2013 - The year of excitement!

From the last 3 years I have been writing my thoughts about the year just ended and plans for the time ahead on the new year day.  2010    2011    2012

Every time I set a theme for the year ahead and try my best for the rest of the year to live up to it. For last year it was “Action, action and action!” Indeed what a wonderful year I had! filled with actions both small and big…

I feel the year, 2013 is going to be the year of Excitement! Excitement for me, for people around me… It is not only because in another few days I am going to get married to a wonderful girl with a blessed smile and with ultimate love and caring…

This year I will turning to 29 and they say 29 is the year of innovation – I am excited for this too 

Excitement will also be for doing just the few things amazingly well! And making few people feeling WOW!

New Year Musing 2012!

This year's resolution:
Action, action and action...

2011

2010

The dream, the reality and in between… World Cup 2011!

I was born a year after India won cricket world cup for the first time in 1983. From the days I got to know about cricket in my childhood, I had a dream to watch Indian team lifting the world cup. In a country like India where we breath, drink and eat cricket, it was not a dream of just an individual, it was a dream of more than 50% of Indian - who were born after 1983 and a great desire of the rest. In short, an aspiration of 1.2 billion people!

Defeat after defeat in all the world cups after that made us frustrated and bitter, but we didn’t loose hope. And then came the world cup 2011. We always had great players in our team, this time we have a great TEAM with not a charismatic but a magnificent captain. The team did not appear like a world champion form the first match, but they improved their performance in each match they played.

And came the final after another two spectacular wins in quarter final and semi-final. The opposition gave India a very decent target and made a welcome to Indian Batsman with an outstanding bowling attack. It didn’t take much time to dismiss the panic striker, Sehwag and the hallmark of Indian cricket, Tendulkar out of the ground. Then appeared a void. I know many switched off their TV. Some of my friends in Facebook updated their status message during this period:

“Guys I going out for shopping, anyone wants to join me ?????????????”

“Can't loose hope...now m sitting at the farthest corner to the screen and peeping into...”

“I m not able face it. Today might be my last day following cricket . God save India . May be my last post on FB”

Suddenly a dark picture appeared in front of my eyes – semi final of World cup 1996. The same opposition! Tendulkar got out and the rest of the team collapsed like a house of cards in Kolkata. It was really a scary situation, but did I mention before, ‘we have a great team’?. Indeed! ‘No, this can’t be repeated’, replied my heart. I couldn’t resist to update my status message in Facebook, ‘”We can!!!”. What happened in the match in next three hours is the history. Then followed the grand Six by Dhoni. Unbelievable – We were all screaming, jumping… The wait for 28 years is over! It felt like I am in an early morning dream – I just prayed, ‘Oh God, even if it’s a dream, please please don’t let my eye open…’. In fact it was not a dream now, it’s the reality! A much cherished reality for more than a billion.

Cricket World Cup 2011 is another milestone of shining India! The team India lead by the captain did a superb job through out and set a new standard of excellence for rest of we Indians.

Thank you so much great Indian cricket team! We’ll live up to the standard set by you, but now the celebrations and extravaganza would continue for some time .    

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“What’s on ur Mind?”, Ask ur friends…

You want to try a new restaurant,  buy a new camera or planning for another holiday trip or simply want to read trust worthy news about recent Japan disaster. Who can suggest you the most reliable information?

Of course, your friends. And you find your friends in Facebook. So, 'millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day' and they used to do as their status updates and get answers from their friends as comments. Not anymore, because Facebook launched the product Questions couple of days back to make 'questions easier and faster to answer'. The beauty now is that it’s not only your friends but also friends’ friends can answer and suggest you options.

“For more unusual questions, you can get advice a broader group of people, but to keep it most relevant we filter the answers to show you first what your friends think. You can see more responses by clicking ‘others’ within the question.”, Facebook published in their official blog post titled, “The Wisdom of Friends (and Others Too)”.

Like any other FB products it has been getting famous from the time of its release. Two hours after it got announced I wanted to try it and the picture of the top is the question that I asked my to friends.

The effect of Facebook Questions, I believe, will have a big move towards Social Shopping. While Facebook wants to be a hot bed for social commerce, this move would give its user a recommendation engine. Unlike Amazon, it won’t use sophisticated algorithm but the power(wisdom) of friends and their friends… 

This week TechCruch reported, “8thBridge, a company that helps retailers and brands bring shopping to Facebook, has raised $10 million in new funding led by Trident Capital, with Split Rock Partners participating in the round.” It is just a small instance to explain the trend.

Well, you may not agree with me. No problem! Go to Facebook and ask a question. You will realise as you harness its power .

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iPad 2! iPad 2! iPad 2! I want one too!!!

And I stole the Facebook status  message from one  of  my friends’ for the  title of this post as  the Apple  CEO,  Steve Jobs  anticipated it right - “2011: Year of   the copycats?” while unveiling the ‘iPad 2’. 

Last year, Apple launched iPad and had  a tremendous success with 300K  units sold in the very first week  and around 15 million units so  far. Many were amazed because of the scale with which it penetrated the market – it was much beyond the number, the analysts had predicted for the total size of the tablet market.

Often new products and innovation create new market, so did iPad do so last year? I think otherwise – they just spotted the trend and exploited the untapped market. And they did it much like the way they did it for iPod and iTunes spotting rising demand of digital music and success of illegal music share site Napster. There were MP3 players before iPod and netbooks before iPad. And also we had laptops and smart phones. ‘So is there a room for third category of device…?’ asked Mr Jobs during unveiling of iPad for the first time last year.

And the picture in the right is straight from Steve Jobs’s presentation last year.  The opportunity was a heavy need for the things as identified by him as ‘key tasks’. One of the reasons for creation of such need as I think is the availability of Wi-Fi and 3G networks everywhere. So he came up with a device which was ‘far better at some things’ with some incredible battery life and coolness of any Apple product. The rest is history and iPad was a hit from day one. 

How about iPad2 then? The key tasks had been accomplished, so where is the room now?  “2011 is going to be year of copycats…if we did nothing…” is how Jobs started his keynote speech two weeks back while introducing iPad2. Indeed there is a series of tablets lined up to be released this year. And the technology research firm Gartner is forecasting sales of 55 million tablet computers worldwide this year. So Apple is again ready with a better product than iPad – a complete redesigned with double the speed, lighter, thinner and with a cool smart cover. While the competitors are not yet able to catch up iPad, iPad2 is ready in the exactly same price range. "Competing tablets to the iPad are poised to fail, which is why we're forecasting that Apple will have at least 80 percent share of the US consumer tablet market in 2011" – the research firm Forrester’s forecast is easily understandable. 

So I did not hesitate copying the status message of my ex-classmate (who is now a MBA student in a reputed US university) because he was rightly echoing the current consumer voice.

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A macro Market Analysis of Indian Healthcare

With a growing Indian economy and multiplying middle class Indian Healthcare and Well- Being space appears very attracting. According to McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) 13% of the every household spending would go to healthcare and medical services market itself would be of 6,941 billion Indian Rupees (~ $154 billion) by 2025¹.


Indian Healthcare and well-being market space can be segmented in following way:

Domestic Healthcare Users

With 80% spending by private sector domestic healthcare users avail medical services like hospitalization, surgeries, and visiting doctors’ etc¹⁴. Although there are big healthcare providers in cities and there are also a number of small and medium providers. The latest trend in this space is retail healthcare. Currently with 40 million potential urban users, 4-5 % of total retailing (estimated to be US$ 700 billion¹⁷) contributes to healthcare with major providers pitching in this space⁶.   

Medical Tourism

McKinsey & Company estimates that Indian medical tourism alone will grow to $2.3 billion by 2012 (from US$ 350 million in 2006)⁹. As India provides low cost medical services patients across the globe (majority from west) fly to India and the current traffic rate is growing 30% each year¹¹. India can also be a worldwide hub for alternative treatment and Yoga with its rich heritage¹⁵. All most all medical tourists search internet before they take any decision²⁵.

Health Insurance

In the years 2002–2007, health insurance premiums increased five-fold from INR 6.75 B to INR 33 B (approximately $800 M). As per IRDA database in 2008 itself 3 million policies covered 24 million users which show that only 14% of the population is insured⁴. According to Boston Analytics the market is currently expected to reach INR 200 B (approximately $4.4 B) within the next five years⁵. The latest trend in this sector is retail health insurance where providers targeting to sell to individuals instead of through employers¹⁸.

Well-Being Space

With increasing income of middle class which itself is multiplying there is a huge unorganized market in well-being space as people are being more and more health conscious. There is an increasing trend of life style and chronic diseases.  According to recently published report by Boston Analytics 52% of respondent got engaged in work out programs and 42% changed diet in last 12 month⁵. The middle class is also being active in personal and beauty care. According to a BBC report⁸ “the Indian whitening cream market is expanding at a rate of nearly 18% a year. The country's largest research agency, AC Nielsen, estimates that figure will rise to about 25% this year - and the market will be worth an estimated $432m, an all-time high.” This, itself shows the potential of this market space. The wellness sector is poised to grow at a healthy rate of 19 per cent over the next five years with certain segments such as spas, beauty salons projected to grow at over 35 to 40 per cent⁷.

In this huge and fast growing market space there is also a targeted segment for a ‘Health and Well-being internet portal’ where users can avail necessary health and well-being information, collaborate with the providers, compare and buy related services and product from the providers. Stay tuned!

NB: I prepared it in around April 2010. For sources of information please find the first comment.

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Kya Paya Kya Khoya

A decade has passed. So it is the right time to take a holistic view and assess ‘Kya paya kya khoya’ – What I gained and what I lost in this decade.

Exactly 10 years before this time, I was busy preparing for 12th board exam. My 12th result was not that great. Then I was screened out in IIT JEE, screened out at SSB, Bhopal for Naval College of Engineering, Lonavala. Luckily, I joined engineering in CET, Bhubaneswar (the then best engineering college in the city) and it is the time I started my entrepreneurial dreams – started working with a start-up while I was in early third year of engineering, made my first income (a thousand rupees a month) while I was in first year of engineering by tutoring couple of 12th class students and then continued teaching and earning during most of my engineering days, launched first web site while I was in second year of engineering in 2004 January which I am still proud of but it’s a shame that I did not continued. I joined a job in 2006 and continued there till I prepared to migrate to UK in 2009.

Looking back at the decade, I can conclude that it was a decade of mediocrity. Nothing I did or achieve was that outstanding – neither study nor work. But, I dared to dream and I’ll continue doing that! For this decade there would be no place for mediocrity. I could not make it to IIT – fine! I told myself, ‘if I would go for masters then it would be such that any IITian would respect it’. It is one of the dreams of last decade to be full filled in this decade.

The best achievement or moment of pride of the decade came sometime in March 2006. I was teaching a course (preparation for campus selection) to a group of ITER (a reputed engineering college in Bhubaneswar) students. I was trying hard so that all the students would get selected by the first company visiting them. Sooner or later all the students got placed by some company or the other, but most of them made it to the first company and few of them were also the best performers during the selection process. The best moment was when I got the news – it’s an extraordinary feeling when you see things shaping up and finally getting realised and more than that when you see people achieving. You actually touch life when you help people achieving and when you empower them in some way or another.

I had many learning in this decade. I would mention a couple, which I feel, the best: ‘When you try to visualize the bigger picture the current state of problem fades away!’ How I learned and applied it may follow in another post. And the other which I learned very recently at B-School is: ‘Entrepreneurship is all about what you know, who you are and whom you know’.

Last year I set the theme for the year as ‘Thinking big’ which I followed to certain extent, at least while making decisions. For this year the theme is ‘Small is beautiful’.

I had been lucky more than once in the decade. I would mention couple of ones: I passed out as an IT graduate in the year 2006 which was the best year for Indian IT Industry till that time. Again I landed in UK in 2009, during the period when it was worst hit by recession. It was my good luck that I managed to get a job despite of that within a very short span.

It would be unfair if I forget the abundance of love and affection, the extent of help and support I enjoyed from the people in and around me, from the friends I made and from the relationships I cherished. With that gratitude I welcome 2011 and the new decade.

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Mission Statement

London Business School required me to write down my mission statement to get enrolled for its Entrepreneurship Summer School program. So here it goes:

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

-- Excerpt from the book ‘The Monk who sold his Ferrari’

By Robin Sharma

Mission

I am passionate about India and Indian marketplace.

Emerging India is enjoying a high ride with its growing middle class but still a portion of its population suffers acute poverty. I am a staunch follower of late Prof. C.K. Prahalad and the paths shown by him.

I want to serve 300 million destitute people, the so called bottom of the pyramid of India profitably bringing some fundamental and enduring change in their lives for future.

But to begin with, I find it wise to start serving the middle class which encompasses enormous potential and in the process slowly and steadily penetrating the rest, the bottom of the pyramid.

Being educated and worked as a techie till now I understand the power of internet and believe in its potential.

The means to achieve the mission as I believe is ‘Empowering through Knowledge.’ And the internet is the right weapon for this.

Health and well-being is a fundamental right to every citizen, in fact every human being and I want to empower each with giving him/her a choice for every health and well-being need.

Ultimately, I want to touch millions of lives within my life!

Aspirations

I am a dreamer and ‘Thinking Big’ is the mantra. I believe in my dreams and in realizing them. As an entrepreneur I can’t relinquish without being a household name in the market I’m serving. Having said that, for me ‘being a mother is more important than recognition of motherhood.’ The journey is the reward.

I want to make big money for myself along with creating value for the society.

I want to initiate the idea, bring it to realty and hold it till it gets matured and sustains growth by itself and then move on to probably creating new value or to bring new change.

As quoted in the beginning I want to make my life meaningful at the end of the day so that I can die happily and peacefully. Everything is a plan and a step towards that.

Risk Propensity

I believe that struggle is part and parcel of life. I always stretch myself outside the zone of comfort to cover that extra mile and I’ll be doing so for rest of my life. I am single as of now and I’ll make my future family considering this fact.

I have already left my permanent job and now on the payroll of my own Ltd. Company. When it comes realizing my dream I can go to any extent.

Risk of loosing control of my business never bothers me as long as it’ll add to value creation and growth.

Why I want to join LBS

I want to go to one of the best places to shape my dream. London Business School being one of the best B-Schools in the world and its track record of nurturing entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Summer School program here is the ideal place to offer me the right direction and adequate support to fill the gap between the idea and the implementation.

If you have got similar mission and aspiration, I am definitely waiting for you!

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Internet Penetration in India 2.0

She is Dengirma, the 57 years old housemaid. She has been working in our house in the village for ages. My grandma says, "she has been working for our family since she got married and came to our village some four decades ago."

In the age of retirement she also works in couple of more houses, cooks for mid-day meal program in the village school and manages to get old age pension of Rs.200 (~ $5) per month under national widow’s pension scheme. All these combined fetch her roughly 8500 rupees annually which is equivalent to half a dollar a day.

Dengirma is not alone in her family. She has a family of 6 to support. She has a son (who occasionally works), daughter-in-law and 3 grandchildren. A life seems to be a curse.

My village is one of the many villages in the Kalahandi district in the state Orissa. The government reports say that Orissa is the poorest state in India and Kalahandi is one of the most poorest and backward districts in the state. That really does not matter. Dengirma represents 300 million people who live below poverty line, the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ in India.

Few months back, in one of my postings in this blog I boosted about the internet penetration in India. But how does that make any difference to Dengirma; the educated youth accessing internet in mobiles, emergence of social networking and many more? Her life revolves around arranging daily meals and fighting with diseases and debts.

We as a nation have made enormous progress in last 60 years and we indeed are proud of it. But how has the life of Dengirma changed over the period? Has it changed really?

Let me not sound like a hopeless communist. What we have failed as a socialist nation can be achieved by emerging technologies and the open market.

Recent Mckinsey report says by 2025 India would be 5th biggest consumer market in the world. It also argues, ‘as Indian incomes rise, the shape of the country's income pyramid will also change dramatically. Over 291 million people will move from desperate poverty to a more sustainable life, and India's middle class will swell by more than ten times from its current size of 50 million to 583 million people’.

Yesterday I had news in the Economics Times which literally threw me out of my seat and made me to dance. It implicates that the wireless broadband is going to be revolutionized in this country and some have started speculating that the wireless broadband connection is going to reach 100 million in next 5 years where the current net claimed internet users are 71 million and only 1.3 million wireless broadband connections.

Well, again all these do not matter to Dengirma. What it does matter is that the day she uses internet for her use directly or indirectly would see the real internet penetration in India. That’s the benchmark. I would call it internet penetration in India 2.0.

The good thing is that the process has begun.

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Doing Well by Doing good

It is a true-story I read in Oriya literature book while I was in class 3. It not only inspired me in my tender age, it sets a direction for me to explore today.

 

It was during 19^th century and there was a famine in Calcutta. Poverty and hunger was at its epitome. There were huge numbers of beggars on the streets.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was rooming around a street in Calcutta. A thin, malnourished boy came in front of him and begged,

“Sir, I have not eaten anything for days. Can you please give me a paisa, so that I can get some food out of it”?

The kind-hearted Vidyasagar paused there and asked the boy,

“What if I would give 2 you paise?”

The boy appeared happy and replied,

“I would buy food for me and for my mother.”

“And if I would give you an ana …?” (An ana is 6 paise and was available during British India) Vidyasagar continued.

Now there was smile on the boy’s face. “I’ll buy medicine for my mother along with food as she has been ill for long.”

 

Vidyasagar was happy to find the boy’s concern for her mother but, he did not stopped, “What, if I would give you 4 anas?”

 

Now the boy was blushing. He folded his hands and pleaded, “Sir, please don’t make fun of beggars”, he couldn’t believe someone giving 4 anas to a beggar those days.

 

Vidyasagar in his characteristic simplicity explained the boy that he was serious. The boy began to think and replied, “After buying food and medicine, I’ll buy some fruits with rest of the amount and start selling in the neighborhood.”

 

Vidyasagar seemed very impressed and gave the boy 1 rupee (i.e. 16 anas those days) and went.

A year passed. Vidyasagar was walking on the same street. An enthusiastic boy came and requested him to visit his near-by shop. Vidyasagar followed and found a beautiful fruit shop. The boy offered him some nice fruits from the shop. As Vidyasagar offered him money in returned, the boy now in tears, stood in his knees with folded hands and said, “Sir, I am the same beggar you helped with 1 rupee a year ago. I am now the owner of this shop.” The boy was wordless in expressing his gratitude towards him. The loving Vidyasagar took him in his arms and embraced.

It makes me wonder, ‘Was it another charity by Vidyasagar that day?’

No, it was not. That day, he ignited the boy’s imagination and invested in his potential.

Today, the 300 million hungry Indians, the bottom of the pyramid need this, what Vidyasagar did to the boy more than a century ago.

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Two Learnings from my Childhood

As usual there was power cut in our village for that evening. We two brothers were having fun near the kerosene lantern and my father lying on a bed beside. Probably I was in class 3 and my brother in a class lower. We were having a nice time chatting, teasing each other and of course making noise when my mother entered the room. Hardly anyone gave her a notice.

“What are you two doing here”, screamed my mother, “Isn’t this you study hour?”

We two brothers still undeviating continued in our childish activities. Now she turned to my father and said, “Why don’t you ask them to study?”

“What’s the need to study?” replied my father mischievously.

“Then what’ll they do in their future if they don’t study?” Now my mother was irritated.

My father paused for a silence and replied candidly, “Banijya Vasate Lakshmi.” (Business ascribes to the wealth)

From my childhood I hated someone asking me to go and study and in that sense any instruction. Now I was bit excited as the situation seemed not forcing me to the book. I turned my head to him.

My mother got angry considering the whole effort rubbish and walked out murmuring something only audible to her.

But my father continued justifying his saying, “Can’t people survive without studying higher? See, the Marwaris in the near by town, how they have set up their own shops and how well they earn. ”

Though that day my father just said something which probably he himself neither believes nor implements in his life, it was a new tree of thoughts started seeding in my mind.

In a salaried class family like mine to do anything other than study is next to sin. The only mantra taught to every child from the birth is to study harder and harder, get higher to higher degrees and ranks and get well paying jobs.

As I grew, I started observing Marwari families and friends. A boy or a girl in a Marwari family is not forced to study books. But from the childhood they learn the art of buying and selling, the skeleton of any trade. Education for them has a different meaning, not like degrees in families like mine. Over a period of time I have developed enough love and respect for the Marwaris.

The phrase ‘Banijya Vasate Lakshmi’ is as fresh and promising for me today as it was that evening. Today I know why America in the world and Gujarat in India is the richest.

The other learning was from my mother. Till class 5 I used to stay with my parents and for what ever reasons she used to say me, “Tui jaha bi karbu nije eika karbu.” (In western Odiya language that means: Do what ever but, you have to do it yourself. That implies ‘Be independent’.)

If she still remembers her teaching she must be regretting a bit today as she feels I’m extra independent for her :-) .

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My take on life

One day when I was about ten, my grandpa called me and asked pointing to a squirrel in the yard, “Grand Son, can you see three white lines on its back?” “Yes”, I responded curiously, “why are there three white lines, dada?” (We call our grandpa, dada). And he started his story grabbing a chance.

Many many years ago Bhagavan (The God) Sri Ram went to Lanka with his army of monkeys to rescue Mata (Mother Goddess) Sita from the evil king, Ravana. As he marched towards Lanka, he faced the biggest obstacle as he had to cross the sea to reach Lanka. And it was decided to make a setu (the bridge). The army got into work to build the setu.

Monkeys were busy bringing sand and stones, trees and whatever they got and throwing into the sea. The work was on full swing. As it was not so easy to bring about the setu, everyone was tirelessly putting their efforts. While overseeing the process Sri Ram saw a funny thing. He found one little creature, a squirrel going to and fro to the sea water. As he observed closely, the squirrel was rolling on the sand and then immediately making a dip in the sea water. He was doing it without making any rest.

Sri Ram went to him and asked politely,

“Oh’ little creature, what are you busy with?”

“O God, I am helping building the setu”, replied the squirrel.

“How?” the God was curious.

“Every time I roll on the sand and gather some sand and then go and dip in the water to put the sand in.”

Sri Ram was very impressed with this noble effort, took it in his hands and caressed on its back. The God’s three fingers touched its back and marked three lines. As per the legend all the Indian squirrels got three white lines from that day.

My grandfather explained me that the three lines symbolize the God’s (the nature’s) acknowledgement to the noble effort.

Though I listened and enjoyed the story many times from my grandpa, I as a child could hardly make out “Why the little squirrel was doing so even though no one asked it to do so?”

Years later when I was in engineering college, I read a book called ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ and I realized the purpose of life is a life of purpose. The quality of your life ultimately comes down to the quality of your contribution.

Now I got my answer. The squirrel was doing so to make its life purposeful and meaningful. It was doing so to add meaning to the life by making efforts however small it may be.

For me, life is perfectly symbolized by a candle. It has a short life. But that does not matter. It adds value to each moment of its life by burning itself and giving light, however small to the universe.

I decided to write this blog after reading a thought provoking post by one of my friends under the same title. You may go through this wonderful post in the following link: http://mukulmittal.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/my-take-on-life/

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