Monks and Ferraris

Desi Funda

Got another book covered while frantically travelling between Mumbai and Delhi during the end of '06 and start of '07. "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" - Robin Sharma. I really liked the book and what the author had to offer in terms of how we should be living a more fruitful existence. But what struck me most was how he managed to gel the aura of eastern world philosophy, mythology, religion and culture, or ethos if you may, and relate it to the life of an average American or for that matter any average, middle-class, middle-aged guy or gal anywhere in the "flat world". Really interesting read and this coming from a me, guy who really hates reading the self-help motivational type books.

2006 for tech

It has been a wonderful year for the tech companies in India. There have been a long list of M&A's combined with a record splurge of investments by various venture capital groups in the India scene. The hot property of the moment seems to be online travel sites, animation and a little bit of Web 2.0 as well.

Check this out for more details

Looks like 2007 is gonna be a killer year for the Indian entrepreneur sitting either in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai or any other nook and cranny of the Indian subcontinent. Best of luck to all those daring guys and gals.

To beginning afresh

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. -Chinese proverb

For all of you out there with a long list of new year resolutions and laundry lists of things to get done in 2007. Hope this proverb boosts you up. Have a glorious year ahead.

Anil Ambani's thirst

Anil Ambani has been on an acquisition spree ever since he and his brother Mukesh split the Reliance empire in two. With his vast kitty and ofcourse reputated name there seems to be no lack of investors ready to finance his interests, the latest of which is the Hutchison Essar stake of 67% in Hutch. Hold your seats for this one. The valuation of that stake is said to be to the tune of $17-18 billion which when converted to rupees is a healthy 75-82,000 crores.

The stock market in India is highly overvalued, pushed upwards more by market speculation, emotional sentiments and a "we have a great future" attitude. That said there seems to be no justification for a telecom company to be valued that high especially since there has been no market consolidation at all before. There are no clear leaders and there is ample opportunity for each player to compete and get a larger share of the Indian consumer pie.

Just for the record the margins in which these companies are playing the telecom game in India is ridiculously low, waging wars more on finding a larger consumer base rather than capitalising on the already exisiting consumers that they have. The mean ARPU (average returns per user) in urban India is around $7 while that in rural India is around $3.

Considering all this wouldn't it be wise for Reliance telecom to use that kitty that it has for acquistions on better infrastructure etc and grow organically rather than get into a bidding war with international conglomerates who are looking for a growth pill from the emerging markets? And considering that the bidding is supposedly starting at the $17billion mark and will definitely move upwards, it would end up being more valuable that RCOM itself. Atleast on this case I think Anil is trying to bite off more than he can chew here.

Airtel Magic - All Cost No Service

Airtel is the largest private mobile services provider in India currently, under the brand of Bharti. They have been reaping the benefits of the growing mobile consumer base and making healthy strides one market at a time. The company has some awesome ad campaigns and probably some of the largest coverage areas in the subcontinent. And now to the cribb.

I have been a customer of Airtel since I came back here in 2004, thats nearly 2.5 years. I was a postpaid customer in Bangalore and now here in Delhi. For starters it was pretty good in Bangalore since I was a customer under Sun Microsystems and well we managed to get some good deals. But when I wanted to get additional services activated or deactivated it was a nightmare. Now around 6 months ago I moved out here to Gurgaon and well decided to stick with Airtel.
0) They did not allow me to transfer my number from Bangalore to Delhi.
1) I got a postpaid connection and first thing they do is set my usage limit to be 700Rs. So if I crossed 700Rs in the first month my service would be automatically deactivated and I wouldnt be able to send/receive calls
2) They don't check for previous records at all. I was an Airtel customer in Bangalore and when I took a connection out here they shouldve atleast given me credit for being a good customer for the past 2 years. I was never late in payments and well thats all that they care about.
3) No Roaming. They are demanding 1500Rs as a deposit to activate my roaming. While this is done hassle free on prepaid cards it seems to be such a big hassle on postpaid. I just cant understand why.

All in all Airtel like any big business house in India seems to treat customers like shit once they have captured the market. The only hope is that TRAI comes up with better policies to help us out with these unnecessary headaches.

Have a wonderful season

Say what you want but noone can deny the warmth, joy and that inherent cheer associated with Christmas. For some it is a time for Santa, for others its simply a time to go all out with the Christmas tree or deck up their roofs with wonderful lights. Say what you want but its just wonderful to meet and greet someone at this time of the year.

So to you all my best wishes for this Christmas season. May there be joy, happines and warmth in your family, with your friends and everyone you know. May you truely enjoy Christmas and all that it stands for. Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Super quote

Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.

Thats the first line off the first SEC filing by Google Inc. The first page introduced as LETTER FROM THE FOUNDERS - “AN OWNER’S MANUAL” FOR GOOGLE’S SHAREHOLDERS

Online Shopping is Improving

The past mont I placed a couple of orders online for some books via fabmall.com and firstandsecond.com. Initially I was quite skeptical and apprehensive about the mess I was getting myself into. Hell I could just walk out to a bookstore and fetch some of these books in person but well I gave it a try. To my suprise the experience is very pleasant as compared to the mess I've had with indiatimes.com and rediff.com (books) in the past. The new kids on the block seem to have a good customer service focus in place. I sent them a couple of mails bugging them to update me about the status of my shipment and I got quick replies (<24hrs) every time. Pretty cool. And not just that these emails were not simply some automated responses but someone out there really checking up my order and being curteous with his/her response. Some people have noticed the importance of repeat customers in the limited online market in India. As for me it sure feels good to be treated like a valued customer again:)

Google MCap

From $85 to $505 in 732 days....
Now that is impressive if not downright scary. Take a look at the company that we are talking about. With this it has a market cap of around 155 billion ahead of companies like IBM, Intel and the likes and even closing in on Berkshire Hathaway. Wow!!!

This is definitely a tale meant for the records but well considering the true products that google offers it is a bit suprising to see its value at such a high. While its revenues are around a few billion its profits mostly rely on advertisements, which can definitely not be treated as a core revenue stream for a multi-billion dollar company (or atleast the conventional ones)

All the startups out there seem to be wanting to be the next Google. But what would be more interesting is when and if someone out there manages to outperform Google either at Wall Street or in the Valley.

iwoz

Managed to complete reading iWoz this weekend. The downtime with a severe cold and the absence of a television helped me wipe the dust of some of the books lying around.

The book is a definite read for many of the engineers out there who would love to remain engineers for their lives. The story of Steve Wozniak is definitely intriguing. It also validates my beliefs that no one is born a genius but rather born into it. The circumstances surrounding your childhood, more especially the things that are exposed to you then determine your path for the rest of your life.

The literature buffs may find repetition and overlaps consistently. It seems like a book organised out of disorganised post-its rather than a complete autobiography. Some may find the lack of humility or modesty in the prose but when it comes to a person like Steve Wozniak I guess there are few that could question the claims he makes.

All in all a must-read for an engineer out there. Have fun.

Don - The Remake

If you happen to be headed out to watch Don or planning on doing so, please don't! However if you happen to be headed out to meet Sharukh Khan please tell him that he is old now and his attempt to be different is as nauseating as his original acting style.

Cleartrip.com sucks impresses

Original post below**

First check out the comments section of this post. It seems that Hrush Bhatt has been enjoying his weekend by surfing the internet and checking what people think about his company cleartrip.com. Luckily for me he ran into my crib-post and well he says he has got my refund credited back to my account. Now I haven't checked all that yet but hell I am impressed... very impressed. Regardless of whether the refund is processed in a day or a week, I hope it is done in a day though:), impressive is the fact that someone actually wants to see what people think about their work. I am really impressed by the fact that some entrepreneurs out there actually care about their customer's and want to cash in on repeat business by providing decent levels of customer service.

We Indians are accustomed to an apathetic attitude from dealers/resellers.. heck anyone who sells us anything is sweet and polite and flashes the "customer is king" placard on their walls, but once the sale is done they don't even bother checking up on their customers. No one seems to bother and see how many repeat footfalls they manage, because hell as we have it there are around 1-billion of us and if a customer doesn't return someone else definitely will. Someone else who will probably keep his/her mouth shut and accept a shoddy meal (Tamarind @ Koramangala, Bangalore, Something Fishy @ Langford Road, Bangalore) or someone who won't care that they don't provide a customer care number at all (indiatimes.com, though they have added toll free numbers recently) or someone who quietly pays up for services that are not being rendered (Cable Operators).

Ideally the goal of businesses should be to respect their customers and provide high enough quality of service, high enough to turn their "customer service" centers into "customer care" centers, only to check up on their customers and wish them well.

So much needs to change and there is so little time. So here's wishing the new breed of Indian entrepreneurs the very best and hoping they have read some of the books Hrush Bhatt and his colleagues have. Now only if the Jet Airways staff were reading my blog! Right Hrush?


ps.
Since I have listed part of my black list, here are some on my favored list
1. Kingfisher Airlines
2. Legends of Rock @ Koramanagala, Bangalore
3. Bejing Bites @ Richmond Road, Bangalore
4. Citibank
4. ICICI Bank
5. Syndicate Bank
and some more....


** Original Post
Booking a ticket online... stay away from cleartrip.com. I mistakenly booked a ticket via their portal last month (just when it was launched) and had to cancel the ticket and then the mess began and hasn't ended yet.

After I hit the cancel button I get an email that states that I need to take the paper ticket to the particular airline counter (in this case Jet Airways) and get it cancelled myself and then submit the canceled stub back to cleartrip via and email. What a ludicrous thing to do or even propose, and worse still this was an e-ticket, there NO paper ticket issued here. After howling at them a bit I manage to get their attention and they say that the refund will be duly credited back to my credit card within 15 days. Today its over 30 days and I still haven't received the refund so I call customer care (what an antithesis) to be told by a kid named Renuka that Jet Airways hasn't processed my refund yet and hence the delay. What the heck! I made a payment to cleartrip.com and I should receive a refund by them itself what do I care about what they need to do behind the scenes. Shoddy site, shoddy service.

So if you are booking your tickets online stay away from the cleartrip.com website, without hesitation.

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So where was I?

I just read that Vidya Balan supposedly studied at St.Xavier's College, the very same place that I graduated from. So how come I didn't bump into Miss Vidya Balan anytime. Damn god sure knows how to keep the beauties away from the beasts:)

And yeah as things may have it Vidya Balan turns out to be yet another mallu chick. Damn! Treasure chest down in southwest India. Unfortunately as an ex-colleague just pointed out all the good looking mallu girls are out of mallu-land.



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