Inter-cultural screw up

If the recent posts have been a little acidic, that is entirely due to the state of mind of yours truly. I have been busy working on a Japan project and the cultural nuances have driven me up the wall.

For one, hai doesn't mean yes. It's not a no, it's not a maybe, it's not a yes so what the hell is it? Well it's just a noise that is made to show that the words coming outta your mouth have reached the ear drum of the listening party. Nothing more. Anyone who assumes anything more is in for a rude shock.

And in Jap-nglish, every action has a however attached to it. Pronounced "Howaibal", this is used to qualify every single statement. For example, Tom is an excellent guy howaibal he's a serial rapist. This company makes very shitty products "howaibal" they are Iso 9001 certified. Chuck is the top scorer in the league "howaibal" he cannot hold a baseball bat. After you listen to several paragraphs of these "howaibals", everything dissolves into a giant mush of grey. No black and no white just black "howaibal" white.

A few weeks of this and I am wondering how do people make any decisions in such a completely "howaibal" society?

Ok, I need to go take a leak now "howaibal" I feel a giant turd coming.

PS: On a serious note, a shout out to R and P for the good news. Congratulations :-)
PPS: I just realized that two of my fav couples are P and R , R and P so just to clarify, the congratulations are for R and P.

PPPS: Ok so there are just too many Insead couples with the initials P, R. Mea Culpa, the congrats are for Pee Are and R.

Everything in life fits in a 2x2 matrix

I have been thinking a lot recently (yes I do think-for those of you skeptics out there) of how business schools and their graduates are perceived.

For those of you who took Global Strategy and remember the 2x2 matrices, I have put down my thoughts in an easy-to-read format :-)

So every school sells their graduates as A- smart as a whip, team-players. The professors know that the students in their classes are not team-players-they are obnoxious as hell. But, they do hope that in-between the sexual orgies in the French chateaus and champagne drinking in class, these students develop some basic skills and are reasonably competent i.e. they are B.

What the outside world sees are straight C. Absolutely delusional losers who think they are top management material.

PS: There are no "nice fools" in business school. Well maybe in the faculty-but those don't count do they?

Bio diesel start-up offers franchises for US$2 million

An amazing little start-up called Xenerga (www.xenerga.com) in the US is experimenting with an innovative business model for bio diesel and is getting a lot of press coverage.

With an investment of $1.95 million for a franchise, which mostly goes to facility construction and installation costs, franchisees are supplied with waste cooking oil to use as a feedstock, a 5-million-gallon-a-year plant and at least one customer lined up to purchase the fuel.

The plants are designed to be smaller in scale than typical biodiesel plants and serve only local markets, making them less expensive to operate. Only a two-person team consisting of a general manager and operator or driver is needed to run the plant, according to the company.

The first plant will open in Orlando in December and the company is planning on 40 more in the U.S.

You have to hand it to entrepreneurs-while big companies talk and talk about alternate sources of energy, here comes an amazing innovative idea out of a start-up.

India to look at FDI limits in retail

A day after Wal Mart announced its entry into a JV with Bharti, India's commerce ministry has announced that they would like to look at the deal-
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/624780.cms

With the leftists raising a big hue and cry over possible loss of employment and the huge impact on neighborhood stores, this was bound to happen. I only wish they don't push Wal Mart away completely.

As my negotiation professor used to say, instead of thinking of every negotiation in terms of a pie with one party trying to get a bigger share than the other, you should look at creative ways of expanding the pie.

So how could they expand the pie. One idea that immediately comes to mind is that the Indian government could force retailers to source locally. This will give a huge boost to Indian manufacturing. If everything that Wal Mart and others sell in India comes from Mexico, Philippines and China, India will lose out big time. In India, approximately 40 million people are employed in the un-organized retail sector and a big chunk of this sector is going to be wiped out due to the entry of giant retailers. The best way out is to generate employment elsewhere.

Over the long-term, if Indian suppliers manage to get themselves embedded in the Wal Mart supply chain and do well on metrics like quality and relaibility, they could potentially get access to Wal Mart globally.

So I hope that this is treated as an opportunity and used to its full potential by the Indian government. And there's plenty of them lining up-Tesco, Carrefour, K Mart who knows-there's after all, a fortune to be made at the bottom of the pyramid in India.

PS: Since I royally screwed up my final exam on negotiation and scored my lowest grade on this elective, maybe I am not the right person to be offering advice on this situation.

Wal Mart and Bharti start retail venture in India

CNBC and Bloomberg were abuzz yesterday with the news that India's Bharti and Wal Mart are planning a retail joint venture in India. Bharti will handle the front-end of the business while Wal Mart will handle the logistics and supply chain. Total investment is expected to be $100 million or thereabouts.

The total size of India's retail market is 300 billion US$ and this is expected to increse to 427 bn US$ by 2010. So the pie is large and attractive. However, the Ambanis are also investing 5.5 billion US$ in also setting up a retail venture and the Birlas also planning a similar venture. So the amount being invested by Bharti pales in comparison to the competition.

Let's see how the game plays out. Bharti is planning to roll out the first store by August 2007. With all three of India's smartest business minds and Wal Mart in the fray, this is going to be one hell of a fight.

PS: So now, the unemployed youth and the retired elderly will be able to work as "greeters" in giant retail stores. I can almost see them in their blue uniforms- "Welcome to..."

A Crude Awakening

Excellent article from five Stanford professors on energy independence-
http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2006/novdec/features/energy.html

The dollar declines

Pundits have been predicting the demise of the dollar for a while now. Lower housing starts they claim are predicting the end of the US housing boom. This will significantly impact the economy and the Fed will have to ease rates next year to stimulate growth.

The second and ever popular argument used is the negative trade balance. Cheap imports from China being especially to blame. The trade balance should be a negative 750 billion or thereabouts they say.

And the final argument is that robust growth in the EU and the UK will lead to better investment prospects there and the ECB will be raising rates for a while to contain inflation. All in all, it looks pretty bleak for the dollar doesn't it? It is now at a 18 month low and predicted to continue a steady decline against the Euro and the Pound.

However, these same pundits have been proclaiming the death of the US economy for years. Despite what they say, the US continues to be the engine of the world's economy. Not only that, I don't see any decline in the number of bright, smart people who wish to study in top US universities. Yes, there have been job losses in recent years due to offshoring of low-skill tasks and artificially cheap imports from China but in the total context of the US economy, these are insignificant. Despite being so large, the US economy continues to grow and produces ample jobs to ensure that the unemployment rate is among the lowest in the world.

Will the dollar lose value. Yes. But let's not get overly-dramatic ladies and gents. There is zero chance that the dollar will no longer be used as the world's reserve currency. In fact, I see more problems for European and British companies. Their goods and services are already uncompetitive with those from China. Now, they will become less competitive even with the US.

Indeed, the dollar would quote Mark Twain and say that -"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated"!