ARIA

A fairly new acronym around. ARIA stands for 'A Resident Indian Again'.

This has been coined to denote the home coming (for good) expatriates. I think this term will become popular soon and will stay popular for at least a decade. Like the way 'Brain Drain' was a hot topic during my college days 'Reverse Brain Drain' may become a hot topic for discussion soon. During the college days, some of my friends start the GD (group discussion) spontaneously on Brain Drain whenever they get drunk.

The article in The Economic Times that made me write this post and my other post is here.

One Fine Saturday...!!!

That was a late morning of one fine Saturday on a hot summer season. We were at our home. We decided to catch that newly released movie in theatre instead of waiting for DVD to get released. Through internet we booked two tickets in the multiplex in a mall that is almost 30 miles away.

In our compact car we started our journey which is half-way through a highway and the remaining half thru the city. On our journey through the highway we paid toll while cursing the government for making us to pay toll in addition to the taxes. While speeding on the highway suddenly & spontaneously I reduced the pressure I applied on the gas pedal as I saw a cop's car with swirling blue & red lights was making a Toyota Corolla pull over for (seemingly) over speeding. On the way to the mall I returned the shining black blazer that I had rented out for a function at my office.

After the long journey and bumper to bumper traffic inside the city we reached the mall. That was a medium sized mall which comprised of a multiplex, many shops and a real good food court. We parked the car in the huge basement parking lot of that mall and rushed to SUBWAY for a foot-long to have our late brunch. After the brunch we bought some clothes at Marks & Spencer. Then we bought some cookies 'to go' in a cookie shop in that mall.

At last went to watch the movie & enjoyed the movie.

Now the return journey.

Outside the mall, the city lights were fighting with the darkness of the night. As we were too tired for cooking our dinner, on our return journey, we ordered pizzas & chicken wings from Pizza Hut over phone for home delivery. I thought a cold beer would be better than a cold Pepsi to have along with pizzas. So we picked some beer in a liquor shop on the way.

It was a perfect synch between us reaching the home and the pizza's arrival. We had that sumptuous Pizza & chicken wings while watching the sitcom Joey in some channel. Then I watched some stupid movie in HBO and dozed off at 1:00 am.

Thanks to globalization. My dear non resident Indians all this did not take place in some city in US. It took place in our own Chennai.

During nineties it was brain drain now it is reverse brain drain. India is becoming a land of opportunities. Especially to those who went to US or UK during nineties, corporate India (& MNCs) is offering great positions. These corporates value the NRI's experience and want to utilize them to the fullest.

To me, it looks like those who are coming back from US or UK may not miss 'em any more.

Wanna be part of it?

Exploit...

On a sunday afternoon I got a mail from one of my team members updating the status of his work. He is a smart one in the team so obviously victimized with loads of work, which made him to work during the weekend. Is this an exploitation?

This may sound like exploitation. But actually it is not. It is opportunity in disguise.

India and China are becoming (should I say already became?) outsourcing hub for the developed nations like US & UK. As a matter of fact US & UK are exploiting the low cost labour in India and China. But for the countries like India and China with over population and poor employment opportunities this 'exploitation' is certainly an 'opportunity'. In fact a great opportunity that has changed many lives.

Total number of employees in India's top 3 IT companies alone has reached around 200,000. Recruitment projections each of these companies show are mind-boggling. Our work environments are becoming more and more competitive with highly intellectual people around. To stand out in the crowd there is a lot need to be done by each individual. It has become not an unusual thing for the people who are 'meeting the expectations' to end up with lower performance ratings. Everyone is crazy about 'making a difference' and going that 'extra mile'.

There is a saying: You can achieve little with little sacrifice; you can achieve more with more sacrifice; you can achieve great with great sacrifice. Achievement is always directly proportional to the sacrifice. If we look at the history of great achievers there would be lot of sacrifices in their lives.

In my experience I have realized that when it comes to getting opportunities & growth one should let others exploit (positively). That’s the hard reality now.

Automobiles...not light weighted

A serendipitous bump into statistics about Automobile industry took me by surprise. I did a little bit of surfing & digging to write this post.

To start with, a small comparison to understand how big Automobile Industry (US) is...

Top 10 Hollywood Movies in terms of collection so far are:
Titanic (1997)
Star Wars (1997)
Shrek 2 (2004)
E.T (1982)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Spider-Man (2002)
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge os the Sith (2005)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
The Passion of Christ (2004)

The Total collection is $4,268,752,087.

Total sales revenue of one vehicle line (Ford F-Series) for one year (2004) in US was $28,185,330,000. [Sales of 939,511 units at an average sales price of $30,000]

Amazing, ain't it? Well, let us keep the comparison of profits aside.

In 2004, Total revenue from new vehicle sales in US is $270,000,000,000. This revenue is somewhere in between the GDPs of Columbia and Saudi Arabia in year 2004. They are ranked at positions 31 & 30 in terms of GDP that year.

As per year 2005 data, US is at number one in total number of cars & light commercial vehicles produced with 11,524,000 units. India is at 12th position with 1,406,000 units.

I never realized that US auto industry is this big. Now, I feel that I should have read Lee Iococca's autobiography, which is lying in my book shelf for a pretty long time. Another interesting fact is that new car sales revenue is going south in US in recent years whereas in India it is picking up for obvious reasons. I have always thought that in India, the sales revenue is more because of the first time car buyers. But that is not the fact. Major revenue comes from the buyers who buy their 2nd or 3rd car. Just one and a half years with my first car I have seriously started contemplating about my second car - UV type. Looks like this can be extrapolated to all car owners. The automotive market in India is going pretty steady, may be that is the reason why major to niche players in automobile sector are opening their shops in India. In a way I am happy that Chennai is becoming like what Detroit is for US. This may sound like a tall claim now, but the future is not too far.

Following is an excerpt from McKinsey's report:
In the span of a generation, India's automotive market has transformed a failing local industry into a thriving producer of reasonably priced, reliable small cars, some for export. Alongside the assemblers, successful component manufacturers and suppliers have developed. Still, while India's industry is booming, consumers, rather than investors, are reaping the greatest rewards. Read the rest from

http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/newhorizons/auto.asp if it sounds interesting.

The Threat, The Fear and The Panic

'The playing field is being levelled', the statement made by Mr.Nandan was the inspiration for Mr.Thomas L.Friedman to coin the title for his bestseller 'The World is Flat'.

A few weeks ago I went to Bangalore on an official trip. An advertisement board in Bangalore airport grabbed my attention and made me to stand, stare and shake my head. The ad-board has a golf field, Tiger Woods is walking up on a slope in the golf field and the ad-line goes 'There is no such thing as level playing field'.

Probably many would have guessed when I said the name, Tiger Woods. Yes, the advertisement is for the Consulting, Technology and Outsourcing giant, well, global giant, who provides end-to-end solutions to its customers, the one and only Accenture.

I know that Accenture India sucks. Probably Accenture has its shop in India just to show their customers that they have presence in Indian market, which is the most chanted name as the offshoring and oursourcing destination. But definitely Accenture-America is not a sucker. It is so obvious that Accenture sees Infosys as a threat, while Infosys is just a 2.5 billion dollar company originated from India and still in the warming up mode to provide end-to-end solutions to its customers & trying to become a business partner.

As an Indian I am so proud that a company originated from India makes a company like Accenture feel the fear and panic enough to release such an advertisement. I was wondering what would a CEO or CIO some corporate think when he sees such an ad? I felt that this ad is a definite image booster for Infosys.

Actually Accenture is not the first one in that panic list. I think IBM was the first one to (over)react its panic. IBM story goes three years back. In 'Wall Street Journel', (just to emphasize, there wouldn't be a single CEO in US who does not read Wall Street Journel) there was a full page (or a half page - not sure of the size - but that doesn't matter really) ad which goes something like this. 'We are better than any consultancy in Banking domain'.
Irony is in American dictionary you can not find the word 'consultancy'. It clearly shows that IBM felt that TCS was a threat to its business.

For IT solutions, India should become like what China is for manufacturing unless it would be too difficult to run this 'India Story' a few years from now. I believe that research is one important area where India Inc must concentrate more to accelerate the growth and enjoy the benefits of globalization. We can not survive so long just with the low-end jobs being outsourced.

Corporate Governance (U.S & India)

A News excerpt: Bernard J. Ebbers, the former chairman of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for orchestrating a record $11 billion fraud that toppled the telecommunications company he founded.

25 years imprisonment for a 64 years old may seem a little too much. But considering the magnitude of the fraud and considering the responsible position Ebbers held while he was cheating, this verdict is justifiable.

U.S is very strict on Corporate frauds and the punishment is real heavy. This is to demotivate (rather, threaten?) the other Corporates from involving in frauds and cheating the poor investors.

In addition to heavy punishments, U.S lawmakers have come up with a strict law called Sarbanes-Oxley Act, SOX shortly. This law is said to be "the most far-reaching change in American securities laws since depression". (I will write about SOX and Great Depression separately). With this law in place, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of U.S will have a closer look at the corporates and tight control on the corporates from cheating the investors and SEC.

Worldcom & Enron are hard lessons for SEC. Hopefully, the Corporate frauds will be eliminated or reduced with this law in practice.

While talking about these frauds, I couldn't resist thinking about 'the Big Bull' of India. I googled and found that Harshad Mehta (the Big Bull) is long dead. He died of heart attack on 31-Dec-2001. He was 47 when died. He used the Indian stock market during 1991-92 as his play ground and played hard ball on millions of poor investors' money. Sensex reached (or crossed) new highs during this period. SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India) woke up and arrested him in April 1992. Unfortunately, almost 28 cases registered against him were still in trial stage at the time of his death. I am not sure whether the cases have come to an end now. Couldn't find it in net.

While B.Ebbers case took just 3 years for verdict in U.S, the biggest fraud case in Indian Stock Market history is (was) open without judgement for more than a decade.
If this is the case, how would the other market frauds like Harshad Mehta will get scared?
Like SOX, does SEBI have anything real tight on Indian public companies for Corporate Governance? Or are we going to learn a hard lesson like U.S?
Recent rallies in SENSEX (crossed 7340 already) of Indian Market is scary. Are the companies really performing good or there is someone like 'Big Bull' is making it go up?
Is SEBI keeping an eye on the corporates showing great results?

Is our money safe?