Scar on Chennai

An outsiders,having no knowledge of the local language expresses its feeling of Chennai's notorious auto drivers.

"The Chennai auto driver is unique: he identifies your weakness, and then lunges for your throat, cuts off all links to reality, chokes every last penny out of your pocket, and leaves you shaken and rattled at your destination (hopefully). Exorbitant fare demands, an unwillingness to help you out with conversations in an unfamiliar language, and through roaring city traffic, a ride that can be rougher and tumbler than the most rough and tumble roller coaster anywhere in the world! "

"The Chennai auto driver has truly mastered the art of being the one scar in an otherwise a brilliant city's side."

On the other side one fine morning i was reading a statement from police commissioner of Chennai in newspapers , “Auto rickshaw fares will be revised soon”. The first reaction on my face was, "What the HELL". I don't know what fare she was talking about, is she so unaware about the city's life.I did not realise that through the black glasses they are not able to even see anything. I do not see any auto rickshaw fare policy in Chennai as in other metropolitans. Fare meter installed in auto rickshaw are just a show piece. I was reallly surprised how we are going to know that fare has been increased, it means that now they are going to rig more, they will legally given authority to rig. You may never know in the next election there will be a promise from the government for that,land of freebies afterall.

Look how they operate the rigging at Chennai central , Pre-Paid taxi counter .I have traveled four times by a prepaid taxi and every time I got a new fare from them, that too in a span of two months before petrol price increase. Lets see how do they estimate the fare in prepaid counter. One traffic policeman will be sitting inside the counter and one person will be standing outside. Once you go to the counter the person standing outside will tell the figures and person sitting inside will write and give you the coupon. But do not feel lucky if you get a coupon , you may not get a auto or you may be required to wait for an hour to get an auto because all drivers are busy bargaining with customers who will pay them double the money you are going to pay. I think hardly anyone is going to wait for an hour to get an auto and end up paying double the amount entered on their coupon to get an auto without wasting their time.

Chennai is a metro on papers, chennnaites should open their eyes , remove their black glasses and see it as it is and accept the reality that it is far behind.

If someone reads it and feels bad then please don't shout back at me, shout with me to make chennai a friendly place for everyone to live a peaceful life.

Banning the Cola War

Colas are on a tightrope , dealing with a different kind of enemy which is haunting them for a long time in india.
Is it justified to make a hue and cry to ban colas? i don't know and i am not authorized to pass the judgement too. Let the indian court of law take care of this.
But one thing that is haunting me for a long time, why colas always dragged into such kind of controversy in India. Are they supplying inferior quality of products in india? Why pesticides level in colas in india is more than other western countries ?
Reason can be many, may be they are not bothered about the indian public, may be they think that indians are less educated.
This is where they are defeated, indians are less educated. We go by others' words, we do not have our own opinion,we normally hijack the opinions.
How does indian colas have more pesticides westerners ?They are not producing pesticides or adding one as an ingredient.Obviously it comes with the other ingredients and in this case 'WATER' is the culprit.
Indian potable water is highly polluted and it carries a hell amount of pesticides with it, that goes in everything wherever you use this water, including colas.
I am not trying to prove here that cola companies are innocent , ofcourse they are not. They were not bothered about so many quality checks before putting a bottling plant. One of them to check the standard of potable water at that place , and now they got to suffer.
What is the solution for this? Do you think that by banning colas we will not have pesticides in our life ? Wrong, A BIG WRONG, these politicians are on votebank buying spree. You will never have such a condition.
You need to do something else for that. You need to improve the water quality that will come by discouraging the use of pesticides for harvesing, improving the waste management, encouraging the organic farming.

Until then we need to enjoy the pesticides laden fruits, vegetables, water and ofcourse Colas. Amin !

Have a look on some of the case studies written by me.

Published at www.ecch.com

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AT TATA STEEL

Abstract:
In the late 1990s, Tata Steel began to introduce knowledge management (KM) initiatives in the company. It started with a small group of people from within the organisation. The group formed a 'knowledge repository', where all the employees shared their experiences and knowledge. One year after the knowledge repository was formed, the company formed 'knowledge communities', which was a platform for like-minded people to meet and share their experiences. In 2001, Tata Steel developed a 'KM index' to evaluate the performance of individual employee in the KM initiative. Later, it linked performance evaluation to KM and used a balanced scorecard to monitor the performance of individual employees, divisions, as well as the organisation as a whole, in KM. All these initiatives of Tata Steel seem to have paid off; in early 2003, Tata Steel was recognised as one of Asia's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE). It was the only steel company in the world to have received the MAKE award. The teaching objectives of the case are: (1) to study how the knowledge present within a system can be harnessed to yield major benefits to the organisation as well as to the people within it; (2) to understand the importance of matching new initiatives with the behavioural and working motivations of people in order to obtain better acceptance of these initiatives and greater benefits; (3) to analyse the role played by communities and communication processes in an organisation, and how the development of social capital can help attain the larger goals of the organisation; (4) to examine the importance of recognition as reward and how it can motivate people to perform better; and (5) to understand the barriers in the sharing of knowledge and to see how these barriers can be overcome. The case is meant for MBA/PGDBM students and is intended to be part of the knowledge, information and communication systems management curriculum.

Link:http://www.ecch.com/casesearch/product_details.cfm?id=20628&adv_search=1

MAHINDRA AND MAHINDRA'S E-BUSINESS INITIATIVES

Abstract:
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) started its e-business initiatives in 1995. e-Business started with the launch of a dedicated network across 8 manufacturing locations, 33 area offices and 4 branch offices. In June 1996, M&M launched its website mahindraworld.com, which was one of the first corporate websites. In 1997, it decided to implement ERP (enterprise resource planning) and selected SAP R/3 as its vendor. By 1999 it had become the world's largest SAP site implemented on Windows platform. In 1997, M&M also started its Intranet initiative 'Mahindra connect'. It has been used as a knowledge management tool for disseminating information among employees and shop floor workers. In 2000, M&M extended the Intranet to three websites dedicated to suppliers and dealers of the automotive and farm equipment sectors. In the same year, it started CRM (customer relationship management) and SCM (supply chain management) initiatives, which helped in analysing customer buying behaviour and product development with the help of data mining tools. In 2001, M&M entered the used car and real estate business through the launch of websites like automartindia.com, propertymartindia.com and officemartindia.com. All these initiatives seemed to have paid off and in 2003 M&M's farm equipment sector won Japan's prestigious Deming award. It was the seventh company outside Japan and the first tractor company in the world to receive this award. The teaching objectives of the case are: (1) to study how e-business can be formally initiated in an organisation and how it can yield major benefits to the organisation as well as to the people within it; (2) to understand the implementation of ERP and its benefits to an organisation; (3) to analyse the role played by websites in disseminating information and how they help in communicating with stakeholders; (4) to understand the importance of information transfer and how it helps in changing the business process of an organisation; and (5) to understand the importance of e-business in product innovations and customer satisfaction. The case is meant for MBA/PGDBM students and is intended to be part of the information and communications systems management curricula.

Link:http://www.ecch.com/casesearch/product_details.cfm?id=20636

These case studies can be previewed at the links given and can be purchased online.