meek-investor

The words "appalling" and "airlines" are synonymous in the language (allegedly English) spoken in the US of A. It wasn't that way some time ago. Pan Am was synonymous with "wonderful", as long as it flew. It was THE airline in the US. Unfortunately it went bankrupt in 1991. But the brand is still powerful amongst a certain generation (not comprising readers of this blog !). Those with a taste for nostalgia, which prompted this post, click here  . No amount of vitriol can be considered excessive when it comes to US airlines. All of them are uniformly awful. Extreme masochism can be the only excuse for condemning somebody to a flight on an American airline. The worst airports in the world are all in the US. From the moment you enter to check in, to the time you get out at your destination, it is pure torture. Inside the US, you have no choice but to reconcile to extreme pain, but it beats me as to why anybody flies long haul in an US airline when other o...

Many journalists pursuing new online initiatives are learning that good intentions are not enough for providing news. The latest group to do so is former Rocky Mountain News reporters who started rockymountainindependent.com this past summer using a membership payment and advertising model. The effort collapsed Oct. 4 with them telling readers, “We put everything into producing content and supporting our independent partners, but we can no longer afford to produce enough content to justify the membership.” There problem is hardly unique. The conundrum facing many journalists is whether to pursue the noble work of journalism as unpaid charitable work or to become engaged as journalistic entrepreneurs with a serious attitude toward its business issues—something many despised in their former employers. If journalists want pay for their work, if they want to provide for their families, and if they want to pay mortgages, they need to spend more time figuring out how to provide value that wi...

As publishers move more and more content to the Internet, mobile services, and e-readers, these digital activities change the structures and processes of underlying business operations. Many publishers, however, pay insufficient attention to the implications of these changes and thus miss out on many benefits possible with digital operations. This occurs because publishers become focused on issues of content delivery and uncritically accept the fundamental elements of the processes involving platforms and intermediaries. In order to gain the fullest future benefits from the digital environment, however, publishers needs to strategically consider and direct activities involving the users, advertisers, prices, and purposes of their new platforms. In creating business arrangements with platform and service providers and intermediaries, 4 fundamental strategic principles should guide your actions: 1. Control your customer lists . The most important thing you do as a publisher is to create ...

Moreh is a border town between Burma and India in the state of Manipur. If you go there, you'll hear a strange language spoken - Tamil. When Indians were kicked out of Burma some 50 years ago, many Tamils who had settled there began the long walk back home. Some came all the way back. Many decided to just cross the border and stay there. Hence the Tamil in Moreh. At the other end , the famed Grand Trunk Road once stretched all the way to Lahore. And you could go from there to the Khyber Pass. Undivided India stretched all the way from Burma to Afghanistan. Today we are a divided race. Split into half a dozen countries which don't see eye to eye with each other. What a tragedy. One of my most memorable trips was the one I made to Pakistan about four years ago. Its not easy for Indians to go to Pakistan, as its not easy for Pakistanis to come to India.  When the opportunity came for me to go there, I grabbed it with both hands.  I could go only to Karachi - visas are city specif...

Oil on the boil again, screams the headlines in India’s Economic Times. Or as our wonderful little friend Chotu might say, Obil Boil . I am certain that his words were prescient and not just a child’s lisp of mama’s olive oil. Crude oil prices have touched $80 a barrel. The US dollar has continued to weaken and since oil prices are globally stated in US dollars, they are bound to rise further. I argued that the world must get ready for expensive energy for the foreseeable future here , but governments have lost a golden opportunity, when oil prices were low consequent to the recession, to prepare their citizens for the coming times when oil prices will be in 3 digits. This has profound implications for the whole world. Firstly inflation will inexorably rise. The risk of inflation in the near term is the highest, with two huge factors contributing to it – the price of oil and the stimulus money that governments have spent. When oil prices rose last time to the peak of $147 , we had rio...

You normally associate business leaders with high intellect, sound judgment, and in general, greater ability than many of us, mere mortals. Then I read this front page report in today's Guardian in the UK. I had promised to myself that I'd stop writing about either bankers or Goldman Sachs after my last two posts on the subject. But what can you do when somebody makes a speech like that. And where does he chose to make these remarks ? In St Paul's cathedral, no less. If you know of any greater act of appalling judgement, please let me know.

It was a veritable barn-burner of a show on October 14th at The Business! That is not to be confused with a barn-raiser, which connotes a successfully comedy show in the Amish community. Instead of churning butter, the audience churned with laughter. Instead of scorning technology, we used microphones to provide amplified sound. And instead of a bunch of guys with beards standing around and talking, our show had performances from Alex Koll and guest star Kyle Kinnane. Sean Keane began the show discussing his childhood speech impediment, his illustrious career as a teenage musical theater performer, obscene phone calls, writing fake letters to the newspaper, and finally, how his dad started kissing him hello and goodbye at age 51. Truly a moving and unsettling set. Alex Koll followed, delivering a preview of his hosting gig the next night at the SF Weekly Music Awards. ("7:30 - Arrive. 8:05 - Introduce yourself. 'Hello. How's it going?'") He also explained t...

What happens when the interests of the shareholders do not coincide with what’s good for the company ? Ordinarily there should not be any conflict – the company should have no interests of its own other than the interests of its shareholders. In the capitalist model, the interests of management or the employees – doesn’t matter; they operate solely to safeguard and promote the interest of the shareholders. But once in a while a situation crops up where its not so clear cut. That’s the position with Carrefour today. Carrefour is the second largest retailer in the world after Walmart. It is the most international of the retail chains – Walmart for all its successes in the US has not really shone outside. Tesco, another giant retailer is a relative newcomer to the international arena. Carrefour has been the truly successful international retailer – it came to Brazil in 1975 and to China in 1995. In the peak of the boom, a little while ago, a couple of investors, including some famous name...

Frivolousness on a Sunday is unbecoming of a serious business writer and therefore the idea of a light post is hereby being discontinued. Instead this is a learned treatise on buyer behaviour. The mere sight of an Indian lady getting ready to embark on a shopping expedition to buy a sari for Diwali, or a wedding, is sufficient to strike terror of the sort Osama bin Laden can never hope to achieve. Now, the unfortunate member of the male species who happened to have said “I do” in a fit of madness a long time ago, and who has to pay for it (pun intended), deserves our deepest sympathies. For he has to accompany the lady on this misadventure that is closely akin to walking with bare feet, and no clothes, in the depths of the Afghanistan winter to meet the aforementioned Osama to tell him on his face that he is a dandy. The destination for this expedition is usually T Nagar. There are equivalent locations in every Indian city, but let us stick to Chennai, for some of the most fearsome s...

Mr Lloyd C. Blankfein Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Dear Mr Blankfein, Congratulations on the stupendous third quarter results of Goldman Sachs, you announced yesterday. To achieve some of the best ever results in the firm’s long and distinguished history, just one year after its worst crisis, is a remarkable achievement indeed. We are writing this letter to make a humble suggestion for your consideration. As we all know, the financial crisis over the last two years has affected millions of people worldwide. We think you would agree that the financial services industry, and therefore Goldman Sachs, had some part to play in this. The United States government had to step in to provide assistance and guarantees to you last year to tide over the crisis. I would suggest that some humility and just a hint of remorse, might serve the bank well. Arousing public anger, however fair or unfair the anger may be, is not in the bank’s best interests. We suggest that y...

Last year, virtually the entire financial sector in the world went belly up. 12 months on, Goldman Sachs reports a quarterly profit in excess of $3bn . Yes 3 BILLION DOLLARS. In one quarter. Profit Goldmans is the one bank everybody loves to hate. But even by their standards, this is something. The last two quarters have seen the highest quarterly profits in their 140 year history. Now, the economics I have been taught in college was that there is a positive correlation between risk and reward. If they have made such profits, they must have taken wild risks. Just a year after coming within an inch of annihilation, only a complete lunatic would take such risks so as to make this mind boggling profit. Or else, the economics I was taught is wrong. In the post meltdown world, there is easy money to be taken. Without taking undue risks. So the reward for bringing the world so close to an abyss, is to be able to make unbelievable money by just being around and counting the cash; and the r...

Business Leaders who can see far far ahead are an extreme rarity. Usually a business leader’s definition of long term is the next quarter. Occasionally, there comes a business leader who plans for the next couple of years. Rare is the leader who sees decades ahead. Two such examples are the subject of this post. The surprising thing is that their names are completely unknown – I don’t think there are more than half a dozen people who’ll even recognize their names. After all, business has short memories and business history is virtually an unknown science. As a demonstration of this, can any of you recall who was Jack Welch’s predecessor at GE – he was a titan in his own right; honoured with the title of the Businessman of the Decade; but who remembers him now. Back to these two men. One was the Chairman of this famous company in India , a subsidiary of a global company headquartered in the UK. He was chairman only for three years or so until ill health forced him to return back to th...

This is not trick question and it is being increasingly asked as public broadcasters grow larger, offer multiple channels, move into cross-media operations, and increasingly commercialize their operations. The Federal Communications Commission will have to consider that question shortly when it considers the effort of WGBH Education Foundation—operator of WGBH-TV, the highly successful Boston-based public service broadcaster—to purchase the commercial radio station WCRB-FM. WGBH is the top ranked member of the Public Broadcasting Service in the New England and produces about one third of PBS’ programming. It operates a second Boston television station, WGBX-TV, and WGBY in Springfield, Massachusetts. In addition it operates FM radio stations WGBH (Boston), WCAI (Woods Hole), WZAI (Brewster), and WNAN (Nantucket) and is a member of National Public Radio and Public Radio International. It operates two commercial subsidiaries involved in music rights and motion picture production. This mo...

Wed October 14th marks the return of our most frequent guest, Hari Kondabolu! Officially known as the "Fifth Businessman", Hari never fails to deliver the word-goods on the stage-place. Get your tickets here: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/ 83854

What does a business do with social media ? While a trillion words have been written on this subject, not much light has been shone, I submit. Businesses are still struggling with what to do. Take the example of Twitter. I will straightaway confess that I am not a fan of Twitter. I don’t tweet (the more appropriate phrase should be “twit”, but because of the unfortunate connotations of that word, we’ll let it pass). But I dodged my Net Nanny ( no surprises, its blocked here) to look at what business leaders and businesses are doing here. Here are some actual tweets (admittedly I was selective about what I picked) Richard Branson (Virgin) * Looking forward to the cricket today; Come on England * I do love Monaco this time of the year. The Prince is such a gracious host to the world of sport Jack Welch (needs no intro)  * Kennedy celebration of life was impressive * Beckett has had a brutal scary week – 8 home runs Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook – I thought he should know a thing or two abo...

The mysteries of fashion were never intended to feature on this blog – it having some pretense to address the weighty matters of the business world. But completely flattering comments went to my head and I converted the Sunday post into a somewhat irreverent one on less weighty matters. Matters sartorial crept in here because of numerous girlie tags that addressed the famous question – what are you wearing , in all earnestness. Last week was a tough one and the good doctor has prescribed a large dose of humour and a solid rant as a remedy. But it must take a seriously unbalanced mind to tease the female of the species , as I am about to do. But what the heck; I need a rant; so here goes. Of all the dresses in the world that the fair(er) sex are obsessed with, the hijaab is surely the most awful one. The second most awful contraption has to be the salwaar kameez, especially in an office. Now, Indian women have two real options for formal dressing – the wonderful sari, which must rank...

Outsourcing is a big and growing industry, in which India, and now China have major stakes. What started off as IT outsourcing quickly spread to a number of traditional areas – call centres, finance, HR, etc and then to exotic areas – children’s homework, tutions and the like. I have a passing acquaintance with this industry but I had not even dreamt of the possibility of surrogate child bearing as an industry. I read this report completely gob smacked with a mouth wide open. It’s a longish report, but for those not intending to read the whole article, the “industry” goes like this – if a couple cannot have a child because the lady is unable to conceive for whatever reason , there are a number of options open to them. They can get a donor egg or use the lady’s own egg, The sperm can be from a donor or from the husband. A surrogate is hired and the in vitro fertilized egg is implanted in the womb of the surrogate who bears the child. There is, obviously, a cash consideration for the s...

This is festival season in India. Traditionally the season when Indian families tend to buy stuff that they neither need nor can afford ! The new two wheeler. Or maybe even the car. The new fridge – all the goodies in life that adorn showrooms the Ponnuswamy family passes by daily. But , much as they might like to have it, they don’t have the money to pay for it. Cue to the wonderful world of financial innovation. Apparently the flavour of the season is what is called “zero finance scheme” ( with the obvious grammatical fallacy that if there is zero finance, there is no finance - why is it that these days I spot too many of them ??) Sir – we have a zero finance scheme. No interest at all sir. Whatever is the cost of the goodie; you can pay in 24 easy installments. And see sir, no interest – total of your installments is the same as the cost price. Please sign here sir. Now one of the blindingly obvious things that the human mind finds extremely difficult to grasp is that there is no fr...

The recession has been brutal for many businesses, but perhaps none more so than small family run businesses. In the land of entrepreneurship, the United States, about 90% of all businesses are actually family owned and run; mostly small businesses with less than 20 employees. The mom and pop store, the restaurant round the corner, the self employed consultant. They have been the massively affected as this article lays out . This blog is not meant to be chronicler of the world’s woes, If the last couple of posts have left you thinking that way, its not meant to be for long. But its just that we, as the fortunate few who have jobs intact and can continue to take care of our families, perhaps ought to reflect more on what the less fortunate are going through. What family businesses have faced is a sudden steep fall in demand, complete drying up of credit and no robustness to weather such a storm. Any well run company will find it difficult to handle this, as is very evident these days. ...

France Telecom’s deputy CEO resigned yesterday after considerable criticism of the company over its handling of a spate of suicides by its employees. There has been a worrying number of suicides by employees in France Telecom . More than 20 of them over the last 18 months. While suicides are often triggered by a complex set of issues, work related stress seems to have been a major cause of them. Its an incredibly sad story , but a reflection of the modern day work environment. France Telecom has been brutally restructuring. Some 20,000 people have lost their jobs in the last three years. Sudden staff transfers from one place to another seems to have been regular. The management culture also does not seem to have been supportive. Painful decisions involving the staff have become inevitable in modern day business. In the sanitized environment of the boardroom, the decision appears logical. Tough choices have to be made. The staff affected become a faceless mass and often just a number. B...

The United States is well known for the excesses of its lawyers. Citizens of other nations, while marveling at the upholding of the law in the US, are left scratching their heads in bewilderment at the famous McDonald’s case or the Washington DC laundry case . Cases like this have resulted in some labeling gems such as “Contents Hot” on a cup of coffee or “Remove the baby before folding the pram”. This post covers such an impact on the glamorous world of accounting. When lawsuits against companies began mounting in the late eighties and early nineties, companies started to become extremely careful in disclosing any information at all, other than the statutory minimum, for fear of being sued. Best to say nothing ; say your name ( presumably safe) and say nothing more. The powers that be, in the US, realized that disclosure of more information , especially plans and strategies would be good for investors . In order to encourage companies to do so, some protection against being sued had ...

Women normally beat men by a mile when it comes to sartorial extravagances. Witness the one standard question in each of the one million girlie tags that float around in the blogosphere and that are thrust upon unsuspecting men ! What are you wearing ? God ! Especially as the answer getting a little too close to the truth might be a lungi and a banian. And yet, if there is one fashion accessory that has been completely appropriated by the men , leaving women totally vanquished, it is the blasted necktie. The contraption, officially translated in Hindi as kanta langot. This abomination has unfortunately become standard business wear. I have no clue why. Don’t men realise how ridiculous a strip of cloth hanging from the neck, and attempting to constrict the life of out them, looks. Especially, in a hot country like India, where what you really need is the circulatory powers of the aforementioned lungi. And yet they willingly submit themselves to the torture of a necktie day in and day o...

Are some sectors of business activity more "noble” than others ? Pure capitalism is completely agnostic in the softer emotions. But humans are not “pure”. They have emotions. So it is , but natural, that they rank some spheres of activity as more noble than others. Show me a human being who’ll say that being a real estate agent is better than being a teacher. It is rare, but sometimes you come across something you read that perfectly matches with what you have been thinking at the back of your mind, but never expressed. For me, The genuine nobility of manufacturing by Luke Johnson was a light turning on moment. Here’s an excerpt from the article that perfectly captures a nagging doubt I’ve been having “In almost any country, dealing in property, shares or companies will likely lead to riches far faster than running factories to produce the goods we all need. I would love an economist to explain to me the flaw in our system that leads to this far from ideal outcome. Most intelligen...