Kapil Tandon

What after college?

/ Motivation

Your journey from the Classroom to Corporate

If you are a student, you find yourself in a protective and encouraging environment. But have you stopped to think: what after college? Does the future overwhelm you? Have you been thinking about the things you can do now that will help you become employable later? What are the skills you need to become an independent adult? 

I strongly believe students should try positioning themselves as an organized all-rounder while they are in college itself.

I am trying to explain below what I mean by the word “all-rounder” here.

Academics, co-curricular, and extra-curricular activities:

You do many things in college – attend lectures/sessions, complete assignments, participate in several live events and projects, and play many more roles. You also take part in a host of co-curricular activities like debating, elocution, essay writing and extra-curricular activities like playing a musical instrument, dancing, dramatics, and philately.

Learning Orientation & Knowledge Management:

You spend ‘outside the class time’ with your professors and senior colleagues to seek clarifications to your doubts – such persons can also guide you in developing an effective learning orientation within and around you. Then the time you spend in the college library and reading room, attending various master classes, seminars, and webinars is also an excellent investment towards building your general as well as domain knowledge. You need to build an excellent learning culture and knowledge management system around you.  

Good Communication adds wings to your personality:

You must pay extra attention to improve your verbal, written and non-verbal (body language) communication. Pay attention to the manner you connect with others. How do you talk to people and convince them of your POV? How are your listening skills? They say: listen double of what you speak – that is why you have got one mouth and two ears. Do you follow this golden rule? You must invest at least 40 to 60 minutes of your time every day (for 5 to 6 days a week) in reading, writing, speaking, and listening to something relevant yet interesting to you. It may be like listening to a favourite speech, talking to an individual or delivering a short talk to a group, reading some fiction or self-help book, or writing a blog – virtually anything that you find interesting or exciting. 

Your health and wellbeing are most important:

Eat food like your medicine so that you never take your medicines as your food. Always have a balanced diet. Monitor your water intake and make sure that you consume about 8 to 10 glasses of water every day. Sleep is an important part of health and if you do not get enough of it, it can negatively impact your energy levels and motivation in several ways. You must give 45 minutes to 60 minutes daily to your body – doing yoga, exercise, morning walk, gym, or any other form of activity or workouts which fits well into your scheme of things. Stay away from smoking, drugs, and other unhealthy addictions. Try to keep stress at bay and visit your family doctor regularly to ensure that all is well.

Stay positive and motivated:

You should stay positive and motivated all the time and should be spreading positivity through your positive mental attitude (PMA). Surround yourself with such friends and persons who have a constructive and positive impact on you. Cut those from your circle of influence, who possess a negative mental attitude (NMA) and/or not supportive in furthering your initiatives. Do not keep friends and associates who do not add value to your ecosystem. Depending upon your situation – build your ecosystem and socialize to the extent possible. Do not react to various situations; instead, give your structured response. I can give an example. If you are apprehensive that it may rain today – do not curse the rain God (reaction), rather pack your umbrella before you go out (response).

Identify a good Mentor for you:

Do identify a good mentor who can be a friend, philosopher, and guide to you at every stage in your professional as well as personal life. Work in close association with your mentor to prepare a grand action blueprint for your future. Carefully analyze various scenarios – whether you want to be in full-time employment as a corporate executive, want to work in free-lance mode as an advisor/consultant, or wish to undertake an entrepreneurial journey. Unless you are extraordinary and can secure an excellent job in a great company – my advice will be that you opt for the entrepreneurial route to be successful in life. Start as a solopreneur and grow to be an entrepreneur or intrapreneur over the years. 

Embarking upon your entrepreneurial journey:

As you embark upon your entrepreneurial journey, you will have to focus on a few crucial aspects. You must hire knowledgeable and competent people so that you build a great team. Your team must have certain essential elements like synergy, cooperation, collaboration, and coordination. 

You must position a team leader to take charge of the entire venture and provide him/her with all necessary training and delegation. You must empower all your team members and engage them suitably so that their goals and organizational goals stay aligned.  

You now must take action to develop and document world-class processes with the help and support from professional experts, if necessary. I have witnessed a situation where the company executives were able to develop excellent processes (along with flow charts) without any outside help. The moot point is that our processes should be effective and useful – whether done internally or externally. 

Lastly but not least – the growing entrepreneur must understand the importance of planning and control, working through budgets and schedules to avoid cost and time overruns, cost-benefit analysis, capital budgeting, break-even analysis, make-buy decisions, and many more basic concepts in finance and marketing. A proper MIS should be in place to keep track of the entrepreneur’s project. 

Here’s what John Maxwell, American author and speaker, has charted as the 7 steps to success:

What after college? Read More »

What’s your business idea? #GreatMinds

/ Great Minds, Motivation

I would strongly recommend entrepreneurship to all young males or females – even to young couples. Identify a good business idea and give your 100% to it – both during the planning and execution phases. You must have a great mentor to guide you through all stages of your business. Slowly grow in modules and build sustainability over the years. 

Here’s what Richard Branson, an English business magnate and investor, has to say:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

What’s your business idea? #GreatMinds Read More »

Find opportunities where there may be none! #GreatMinds

/ Great Minds, Motivation

What sets an entrepreneur apart is his/her mindset! Think about it, typically, the main functions that an entrepreneur must perform are — to organize, to be able to take risks and to innovate! Those who work with a positive attitude and mindset can overcome many doubts, fears, and apprehensions.

Here’s what Soledad O’Brien, American broadcast journalist and executive producer, has to say:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

Find opportunities where there may be none! #GreatMinds Read More »

No profits! Unless you create value…

/ Business

In my role as a professor of business and management to undergraduate and post-graduate management students for over a decade – I have been telling my students that the entire art and science of business can be summarized as – creating value, communicating value, and delivering value to all the stakeholders of the entrepreneur’s business. Somehow, I always found this definition of a business to be the best. Alternatively, we may say that the purpose of any business is to create value (through work), sell or trade it to customers, and capture some of that value as monetary surplus that results in profits for the entrepreneur.

I read an interesting thought somewhere that “value is created through an irreversible process that gives a resource’s ‘order’ greater usefulness to other humans.” Under this definition, almost any activity can be value-producing. Let me give a few examples: offering physical help to anyone in need, summarizing your professional experience of several years to author a book, converting unrefined sugar from a factory to manufacture orange candies, and deploying the cumulative technical knowledge of a team of engineers to create a software, etc. 

We can also define value addition as the selling price of a product (that customers are willing to pay) minus the direct cost of inputs required to create that product. Entrepreneurs try enhancing value addition in their businesses by adopting several strategies like providing additional features or attachments in the products (like special anodized handles in refrigerators, costly fused buttons and/or fixing pearls and precious stones in apparels), offering free and/or faster home deliveries, and providing customer-friendly after-sales services, etc.      

All businesses must create value, but some types of value (and methods of value creation) are more useful than others. Creating value by producing a commoditized product is not a pathway to success. If your industry is in competitive equilibrium, the death of your business would not matter to the world: some other undifferentiated competitor will always be ready to take your place. This is the condition for most businesses — what they sell is not unique, but generally substitutable. 

If you want to create the kind of value that builds a lasting and successful business, you must be unique. All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. This set of ideas is really to lead-in in studying competitive advantage, the ‘how’ of developing and delivering on this unique value proposition. What does your business do that others cannot match? We call this approach Product differentiation. Production differentiation can be successfully deployed in a larger market segment as also in a niche market. 

Delivering a commoditized product with a radically improved cost structure is certainly a Low-Cost Competitive Advantage, and is a very worthwhile method of value creation. We call this approach Cost Leadership. Cost Leadership can also be successfully deployed in a larger market segment as also in a niche market. 

Porter’s Value Chain

To understand – how the value is created within organizations, we must learn about the famous strategic management tool called Porter’s Value Chain (PVC). PVC works by breaking an organization’s activities down into strategically relevant pieces so that you can see a fuller picture of the cost drivers and sources of differentiation, and then make changes appropriately.

Primary activities in the PVC are the processes that do the ‘work’ to create the value that customers are paying for. These are summarized below:

  • Inbound logistics — These are all the processes related to receiving, storing, and distributing inputs internally. Your supplier relationships are a key factor in creating value here.
  • Operations — These are the transformation activities that change inputs into outputs that are sold to customers. Here, your operational systems create value.
  • Outbound logistics — These activities deliver your product or service to your customer. These are things like collection, storage, and distribution systems, and they may be internal or external to your organization.
  • Marketing and sales — These are the processes you use to persuade clients to purchase from you instead of your competitors. The benefits you offer, and how well you communicate them, are sources of value here.
  • Service — These are the activities related to maintaining the value of your product or service to your customers once it has been purchased.

Support activities in the PVC comprise procurement, human resource management, technological development, and infrastructure. These activities support the primary activities mentioned above.

Any business will have some version of each of these activities, even if it is just a one-person service company. This set of primary activities are the foundation for creating value as an organization. In the end, we must remember that without creating any value addition, we are not going to get into the profit zone.

No profits! Unless you create value… Read More »

Do what you love! #GreatMinds

/ Great Minds, Motivation

There are occasions in life when we tend to accept any assignment or job even if we do not have an inherent liking for it. We reason with ourselves that we must do it because we need to earn a living and make a certain amount of money every day, every week, or every month. However, a situation like this should not force us to always accept what comes our way. We must always strive for the best. By “best” I mean something that you love, a work that you enjoy doing, something that sets positive vibrations in you and above all it excites you!

My life has taught me this, and I preach it with great gusto:
 
Love what you do till you find out what you love to do. Once you have found out your true love, put all your efforts and energies into it, and life will transform into bliss!

Here’s what Albert Schweitzer, French-German polymath, theologian and physician, has to say:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

Do what you love! #GreatMinds Read More »

Is your business customer-centre? #GreatMinds

/ Business, Great Minds

We all know the importance of customer in business – the customer is important to all types and all sizes of businesses. The customer is one boss we all must try to please – he pays our salaries, meets our daily needs, puts our children to school, pays our medical bills, and provides several other amenities to us so that we lead a happy and comfortable life. Customer service starts with the ability to listen to the customer and find out through polite questioning what he/she needs or wants. Customer service and contact with a client mean that the customer will be heard, and his/her problems will not go unanswered or ignored. It also means getting to know your client, his/her likes-dislikes, ideas, background, etc.

Here’s what Bill Gates, American business magnate and co-founder of Microsoft, has to say on customer centricity:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

Is your business customer-centre? #GreatMinds Read More »

What makes a Great Business Organization?

/ Business, Management

Your assessment and choice of the workplace and/or the organisation you associate with will impact the chances of your eventual success in a significant manner.

As we all know – an organisation is a group of people who come together voluntarily to pursue a common goal, have a hierarchy and follow a set of rules. Today, in this post I shall focus upon business organizations only – these could be trading, manufacturing, or service organizations from any domain or vertical of the industry. The central theme of today’s post is to discuss the factors that make an organization a great business organization – to do business with, to join as an employee, to associate as a partner/director, or to collaborate in any other manner, whatsoever.   

This has been a contemporary topic and a lot of published information is already available from secondary sources. The internet is also inundated with such articles. Most importantly, we all know about the existence of a Global Authority – Great Place to Work® engaged in creating, sustaining, and recognizing High-Trust, High-Performance Culture™ at workplaces. Every year, this institution is partnering with more than 10,000 organizations across 60 countries and helping them build a great work culture for their employees.

A great business organisation will strive to build cross-functional teams that work together to design the right people practices. Such an organization will promote the concept of a diverse and inclusive workplace and build a high-trust, high-performance culture. It goes without saying that working at such a company will provide you with unparalleled opportunities.

Leaving aside the in-depth theoretical analysis of a great place to work, I am trying here to build a framework that can be used by all young students aspiring for a new job, young executives aspiring for a better company/job profile, senior professionals, and entrepreneurs who look forward to create suitable forward linkages with great organizations in their larger business/professional interest.

YOUR CHECKLIST IS HERE:

THIS IS THE LENS THROUGH WHICH YOU CAN EVALUATE COMPANIES WITH WHOM YOU WANT TO ESTABLISH A PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP. IN FACT, DURING YOUR INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS WITH YOUR PROSPECTIVE COMPANY, YOU CAN RAISE SEVERAL QUESTIONS FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST TO ENSURE THAT YOU HAVE COLLECTED ALL NECESSARY INFORMATION RELEVANT TO YOUR SITUATION.

  • Read about the company and the business group to which it belongs, about the founders, whole-time directors, and senior management members of the company. Check the track record of the company – how it has performed during the last 5 to 10 years?
  • What is their operating philosophy, value system, ethical core? What kind of respect do these people command among their customers, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders including society and the Government?
  • How are the corporate management and corporate governance practices at the company? You can glance through few annual reports of the company – particularly the Director’s Report and Auditor’s Report to know the truth. Learn about ethical practices and CSR initiatives of the company. 
How is the company’s ethical core? Is there an effective leadership pipeline?
  • A careful examination of the annual report of the company may give you a lot of idea about the future programs, projects, and investments of the company. It will tell you about growth prospects, portfolio planning, upcoming collaborations, and much more.
  • Assess the leadership potential in the top management. How do people in the senior management take care of executives and supervisors in the middle and lower management levels? Do they build leadership pipelines to develop and train future leaders from within the organization?
  • It may be worthwhile to check the important financial parameters and ratios from the balance sheet of the company to understand the liquidity and financial position of the company.
  • You must look for Sales Volume, Sales Value, EBIDTA/Sales Ratio, Cost of Production, Net Profit, and Cash Flows in particular. Other important parameters and ratios where you can focus your attention are the Current Ratio, Debt/Equity Ratio, Break-Even Point, NPV, IRR, and others. 
Take a look at the company’s financials, pending litigations and its reputation.
  • Besides financials – also look for the other perspectives like learning and growth opportunities, internal business processes, and customer-centric initiatives of the company. These three perspectives along with financials as mentioned earlier will give you a complete idea about the performance of the company.
  • Is the company regular in complying with the requirements of various statutory and regulatory authorities? Also, try to find out about the pending litigations against the company and legal suits initiated by the company. You may have to exercise special care and find such information tactfully. 
  • Are HR practices in the company conducive to the growth and development of employees? How does HR contribute to developing a learning culture in the organization? Does the company have an effective Knowledge Management System (KMS) in place?
Are the HR practices of the company conducive to employee growth?

An exhaustive exercise like the one presented above may not be necessary in every case. You may expand or contract the scope of this exercise depending upon your specific requirement.

If you are a young person wishing to join a company as a trainee or junior employee, your concerns will be different as compared to a person joining at a senior position with fat salary and larger responsibilities. Both of you will have to deploy different lenses to do the analysis. Likewise, an entrepreneur will have a different perspective on this analysis.

However, one thing is important irrespective of the fact that who is doing the analysis: It must be doubly ensured that the company we are going to associate with is fair and honest to all its stakeholders and further that the company operates from an ethical core. 

What makes a Great Business Organization? Read More »

How important is financial control to you? #GreatMinds

/ Business, Great Minds, Motivation

Use budgets to do effective planning and control. You can deploy budgetary control with advantage for all aspects of your business – like production, income, capital and operational expenditure, revenue, and others. The process comprises – setting goals or targets, performing, measuring performance, comparing performance with targets, finding out deviations (feedback), and initiating suitable corrective actions.

Here’s what John Maxwell, American author and speaker, has to say:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

How important is financial control to you? #GreatMinds Read More »

Managing your finances and relationships #GreatMinds

/ Business, Great Minds, Motivation

If you want to live a very comfortable and satisfying life, it is extremely important that you manage your personal finances very well – be it your earnings, expenditures, investments, and risks. This apart, you must also work on your knowledge management (learning orientation) and relationships (networking) skills. Develop a conducive eco-system which supports your personal and professional goals.

Here’s what Warren Buffet, American investor and business tycoon, has to say:

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Let me know in the comments section.

In this ongoing series #GreatMinds on my blog, I am shining a spotlight on the important ideas that some very successful people keep talking about in their public life.

Managing your finances and relationships #GreatMinds Read More »

Choosing a business partner: Mind over heart?

/ Business
Photo by fauxels on Pexels.com

Let me start with an anecdote (*names changed):

When Abhishek* was a young man in his late twenties, he engaged me as his professional consultant and mentor for his dream project. He wanted to start his own business as a first-generation entrepreneur and had been working on his business plan for the last few months. For the most part, he had already decided on several critical parameters of his project. Although one issue kept giving him pause: he kept rethinking whether he should do the business all alone or should he involve co-promoters/business partners? 

Abhishek had put this idea across to me many times: He dearly wished for one of his college friends, Mohit*, to join him in this start-up as a co-promoter. They were very good friends at college where they were pursuing their MBA. They were also roommates in the hostel. Abhishek generally spoke quite highly about Mohit. He was impressed with Mohit’s extensive contacts and networking abilities, his resourcefulness, and his technical as well as managerial skills. Abhishek would often passionately back up his friend and talk to me about how they will make a wonderful business team. Together, he added, that they could each provide their business with the necessary inputs needed to run it effectively.   

I was neither in favour of nor against Abhishek’s choice of opting for Mohit as his co-promoter. But then I was not endorsing the way Abhishek was analysing the situation. I was sceptical. Abhishek was trying to take an emotional decision without undertaking any structured analysis of the situation. With his best in mind, I wanted to alert him to all the pros and cons of the situation before he takes the final call on such a vital aspect of his project. 

The story of Abhishek is not an isolated one. It is all too common.

In my decades of experience in dealing with businesses and entrepreneurs, I have come across so many young men and women who are excited by the idea of starting their businesses in collaboration or partnership mode. This is neither right nor wrong, but one must proceed with caution. The entrepreneur must be convinced about the reason for their choice.

Let’s think aloud about this for once:

What is the need of having a partner? Why can’t you manage your business alone? I would argue that all the resources—physical, financial, human, or informational— can be bought with money. There are advisors, consultants, functional experts, and professionals adept at technology always available to provide you with necessary support. What does one truly need a business partner for?

Photo by Marcus Aurelius on Pexels.com

This person you are enjoying eating dosas with, discussing money-making ideas in the canteen, may or may not have the tenacity to make your ideas real together!

That person you are sharing a smoke with next to a tea-stall, solving imaginary business problems, may or may not be able to support you when you face a real crisis!

They may be a great intellectual soundboard but does it translate well into a joint partnership?

What is expected of a co-promoter or partner?

One may look for a co-promoter/partner for reasons like – building up the equity base, pooling the knowledge/expertise, fulfilling promises with friends, emotional reasons, coping with frustrations in business, and moral support. Inviting reputed professionals, consultants, domain experts as members or invitees on the company’s board and/or committees is something entirely different and should not be mixed up or confused with joint ownership. Whatever be the reasons for such an association, you must understand the point of view of your co-promoters, partners/directors, and act accordingly.

Do you share the same entrepreneurial vision? Will they make the same level of effort?

Partners/directors who hold a minority stake in business tend to ditch the main promoter during difficult times (when they are needed most) and walk away consoling themselves that it was a bad investment for them.

It is necessary to ascertain whether such partner(s) or director(s) are sharing the entrepreneurial dream and/or vision of the main promoter and are willing to make necessary sacrifices or simply interested in the venture as an investor. Partners/directors who are inducted into business must either bring in equity/quasi-equity and/or some complimentary technical or professional strength. 

Importantly, the organization must get the benefit of functioning under the umbrella of a competent and stable top management. This objective is defeated when the chosen director/partner sits at the fence, and acts only as an “investor,” disengaged with the actual work of running the business. They may end up giving an impression of their involvement in the functioning of the organization but not really commit their time and effort.

How to guard against conflicting self-interests?

My observations are that when the business is being handled by two or three co-promoters (as partners or directors) who share equal stakes – the situation may be more acceptable. In such cases, it may be a good idea that the management of the company may be entrusted to a COD (Committee of Directors) instead of a single person heading the company as Chairperson/Managing Director.

Further, to secure the business from being jeopardized because of issues among partners/directors and to ensure the trouble-free working of the organization, the main promoter should insist that a suitably structured memorandum of understanding (MOU) defining the role of the incoming partners/ directors is signed and executed. The MOU should clearly spell out possible exit options if any partner/director decides to exit from the business at any point in time for whatever reasons.

Remember – if we want peace, we must prepare for war. All this must be done after seeking necessary legal advice.

Incompatibilities between cofounders start unfolding with the passage of time.

Some of the typical incompatibilities include:

  • The reason they have teamed up is simply that they were in the same class or they were part of the same cricket team.
  • They have never spent significant time with each other outside the familiar setting and thus have not seen how the other handles stress and operates in a variety of environments.
  • They have not considered each other’s values and motivations carefully enough. These are likely quite different.
  • One or both co-founders have no experience in the market.
  • While one is committed and immersed, the other just likes the idea of being “part of a start-up”.
  • Instead of working from mutual and complementary strengths, the entire reason for the union is based entirely on the insecurity of having to go for it alone.

So, are partnerships doomed to fail?

Of course not. There are plenty of success stories out there in where founders who were friends have successfully kept their business and personal spaces separate and thriving. But there are some qualities that successful co-founders usually possess:

  • There is shared motivation.
  • They have complementary skill sets.
  • They have shared values and mutual respect.
  • They have deep loyalty and friendship.

The moot point is that you really must know the other person deeply. You both must be self-aware and understand how important the relationship is and be mature enough to handle the inevitable disagreements with great professionalism and understanding.

Remember that if you both want what is best for the company, you’ll always find a way through.

Choosing a business partner: Mind over heart? Read More »