IBM’s Flexible Work Options

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Flexible work options, IBM

At a time when Work-Life Balance has become a major issue for many professionals in India, it is encouraging to read in The Hindu about the Flexible Work Options used by IBM.

IBM’s flexi work option for employees has bust three myths at one go: first, that one needs to work long and regular hours to be considered a ‘performer’; that flexi working shows ‘lesser commitment’ and could therefore jeopardise one’s career growth; thirdly, and perhaps the most interesting, that more women prefer to work from home than men.

That does not mean that men are not choosing this option. They are and are using the extra time saved from the commute etc to devote to furthering their career by studying for programs like their MBA.

IBM prides itself on its employee-friendly programs. Globally, 42 per cent of IBMers work in a mobile environment (i.e. work from home, at a customer’s office or alternate location, or are ‘mobile’ and do not have dedicated office space).

The grass, as they say, always looks greener on the other side. Working from home is not as easy as it is often made out to be. However, if you are able to discipline yourself and stay focused, there are huge benefits from working at home.

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India’s Growing Middle Class

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India's middle class, Indian Economy, McKinsey Quarterly Journal

Much has been said and written about the new found prosperity of India’s middle class.A report in the McKinsey Quarterly Journal says that over the next two decades, India’s middle class will grow from about 5 percent to more than 40 percent of the population. This will create the world’s fifth-largest consumer market. Private spending in 2005 reached about 17 trillion Indian rupees1 ($372 billion), accounting for more than 60 percent of India’s GDP. In this respect, India is closer to developed economies such as Japan and the United States than are China and other fast-growing emerging markets in Asia. India’s economic reforms, begun in 1991, have substantially improved the country’s well-being. McKinsey’s analysis shows that further improvements are to come. In 1985, 93 percent of the population lived on a household income of less than 90,000 rupees a year, or about $ 1 per person per day; by 2005 that proportion had been cut nearly in half, to 54 percent. By their estimate, 431 million fewer Indians live in extreme poverty today than would have if poverty had remained stuck at the 1985 level. It is projected that if India can achieve 7.3 percent annual growth over the next 20 years, 465 million more people will be spared a life of extreme deprivation. Along with the shift from rural to urban consumption, India will witness the rapid growth of its middle class—households with disposable incomes from 200,000 to 1,000,000 rupees a year. That class now comprises about 50 million people, roughly 5 percent of the population. By 2025 a continuing rise in personal incomes will spur a tenfold increase, enlarging the middle class to about 583 million people, or 41 percent of the population. In 20 years the shape of the income pyramid will have become almost unrecognizable. Indeed exciting times ahead for all the beneficiaries of a booming economy.

Entrepreneurship

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entrepreneurship, University of Arizona

The word ‘entrepreneur” originates from the French “entreprendre” which means “to undertake”. In today’s context, it has come to mean to start and run a business. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines the entrepreneur as one who organises, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

“Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?” asks an article in “Fortune”. Although many Universities and B-Schools have started courses in entrepreneurship, it appears certain that certain traits like risk taking or passion for what one is doing cannot be taught. What can be taught are ground rules for sound business.

Here is some insight from research at the University of Arizona in 2002. The average annual income for entrepreneurship majors and MBAs who concentrated in entrepreneurship, 5 years after graduation, was almost $72,000, or 27 percent higher than for other business majors and students with standard MBAs.

Moreover, entrepreneurship graduates were 3 times more likely to form new companies. And these were not mom-and-pop shops. On average the businesses had annual sales of $50 million and employed 200.

Even those entrepreneurship graduates who took jobs within large companies earned bigger paychecks: $23,500 more a year on average than for other business graduates. Of course, students ambitious enough to enroll in entrepreneurship classes in the first place are likely to be more driven and confident than their peers. Even so, the gap in numbers is striking.

Ultimately, I guess the entrepreneur must have business smarts.

Radio Taxis On The Rise

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Forsche, radio taxis

Arriving at an airport in India, particularly at an odd hour, can be a troublesome experience , if you have no one waiting to receive you. Here’s good news for the traveller in India. The Hindu reports that radio taxis will zoom into many new cities in India in a big way.

Radio cab services are set to witness a boom in their business. The number of such taxis is expected to swell from the present 2,000 to 174,000, taking the business to Rs 7,210 crore per year by 2010. A study by Dare, a magazine for entrepreneurs from the Cybermedia group, found that radio taxis will become common in 5 major cities and 12 smaller ones in the country by 2010.

At present, radio taxis exist in around 10 cities, most of them in Delhi. By 2010, top 5 cities in India will each have 20,000 cabs and the 12 smaller cities will each have 6000 radio cabs, according to the study. This translates into deployment of 1,72,000 radio cabs across the country.

Megacab which operates in Delhi and Chandigarh, will start services in Mumbai soon. It plans to operate in Goa, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Jaipur and Kolkata.

Forsche, an exclusive cab service for women in Mumbai, has only women chauffeurs. Launched in March 2007, Forsche started with one cab and now has 18 women drivers. Revati Roy, the owner of Forsche, says that such an exclusive service has gained the confidence of women travelling alone, especially during night. In a month’s time, Forsche’s services will be available in Delhi and Bangalore.

Use Credit Cards Sensibly

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credit cards

In an era of fast cash, people go around with an array of credit cards. Some flaunt a fistful of cards arranged like a sheaf from a pack of playing cards.

Does your spending increase due to credit cards? The thinking seems to suggest so. Shop keepers actually dislike credit cards because they eat into their margins but are pretty much compelled to accepts them-simply because other shopkeepers do. Competition is the name of the game.

MyIris gives some tips on using your credit card. So too does Deutsche Bank.

If you use them sensibly, credit cards are a boon. As we would say in India “Credit Card, Zindabad!” (Long Live, Credit Card)

Down The Years

“What A Strange Trip It Has Been” is an excellent graphic in the Washington Post . It chronicles major events that took place from 1935 with an accent on the Baby Boomer-the first having been born in 1946.It covers what would be a nostalgic trip over the years starting with President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act in 1935 providing retirement income for workers. It ends with the projection that in 2020, the US will have more than 54 million people above the age of 65 – about 16 % of the population. I particularly liked the event chosen for 2006: ” Paul McCartney catches up with his tune: When I am 64″ !

“Humanity’s Very Survival Is At Risk”

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Earth audit, natural resources conservation

A study by a UN appointed group of 1400 scientists predicts tough times for the future. “Humanity’s very survival is at risk” say the researchers.

Some chilling facts from The Earth audit

– The world’s population has grown by 34% to 6.7 billion in 20 years
– Annual income per head has grown by 40% to US $ 8,162
– 73,000km2 of forest is lost across the world each year – 3.5 times the size of Wales
– 75,000 people a year are killed by natural disasters
– Three million die of water-related diseases
– Ten million children under 10 die
– Farmers produce 39% more from their land than in the 1980s
– 60 per cent of the world’s major rivers have been dammed or diverted
– Populations of freshwater fish have declined by 50 per cent in 20 years
– More than half of all cities exceed WHO pollution guidelines

Source: Global Environment Output 2007

I liked a comment from Goutam Das of Bangalore who quotes a famous saying by Mahatma Gandhi : “Mother Earth has enough resources for everybody’s needs, but not enough for everybody’s greeds”

If all of us can do our bit to conserve natural resources and play a part in educating others to do the same, we may make some small progress.

Younger Entrepreneurs

“Ever-Younger Entrepreneurs” in the Boston Globe talks of the trend for young people to become entrepreneurs on the strength of their ideas and the internet. The article profiles interesting examples of today’s young entrepreneur.

Thanks to cheap bandwidth, online advertising, broadband access, and the ability to spread ideas through blogs or social networks, even younger people with little funding and few connections have been starting Internet-related companies in recent years.

People don’t need a development team or a big budget – they just need a good idea and a laptop.

Inspiration possibly comes from the successes of young entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and the launchers of Google. Gates dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft and Larry Page & Sergey Brin left a PhD program at Stanford to launch Google.

New Gateway to India

Bangalore has received more international visitors than any other Indian city. According to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Bangalore reported a 40% growth in international passenger traffic in the last year -September 2006 to August 2007. This rate of growth is not only the highest in the country but is more than double the all India average growth of 16%.Bangalore’s overall growth (including domestic and international air traffic) was 38%, the highest among all the major metros and well above the country’s average of 28%. “Bangalore is the most exciting aviation market at the moment and in the days ahead the city will continue to see very high growth figures, of about 40%, as both domestic and international airlines look to make the city their hub,” says Kapil Kaul, CEO (India) of Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA). The Times of India had reported earlier that the country’s full service carriers Air-India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher are looking to make Bangalore as the gateway city to the US.

Are You Becoming A Workaholic?

Is too much of hard work making you a workaholic? In the New York Times article ” When Hard Work Becomes Overwork”, Diane M. Fassel, author of “Working Ourselves to Death” and chief executive of Newmeasures, which conducts employee satisfaction surveys, describes a workaholic as one who is “addicted to incessant activity”.

Most workaholics are either perfectionists, have a need for control or a combination of both, said Gayle Porter, an associate professor of management at the Rutgers School of Business in Camden, N.J., who has studied workaholism.

Hard work becomes over work when no boundaries are set and relationships are effected. When people close to you feel neglected.

Habits are easily formed and becoming a workaholic is one of the easiest habits to get hooked into!