It was the year 1948. A supermarket executive approached the Drexel Institute of Technology, Philadelphia to get a technology that could encode information about its products. Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland, two graduate students, took the challenge. Woodland dropped out of school to concentrate on this. He sat on the Miami beach that winter. He dragged his fingers in the sand. He got the idea of a series of different lines of different widths that functioned like elongated versions of the dots and dashes of Morse Code. In other words, a bar code. The man who gave us barcodes expired on Dec. 9, 2012.
Author: Shabbir Chunawalla
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Jaws : Hollywood Blockbuster
Jaws completes 40 years in June, 2015. It was a Steven Spielberg movie. In the story, a marine biologist, a police chief and a fisherman search for a man-eating white shark who has made life hell for the people of Amity Island, a fictional island. They had to hunt this predator. It won three Oscars. The movie led to three sequels. Jaws 2 (1978 ), Jawas 3D (1983), and Jawas the Revenge (1987). Jaws equals the Exorcist as far as fright is concerned. Much of the film is non-sensical but it is a good deal of fun. It inspired a series of other movies such as Anaconda, The Deep, Alien, Tentacles, Deep Blue Sea. Alien is Jaws in space. Spielberg named the sharks ‘ Bruce.’ American Film Institute places Jaws at No. 2 after Psycho. At No. 3 is the Exorcist. In the list of the greatest American movies prepared by AFI, Jaws is ranked 48th (2005 ). A quarter of the film is shot from water level to give the feeling to the viewers of being in water. In terms of the highest grossing US films, Jaws is ranked seven.
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Vision Statements
Once considered written in stone, market realities are forcing the leading companies to opt for relevant and dynamic vision statements. They are revisited and they have a shelf life. They have become less esoteric and more relevant. Companies expect their people to own the vision statement. The statements contain achievable goals that people can identify with. These are not handed down to employees as commandments. The whole process has to be inclusive.
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Iconic Super Cars
Ferrari Italian super car. Ultimate symbol of luxury.Constant at F1 circuit. Owned by Fiat.
Buggati Volkswagon group makes it. Most expensive car. Does not participate in Formula 1.Top speed is 407 km.
Lamborghini Rival to Ferrari. Pioneered the mid-engine rear-wheel drive system — a benchmark for super cars. Owned by Volkswagon.
Rolls Royce Rolex among cars. Phantom or smaller Ghost models. It is BMW subsidiary since 1999.
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Dimitri Lafiandra, Metodo Rossano Ferretti Salon
He is 45-year old hair-stylist. At the salons, regulars spend upwards of Rs 20000. Ferretti has set up a salon at Gurgaon. The bill starts at Rs 50,000. The brand is known around the world for its method cutting. The principle is that each strand of hair has its own structure and movement. With sensibility and care, the designer treats each strand in its own way in order to achieve the most natural effect. the whole process is so smooth for the client that it would feel as if ‘the scissors do not exist,’ But the scissors are there, of course, the hand-made ones costing $1500 a pair which come from Tokyo.
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Swift : Apple’s Computer Language
Swift, a new computer language, has been introduced by Apple in 2014. Prior to that, Apple used Objective C, a language developed in the 1980s. It has how been called verbose and clumsy. However,it is still used more widely than Swift. Swift has been taking rapid strides, and if its popularity continues, it could mean a migration of the programmers from Objective C to Swift. The applications would be developed using Swift for iOS devices. Swift is good for safety. It takes lesser lines in coding as compared to the previous iteration. LinkedIn’s Slideshare, a document sharing service has adopted Swift. The language uses more processing power. Swift itself is evolving and this is a period of watching it grow.
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Hepatitis C Patent
The Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) has revoked a patent granted to Roche for Pegasys — a medicine used to treat Hepatitis C. This is done as a follow up on appeal filed by Sankalp, an NPO, challenging the rejection of its post-grant opposition against the patent by IPO in 2009.
The drug was patented in India by Roche in 2006. Patients with chronic Hepatitis C need a six-month course of Pegasys (pegylated interferon alfa2a ). Its cost is over Rs 4.36 lac ($8,752). It is to be taken in combination with ribavirin, which costs Rs 47,160 ($947).
This is the first post-grant opposition case in India. The Board also held that a patient’s group can challenge the validity of patents granted earlier.
The entry of generics will lower the prices.
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Ability to Notice
A person who comes at the top from a technical field is focused, but may not notice the critical changes around him. The environment requires scanning in terms of opportunities and threats. The Actuals is the novella authored by the Nobel laureate Saul Bellow where the team ‘ first class noticer’ has been introduced. Max Bazerman has further elaborated on this concept in The Power of Noticing : What Best Leaders See.
Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology, conducted an experiment with two basketball teams — one in white shirt and the other in black. The players were asked to count the number of passes made between the players in the white. A woman with an umbrella walks through the middle of the basketball court. Few people watching the video see her, as they were focussed on the passing of the ball by the team in white. Dan Simons, his student, replaced the woman with a gorilla. Most people watching the video did not notice the gorilla. This is inattentional blindness, or bounded awareness. Literally we see, but we do not see. In many cases, leaders ignore the information that is not visual. Enron and Satyam boards could not see the vital information.
It is necessary to bifurate the business if auditing and consultancy, as there is conflict of interest.
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Valuation of E-commerce Start Ups
Start ups in the e-commerce space attract huge amount of investment. Is it a case of too much money chasing too few companies? Some fear that there could be a crash just like the one the dot.com companies faced in 2000.
Most start ups have been bench-marked against those in the US and China, and unless some disruption occurs in the environment there, there is no fear of the valuations tapering down. Indian start ups have scaled very fast. The issue is whether these investments will fetch healthy returns or not. Many global funds, especially the hedge funds have limited exposure to the Indian digital market. The global capital inflows, therefore, will insulate India from the adverse effects. As long as there is liquidity in the market, the valuations are justified. And the exit environment must be supportive.
These e-commerce entities have been valued at 2-3 times their Gross Merchandise value (GMV ). Most retail companies are valued at 1x their sales. These e-commerce companies are growing fast — say 200 per cent. Why can’t we value them at 2x.
The problem is with their business model — heavy discounts, selling below cost, negative goose margin. Valuations are based on too much future assumptions.
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McDonald’s
It entered the business in 1995 by setting up joint ventures with two partners-turned-franchisees Hard Castle Restaurants and Connaught Plaza Restaurants.
McDonald’s India is growing fast and plans to expand its outlets from 275 in 2012 to 500 by 2015.
They adopted a policy of glocalization — bring in its expetise in supply chains and restaurant operations from abroad and combine it with local requirement and culture.
The products and pricing for India were specially designed. They did not allow items with beef and pork. India is the first country to do so. Except fries, beverages, sandwich and the Filet-O-Fish, there is little in common between an Indian and a US outlet.
They practice here ‘ branded affordability.’ Some items on the menu cost Rs. 20. They focus on safe food and one-minute service. They focus on cost reduction.
McDonald spent six years and Rs 450 crore to set up a supply chain in India well before opening its first outlet.