Month: March 2011

In the past three-odd weeks, I have been to Delhi and Hyderabad twice, and once to Goa, Chennai and Ahmedabad. That is 4 flights a week, which is way more than I am used to! Of these, the two Delhi flights were both delayed on the return leg by over two hours, meaning I reached home past 3 am. I am one of these who like to still come back the same day back home.

By and large, air travel in India has improved over the past two hours. There are more on-time departures, and arrivals into Mumbai seem to have got noticeably better. Airports have many more shops to while away time. If only, we could tone down the announcements.

I am still hoping that we can see high-speed trains in India in the next 10 years: Mum-A’bad in 2 hours and  Mum-Delhi in 4 hours.

Looking at our government, I cannot but think that it seems to be a video game being played. We couldn’t possibly be serious with the kind of decision-making we are seeing. The most recent opportunity to make a radical leap forward was the Union Budget. What we get was more tinkering.

Where are the Big Bold Steps? India needs 100 new cities, $100 billion for solar R&D (with China buying up Africa, where are we going to get the energy for development), liberalisation of the education sector, lots of high-speed rail connecting our cities, and so on. Who will think big and out-of-the-box?

What India needs is One Real Leader. I hope we can see one in the next decade. Else, another generation will have lost opportunities.

I have to admit that I am now extremely jealous of the infra that is being built in Delhi. Mumbai has plods along. One Sea Link. And then Stop. Five years later, we will probably get One More Airport Without City Connectivity.

Meanwhile, Delhi has got a spanking new terminal, T3, which I happened to pass through recently. And the super-efficient Metro, including the Airport Express, on which I rode. Very courteous and helpful staff, too. And clean. I hope it stays that way. All this should have happened 30-40 years ago. Our expectations are now so low that we are easily delighted. Hope the nextGen is not that way.

I will be speaking and then be on a panel at the Indian Merchants Chambers’ IT Conference “Fostering Inclusive Growth through IT” on March 11 (Fri) at their Churchgate, Mumbai office.

I am part of the second session on “Affordable Technologies for Inclusive Growth and the Digital Inclusion.”

Some themese I will touch upon during my talk:

• broadband infrastructure across the country (wireline and wireless)
• open-source software use
• cloud computing with thin clients / network computers, and SaaS
• integration with mobile phones (apps)
• govt as platform (make APIs available for govt data; publish govt data as XML)
• all citizen services to be web-enabled and mobile-enabled, with sms/email integration
• local content creation
• education and healthcare as anchor services over the network

Any other suggestions?

It has been some time since I saw one of those movies where there are bad things happening and then in troops the hero and single-handedly hammers the bad guys. Seeing the Supreme Court in action reminds of that. A few months ago, there seemed little hope that we could tackle the issues of corruption and institutional decline. And then, of all the forgotten institutions, the Supreme Court steps in.

Some would argue that it is overstepping, but at this point in India, it doesn’t matter. We need someone to come and call Halt, and make the bad people pay.This cannot be the norm, but for now, the Supreme Court has done what all of us would probably have wanted, but few thought was possible.

At a broader, the legal system in India for the most part is about wait-and-waste, given the time it takes for the wheels of justice to move. Hopefully, we can also address that through the entire legal chain across the country.

From a blog post a year ago:

One of the reasons companies fail (and I have also gone through my share of failures) is that we do not reset starting assumptions against the market realities. Let me explain.

We start off with some ideas, and assumptions about the market. Once we take the product out into the market, we get feedback – about customers’ expectations and market size. It is at that time that we need to think about some course alteration – in case there is a mismatch. Many times, we don’t do that – working under the principle that our efforts will accelerate the market’s response towards our product. That rarely happens. What follows is disappointment.

It is never easy changing one’s assumptions quickly, especially when one has been thinking about them for a long time. But they should be exactly that – just starting assumptions.

This week’s links:

• Making Money in Mobile: by Tim Bray. “Here are the ways I can think of to make money that involve mobile applications: App sales, Upgrades and in-app sales, Ad sales and  Server-side revenue enablement.”
• Mom and Pop, at Web Scale: by Anil Dash. “If your community takes off and you’re built with a contemporary architecture, you can scale your costs along with income.”
• Q&A with Ram Charan: from Business Standard. “The fundamentals for competing for growth remain the same…The first part is the basics. That is, growth has to be profitable, capital efficient, sustainable and differentiated. These are very demanding words. They are measurable and identifiable. Two, you need to know where your focus is. Once you have that clarity, you need to concentrate on four items — talent, innovation, productivity and speed. And while you have to be in the growth areas, don’t distract yourself from the basics.”
• On Cities: by Edward Glaeser, on Freakonomics blog. “Cities are at the heart of a competitive and global future.”
• Interview with Pratap Bhanu Mehta: from Rediff. “At one level, for any government in India at the moment, the core ideological issue as far as governance is concerned is very straightforward — which is how do you produce growth of 9 to 10 percent and then use the proceeds of that growth to create a more inclusive society?”

Even as the Indian Internet advertising market touches Rs 1,000 crore (about 4% of the overall ad spend in India), the options for digital advertising are growing:

• Internet search and banner ads: where Google is the market leader. Yahoo is a distant #2. With Facebook also growing, the result is that a significant component of the spend is sucked out of the Indian content ecosystem.
• Mobile: with a diversity of options (sms, outbound voice, mobile Internet). With 3G, this spend will grow.
• Social: Facebook and Twitter are leading the charge here in terms of usage, with Facebook 10X bigger than Twitter in India. Spends will increase not only on ads, but also on creating Fan pages and social media strategists.
• Video: YouTube is growing fast in India, but ad spends are still small. With better broadband and 3G, video consumption will increase.
• Email marketing: This is relatively new in the Indian context, but with companies now starting to build email databases, the options here too will grow.

So, even though the Internet search-display combo accounts for the bulk of the digital ad spend today, we will see new options coming into play in the coming year.

I had written about Ginger once when I stayed at their Whitefield (Bangalore) hotel a few years ago. I recently stayed at their new Chennai hotel at IIT-M’s Research Park, next to Tidel Park in Taramani.

The hotel is all on a single floor of the research park. The small rooms are completely functional and perfect for a night’s sleep, which is what most travelling executives end up doing. The price I paid (Rs 2,300) is double that of what I had paid in Bangalore, but still very affordable for an overnight stay.

Highly recommended!

This is what any few minutes at any airport in India sounds like. (Have someone read this out LOUD in your ears as you try and concentrate on doing any activity.)

“Announcing the departure of Jet Airways flight 9W 469 to Mumbai. All passengers are requested to proceed to gate number 5 for boarding.”

“Kingfisher regrets to announce a delay of its flight IT 136 to Hyderabad. The new departure time is expected to be 1830 hours, I repeat, 1830 hours. We are extremely sorry for this delay.”

“This is a paging announcement for Mr. Haresh Shah, repeat, Mr. Haresh Shah, travelling on flight 9W 469 to Mumbai. Mr Haresh Shah, you are requested to immediately proceed to gate 5 for boarding.”

“Announcing the departure of Jet Airways flight 9W 469 to Mumbai. All passengers are requested to proceed to gate number 5 for boarding.”

“Go Air flight G8 145 to Delhi is now ready for departure.  All passengers are requested to proceed to gate number 3 for boarding.”

“This is the last and final call, repeat, last and final call, for flight 9W 469, repeat 9W 469, to Mumbai.  All passengers are requested to proceed to gate number 5 for boarding.”

… and so on …

This string of announcements continues till the last aircraft has left for the day.

The Indians who travel by aircraft are presumably literate and can read. There are screens everywhere giving details on flight departures and their status.  Presumably, passengers who have paid for tickets to travel are also interested in getting on the flights. Can we therefore try silence?