Just about a year back, we had a pretty shitty (pardon my french) corporate website. Since my hands were full with setting up FooStor, I did not look at anything else. And all was wonderful, some time after that, a blogger, wrote a post on his blog about how sad the website looked.
Tag: foo
Picture > 1000 words
Vanity Brands
We were having a team lunch … the four of us, Manish, Mayank, Ranjith and myself. One of the rare occasions these days when all four had a free time slot in the middle of the day. So, sitting at Eat Street, Hyderabad near the Hussain sagar lake, having fast foods like the rest of urban India. As I reached for the Subway Cookie that I had bought, Manish remarked that I could have bought an entire packet of biscuits at 60% of that cookie’s price.
While the others were laughing, I informed him that the utilities in both the cases are different. In case of Hide&Seek, the utility is value-for-hunger, in case of a Subway Cookie, its more or less Vanity (well actually its not vanity, but I just like them). But then we got into a discussion where other well known brands are often flaunted for vanity. There are so many of them … Ferrari, Mercedes, Maybach, Apple, Tommy Hilfiger, Rolls Royce … effectively all brands that could be used as a status symbol.
Mondays
Can’t live with them, would love to live without them!!
Need I say more … sigh!
IIM Jobs
No, I am not job hunting. Atleast not yet :)
But I came across this great site. Its iimjobs.com
Its a portal for all job hunters or for those of us who want to know our market value, and feel good with that information. The site has a simple layout with all the recent job openings on top. Plus, if you are particular about one stream only, then you can browse through the job postings by specialty.
And the best part about the site is that you do not have to register to get to the content.
Kudos Tarun!!
Coming back to this post after a decade, and can say so much has changed about IIM Jobs. It has become one of our default sites to post jobs, and also refer to friends and family when they are hunting for opportunities.
In the start-up eco-system, I can see that founders are posting jobs for co-founders.
Business World
Theres a section of Business World which is Quick take, the question of the next week’s issue was posted to me via through a friend.
The Indian IT industry has several set backs –
- Lack real technology work – with around 60% of the work lying in the AMC and Testing (Support) bracket, there is dearth of scope for your average Indian techie to get their digits (pun intended) dirty in some concrete techie work.
- Project orientation – Most of the biggies in the Indian IT industry are service oriented, and more concerned with projects for foriegn customers. Their business orientation is towards projects, so much so that the entire organization bases its financials upon projects and their profitability. It may seem as a sweeping statement, but think about it, projects for the same client cumulate into an account. Accounts cumulate into a Geography. How this is bad is that there is no focus on IT products in the market.
- PPP of economies – How can one sustain themselves on pure projects alone? Esp. those that are based on a foreign economy. The moment the domestic economy starts doing better than the foreign economy (read those of the clients), the cost of the project rises (either for the firm or for the client). To remain competitive vis-a-vis other foriegn IT vendors, the indian firm will have to drop rates, losing profitability.
- Attrition – With an average attrition of around 15%, the costs of a project are constantly going up. Whenever a resource switches to a new firm, he gets a pay hike. A pay hike translates into more costs for the same resource. More costs without increasing revenues results in reduction of profitability.
That was my answer, I was a little surprised to learn that theres such a small amount of people who agree with me. No matter, it will be a good thing for India if I am wrong ;-).
Democracy
I just finished reading the sixth book of the Dune series. The story behind the plot is so esoteric that I do not want to divulge the details of the same in this blog … what is more interesting is that how the book sheds lights on issues like religion, governance and governance using religion.
If you decide to reflect on the same, then you will realize that there is some sense to it all. Right from our childhood, we have been taught that democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Is that really true … from school we come into real life all misty-eyed and full of ideals, then real life hits us with shades of grey and a despairing need of black and white.
The very leaders we adulated over, and voted into power, we know are of no good. The false promises that they make will be of no use. Thus, democracy itself is based upon and runs on mistrust. I do not trust my government, thats the whole reason for having an opposition party in parliament so that I have a double check on them.
The entire system is based layer upon layer of mistrust. The lower layer knowing and not trusting the higher layer. And surprisingly, it works!! Well, thats just democracy for you. What will heckle you further, is that when you think of a governing system which is hierarchical (like democracy) and is based on trust (rather than mistrust), then we have dictatorship!!
Funny, isnt it, whats good at an individual level, is not a necessary thing at a cumulative level? hmm…
