Too tempting to remain focused

I love the word focus. Unfortunately for me, the seriousness of this came pretty late in life and by then I was all over the place scampering for a share in the ‘me too’ market. And then, someone someday articulated the need to bring some ‘focus’ in life. Ever since that day, am relentlessly trying to integrate my initiatives to sharpen my focus. As an individual it’s pretty easy. Abhinav Bhindra, Sachin Tendulkar to name a few successful people wouldn’t have been where they are now without focus.
Moving over to the corporate jungle, can we recall a company that has a clear focus? Not many, heh! One would believe that organizations would narrow their focus in an intensely competitive global market where products get increasingly commoditized. A quick look at the Indian market would reveal that companies are diversifying, widening their focus to grab as much of the market share as possible. Coca Cola entered and diversified – from colas to drinking water to snacks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a ‘Coco Cola Hotel’ in future. Unilever - the only thing I recall of the company is its continuous endeavor in reducing the number of brands – amassed over the years chasing existing and non-existing markets. Take the example of Maruti. As a potential customer, do you have a clue of which car to buy from their stable?
The point here is as companies diversify, their focus on extending values diminish. Growth becomes a constant in all strategic plans – straining the management as well as the people on ground. The values promised to customers through various brands, values for employees, values for partners etc. In a world where, brands or for that matter companies disappear within days, it is important for companies to ensure that customers reverberate its values. Recall Lehman Brothers? What happened?
Going back to why I love the word focus. It’s only because it’s an all encompassing word for a company. Focus on people, focus on customers, focus on partners, suppliers, market etc. Everything else will automatically fall into place if the buzz word is focus within a company.

Consumer electronic cos getting disengaged

Sony, the electronics giant has over the years built an indelible brand equity amongst consumers with its compelling products-price-performance value proposition. Many of its products have aspirational value that the burgeoning knowledge workers in India would vouch. ‘You got a Sony Bravia, wow!,’ ‘a Sony VAIO – Oh My God!!!’ are common expressions amongst youth these days. The question is whether the company is living to its value proposition? Well, recent events clearly indicate a perception – reality dissonance.
One of my colleagues had a harrowing time chasing the service engineers to replace a part on his Bravia so that he could enjoy the ongoing Champions Trophy. He’s yet to get a response after three weeks. Yet another colleague was figuring out contact details of LG for mending a two year old washing machine. These can be dismissed as one off experiences. However, the intense competition in the consumer electronics market seem to be forcing companies to get disengaged from its ‘fans.’ Can we imagine Sachin Tendulkar snapping at a young cricket fan in public? Do big brands lose customer focus? Can they afford to? A restaurant where am a regular stopped offering customers tea as it curtailed the possibility of selling their money spinners – kebabs, shawarmas and fruit juices. As I sat for my regular parota, chilly chicken and tea, the server informed me about his boss’s decision but offered my regular tea nevertheless. That for me was a ‘wow’ moment. I still go there and binge on parotas and chicken sans the tea.
There’s a lesson for big brands from this. As the business get commoditized, the need for customer focus and service should only increase. After all, customers are increasingly seeking ‘wow’ moments.

Employees will drive IT adoption

Saddled with years of investment into IT, maintaining the same and now making the ‘cob-web’ of IT effectively work - CIOs of today have a humongous task. And, when each employee is seen as a cost-center, the proposition of ‘what’s in it for the employee’ becomes the focus while deliberating on next investments. ‘Employee’ will become the center of focus for IT purchase. And, no doubt, industry will soon be abuzz with ‘end-user’ adoption.
Google, Salesforce.com, Citrix to name a few are possibly aiming at this market – the oversold market - where ‘simplicity’ is the norm. The market will soon revolve around what the employees prefer. Are they bothered about servers? Storage? No, not at all. They are only bothered about finishing their work fast and leveraging applications that will enable them to efficiently undertake their work. Google launched an operating system centered around the web as the company saw an increasing number of people relying on the web to carry out their work. Salesforce famous for simplifying ERP and hosting the same on the web is another example. Citrix seems to be simplifying ‘virtualization’ by targeting employees with an effective desktop virtualization solution. All these companies are targeting employees/users in an enterprise.
As more and more employees pull out convenient applications from the web or the ‘cloud,’ there is no doubt that the market will revolve around powering these applications. Remember, how we use electricity for various purposes. Be it powering the refrigerator, geyser or microwave – all it takes is a switch. Do we know where electricity is stored? Now imagine every employee as an equipment – refrigerator, geyser etc. IT should be able to power these equipments, i.e, employees. Like the equipments that decide the amount of power to be consumed for a specific purpose, employees will decide the type of technology they will use.