts on offer on any e-commerce website, traditional shopping at malls will see a huge decline.

Remedial Measures:

1. I’d suggest that it is no longer going to be profitable to be in shop business of any product which is on offer on any e-commerce website.

It is now a Red Ocean scenario.

Probably one might need to prepare him self for employment in corporate sectors, or free lancer career profiles, entrepreneurship, or something similar. It will still take time to understand where this chunk of population will migrate for regular earnings.

2. Malls: for recreation purpose they will continue to attract people. However now change require in terms of services on offer at Malls. It can be, in-house ice skating, games, coffee shops, etc. which can continue thriving.

Future:

Future will be very different from now. In next 10 years these transformation will keep happening. However if we talk about after 20 years, in my view, we will see ubiquitous drones, tall Eco-friendly skyscrapers, thrust on solar energy, sharp drop in fossil fuel usage, smart cities, seamless data connectivity, driver less cars, etc. can be part of normal life. Its incredible and exciting.

My Thoughts Only!

God Bless!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

The “Agyaatvaas” Strategy (TAS)

I consider this strategy as a subset of The Resilience Strategy (TRS), which I talk about most of the times and a tool which I conceptualized.

“Agyaatvaas” is a popular word in Hindu Mythologies. It means you are supposed to be un-identifiable by your enemy during the period of “Agyaatvaas” which can have a period of one year or so.

So why this concept was used so much in Hindu Mythologies both in Ramayaan and Mahabharata.

During “Agyaatvaas” you are supposed to be so low profile that despite your great strengths you act like a commoner so that your enemies become complacent and meanwhile you can gather your strength, forge new allies, acquire new skills and most importantly “gain focus”.

After the “Agyaatvaas” you make a surprise strike at the enemy.

Now it is important to understand your enemy. In today’s ever increasing complex world your enemy can be your loan, job- stress, jealous colleagues, etc.

From org. point of view enemy can be competitor company, unfavourable market scenario, changing customer taste, etc.

You see in both of the above, “Agyaatvaas” Strategy actually works. It allows to regain focus. To think out of the box. Just like Breakthrough Management.

Even legendary Steve Jobs tried “Agyaatvaas” by visiting India for few months and remained invisible to his US counterparts.

So why I’m saying TAS is a subset of TRS. It is so because TRS also talks about how to face difficult times and emerge out of it with a bounce.

The “Agyaatvaas” is all about all this. It is actually very relevant and useful in today’s over exposed and over networked world, which doesn’t allow you to be rational. Because of the fear of what others are going to say you are hesitant to take ugly but necessary decisions.

Because of Facebook, etc. in today’s world  one is always under a pseudo pressure to prove he or she is doing absolutely good. And this is WRONG! Believe me. Sometimes it is better to leave others at their own state irrespective of what they are thinking rather than keep convincing them about your well being.

For any org. or any individual TAS is as helpful as TRS. Basically TAS is a subset of TRS. If you are facing too many hurdles try “Agyaatvaas”.

My thoughts only!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well, many times my friends discussed with me on the subject of this blog. I felt moved by the observations and thought I should write on this subject.

You see Education Loan Business in India has turned into an abysmal scenario.

I still remember my young days of school times, education was meant to be mainly restricted to the Brand and Reputation of the college. Tuition Fees was never the topic to worry about much. I recall a decade back, when fees in Universities in India for courses on B. Com. or B. Sc. or B. A. was very low and pretty affordable. It was somewhere 1000 to 10000 INR annually for a 3 years graduation course.

Then came the boom of Engineering and MBA throughout India. Started almost 2 decades back. Plenty of private engineering colleges popped up through out the main land. Huge population churning out young every year who wanted professional courses of Engineering/ MBA/ Medical/ Dental/ Fashion/ CA/ etc. The maximum number got attracted by Engineering and MBA. The graduates became ubiquitous and oversupply resulted in degrading of the value of the degree.

However nonetheless the national IVY colleges tag within India was still attractive, whether they were IITs, NITs, few other good technical institutes for undergrad, and for post graduation again IIMs, and few other good B Schools. For Medical it was AIIMS, and for fashion it was NIFT, etc.

The craze for admission into these institutes was near madness. One can never think of anything better than this. Realizing the potential (to pay) of students, colleges in the name of providing better infra and maintaining autonomous state,started increasing tuition fees by leaps and bounds.

One must admit now that these good institutes with hallowed halls are out of reach for at least lower middle class in India. And this fact is very troubling and disturbing.

The Indian economy was doing pretty well in the period of 2002 to 2008 and no one objected to this increase in tuition fees. During the time of first NDA Govt. in India 1999 to 2004, they in very last of their tenure noted this increase and rightly objected. Predictably, institutes opposed and made huge hue and cry on this move of the Govt.. Somehow the NDA was not able to win in 2004 assembly elections and the institutes were now free to go ahead with their plans as the next Govt. under UPA saw no problem in this phenomenon.

In year around 2006 tuition fees at IIMs was near 4 lakhs INR and started sharply increasing thereafter year by year. At the same time privately funded B School ISB Hyderabad was charging almost 22 lakhs INR for their one year MBA course. (As argued) seeing the potential of students to pay hefty fees for the prestigious tag and in hedge of the so called “great placements”, fees at IIMs reached an all time high of anywhere between 12 to 24 lakhs INR by 2012. A sharp increase of 3 to 6 times in short duration of 6 years. It is noteworthy that placements remain flat during the same tenure. The average placements at top B Schools were in the range of 8-14 lakhs INR in 2006 and the same figure was in 2012. Perhaps placement took a hit with many passing out even without decent jobs and might be without jobs. (Please note that I’m talking here only for top 20 B Schools in India.)

Interestingly IIM Lucknow acknowledged this fact (mutely) and for the first time any institute decreased its tuition fees from 12 L to 10 L (a year ago). However other colleges  failed to acknowledge the grave situation and kept on reaping the hike.

India has a population of 1.2 billion hence there is no dearth of applicants.But in recent years I’ve observed the increasing unrest among the applicants and they have started questioning the usefulness of such a costly education. They ask these questions to alumni rather than to the govt. or institutes or even banks who are equally benefiting.

It is important to note that middle class in India always aspired to send their children in these elite colleges including IITs, IIMs, etc.. That middle class by very definition have limited family savings. Parents cut down their own any so called “luxury” expenses such as annual vacations which can cost 50k bucks, or painting of the house which can cost again 50k bucks, or cancelling idea of buying car which can cost 400k bucks, etc.. These children have moral duty towards their parents and family as whole.

Now children of these house holds are lured to elite colleges because of their brand power. Its a natural attraction for any middle class, upper middle class, rich class, or affluent class. But 90% of the batch is comprised of only middle or upper middle section of the society. So this 90% for obvious reasons cannot afford huge tuition fees without education loan. Now Banks in India cleverly started offering heavy interest loans at the rate of 11 – 14% without collateral.

The very same guys who want to to do something good for their lives and even for their nation (coming from top 5% of their schools thru hard work) took this heavy loan in the range of 10 to 25 L. The disappointing fact is that the jobs started disappearing 2008 onward. First the reason was cited global slowdown. But global economy recovered within a year. However in India, there was no sighting of rosy economy. Scams broke out during the second tenure of UPA regime in India with an all time low of fresh investments or fresh projects (crucial for job creation) and jobs took a huge hit and started severely plummeting. GDP growth rate fell from high of 9% in 2006 to 4.5% in 2012. Note that in such a gloomy economy with very low GDP growth rate naturally there will be dearth and scarcity of high paying jobs. The Manufacturing sector growth remained flat or rather it was in minus. The bright guys who were passing out from top colleges with heavy education loans were now flummoxed where to go. Few chose entrepreneurship route. But this phenomenon is limited to only very few, as tip of the iceberg, with probably only 5% success rate.

No B School or even T School ever recognized the grave situation. They were all busy in playing number games and gold plating their placement statistics. As far I remember only IIM-A has CRISIL certified placement data. With an heavy loan which is almost equal to 10 years of any simple family’s savings students were literally forced to join irregular job profiles not matching to their skills.

India is not a country where one will happily go for 20 lakhs INR course when your father is earning 10000 INR monthly from last 10 years. He or she is actually forced.

It is also very troubling to note that an average Indian is paying heavy Income Tax, Education Cess under Service Tax, but when it comes to his or his children education he is again coming across heavy tuition fees, with high bank loan interest rates (even at top govt. institutes). Where is the Govt. collection of taxes going when it is not even reaching the top govt. colleges annual budgets.

The more disturbing fact is that Education Loan interest rate lies somewhere in between 11 to 14%+. In contrast House Loan is offered at 10% and Car Loan is offered at 8%*. How can you charge more interest rate for something as noble as education?

+(house loan in India is marred with black money and probably needs a separate blog to discuss), *(thanks to the strong automobile industry lobby)

Compare this case with other countries. In Germany the tuition fees is highly subsidized by the Govt. for both domestic and international students. In USA the education loan interest rate is 1-2%, easily available if you are national of USA or OECD countries, and with lenient terms. Majority land in a pretty decent job after graduation provided you are from a reputed institute. The same case is not working in India any more.

Now role of banks also looks clever and opportunist. Initially the banks were not even allowed to offer collateral free loans for the sum greater than 5 lakhs INR.But they skewed the policy and started offering up to 25 lakhs INR. Probably colleges didn’t went far beyond 25 L limit as it could have raised more eyebrows and unrest among the applicants or their parents (society at large). It is a clever move on part of the colleges and banks. The whole education loan business started flourishing and the victim was common Indian Middle Class society.

It is noteworthy that encouraged by the huge increase in tuition fees by top govt. institutes almost all the private institutes got the ready made license to follow the cue.

It is also noteworthy had the banks not offered these collateral free loans to students, colleges could have never been able to raise fees up to this level. 

Previous Govt.s traditionally have always been busy to offer loan waivers to farmers in the election year. But what about Middle Class who are doing great degree of hard work and being trapped in loans thru education loans. Later they made trapped with House Loans. Why education is so costly in India?

After all India is a developing nation and such high tuition fees can not be justified comfortably. I hope that in coming years rationalization should happen in this arena and education loans interest rate should be lower than that of car loans and house loans. I also hope that Indian Economy may regain its growth trajectory and start absorbing the young aspirant Indians in deserving jobs.

God Bless!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well this is my second blog on Mr. Modi’s efforts to revive Indian Economy!

The first one was: Shri Modi and Jim Collins – Good to Great

Undoubtedly Shri Modi attracted Great Expectations globally. The nation which approx. a decade before attracted global attention by strong GDP growth and created a large middle class backed by strong job market mostly fueled by growth in IT sector.

And the nation or basically its govt. which disappointed its citizens specially in the period of 2010 to 2014 by abysmal GDP growth and plummeting job market with sinking hopes and dreams of young Indians.

The Nation got marred by Scams

The last govt. failed to arrest sinking economy and run away of investors. They simply kept believing that countrymen can be easily fooled by false promises. Scams became ubiquitous and govt. kept denying their even existence. An oil giant gold plated its expenses under joint venture with the govt.and asked for quadruple price of the output. The govt. was more than happy to honor it. Then came the Mother of all Scams known as 2G Scam and thereafter the Father of all Scams known as Coalgate. All this turn of events resulted in zero confidence in the Indian economy and jobs became scare in lieu of dearth of any fresh projects.

Now it has been one year of Mr. Modi Govt. in India. Good News is that outlook is optimistic now. However there is no denial that ground realities are still same as a year old with slight improvement only.

Why?? There is an old story that when a strong army approaches a city and loss can be foreseen, the retreating army poisons the well of drinking water and burn the garrisons having food. There is  also known tale that when Rome was burning Nero was busy with music.

Retreating Army burning garrisons

Same was the case in India with previous govt. First they kept ignoring that country is burning with scams and common public wealth is gradually evaporating. Second they burnt all the good projects in pipeline so as new govt. get the economy in pretty bad shape. And that what happened.

Modi Govt. is astonishingly stuck with the scale of mess what they got from the previous. For common Indians it is difficult to understand the scale of bad situation. Mr. Modi started globe trotting from the very beginning and started “resetting” the relations with all major countries. The process of investing has been made easier and clearance of files to start any factory has been simplified.

However the desperate youngsters who want jobs are still waiting for rosy economy.The situation is that it will take time to fill the pits made by previous govt.. Yet it can be predicted that the way govt. is working now, things should improved by their third year.

It will be a huge growth probably volcanic growth impending in India very shortly. The Sensex also looks like going to touch 50k in next 3 years. These are my mere predictions however.

After a long while India finally got a full majority govt. and obviously there are Great Expectations from Mr. Modi. I hope he will succeed in making the nation truly Great!

God Bless!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well, these 4 brands are probably most recognized in mobile handset industry. Though agreed, new players including Xiaomi, Gionee, etc. and oldies including Sony, HTC, etc. are also playing cool. However thru this blog I’m focusing on few Strategy Lessons which are quite interesting to me.

SAMSUNG:

Lets talk about this Korean Chaebol first. Samsung undoubtedly did a great job in mobile handset manufacturing business and yes, swelled its account hence.

But looks like they are loosing their sheen fast enough. First lets have a look how come they rose so fast at the cost of Nokia, BB, etc.

Samsung bet on low cost touch smartphones and on android platform. Both of the two turned out smart moves on Samsung’s part and helped it to gain amazing market share.

However the same two winning moves i.e. touch and android is now playing opposite in ever increased fierce and competitive mobile handset business. 

When I check with consumers who were having Samsung initially and now went with either Apple or Xiaomi, they usually complain similarly.

1. All Samsung handsets look same these days.
2. Many are now bored of Android platform which is common. It is notable there is a segment which don’t want to go with “common”. That was precisely the reason of popularity of Blackberry brand.
3. Samsung sets no longer are appealing. etc.

NOKIA:

I always feel really sorry for this great company and brand which got bust because of strategy failures of its leadership.

Nokia failed because it did the opposite what Samsung did to achieve great market share. Nokia from the start was averse of touch phones and android platform. Since consumers find the flavor in these two things, Nokia failed miserably.

One additional cause of failure was Nokia’s reluctance to enter into Tablet Business which again grew very fast in last few years.

Interestingly had if Nokia not have failed, market conditions are quite favorable for this great brand. Reason I shall be discussing in later part in this blog. Plus, Microsoft’s move to relabel Nokia as Microsoft is again a miserable strategy move.

APPLE:

Now comes the ace brand Apple. Drawing power from the legacy of founder Steve Jobs who again probably the greatest entrepreneur the world ever witnessed.

Apple has an incredible fan following. It is having different OS of its own basically. Incredible touch and feel of the product, etc.

The strategy always have been there to remain at top of the value chain. Interestingly it remained top in terms of revenue and profit as well. It faced for time being tough competition from Samsung but seems it has gone way ahead as of now. I’m not going to discuss much here.

BLACKBERRY:

Again a very interesting case study in my view for MBA graduates. The rise of BB, popularity among specific corporate consumers, way high in value chain, and sudden fall is all classic example of fast changing business environments.

What companies need against fall. I believe its RESILIENCE. Which organizations should work upon.

The fall of BB was due to rise of Android and also Whatsapp. Again whatsapp was the app which went popular like fire and was free against BBM which was very similar and was coming at a fees.

The other reason for fall was reluctance to embrace touch technology. Similarly what Nokia did.

Now it is very soothing and great example of leadership to note that BB is slowly reviving while Nokia has doomed because of eagerness of their leaders to sell or failing to withstand tough times.

There is a segment which wants to be different. It is averse of Apple also which controls consumers every file transfer, downloads, etc. and is also averse of ubiquitous Android OS. Hence this segment still loves BB. Similarly this segment would have loved Nokia had if it existed. The point is there is ample room of many players and you need to have your own USP to place strongly yourself in the lucrative but fierce business of mobile handsets.

BB revival clearly shows smart move on part of Farifax Holdings which bail out this company at moment when it was having rock bottom prices of its shares and market capitalization.

Now if Samsung wants to regain its glory then it should have went for BB when it was available to be bought, reinvent some Break Through technology, come with some new OS, etc. There can be other strategies too, these are mere suggestions.

The point is it pays to remain in the market and fight if you have Resilience. You bounce back and reward your share holders too.

Moreover Strategies keep changing. What was benefiting Samsung now is working against it. What failed BB now is working in its favor.

My thoughts only on these great organizations and their businesses.

God Bless!!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well thru this blog I tried to analyse National Public Policy part from Strategy Theory of mine though which I mostly reserve for analyzing corporate strategies.

When I see case of USSR which again was a formidable bloc of its time and enjoyed huge clout and influence. But it failed to survive. While USA continued to thrive and inspired global entrepreneurs and capitalists.

Why USSR failed but USA thrived. There might be many reasons. Politically I’m neutral and appreciate what is good for mankind and humanity.

USA embraced variety of cultures via immigrants, tolerated change,encourage entrepreneurs, discouraged crony capitalism, worked on soft power, etc.

While on other hand USSR was monolithic society: reluctant to change; zero tolerance to new; no entrepreneurs; widespread crony capitalism; etc.

Now understanding how The Resilience Strategy comes into play. Resilience is all about the salient features which I just discussed for the USA.

When any nation or even corporate organizations accepts diversity, it embraces Resilience. It gets open to new ideas. See how entrepreneurs add value to the nation and its economy. USA is full of entrepreneurs. Huge corporates which we today know were once start-ups. When you build nation you build social fabric structure via public policies.

Creating an eco-system favouring healthy competition is all about resilience. The frequency of ups and equally downs is all about Resilience. While USA kept benefiting from this inherent feature in its national ideology, USSR was way reluctant to accept immigrants. Hence turned away from Resilience. It was like aSolid Bloc.

Solid Blocs are fragile. They are strong but they are not Resilient. They are vulnerable to shocks. Whereas Resilient economies/ nations/ corporate are able to absorb changes and they bounce back with a thrust.

Building a Nation on patriotism is good. But not accepting foreigners to live on your land maybe politically have some valid reasons but it is anti-resilient.

Curiously Japan is also monolithic society but not only it survived but it thrived. How??

Well Japan has been too strong that Resilience doesn’t matter to them. Rather being strong helped them. As the nation is concentrated to four islands, they are much more united hence form a unified force. When you are non resilient then you are hard also at the same time. Your economy rule is governed by you only.

When you are spread across Geographies it makes sense to be Resilient.

Integrating variety of cultures, religions, colours, etc. in national social fabric is highly recommended which inculcates an eco-system adding high value to the overall social chain.

Resilience after all is all about ability: to embrace change; to accept diversity; and to bounce back.

My thoughts only!

God Bless!

Marriage Proposals vs Job Offers or

Will You Marry Me vs You’re Hired

@India

Well, I must admit its a funny blog of mine. But it has a valid argument.

Now I many times wonder why in India Govt. doesn’t releases employment data on regular basis. What my understanding says that this data is released once in 5 years. While in OECD countries this data is almost released either monthly or max. quarterly. Yeah! of course, for developing nations this data is far from rosy and may raise social unrest, hence in order to mellow down the citizens thru public policy its better to release at a longer intervals. Whereas in case of OECD countries it can be obviously released at shorter duration. 

Even interestingly Govt.s are in enormous pressure in developed nations too for maintaining healthy employment rate. Preference is of-course > 95%.

I based on few of my friends’ experiences post MBA degree, got an interesting observation. While there is scarcity of Job Offers in India (or consider developing nations as whole), there is decent opportunity for Marriage Proposals.

Suppose you are a fresh graduate passed out of a premier institute with an average job in your hand. Now you register yourself in two sites at this stage of your life. One in Job Portal and the Other in Match Making website.

I’m sure that my data is correct here, you will be surprised that you shall be getting anywhere in between 100 – 1000 serious proposals or interests thru Match Making but hardly 0 – 10 interview calls thru Job Portal, say in a time frame of one year.

Now this is quite surprising and interesting fact simultaneously. I guess this huge disproportion may not be there if you are a citizen of a developed nation, where first Match Making is a different exercise than in India, and second that there are ample job opportunities.

While in India in last one decade or more, majority have opted for career avenues in Engineering or MBA or Medical or CA, while in USA people are going for much wider range including Music, History, Arts, Painting, Photography, Fashion Industry, Law, Education, Public Policy, etc. I’m not saying that people in India are not in these fields but in terms of percentage or you say concentration it is highly concentrated in favor of the 4 streams which I mentioned above.

Now though this observation (title of this blog) on first hand looks depressing but it is not so in my view. It also shows advantages of a wider population base and simple living society. People are able to find “life” in small aspects of so called journey of life. At least one is enjoying with this ease (finding the better half).

However, it is important to understand that there is dearth of sound offers which gets badly hit when the GDP growth rate declines. As happened in India in last 4-5 years time frame. Good news is that this decline trend is now reversing.

Hopefully if country grows at double digit annual growth rate in GDP, the graphs of the two critical offers can go in parallel. AMEN!

God Bless!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

That’s why I’m going to be the first– lead boy in the movie How To Train Your Dragon!

Well, this title ran into my mind since long. When I saw this movie which is actually one of my favorites, The Iron Man, I saw a strategy tool in it.

If one recall the movie, the lead hero Robert, was a tech. genius, kidnapped by rogue guys, and was asked to make weapons for them.

Now imagine you are a brilliant guy fresh out of the college and got a stupid wrong job in your career. Or you are in deep mess of some other kind. I’m trying to give just examples. Up to you to imagine.

What he did actually to come out of that desperate and close to end situation. He brilliantly used his brain to design a suite which was invincible and just shoot out into the sky and went away from all that stuff behind. That is the power of your skills.

Another example, do something unimaginable, something daring, but of course ethical. In movie How To Train Your Dragon, our protagonist boy targeted The Night Fury dragon which was never been hit before. To really come out of stuck, you may need to target the Best.

You see Entrepreneurs are like that. They build something from their brain. And use it to come out of the common. You have to build that “Iron Man Suite”. Steve Jobs was like that.

It is somewhat similar to my favorite theory The Break Through Management. However for a breakthrough which recommends to jump out of the fish bowl, here you are required to prepare a suite (it can even only an idea, something like that), and then it will enable you to jump out that fish bowl or out of a well for a frog, etc. In simple words in order to come out of stuck situation build that “Iron Man Suite”

An example, you are stuck in a low job, you prepare for B-School admissions. You devote a year of studies to get into coveted program. This is “Iron Man Suite” which you built to come out of the hopelessness.

Interestingly one should always keep a plan B in his life which can be your Iron Man Suite in your life.

It can be your “The Dark Horse” friend, anything which is bold or daring, similar to “The Black Swan”, etc.

My thoughts only!!

God Bless!!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well whenever I see lots of cars going slowly or fast on roads, different models, different types of roads, SOMEHOW I am always able to co-relate them with the state of economy. This Analogy is quite striking to me.

Lets imagine simple traffic on roads with numerous four wheelers. Now there can be different kind of Roads as well such as Highways – 8 lanes, 6 lanes, 4 lanes, and 2 lanes; good roads; bad roads; roads full of potholes; mirror finish roads; brick roads; path ways; village ways; etc.

Now imagine what kind of vehicles can travel on these roads. For example on village roads you can not drive Ferrari for sure. Also you can not drive Bull- cart on mirror finish highway. You can not drive large trucks on path ways. etc.

Now imagine the size of these four wheelers can be changed as per your imagination. It can be made 10 times both large and even small of the standard size.

Now imagine any company based on its culture, revenue, profit, market cap, etc.[y = f{c, r, p, m}] is shaped into any four wheeler. It can also be Flotilla of 4 wheelers if that Group is into multiple businesses.

So what I mean here a start up is just a toy car and is placed on a highway. Similarly a mid size company which is traded on NYSE or NASDAQ or BSE or NSE, or any other major stock market is equivalent to say Maruti Alto car or Hyundai I10 model, etc.

So a large diverse group such as TATA can be a Flotilla of say 100 four wheelers of different sizes going on the road. Apple can be a highly magnificent and very large truck white in color running at 200 kmph on 8 lane highway.

So the speed of four wheeler is proportional to the rapid pace at which that company is growing. The Road is the Economy or Market Segment in which that company is doing business. And the type of car is the Business Model which the company is following.

For example; a sick company is like a Bull Cart on a 4 lane highway if it not doing good business though new companies are coming and doing good in that market.

A Start Up can sometimes act as Rocket Car, speed of growth can be 2000 kmph. So the car is very small (toy size) but the speed is immense. Hence high market cap.

Now its important to understand types of Markets.

A Developed Nation Market i.e. OECD Market is basically Mirror Finish 8 Lane or 4 Lane Highway Roads. So there is no point in carrying your Bull Cart business into those economies. They are meant for much faster things such as Start Ups. Just like Amazon changed the E-commerce business there few years back. Then came Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc.

Similarly Developing Nations Market is like 2 lane highways full of pot holes. So here Bull Cart business model make sense probably. A Sick company can do Ok kind of business here.

Poor economies such as in Africa, or war torn nations, their road is similar to village roads hence businesses can not sustain which have Ferrari models. Here again you have to bring Bull Carts, etc.

It should be noted that Bull Carts are good in poor economies but its wastage of resources and capabilities if they are doing the same in developing economies.

Now comes 4 Wheelers. Big Trucks or Flotilla are equal to Big Conglomerates. Rocket Toy Car is equal to Start Ups promising ones. Small size cars are equal to Non Innovative Bovine kind of companies with Mid market cap size. Sports cars are equal to Innovative companies which have focus on Future. Bull Carts are equal to Sick Business models, frog companies which think in a well. etc.

Other examples of 4W can be such as Milk carrying small truck, Courier small truck, LNG large truck, SUVs, Rickshaw, Buses of different sizes, etc

Moreover Speed on these Roads is equal to Govt. Regulations of that market. Hence in Open Markets with liberal and fair economic practices the speed is likely to be high and suitable for Start Ups and Low Road Clearance Cars such as Sports Cars (point to be noted that efficiency is high when road clearance is less i.e. returns on investments are bound to be greater as there is less wastage). Similarly in closed markets and when the Govt. is apathetic towards growth, etc. the model is good for Bull Carts.

In India for example all car manufacturers know that popular models need to have High Road Clearances. As Roads are far away from Mirror Finish. Yet there has been substantial progress in quality of highways in last 15 years. Same is the state of Indian Economy actually. It is still far from Efficient Economies such as Singapore, etc. May be we can not ignore complexity of the size of nation with a huge population and a real diverse culture, people, and lifestyles.

Now take the example of China. Their roads are actually now nearing to world class. So same is their economy. The companies are doing excellent. And are successfully beating competition world wide.

So there are 2 major things. Cars and Roads. Choosing wisely THE RIGHT FIT is the key for success.

I will try to do more research on this theory of mine which I term as OSCAR Theory.

Do share me your feedback in comments.

Thank You

God Bless!!

www.rishabhagarwal.in

Well, may be this headline sounds unusual, however let me give it a try what I want to say!

When this word “bovine” came before me, I was immediately able to correlate it with lifestyle of many of my friends whom I know personally.

So what I mean by “the bovine people”

The point which I am discussing is that I find my lots of friends living a life like a cow. They go to office, return, have food, sleep, and then again office. They pay EMIs in first week of month and for the rest of month wait for month’s salary.

I have a good friend circle and I observe them, their thoughts, their vision for the society, their contribution towards others, etc.

I don’t feel elated, when I observe they are trapped in loans which can be Education Loan, House Loan, Personal Loan (mostly from credit cards), etc.

What I notice mostly that they are too much trapped to think outside the box now.

Hardly anyone talk about Entrepreneurship, fighting for social causes, becoming business tycoons, having eccentric life plans which can be such as world tour, may be settling near a pristine beach for few years, leaving everything and search for inner voice, etc.

Take the example of Steve Jobs here. He was not the conventional guy obviously.

What was the secret of his amazing success and most importantly his impact on the society. He followed a very unconventional path. He started Apple. He was demob from the same company which he founded. He even had a brief stint in India where I tried to meditate and self discovery. He even chose to learn Calligraphy. Etc. So he was not “bovine” of course.

The other good motivational book which I get remind of here is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. Something similar written there also. How the lead character left the successful career of lawyer and went to Himalayas in search of salvation.

It might be true, what I am writing here mostly applicable for developing nations citizens, and in terms of percentage, and per capita income, developing vs developed nations can vary, but for sure every society is having bovine people.

Now, I am not recommending that one should keep changing career tracks or it is not good to stick to one particular lifestyle, etc. Japanese society if we take for example encourages life long association with one single company which is in deep contrast to American lifestyle where frequent changes are norm.

The point is why live “Bovine”. We are Humans. Not Cows. You are just giving milk and the company is feeding you with grass in terms of small amount of money.

When in this world which is so beautiful, different, vibrant, where you can do so much exciting things, you live a life of cow.

By this blog, I just want to encourage people to take new paths, unexplored, risky. Why fear from failure.

Ships are safest in the harbor, but are they meant for being there.

Why not explore wild life, sea beaches, snow mountains, rainy forests, river rafting, sky diving, islands, scuba, helping poor, teaching underprivileged, writing, reading, long driving, etc. And I also recommend to come out of addictive usage of social media on internet and even TV. Meet people. See people. Talk people. Be Social.

Thnx

God Bless!!

www.rishabhagarwal.in