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In Mumbai again. Yesterday I went to visit a friend of mine in the evening. He had moved to a new place in Khar close to Khar Gymkhana. His directions were somewhat sketchy so we had to stop a few times to get directions. It got me thinking about how different asking for and giving directions was in India. More »
Infosys’s Mohan Babu’s 4 month old baby tragically died on a flight into India, just minutes before landing. The grieving parents are seeking answers from the airlines (Jet Airways) and the airport authorities. Link to the online petition can be found here.
Al Gore’s speech yesterday was noteworthy. America, he said, faces three big problems - the economy, national security and climate change - all three of them have the same solution - replace fossil fuels. He said that the US must set a 10 year target of producing 100% of its electricity requirements from renewable and carbon-free sources. More »
In my last post I described a framework to understand how individuals make switching decisions. Using this framework, let’s examine its implications for marketers of technology.
At the most basic level the framework says that to maximize the chances of switching you should maximize Switching Benefits, minimize Switching Costs and make Research and Trial really easy.
Maximize Switching Benefits
If there isn’t a compelling feature or two in your product that will get a large percentage of your target user base to check out your product, it won’t work. When you introduce a product, it is more important to focus on the Switching Benefits than on lowering the Sacrifice. If the Switching Benefits aren’t there, you won’t get enough people into Research & Trial. If the Switching Benefits are there but the Sacrifice is somewhat high, at least you’ll get the trials and perhaps some early adopters to switch. You might also get some parallel runs, where users use both products for a while. But most importantly, you will get feedback.
More »
Last week I switched from Windows to Mac. I have used a Windows computer all my working life and the switch was something I agonized over for more than six months. I wanted the performance, stability and design coolth of the Mac, but I worried that the switch would require me to learn a totally new OS. It would cause me frustration, loss of productivity and just plain wouldn’t work for somethings like demoing our Excel product which is not supported on the Mac. What eventually tipped me over was that a couple of weeks back Microsoft pushed an update down and Windows kept insisting that I restart the machine. I decided to restart 15 minutes before a demo to a prospect to avoid the reminders from interrupting the demo. Twenty minutes and a couple of memory reference errors later, it still hadn’t booted up. I had to reschedule the demo.
But this post isn’t really about Windows vs Mac. More »
Tags: Technologyfootnoted.org has a post highlighting a Risk Factor from the 10Q of Anworth, a company that invests in agency backed mortgage securities. Here’s how it reads
In the risk factors section of its first quarter 10-Q filed Friday, Anworth gives this warning: “In an effort to earn greater amounts of incentive compensation under their Employment Agreement[s], as our executive officers evaluate different mortgage-related assets for our investment, there is a risk that they will cause us to assume more risk than is prudent.” (Anworth has included a version of this disclosure in its filings for the past couple of years, but the latest Q throws in some new language about the structure of a certain bonus pool.)
Now its all great that Anworth is making full disclosure on what it thinks are truly its risk factors. But really, calling compensation policy a risk factor is like saying “Our management practices are deficient. And now you’ve been warned.” This begs the question - why don’t they fix the incentive compensation?
On the other hand, one can rightfully ask, why aren’t other companies giving “uncontrollable executive greed” as a risk factor? Its not like everyone else but Anworth has found the answer. The problem is far too deep set. It is a difficult problem to solve. I have written about this before as well here and here.
One of the topmost problems that the Capital Markets will have to solve as it digs itself out of the hole it is in is executive compensation. Disclosing it as a risk factor isn’t enough.
About a year ago, I had written about why offshore IT captives don’t work [link]. Now I hear that the companies that had set up captives in India are rushing to get rid of them. Except that there is a curious twist. They want to be paid to rid themselves of their mismanaged captives. More »
Tags: India IT ServicesWe’ve been working on doing some cool things with charting on our research platform. Thought I’d have some fun with it. Charts courtesy Google Charts API. Irrationality courtesy US Presidential elections.
Tags: Economics, TechnologyAs you will notice, 6AMP has a new look. The old theme worked well, but I was tiring of it. The new Wordpress theme is called Statement and is from Blogoh!Blog that I was happy to learn is now run by Jai Nischal Verma of Delhi.
The theme is clean and functional but easy on the eye. Migrating to the new theme required some work, but no major challenges. Had to figure out how to edit a psd file without having to buy Photoshop. GIMP did the trick.
I think I have everything working. Let me know if you find anything broken.
Tags: General Interest, TechnologyIndian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in an interview about India’s slowing GDP growth, to the Wall Street Journal says,
“We must aim at 9%, as I will, and we must be happy if it’s between 8% and 9%.”
This begs the question “Is he setting a goal for GDP growth for the country or is he managing expectations?”
A goal, IMO, is something that is ‘actionable’, i.e. you and your team can take actions which help you achieve that goal. Much like a goal in football, you can’t score one by just being on the field. More »
Tags: Business, Indian Economy
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