Hi everyone
Today i would like to post a video in which i have tried to put all my learnings of the Principles of Management together. I tried to make the video interesting for viewers by making it in the form of dialogues. I request all those who read my blogs to be different and not be just another brick in the wall. Have your own way of thinking and be innovative. I thank Dr Mandi for his innovative ideas and novel methods of teaching. His ideas will remain etched on my mind for all my life.
Hope you will enjoy and learn!!
Most of us don't like our dead end jobs. But the financial security it offers is a safety blanket no one can deny. Having a regular day job will surely give you a bi-monthly paycheck regularly. The job security of employment is something everyone should consider. But there are people who are already tired of the corporate slavery. The usual scenario of downgrading, bullying bosses,office politics and stress is inevitable. The corporate rat race brings a feeling of mediocrity and unfulfillment. And to some who have spent the rest of their lives in a cubicle do have regrets for taking the safety route.
Some people, especially the creative types dared to take risk of having an irregular paycheck. These are the people who have the entrepreneurial spirit, to have a business of their own by using their talents and skills.
Great entrepreneurs
Imagine if the world didn't have these individuals with entrepreneurial mindset. Do you think the world would be a better place? Imagine if Steve Jobs(Macintosh), Henry Ford(Ford Motors), Ray Croc (Macdonald's) and Bill Gates(Microsoft) just remained as employees and didn't took the risk, will there be great contributions that will ever exists? These pioneering minds choose freedom over security. Their innovative spirit should be something everyone should admire because they took the risk, regardless if they'll succeed or fail.
Decision depends on person not Family
There is much family pressure to take a job and acquire :
1. Discipline to work in a 9 – 5 job.
2. Get experience before you eventually make the transition to running your own business.
3. Bring stability to your life & pay off any debts you may have incurred at college.
All valid points, and in most cases, often the right choice for people to get a job rather than start up their own business. However, my take on the matter is that this decision is purely dependent on the characteristics and personality of the person. To argue the first point, it is all a matter of a self discipline. If you are someone with the ability to get your schedule right, and work a pre-set number of hours or more everyday, then the first point in the argument does not hold true given the crazy schedules that most graduates have in college. However, this is a quality which definitely needs to be developed.
The second point of getting experience to run your own business is bogus in my opinion. I believe the experience someone gets running their own business is far greater than anything you learn at a desk job. You may develop some functional expertise eventually in a specific area at a job, however, that will not be enough to start your own business. This essentially limits your horizon to a specific area, and more often than not, strategies taken by larger companies are not translatable in the startup world. Lastly, when do you achieve enough experience? I know a lot of people who said they would quit their jobs after a couple of years, but that seldom happens! Once you get into the corporate routine with a stable pay check, you take on responsibilities such as mortgages, leases and eventually get married. Each one of these factors work against your ever taking the plunge into the startup world.
The last point regarding stability and getting rid of your debts has some degree of truth to it. I agree with the getting rid of debt aspect of the argument, I don’t however agree with the stability aspect as much. When you are 23 do you really need stability in your life? This is the time in your life when you can take the greatest amount of leveraged risks as you do not have major responsibilities. The stability concept is definitely appealing to parents who are able to sleep a lot easier at night knowing that their son/daughter is working at a reputable firm, which will eventually enable them to live the ideal cookie cutter life.
Learnings
So focus on your expertise, your own strengths. If you're good in writing, you can self-publish, blogs or write an ebook. If you have the knowledge in graphic arts and design, you can start a logo business and anything the likes of it. Capitalize on your skills, remember the saying,"do what you love and the money will follow". Once you feel that your business is already established and earns more than your regular job. Perhaps, it's time to decide whether go full time. Remember, there will always be inherent risk. So expect the worse and do your best.
And job security is okay.But earning money and freedom on something you love to do is one of the most wonderful feeling.
Company Name: Asian Paints.
Type: Public Ltd.
Industry: Paint.
Founded: 1942
Head Quarter: Mumbai, India.
Key people: Mr. P.M.Murti CEO & MD.
Workforce: 4700
Website: COMPANY HISTORY
1st February, 1942
Champaklal H. Choksi, Chimanlal N. Choksi, Suryakant C. Dani and Arvind R. Vakil get together to manufacture paint in a garage on Foras Road, Bombay. They name their company 'The Asian Oil & Paint Company.
1945
Asian Paints touches a turnover of Rs. 3,50,000, with an innovative marketing strategy "to reach consumers in the outmost corners of the country with small packs."
1954 Paints mascot, Gattu, the mischievous kid, was born. Asian
1957 - 66 The family-owned company makes the shift to a professionally managed organization.
Asian Paints embark on an ambitious mass marketing campaign, pertaining with thousands of dealers in small towns all over India.
1967 Asian Paints emerges as India's leading paint company ahead of any international competition.
1973 AP becomes public ltd company
2002 AP was a market leader of Indian Decorative Paints with market share of 44%
PRODUCT PORTFOLIO
PAINT INDUSTRY
Paint industry estimated at INR 135bn.
•Unorganized sector accounts to 35% of paint market.
•Volume growth estimated at 15%.
•India’s share in the world paint market is 1.6%.
•Per capita consumption of paint in India is 1.2kg/annum.
ASIAN PAINTS TODAY
Asian Paints becomes the 10th largest decorative paint company in the world
Asian Paints is more than twice the size of its nearest competitor.
It is one of the most admired companies in India
Present in 22 countries with 27 manufacturing locations.
Asian Paints aims to become the 5th largest decorative paint company in the world.
FOUNDERS OF THE COMPANY
P M Murty CEO &MD
Mr. Ashwin Choksi Non-Executive Chairman
Mr. Ashwin Dani Non-Executive Vice Chairman
NS (Subba) lyre General manager Human resource
Sudipto Mandal Senior HR Manager
Salil Chinghore Works Manager
Jagannt.B. Production Manager
Nilay Verma Marketing Manager
Abjit Bhattacharya Training Manager
VISION
“Asian Paints aims to become one of the top five Decorative coatings companies world-wide by leveraging its expertise in the higher growth emerging markets. Simultaneously, the company intends to build long term value in the Industrial coatings business through alliance with established global partners”.
DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION OF MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE
MANUFACTURING PLANTS IN INDIA
INTERNATINAL PLANTS
HR STRATEGIES
A talent pool of over 4700 employees employed across 23 countries bring in a unique blend of mindsets and skills.
AP provide an open and interactive work culture to the employees to bring out the best. A sense of ownership and freedom to experiment at their workplace brings out creativity and innovation in every individual.
Excellent training is provided to develop leaders and re-strengthen competencies from within the organization.
MARKETING STRATEGY
Company is using different techniques such as advertising Campaign, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing and public relation to increase sales
A total amount of 85 crore is spent on the ad campaign by asian paint. Their particular ad campaign ‘Mera Walla Blue” “har ghar kuch kehta hai” are being liked by the customer.
Online marketing for urban customer: Asian paint online marketing system is helping. The company in lot of ways, providing all the necessary information to the customer. It is an unique way of promotion.
SUPPLY CHAIN
MARKET SHARE
SWOT ANALYSISSTRENGTH:
Market leaders with 55% market shares.
Strong in inventory control.
The pricing strategy is oriented to middle and lower end consumers.
Widest product range in terms of products, shades, pack sizes.
Comprehensive nation wide coverage of the market.
Brand name with 68 year experience.
WEAKNESS
Seasonal demand and hence in off seasons it can lead to cash flow problems.
Innovation in developing new product is inadequate.
Weakness on the technology front in industrial paints.
In industrial paints, AP has only a 15% market share.
OPPURTUNITY
Acquiring/ increasing market share in Industrial paint sector.
Competitors have gone in for hi-technology compare to AP.
The automobile industry accounted for 50% of the industrial markets.
THREATS
Domination of few foreign companies.
Competition is catching up fast, hi-tech facilities gives abundant choices.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Environment and Safety:
Asian Paints approaches the environment issue from the perspective of waste minimization and conservation of resources. Thus, the continued attempt is to reduce, recycle and eliminate waste, which results in less and less waste being generated.
Total Water Management
We propagate some methods to help you conserve water Asian Paints has built a Total Water Management (TWM) Centre, at its Bhandup manufacturing facility, which is the first of its kind in the entire country.
The TWM centre showcases live working models on water conservation and rainwater harvesting. Asian Paints provides expertise to citizens free of charge
Tsunami relief: Helping community in need of time
A total amount of Rs. 4.7 million was generated as relief aid and handed over to the Tsunami victims. Besides India, all the units across the world also contributed to the best of their capacities towards Tsunami relief
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
Awarded the "Sword of Honor" by the British Safety Council for all the paint plants in India.
Forbes Global magazine, USA ranked Asian Paints amongst the 200 'Best Small Companies of the world' in 2002 and 2003 and amongst the top 200 'Under a Billion Firms' of Asia in 2005.
Ranked 24th amongst the top paint companies in the world by Coatings World - Top Companies Report 2006
The Asset - one of Asia's leading financial magazine ranked Asian Paints amongst the leading Indian companies in Corporate Governance in 2002 and 2005.
Received the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year - Manufacturing" award in 2003
In 2009 micro site AsianPaints.com has won the ‘outstanding website’ award in the consumer goods category at the recently held Internet Advertising Competition Awards .
FUTURE PLAN
Asian Paints is planning an international network of technology centers spread across Australia, Jamaica, Egypt, Dubai, Mauritius, Fiji and Singapore.
The paint project will use the latest techniques in production, packing, conveying and storage in an eco-friendly manner, with zero discharge of effluents.
Company aims to come under top-5 paints companies list in the world in next 2 year.
The film is based on the ancient Chinese proverb "One monk will shoulder two buckets of water; two monks will share the load, but add a third and no one will want to fetch water."
Some special features of this video:
·The film does not contain any dialogues, allowing it to be watched by any culture
·A different music instrument was used to signify each monk.
·The film tells the story from the aspect of the buddhist bhikkhu.
Plot and Problem
A young Buddhist monk lived alone at the top of a mountain. Every day he had to fetch water from the foot of the mountain, using a yoke and two buckets. That provided him with enough water for his personal needs and to water his small vegetable garden.
One day, he was joined by an older monk. Their attempts to bring water up the mountain together, stringing a single bucket on a pole carried between them, were not very successful; and each felt it was the other’s task to fetch more water, so neither went. The vegetables in the garden began to die. Then a third monk arrived, and the situation worsened. As each monk refused to give way, or compromise his stance in any way, the outlook became bleaker, and certainly none of them was composed enough to meditate or pray.
Then one day, disaster struck… Would they be able to let go of their antagonism and work together to put things right?
This is where managerial concepts come in.
Solution
Towards the end we see that the monastery catches fire. When this happens, all the monks forget their hostility and try to put out the fire. The dilemma of who will carry the water was quickly forgotten and a system arose out of the initial chaos. They all put out the fire quickly. Drastic innovation adds an altogether new dimension to the process and fundamentally changes it. That's what the monks did when faced with the fire at their temple.
Productivity is at its best. All are working together as a team.This is what happens in life. When I played football there were situations when no one cooperated no matter how hard I tried as a captain. But when asituation of emergency faed us such as whenwe were down by two goals in the dying minutes then everyone played as a team and gave his best.
In these situations the efficiency and effectiveness is very high. So a manager should try to aim at this level of productivity in normal situations.
Managerial Learnings
We generally do not excel at co-operating with each other. One of the reasons is that, from the beginning to the end of our schooling, our teachers have not paid enough attention to developing this trait. Year in, year out, we slowly get the bad habit of relying only on ourselves. Yet in real life, we encounter work that demands co-operating with others. We simply cannot function if we are unable to co-operate.
How can managers rectify this situation in the workplace? I think co-operative learning is one of the best managing strategies in developing the employee’s co-operative ability.
This is where co-operative learning comes in. This is a set of instructional methods in which employees work in small mixed ability learning teams. The employees in each group are responsible not only for learning themselves but also for helping their teammates learn.
These groups require a lot of teamwork and interaction: this way, employees learn to work with one another, to listen to one another carefully and to respect each other’s ideas; employees in their own groups have the opportunity to talk about subject content, to articulate their ideas and ask questions of one another; Everyone in the group is responsible for learning the material at hand. No one can just sit and watch, everyone is involved and responsible for learning.
Innovation shown at the end of the video in the scene when a pulley was used to draw water is also very important. This is very helpful in today's world when new technology can be used to make work easier.
One of the major purposes of co-operative learning teams is to help employees, younger employees especially, work collaboratively with their peers, to share ideas, to listen to others ideas, to begin to see the joys of sharing a task with another person, to understand how assigning a number of people to a task sometimes makes accomplishing it a little bit faster and easier.
In the last class I had an unconventional learning experience. Dr. Mandi asked us to perform valley crossing (VC) in a group of three. At first I thought it was more of a team building activity, but slowly & gradually I realized the importance of the same. The VC had an hidden agenda of Organizational Management.
We should use teamwork and do the mentioned task in the best way.
The task at hand required a group of three people to move from left side of the valley to the right side with the help of a pole.
The task demanded a good conceptual knowledge of the problem at hand & building an effective strategy to implement the same. The strategy required setting of SMART goals that were specific for each team member, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely. We closely analyzed the task & broke it down into 9 sub-tasks. Post analysis of the VC problem, the key ingredient to success was coordination among team members & efficient execution of the strategy devised.
With all the strategies & processes in place we went ahead with the execution. But while executing what was found that the Trust factor among team members was missing. The Unity of Command a key ingredient for team success was not adhered to.
Breaking up the task into 9 sub tasks:
In various levels of this task the team members needed to consider the following aspects: Brainstorming: What should be exact position of holding the rod..?? such reasoning will definitely help in better performance. Communication: It meant that the team mates discuss the problem and communicate their issues to the superiors as well as to their peers. They must have a clear understanding of the situation before attempting the task.
Conflictsresolution among team member: Optimizing different opinion and come up with a most feasible solution and come up with one member that should lead the group.
Clearly defined standards - Team members must know what is expected of them individually in quantitative terms and not qualitative and vague terms like "positive attitude" and "high growth", as these words are ambiguous in their meaning.
Commitment – “Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”
The Learnings:
TEAM WORK- The essence of Team Work lies in understanding the strengths and weaknesses of every team member and utilizing them to achieve optimum efficiency
EFFECTIVE STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION- Strategy and planning are futile without effective implementation
TRAINING- Proper training is essential to achieve the desired level of results
GOAL- There should be a well defined goal and every team member should have absolute clarity about it
TRUST- Mutual trust and belief are the foundation of a good team
LEADERSHIP- Leadership and team work aren’t two separate entities. Collective leadership from the team delivers optimum results
ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY- Every team member is accountable and responsible for the job at hand
INNOVATION- There has to be openness in terms of new ideas and suggestion
I see want to see a world that we tap into the potential of kids. I want Khan Academy to provide a love of learning. Sal Khan
Sal Khan, who has 3 degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard, developed the website. He originally posted lessons on You Tube for his young cousin and others soon found the lessons to be effective. The Gates Foundation and Google financed, with $15 million, the development of software to change how math is taught in schools. In essence, students (on their own time) watch a 15-minute video on an educational concept and then go to school to have the teacher work as a coach rather than operating in a traditional mode as lecturer as students go over the assigned problems. According to Khan, at school there would be less lecturing and more interaction with students. Teachers would have the software to monitor the individual progress of students as they work on problems in the classroom. Students who grasp the concepts move on to further academic challenges while those having difficulty get one-on-one help from the teacher. Teaching in this manner is touted as taking the passivity out of the classroom.
Ever since quitting his job as a successful hedge-fund analyst two years ago to dedicate himself full time to this labor of love, Khan has managed to win fans worldwide and goad skeptical educators.
His simply narrated, faceless home videos on everything from algebra to French history have been viewed half a billion times. A number of schools began "flipping" their classrooms, having students study Khan videos by night and do homework with teachers by day.
In the process, Khan has fueled the debate over tech's growing influence on education while garnering the support of powerful friends
Each day around 100,000 to 200,000 students watch videos by khan academy.
VISION AND MISSION
Sal Khan and Khan Academy have a great vision of providing resources to all. The goal of the Khan Academy is to use technology to provide a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. Khan Academy does not charge nor do they plan to charge for their services.
The Ability to Learn Content Based on One’s Own Time and Need
A strength of content-based videos, not just from Khan Academy, is that people can view them during their own time frame, reviewing parts that are of particular interest or to develop greater understanding. Sal Khan emphasized this point during his talk. He described how students in our traditional education system are provided with an instructional unit and then tested. Then the next unit is taught. But what happens to those students who tested lower on a unit? They are asked to move on even though they have not achieved proficiency. This often results in the student failing to fully understand the concepts, often giving up and feeling like a failure.
Sal Khan stresses that learning content should be based on the students’ timing. It is based on knowledge acquisition and gaining proficiencies.
TEAMWORK
Where he once was an army of one, the staff has been ramped up to 32, including the recent high-profile addition of Google's first hired employee, programming ace Craig Silverstein. The staff's immediate mission is to further broaden the site's content and improve assessment and feedback features so the Khan Academy experience becomes more interactive.
BUSINESS MODEL
Khan academy is officially a not for profit entity. The service relies on donations and includes high profile donors such as Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
A service using many of the Khan academy design formats which appears to be following a commercial strategy is Code Academy - which focuses on learning programming. This service has venture capital funding and might charge for particular courses or lessons. Currently all courses are free. There are plans to translate the Khan Academy videos based on its mission to offer anyone anywhere a free, world class education. It believes its mission is best served as a not for profit. The online learning, for profit space, also includes other ventures especially rich media iPad apps offering a richer experience of book.
FUTURE
Love it or hate it, Khan Academy is part of a looming tech-education iceberg.To go from making videos for your cousins to promoting a new model for education in a few short years is amazing. But it's also the best thing that can happen to this space. It needs more smart people who care. The future prospects are very bright for Khan Academy.
In today's class Dr Mandi focused on theory X and theory Y managers. He again discussed a concept which is very relevant in today's organisation. This theory gives you a new way to classify the managers.
THEORY X:It is about taking a pessimistic view of employees and don’t trust them. Theory X managers generally take an authoritarian stance with their employees and work better in control-oriented organizations.
THEORY Y: It states that employees may be striving for the higher level of Maslow’s hierarchy and searching for creativity and problem solving. Theory Y managers provide encouragement and trust for employees fulfilment. The end of the management course suggested that we as new managers should seek to balance between the two.
these two cases can be combined with the situations when the workers are lazy or when they are active to generate the following four cases: 1) The workers are lazy BUT the manager thinks that the workers are NOT lazy: In this case the manager is a theory y manager. Example: when a person is not working hard but then also his manager supports him and thinks that his employee is good. this may lead to an increase in his self confidence and his efficiency may increase.
2) The workers are lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are lazy : The manager is a theory X manager. Example: A teacher may think that the students are lazy and even if they are lazy they will not improve. A good teacher will have confidence in them and help them to do right things. 3)The workers are NOT lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are NOT lazy : This is the case of a theory Y manager. Example: The manager thinks that the workers are not lazy and he has belief in them. The workers are also working efficiently and are not lazy. This is a very good situation for any company as both the manager and workers are working together for the benefit of the organisation as a whole. 4)The workers are NOT lazy and the manager thinks that the workers are lazy : This is the case of a theory X manager. Example: The manager may not be able to judge the workers properly. He may think that they are lazy whereas the workers may be doing their work properly. In such a situation the workers do not get their due appreciation. They may feel cheated and their motivation level may decrease in the long run.
Implications of Theory X and Theory Y
1)Quite a few organizations use Theory X today. Theory X encourages use of tight control and supervision. It implies that employees are reluctant to organizational changes. Thus, it does not encourage innovation. 2)Many organizations are using Theory Y techniques. Theory Y implies that the managers should create and encourage a work environment which provides opportunities to employees to take initiative and self-direction. Employees should be given opportunities to contribute to organizational well-being. Theory Y encourages decentralization of authority, teamwork and participative decision making in an organization. Theory Y searches and discovers the ways in which an employee can make significant contributions in an organization. It harmonizes and matches employees’ needs and aspirations with organizational needs and aspirations.
But I'll just add one big point in a very few more words. It's one thing to accept the truth of Theory Y; quite another to apply it successfully, and without creating new and improved versions of Theory X torments for your underlings. And it is especially difficult to apply it in circumstances where Theory X has been ruling the roost without apology for the previous few decades. Which might explain why many and probably most schools nowadays are no nearer to doing Theory Y than they were half a century ago. Nevertheless, as a statement of the sort of world that a lot us now want for children, for the way they work and the way they learn, it still does very nicely, I think.
This course of Principle of Organisation and Management is being taught by Prof. T Prasad, known as Prof Mandi. Before my first class of this subject I thought that it would be a boring lecture on management but sir proved me wrong. It was one of the most intellectual and thought provoking classes i have had. As lifelong learners we are continually having experiences, processing them, and using the new knowledge in future experiences. This is experiential education. When the learning goal is to provide a lively, interesting, and meaningful learning experience that participants will personally internalize, experiential learning provides an excellent learning tool. This is what Dr. Mandi is trying to do and has done it very well.
He started the class by showing us a video of Pink Floyd 'Another brick in the Wall' which was not just for entertainment but for teaching us the importance of novel ideas of teaching and lamenting the age old method of teaching which suppresses a child's creativity. Then he made us realise that we are here after spending 7 lakhs of rupees and we should earn each and every penny we spend. We then talked about Mandi and Hamara Dhandha which are entrepreneurship activities at NITIE.
ACTIVITIES
SCIENTIFIC TOYS
Later in the class he showed us some toys which were very basic scientific toys such as newton's craddle. these toys should be available in every school and institute where science is taught but its an irony that we dont have a single shop selling such items around IIT Bombay or NITIE campus. This shows the attitude of our society towards practical learning.
GOAL SETTING
Goal setting is a powerful way of motivating people, and of motivating yourself. The value of goal setting is so well recognized that entire management systems, like Management by Objectives, have goal setting basics incorporated within them.
In fact, goal setting theory is generally accepted as among the most valid and useful motivation theories in industrial and organizational psychology, human resource management, and organizational behavior.
Many of us have learned – from bosses, seminars, and business articles – to set SMART goals. It seems natural to assume that by setting a goal that's Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, we will be well on our way to accomplishing it.
To better understand goal setting we did a tower building activity in class:-
TOWER BUILDING ACTIVITY
Then a student was selected from our class and he was asked to make a tower using his odd hand and some cubical blocks. The whole class was asked to guess a number upto which they think the student might build the tower. I guessed 20 but he built till 17.. Next sir asked to guess a new number upto which the same student can build with his eyes closed. Most of the class including me guessed a number less than the previous one. But sir explained that i should always aim high and be positive about the result. This activity taught me the following goals
a) Ambitious Goals: Goal Set is higher than what you think is Attainable.
b) Realistic Goals : Goal Set is less than or equal to what you think is Attainable.
I realized that teaching should be done in the most interactive way as it was done in this class. It was a learning experience which i would cherish all my life.
LEARNINGS
To reinforce planning, cooperation and to realize that perceived boundaries might not be real.
Learn from failures as well as successes. Stating objectives is invaluable in planning experiential learning, but the objectives do not always have to be reached for the learning experience to be a rich one.
It will help me to develop the attitude, values and the critical-thinking skills that i need in order to take critical action in appropriate situations, including situations beyond the classroom when necessary.
