Book Review - Blue Ocean Strategy

There are books, and there are fantastic books, and sometimes there are exceptional books. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant is truly an exception & one of the best I have come across. Its strength is in its ability to break down strategy into actionable elements that are easy to comprehend.

Based on over 15 years of research, Blue Ocean Strategy outlines why and how companies must go beyond traditional competitive strategies that fight for the same turf and customer. The authors consider such traditional strategies to be 'red ocean' in nature since they only bloody waters. In contrast, a blue ocean strategy creates an uncontested marketplace and makes competition irrelevant. This is achieved through the relentless pursuit of Value Innovation, which is defined as one that creates exceptional value to both the end-user and organization. A successful blue ocean strategy also focuses on both differentiation and cost (unlike a red ocean approach that focuses on either to stay ahead).

The best thing about the book is its articulation of a diagnostic & action tool called the strategy canvas. Every example is analyzed through this easy-to-understand canvas. The book is further enriched by a 6-step approach on how a successful blue ocean strategy can be formulated and executed. Examples are varied and span across time - starting with the automobile of the early 1900s until the iTunes / iPod revolution of today.

If you need to know the 'how-to' and 'what-not-to' of strategy, this book is your guide. I'll rate it 5 stars.

Humility Lessons from Flashback Moments

The previous weekend involved a visit to the town of Kanchipuram - famous the world over for its temples and silk saris. It was also one of the towns I grew up in. The purpose of the trip was to see the 15 Divya Desams, but I came back with a lot more. (Note: A number of websites explain Divya Desams in detail. Briefly, they are 108 shrines of Lord Vishnu eulogized by poet-saints called Azhwars in songs.) 

I have never been a big fan of seeing your childhood home or your primary school. Folks move, landscapes change & perceptions of the past never match reality. But I realized that sometimes, going back in time humbles you with the timelessness of certain places and teaches you how the world evolves.

Take the Kanchi Varadar Temple for example. Located under water in the temple tank is the shrine of the Athigiri Varadar from where the deity is brought out for worship & public display for 48 days every 40 years. A 6 year old kid (that's me) walking so close to the tank to see the deity thinks of the experience as super cool. It is only 32 years later when he sees the tank again does he sense the perspective that mere mortals get to see the idol just once or twice in their lifetimes, but such idols last centuries under water.

I have often wondered why India has so many temples. Well, it finally dawned on me that we Indians just build them. And once built, they grow on their own. In 1980, my neighbor (who was 9 years old) proposed that we kids place an idol of Lord Ganesha by the street corner opposite his home. None of us questioned why we needed the Lord at that location when the same Lord existed in a larger temple just 50 metres away. A kitty was built for procuring the idol. My contribution - as a 7 year old - was 25 paise (that is 0.54 cents folks, and no, that is NOT a typo). We sought ZERO legal permits from local authorities. Within a few weeks, the idol was placed. Well, fast forward 31 years later. Not only does the idol remain, but Lord Ganesha lives in better environs in exactly the same place.

Some childhood homes change. But when they remain exactly the same – including the number on the door – they evoke memories of an 8 year old prince who used to hold on to those designs on the wall to climb up and preside over his imaginary subjects on the ground below.

Renovations prevented me from entering the Canara Bank on Gandhi Street. If open, I would have walked in to tell the hapless manager that I have entered the bank's cash vaults multiple times in the early 80s and walked around piles of currency notes stacked on the floor. Of course he would have considered me a lunatic, but those were the pleasures that were accorded to the 9 year old son of a bank manager in those days.

But nothing prepared me for the visit to the stainless steel vessel store. We picked 4 plates and asked for the price. The lady placed them on a weighing balance and said “Rs. 105 for the big plates and Rs. 98 for the small ones”. It turns out that in Kanchipuram, a bustling town 90 kilometres from Chennai whose (telephone) area code is the same as that of Chennai (which means that it is practically a satellite township of the larger metropolis), steel vessels are sold by UNIT WEIGHT and NOT UNIT PRICE. The steel rate on that day was Rs. 275 per kilo. What a difference from Bangalore where the same plates would have gone for Rs. 250 per unit.I ask for a discount. 'None' she says. How about accepting a credit card? 'Only cash' is her response. 

Now I know why global recessions mean nothing for rural India. Cash is virtuous and 35:1 leverages are unheard of. The managers on Wall Street may laugh at the ways of Kanchipuram, but these small Indian towns show us that frugality and common sense handed down generations do this world a lot more good than those fanciful CDO and CDS instruments that the asses from Wall Street came up with. And may this essence of India remain for generations to come....

Leadership Lessons from the Phone Hacking Scandal

Witnessed amazing testimony 2 days ago from Sir Paul Stephenson (Commissioner, Metropolitan Police) on the phone hacking scandal in the UK Parliament. Straight off, was amazed at how the committee questioned the Commissioner on whether, when, why and why not the Prime Minister knew certain things. Even more amazed at how well he answered them. A police commissioner asked about the Prime Minister's involvement on global TV..... and we in India have a problem in bringing the office of the Prime Minsiter under Lok Pal....

The best part came at the end of his testimony when he read a prepared statement on why he was resigning, even though he did nothing wrong....

I am going because I am a leader. Leadership is not about popularity, the press or spinning; it is about making decisions that put your organisation, your mission and the people you lead first. It is about doing things that will make them proud of their leaders, and that is very different from being popular with them. It is about making decisions that might be difficult and personally painful; that is leadership, and that is why I am going.

Well said.

Building New - Together

Time for another book review. The Power of Co-Creation begins by analyzing the various co-creation engagements undertaken by Starbucks and Nike with their customers. The explanation of the collaborative design process through NikeId and the customer-experience focused Nike+ programs provide a sound foundation for the understanding of co-creation and its impact to the company's bottom line.

Venkat Ramaswamy & Francis Gouillart also articulate how value innovation can be enabled and sustained. It is made very clear that merely creating innovation teams or corporate intranets will not help. What is required is a framework comprising of engagement platforms (to capture the essence of customer & employee experiences) and extended customer-vendor networks. As you read further, you realize why the much ballyhooed innovation initiatives within organizations have failed over the years. Innovation is constant engagement, repeated hard work, incremental change (and NOT big bang as is often misunderstood) and highly inclusive. An organization that ignores any of these dimensions will simply just fail in its innovation journey.

The examples are rich and varied - Apple Stores & its i-Phone platform, SAP communities, Hindustan Unilever's Gang of Girls (Sunsilk shampoo), IBM, Toyota, ITC e-Choupal, Cisco, Infosys, Amazon Fresh, La Poste Retail of the French Postal Service, to name a few.

I did not glean much from the second half of the book where the authors explain how management processes within organization must also change for co-creation to succeed. The ideas outlined are excellent – co-creating management teams, co-creative engagement in operations, co-creation of strategy, and co-creating institutional change – however, the actions undertaken to enable management change through these ideas seemed to be no radically different than the ones explained in the first half. Would a sequel be in the offing to flesh this in more detail?

If Innovation is your journey, this book is a must-read. But make sure that you include a few others in your reading list as well.

Nike Better World

An inspiring ad from Nike. Check out here if you want to watch the video. The words are below:

Don't tell us what we can't do.
Don't tell us not to dream.
Big fat hairy hairy audacious dreams.
Like making the world better through sport.

Sport is our passion.

Sport inspires hope, instills discipline, reduces depression, and disease.
It raises self-confidence, raises awareness, rallies communities, defines nations, defies gravity and denies prejudice.
Sport laughs in the face of racism, it flicks a towel on sexism's ass and kicks sand in the face of discrimination.
It makes neck hairs stand to attention.
Hell, it's even been known to stop wars.
That's a pretty impressive resume.
Sport, you're hired.

We won't rest until every living, breathing person on this planet has access to it,
And we won't stop making the best gear to propel humanity forward,
without wrecking our global playground in the process.
We will do good with a vengeance.
And to all the cynics and naysayers, we're going to make the world better for you anyway.
Because like sport, we don't discriminate.

We've made the world better
but we still want a better world.

-Nike Better World

Saying Hullo to Tintin

A visitor to Brussels may be told to visit the Atomium or the City Place or the numerous cathedrals. But if you are a comic buff, and a fan of Tintin at that, a visit to the Belgian Comic Strip Centre (BCSC) is a must. Brussels prides itself as the comic strip capital of the world. And the reason? With more than 700 comic strip authors, it has the maximum authors per square kilometre than anywhere else.

Don't let this very ordinary sounding name - BCSC - fool you. The centre is a true treasure trove of all Belgian comic characters from the 30s, and of course includes so many more comic strips beyond just Tintin. My only regret was that I don't understand French - this meant I had to ignore several comic strips on display. Content with a folder written in English offered in the reception area, I proceeded to the various sections of the centre.

The entrance foyer is framed by the model of the famous rocket that carried Tintin, Haddock, Calculus, Snowy, and Thom(p)sons to the moon.

You then go into a series of displays that depict how a comic strip is made. Boy !!! It takes an army to get the comic out. The scriptwriter comes up with the idea for the strip along with the synopsis and characters. Once the idea has been approved by the publisher and the artist, the artist takes over. He is the director of the entire event and draws the sketches, background and panels. The lettering artist now adds the lettering and speech bubbles while the colouring artist transforms this to colour. The printer now prints these glossies while the marketing and publishing teams roll out the promotion, distribution, syndication & merchandising.

Artist Version

Lettering Artist Version

                                                                                                                                            

  

Colouring Artist Version




Past a few more panel halls, you enter the area dedicated to Tintin. To me, this section was the highlight. A simple grid depicts every Tintin comic from 1930 (Tintin in the Land of the Soviets) till 1976 (Tintin and the Picaros) along with the characters featured in them. I learned that after Tintin and Snowy who have featured in all 23 comics, the next highest starring is not to Captain Haddock (15), but to the Thom(p)sons (18).

The Grid

You are struck by the face of Tintin that is almost expressionless - yet conveys much - and his disguises.

Captain Haddock's expressions on the other hand leave the reader in no doubt of his emotions.

Snowy is the hero in every situation while the 'heroes' of Scotland Yard continue to bumble.

And the centre features a separate area displaying endorsements of our favorite characters over the years.

 

I concluded with a visit to the shop at the BCSC that also had Asterix memorablia - and an Obelix collectible (with a menhir) was promptly purchased for Priya.

The visit most definitely took me back to my childhood years when Tintin & Asterix occupied much of my reading space. The next time you are in Brussels, do pay a visit to the BCSC. Definitely worth it.

PS: Wife was very happy with the gift. Whew !!!