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A tribute to Indian Farmers (To world farmers to that matter)


If you are from India or at least you follow the happenings from India, it’s likely that you heard of Indian farmers committing suicides. Have you ever think of the reason? The reason you may give is that their financial status has been in distress. That’s right. But do you know how bad it is really? Let’s dig into some numbers and know the facts.

For analyzing the facts, let’s consider simple growth metrics of a country – GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and Income-Per-Capita. If you are unfamiliar with these terms, here is a brief explanation. GDP is the cumulative productivity of a country in a year’s time. That means it’s the total income, a country (its workforce) earns in a year. Income-per-capita is GDP divided by population. That means it’s the income person person in the country on average.

In 1990 agriculture’s share in GDP was 31%. In 2011, it fell down to 16%. That means in about twenty years, agriculture lost half of its share in GDP. In 2011, nearly 52% of Indian workforce was dependent on agriculture, which is almost same as it was in 1990. In other words, 52% people are earning only 16% of the GDP where as the remaining 48% workforce, who is non-farmers, is earning 84% of the GDP. That means, income-per-capita of non-farmers is more than 5 times of the income-per-capita of farmers. In other words, farmers are earning 70% less than the nation’s average income-per-capita. For every rupee (dollar) that a non-farmer Indian is earning, a farmer is earning less than 20 paisa (cents). That shows how bad the farmers are doing.

The future for farmers doesn’t look bright either. In 2011-12, Indian GDP is projected to grow at 6.4% where as agriculture is expected to grow only by 3%. On the other hand, food inflation has risen to 12% in 2011. That means if you bought a kilo tomatoes for 10 Rupees in 2010, it would have cost you 11.20 Rupees in 2011. Though there was growth in food prices, the growth is not reaching the end producers – the farmers. Recently you might have heard of Indian government’s decision to allow Foreign Direct Investments into multi-brand retail sector (currently the decision has been put on hold because of the opposition government faced in parliament). This change would have allowed foreign companies to invest up to 51% which is a crucial number to take over the decision making capabilities. If this happens, it would not be a boon to farmers, primarily for one reason. Currently farmers have better negotiation power with the traditional retailers to get better prices to their products. If this law comes into force, then foreign companies would follow the same strategy they have been following elsewhere in the World. If you ask farmers,  in countries like USA, you may not hear much positive opinions about the big retail chains and their pricing policies. These chains make long term contracts with farmers which are less profitable to farmers. As the chains enter the market, it’s likely that traditional retailers will be forced to go out of business because of the fierce competition. As a result, farmers have to agree for the highly restricted contracts from chain retailers or they won’t find a buyer to their products. Hope this law will never be approved. Of course, same effects can be created by the domestic chain retail stores. However, we haven’t seen this trend yet.

Now, do you want to do something to make their lives better? Probably there is not much that we can do except for small help here and there. When you go to shop groceries in India, try to buy from Raithu Bazars (Farmers Markets) instead of buying from a grocery store chain. If you are one of those who don’t think twice before spending 5,000 Rupees on a branded dress or 2000 rupees on a dinner, then don’t bargain with the farmers for 5 rupees on a Kilo tomatoes. Be compassionate to farmers wherever and whenever you can. Hope and wish that Indian government’s decision to allow  FDI into retail business would never materialize.

Since 1997, nearly 2,00,000 (2 lac) farmers have committed suicide. Still every year, more than 17,000 farmers are killing themselves. Despite all these setbacks, still more than 50% of Indian workforce is in agriculture which hasn’t changed in last 20 years. That shows their commitment to their profession. Today, India is the largest rice producer, second largest wheat producer, only after China. India is the second largest in world agricultural output after China. India’s share in world’s agricultural output is more than 8% in 2011. It’s NOT just Cricketers who are bringing glory to India and Indians. It’s farmers too. Hats off to Indian farmers !!!!

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#List_of_countries_by_agricultural_output

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_India

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Tim Cook, Steve Jobs’ Alter-Ego?


Note: I like to listen and learn from your opinions. If you like to share your view with me, then don’t hesitate to leave a comment on this and all other articles. I welcome any constructive discussions.

One of the most discussed topics last week is Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple’s CEO. I like to put forward my thoughts on it. Many reports and TV shows covered this story. Almost everybody agreed that Tim Cook is a good alternative to Steve Jobs. When I read a little bit about Tim Cook, I could not come to the same conclusion immediately. If I was asked my response on this would be,  “we don’t have enough information to say either way”. I may sound strange by saying so, but let’s look into why I have to say that way.

First of all let me acknowledge Jobs’ achievements. I am trying to establish Jobs’ personality so that the comparison between Jobs and Cook would be easier. I don’t go into the history a lot but will briefly touch a few important milestones in Jobs’ life. As we all know Steve Jobs is a Co-founder of Apple. Who is the other co-founder(s) then? That’s Steve Wozniak. He is the design and the electronics guy behind early days of Apple. Apple’s first computer in the market was Apple-I. It was designed by Wozniak and was sold by Jobs. Then it was a good success and laid the path to its next generation computer Apple-II. Apple-II was a huge success. It redefined the computer world and over night Apple and Jobs became the hot news in Tech world. Jobs was the face of the company and he was believed to be a whiz-kid by most of the tech people.

After the success of Apple-II, company did not have a success for a long time during which it had to rely on Apple-II’s revenue for survival. Meanwhile, Jobs started working on a project called Lisa. This was supposed to be a high-end computer with much better configuration than the previous models. For some reasons Jobs was forced to leave the Lisa project which is taken over by others in the company. As a replacement Jobs was given another project (which was completely his brainchild) called Macintosh. Despite the hype it created, Mac was NOT an instant success. Eventually it did good. On the other hand, Jobs was forced to leave Apple.

After leaving Apple, Jobs started another company called NeXT which is acquired by Apple after his return to it. NeXT was not a successful venture, if not a failed one. While Jobs was with NeXT, he happened to buy Pixar Studios for $10M (some say it was only for $5 M). Jobs’ main idea behind buying PIxar was to manufacture Computers for Imaging purposes. His idea behind it was always to sell computers that can be used with Medical Systems etc. Jobs never considered Pixar to be an animation studio though he let some of its resources to be spent on animation. It was the case at least until Toy Story got released. Eventually Pixar was proved to be one of the best animation studios and was bought by Disney for $ 7.4 billion. With this deal, Jobs has become a board member and the biggest investor of Disney.

We all know what happened with Apple after Jobs’ return. He turned the company which was on the brink of bankruptcy to one of the most successful companies in American history ( I am sure Microsoft must be regretting its decision to lend a helping hand of $150M to Apple at that time). Today it’s the largest tech company in the world. By looking at Apple’s history everyone agrees that Steve Jobs is one of the best CEO’s that world ever had.

On the other hand, Tim Cook worked at some of the best computer manufactures such as IBM and Compaq. At both Compaq and Apple he was mostly responsible to the supply chain management. He doesn’t have much experience as a CEO except for a couple of months in 2004 in Jobs’ absence and then seven months in this year. That means mostly he is an operations person and yet to be proved as a CEO.

I like to recollect one of the most common questions in management world. What is the difference between a Leader and a Manager? Just think of it for a while before you continue to read on. Leader is a person who is mostly responsible to set the future course of the company. He has to motivate the employees, define the vision of the company and see how and where the company would be in the years to come. He is also responsible to make the company reach its vision in the given period of time. On the other hand, a manager is a person who takes care of the day-to-day operations. He might define the processes that would facilitate the day to day activities. He makes sure products/services/solutions are delivered on time. The same person can be a good leader as well as a manager. But there is no guarantee that a good manager makes a good leader and vice versa. That’s why most of the companies have two different designations CEO (Chief Executive Officer) and COO (Chief Operating Officer). What’s the difference between a CEO and a COO? Yes, COO reports to CEO and CEO directly reports to the Board of Directors. But that’s not what I am trying to highlight here. CEO is mainly responsible to  define the future course of the company whereas COO is responsible to make sure the operations are performed without any hiccups.

So far Tim Cook was more of an operations person than of a leader. No doubt he did an excellent job in removing all the chaos in Apple’s supply chain. He outsourced all the manufacturing to China and saved a lot of money to Apple while improving the quality of its products. His experience as a CEO is not known yet. Jobs as the CEO and Cook as the COO proved to be one of the best teams (just as Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Ray Lane did). Jobs always had a vision to the company. He is believed to be the world’s best consumer. He had an aesthetic touch to all of his thoughts. Aesthetics always played a crucial role in Apple’s products. If you ask any Apple customer why they like Apple products, the most frequently given answer would be “they look cool”. Apart from coolness, Apple products are simple to use. All this came into Apple’s products only because of Jobs. I am not saying Jobs himself designed all these products. But he has the taste of picking up the best of the designs/features to provide. He would never be satisfied with anything inferior. Tim Cook has declared that he would continue to give the same importance to designs and designers. However, what he also needs is the ability to pick the best one out of 10s of options provided to him. This quality cannot be acquired with experience. It has to be possessed by birth.

In the last seven months, since Steve Jobs announced his leave of absence, Tim Cook has been working as Apple’s CEO. However, in these seven months, I didn’t see any major decisions that can change the company’s path. It’s not very often you see the companies changing or redefining their strategies. So I would say we need to wait on this and see how Tim Cook will do when the time comes to define the company’s vision. With Apple’s current product line any operations person can lead the company for the next couple of years. But we need to see how Tim Cook is going to fare at his job when the time comes. It’s a skill to read the pulse of the consumers. Based on their pulse, products have to be made. It’s what Steve Jobs excelled. Even he was not correct all the time. He had some misfires too. For example, his purpose behind buying Pixar was to sell Image Computers. But how many of us know about Pixar Image Computers? His bet did not work in this scenario. However, Pixar was successful for other reasons which he too surprised about.

Generally when founders of the companies leave and the second generation leaders come in, it’s not easy to share the same vision and view as the founders did. We have at least a couple of cases in front of us to prove it. Where is Microsoft’s growth since Bill Gates gave up the reigns? What happened to Dell in the absence of Michael Dell? What went wrong with Apple between Steve Jobs’ exit and reentry into Apple? On the other hand there are successful stories too when the next generation leadership replaced the founders. Companies like HP and IBM did well even when the next generation took over.

It’s possible that Apple can stand in the same league as HP and IBM does. However, Steve Jobs cannot be replaced. There is no second Steve Jobs and there is no another Bill Gates. Every person is different with his/her own strengths and weaknesses. As Michael Porter, the famous Strategist once said, the leader’s personal values have to be taken into consideration while defining the future course of a company (in defining the feasible strategy of the company). All we need to do now is, just wait and see how Tim Cook’s strengths and weaknesses can off-set Steve Jobs absence.

PS: I hope iPhone 5 release is NOT delayed by Steve Jobs’ absence. Generally new models of iPhone release in June. This time it is NOT out yet. Hmmm…..it’s already end of August, I suppose. Are we seeing Jobs’ effect already 😉 ?

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Warren Buffett’s BofA investment – A layman’s analysis


Today as soon as I woke up and logged on to yahoo finance, as I routinely do, I was surprised to see Bank of America’s (BofA’s) gain of 25%. That converts to nearly $19 billion in absolute numbers (of course, it shed some of its gains later). Then I saw the news and came to know about Warren Buffett’s investment of $5B in BofA. Then I started reading about the whole thing. First of all I wondered how powerful that $5 B is. In an hour or so (market was opened just half an hour before or so), those $5 B earned $19 B (at least on paper). Then I started reading the news on this topic. Almost all of the articles mentioned a rare instrument in investing world – “Credibility”. Yes, you read it right. More than the $5 billion, Buffett lent his credibility to BofA. Just in case you are NOT familiar with this word in investment world, as I am, then here is the Oxford dictionary’s definition of “Credibility” – “The quality of being trusted and believed in”. That means Buffett’s quality of being trusted/believed in is lent to BofA. But who is trusting here, really? That’s right. You, myself and many investors like us. By the way, if you are tempted to ask me why I took the definition from Oxford dictionary and why not from others, then my answer is credibility :). Yes, I believe in the quality of Oxford dictionary. OK, let’s leave the linguistic part of the discussion aside and start on the main part – Financial part of the news.

I know a few people who mimic the prominent investors’ portfolios. If you are the one of those who wants to follow “THE legendary investor”, then take a moment and read the below analysis. after you read it and give it a thought, then you can make the decision by weighing in all the information available to you.

To analyze how this deal works out for OTHER investors, let’s look at Buffett’s similar past investments. On SEPTEMBER 23, 2008, Buffett invested $5 B in Goldman Sachs (GS). On the next day after the news was made public, GS gained more than 4% and closed at $125 compared $120 a day before. The next three days were also good though the gains were NOT as good as the first day’s. Then market dynamics started working and they brought the stock down to $120. Then the trend was more like seesaw. As per the terms of the deal, Buffett got 10% annual dividend and also the warrants at a strike price of $115. These warrants were good for 5 years. Warrants are like options. Once you acquire them at a some strike price, either you can buy the underlying stock at the strike price within the validity period or you don’t have to if you don’t want to. For example, within these 5 years if the GS stock price goes above $115, then you convert those warrants into stocks by paying just $115 each, even if the price is $200. If the stock goes down, then you don’t have to buy and you won’t lose any money. The deal gave him a 10% dividend and these warrants at a discounted price on the closing price of Sept 23rd 2008. The closing price was $120 and he got them for $115. A regular investor would have got only 1.3% dividend on his/her investment where as Buffett got a whopping 10%. In the next 5 years from Sept 2008, if the stock price goes down, it wouldn’t cause him any loses. A normal investor would lose the money as much as the stock goes down. By the way, normal investors own something called common stocks. In case of liquidation, a company has to clear all its debts first and then the preferred stock would get the preference and at the last the common stock. The stocks that Buffett owned were Preferred Stocks which means his risk is less comparative to a common investor’s risk.

Note: All the calculations are done through simple calculations. Compounding is not used for simplicity purpose.

If we do simple math with the stock prices then we can see how much money Buffett would have made from GS investment vs how much a common investor would have made. Let’s scale Buffett’s investment down to a common man’s range. Buffett invested $5 B and let’s take $1 per every $1 M he invested. That comes to $5000. Let’s say a common investor invested $5000 in GS on the same day as Buffett did. The closing price of GS on 23rd Sept 2008 was $125.05 and today’s closing price is $109.84. Dividend for normal investors is $1.3%. The inflation rate of US in 2009 was -0.34% and in 2010 was 1.64%. That means the net inflation is 1.3%. A normal investor who had invested $5000 on Sept 23rd 2008 in GS would have lost 12% in stock price ( (125.05-109.84)*100/125.05 ). The net gain after factoring in inflation and dividend is (dividend 1.3*2)-( stock price change 12)-(inflation 1.3) = -13.3%. That means he would have been left with $4335. Let’s see how much Buffett would have made with the same terms he got. The net after inflation adjustment is (dividend 10*2) – (inflation 1.3) – (stock price change 115-109.84) = 6.7%. Had he invested $5000 then he would have been left with $5675. That means he can make 27% more than what an ordinary investor would have made.

If the normal investor hadn’t followed Buffett, then would he/she have left with better investment opportunities? Let’s see some examples. The change in S&P index between Sept 23rd 2008 and today is -2.4%. The net after inflation adjustment would be -3.7%. That means normal investor would have $4815 for his $5000. That’s nearly 10.5% more than the amount he would have gotten with GS investment. Being the index of 500 stocks, S&P is much less risky compared to GS.

Let’s see at AT &T which pays 5.9% dividend to the investors. The change in stock price is +1% (29.06 – 28.75). The net gains after dividend for 2 yrs and deducting inflation for two years would have been +11.5%. That means your $5000 would have been $5575. Though we cannot generalize, telecom stocks are less risky compared to financial stocks.

I am sure you will end up with the same conclusion if you analyze Buffett’s investment in GE that took place around the same time.

Today with BofA’s deal too, Buffett made a similar agreement. He would be paid 6% dividend where as normal investors would get only 0.6%. That’s ten-fold. He got warrants at strike price of $7.14 which are valid for 10 years. In these 10 years, he can buy 700 million stocks at $7.14. No matter how high the stock goes, he would still get them at $7.14 each. On the flip side, if the stock goes down, he will get his money paid back by BofA with the dividend and he doesn’t have to use those warrants. As a regular investor you won’t have this flexibility unless you buy Options. Of course, you won’t get 10 yr valid Options anyway.On top of these he also got 50,000 preferred stocks.

I like to bring an economic theory called “zero-sum game” to your attention. As per Wikipedia it means, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which a participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participant(s). To rephrase this in layman’s terms, someone’s gain must be equivalent to other’s losses. Sum of cumulative losses and gains would be equal to zero. Buffett is sure on the gaining side. To compensate those gains somebody has to lose equal amounts. If you follow him, you decide on which side you would be – the gaining side or the losing side.

What I mean to highlight here is, it MAY NOT always be wise to blindly follow a successful investor. It may not always lead you to profits. Buffett is a legendary investor and so as his deal with BofA. At the end of the day, company’s performance and market dynamics weigh in and they are the REAL factors that make the stock move up or down. For a company with $77 B market cap, $71 B revenue and $94 B operating cash flow, $5 B would not make much difference. What BofA is trying to buy from Buffett is investor’s (all of our) trust. Buffett is selling/lending it to BofA. It’s up to the investors to look at the fundamentals and make the right decision.

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August 21, 2011

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A close look at HP


In recent times, Hewlett-Packard’s stock price has become a concern to its investors. On Friday, 19th of Aug 2011 itself it lost 20% of its market capitalization which is equivalent to $12 B approximately. A day before that HP announced its plans to either spin-off or sell its PC business. After I heard this news, I was shocked initially then thought of doing some math on HP revenues and growth rates.

For simplicity purposes, all the numbers mentioned here are rounded to the nearest integer. For 2010 FY, HP’s total revenue was $126 billion. Out of this, PSG (Personal Systems Group), its PC business, has contributed $41 billion (approx) towards that number. PSG’s revenue was nearly $41 billion, one-third of the total revenue. Total earnings from operations was $11.5 Billion out of which earnings from PSG were just $2 Billion. That means the group that contributed 33% of the total revenue has only resulted in 17% of the total earnings. As a result of this drag, HP’s margins look too low. IBM’s operating margin is 20% which is twice as HP’s. Let’s see how HP’s numbers look if we exclude PSG from HP’s portfolio. HP’s revenue excluding PSG was $85 billion and its earnings were $9.5 billion. HP’s operating margin with PSG is 9.12% where as without PSG is 11.17%. Either way HP’s operating margin doesn’t look as good as IBM’s 20%.

On the other hand, the growth of HP is also not on par with IBM’s. HP’s total Y-o-Y (Year over Year) growth including PSG for 2010 was 10%. Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking group (ESS) grew at 21% and IPG (Imaging and Printing Group) grew at 7%. These numbers too don’t look so good. ESS grew at a good rate 21%. On the other hand the growth of Services was a meager 0.7%. This group is mainly composed of its $13.9 billion acquisition of EDS. PSG group grew at 15.4%. In fact this the second best growth after ESS.

The numbers for the first three quarters of 2011 compared to the first three quarters of 2010 look a little different. These numbers are the three most recent quarters numbers. So we can give more importance to these over 2010’s numbers. Services almost remained same between 2010 and 2011 (1% growth). Growth of other Organization Units are as follows ESS +14.6%, Software +14%, PSG -3%, IPG +3%. PSG actually contracted by 3%. On the other hand, their services definitely seems to be in bad shape. They are hardly seeing any growth there. IBM and other players in Services area are growing well in that sector with good operating margins. IPG growth is also NOT so appealing. However, it might be the market which is already saturated where it’s hard to see any rapid growth.

Good Decision to spin-off/sell PSG (Personal Systems Group)

By looking at these numbers, HP definitely doesn’t look good as of today. Investors’ concerns are NOT meaningless. In my opinion, HP has a lot of work to do at hand. As they declared last week, it’s a good idea to spin-off its PSG group. With narrow margins and weak growth prospects of the market, it’s a good idea to get rid of that division which IBM did long time back when there was no concept of tablet PCs which are the reason for PC market shrinking. However, IBM was not a big player in that market. Therefore it was an easy decision to them. On the other hand, HP is the world’s largest PC maker. But considering the industry’s growth prospects, the decision is wise on HP’s side to divest in this market. It will NOT reduce HP’s profit a lot but increases the operating margin by 2% which is a good metric to please the investors to some extent. By selling this business, they can release the money that’s been stuck in it and spend the money in a growing sector.

Lurking Danger – Services Group

In 2008, HP spent $13.9 billion to acquire Electronic Data Systems (EDS). I believe it was a good decision although it was a little pricey one. Services industry is the one where margins are high. HP is more like a follower in this sector than a leader. IBM has entered sector long before HP did and remained the market leader. Though the decision was good, its implementation doesn’t seem to be right. This group grew by 1% between 2010 and 2011. Between 2009 and 2010 it grew by 0.7%. In my opinion, this seems to be a disaster waiting to strike. Unless, HP solving the problem that’s hindering the growth, this group would also lose its steam. HP’s history with acquisitions is not-so-good, if not bad. Last year, they acquired Palm for $1.2 billion dollars which they are simply throwing it away, today. For the same money around the same time it could have got someone like Pega Systems which is a good player in BPM software world. In 2001, when the Application Servers were ruling the enterprise software world, HP acquired an application server vendor, Bluestone Software. Given the time at which this decision was made, one has to agree that it was a good move. However, the execution part of that strategy was not so good as HP had to discontinue the product. So, one of the things that HP has to address is it’s Services group’s growth issues.

Positive Signs – ESS (Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking) Group

Except for servers, the other two are HP’s recent initiatives. They ventured into storage and networking sectors recently. The growth in this group seems to be really encouraging to HP. Before and after, Palm, some of HP’s acquisitions are in this sector. These acquisitions include Opsware, 3Com, 3Par, ArcSight etc. I believe HP is doing the right thing here and needs to continue to focus on this sector. May be, Juniper Networks would be a good fit to them to compete better with Cisco in Networking.

Untapped Market – Software

Though HP has the presence in Enterprise Software market, it is still a small player in this sector. Out of HP’s $126 billion revenue, Software contributes only 2%. I believe this is where HP can look for more growth in near future, along with Services and Data Storage and Networking (ESS). It has announced, some time back, as its focus is to expand into the enterprise software. Its main intention is to concentrate on Cloud based software which is an upcoming trend in Software world. By making this decision, HP is going in the right direction. However, it is already too late for HP to enter Enterprise Software market which is already filled with a lot of big players like Oracle, IBM, SAP etc. Their current presence is negligible compared to these other players’. So HP has to make the decisions quick. We need to wait and see how the acquisition of Autonomy would help HP to lay the first steps in this direction. However, I doubt if it could help them to enter the Cloud Computing area. While acquisitions stimulate the inorganic growth, HP has to concentrate on Organic growth as well. It has to put more focus on getting more and more talented people in to this division. New products have to be developed in-house as well. Being the highest margin market, Software can take the HP’s growth by leaps and bounds. It’s going to be HP’s cash cow, provided the right decisions are both made and implemented.

To conclude, HP has some serious problems in hand to solve. They have to work on their margins. In my opinion, the recently announced decisions, if correctly executed, can save HP from current crisis. HP is not the first one to be in this situation. In 90’s, IBM had the same problem and they were able to turn the things around in to their favor. Now it’s HP’s time. All it needs is a right person who can drive HP’s growth engine in right direction. Can Leo Apotheker be the one? We need to wait and see. May be, an experienced hand in M&A and post M&A activities is what Mr. Apotheker needs at this moment.

Personal Experience with HP: I like to see HP make a come back. I started my career at HP as an intern. I wish HP good luck !!!

References: Key Stats Page at Yahoo Finance ,  Annual Report 2010  and 2011 Q3 Financial Report

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Corporate Strategy – The good and the bad examples


Lately, a lot of things are happening in Tech sector. As I have been observing some strategic decisions, I feel like listing some of them here.

IBM Vs HP

IBM

Verdict: Thumbs up.

IBM has done a good job by shedding off its PC market. Sometime back it sold out its PC business to Lenovo which was the IBM’s exit from the PC market. IBM has been building up its software portfolio very well for quite some time. On the other hand it kept its dominance in the server hardware. By discarding its PC division, IBM freed itself from a low margin market while investing in a higher margin areas like Services and Software. It’s a good strategy which has already been paid off.

HP

Verdict: Thumbs down

Unlike IBM, HP has stuck to its PC business. Being the largest PC maker in the world and having big chunk of its revenue out of it, HP cannot completely exit the PC market. However, it could have strengthen its software suite of products by acquisitions which it didn’t take place. It has caused HP to fall behind in the more lucrative area while Oracle and IBM have been reaping the fruits. Though HP tried its luck in the services sector by acquiring EDS, the move itself was a late move. Now HP is suffering from reducing PC market by the arrival of Tablet PCs while it cannot venture into Software are as well.

CISCO Vs Amazon

CISCO

Verdict: Thumbs down

Cisco seems to be the company that has recently set itself as an example of strategic failures. Its strategy of entering the consumer products market back fired. It has been suffering with decreasing market share in its core areas like Switches and Routers. Cisco recently announced the closure of its Flip camcorder line of products which is acquired two years back. At the time of acquisition Cisco’s plans for Flip were sky high which have been proved wrong. Within two years of acquisition Cisco called it the end for the product line. Though Flip was accepted as one of the successful products, the inclusion of video recording features in smart phones made the presence of Flip meaningless. Interestingly within two months of Flip’s acquisition, video recording capabilities were introduced in iPhone. Cisco has clearly failed in anticipating the advancements in the field. In my opinion, entering into new product-markets is necessary to expand the business. But what went wrong with Cisco was neglecting its core business. Probably it would be the most basic rule to follow while making any strategic decisions. Never ever neglect the core business while venturing into new businesses.

Amazon

Verdict: Thumbs up

Amazon has been trying out new things apart from its core business of selling books online what it started with. Now Amazon sells almost anything from clothes to watches and jewelery to books to furniture and what not. It has been trying out some unconventional businesses like Cloud Computing Services, online music store, online video streaming etc. While growing organically it has been acquiring companies like Zappos. At the same time it has set the trend in its core business of selling books by introducing Kindle. And it stills leads its core business while making its hands dirty with some experimental ventures. All in all Amazon would be the second most innovative company after Apple, in my opinion.

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My Take on: Article – How I Knew AOL Time Warner Was Doomed (No, Really!)


The original article can be read at
http://blogs.hbr.org/martin/2010/11/how-i-knew-aol-time-warner.html

I would agree with the things that are discussed here. When we read the article in disjunction with any other case studies, it sounds reasonable. However, I feel, analyzing the things ten years later after the fact is easier than analyzing them before the fact. The actual takeover/merger has happened 10 years back and now a postmortem analysis may make us think that it was a fundamental strategic mistake. Generally there are more factors –like improper execution of the strategy, differences in organizational structure and culture – are in play than the author discussed –like competition, customer development etc. The reason might have been a simple fact that the two corporations were hugely different in their culture that they were unable to work in synergy; or it might have been a real strategic blunder as the author suggested.

These kinds of deals are not new and didn’t stop with AOL and Time Warner. There is a similar deal announced in this very year. I can see similar attempt in Comcast’s acquisition of majority stake of NBC Universal (51% of it). Comcast is a content distributor more like AOL and NBC Universal is the content producer, more like Time Warner. Are we really certain that Comcast is going to bite dust as a result of this acquisition? We never know. They might even be successful with this venture. Had Time Warner/AOL deal been a basic strategic blunder, Comcast would have definitely considered it before bidding for NBC Universal. After all we all learn from the past mistakes so as Comcast.

This comment can be found at http://blogs.hbr.org/martin/2010/11/how-i-knew-aol-time-warner.html#comment-94080351

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My Take on – Book: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose


This book fits better in a biography category than a business book. I was very much disappointed to learn almost nothing except two things out of it. There is an experience of Tony in the early days of Zappos with a company called eLogistics. Tony discussed all the problems he and Zappos had to go through with that
company. The whole situation emphasizes one of the fundamental strategic blunders to avoid – “Never ever outsource your core competence“.For Zappos and most, if not all of the e-retailers, warehouse management is one of the core business activities. Zappos did a mistake by outsourcing it to eLogistics and they had to suffer greatly as a result. This is an outright lesson to take from the book.

When it comes to Tony’s personal qualities there is a couple of qualities that impressed me. Those are among those qualities that I want to acquire.
  1. Tony was an angel investor that supported Zappos in its early days. At the starting it was not in profits and often was on the brink of going out of business. Despite all the problems he committed to the company and hence to his faith. He is so persistent that he put in all the money he was left with after selling LinkExchange. That kind of self-confidence is something worth having a victory like Zappos.
  2. Whether it is at LinkExchange in Sanjay Madan or at Zappos in Fred Mossler, he was always able to identify talented people and make them work for him (or his company). That’s something a successful leader must be good at. Organizations cannot be built on one person, no matter how smart he/she is. To build a successful company one needs to find right people and make them buy his/her vision. That’s what Tony excelled at.
Those are the two qualities I loved in Tony. Otherwise, he sounded to be a normal person with some natural interest in business. Especially a couple of things wondered me. He pretty much sounded like a normal youngster after gaining around 40 millions out of LinkExchange. He was unable to spend a full year with LinkExchange after it has become part of Microsoft.He left before the contract of 1 yr ended. That cost him around 8 million. Still he left the company and what he did after that, for the next year or so is pretty much nothing.

He lost interest in LinkExchange even before it got acquired by Microsoft. He was unable to spend more than 2 years at the company that he established himself with his own idea. Exit Strategy is one of the important decisions to be made by any Entrepreneur. He was just good at that. He took the company to 265 million worth, but I won’t see it a success big enough to keep him outstanding. If you ask me whether he could be a role model, my answer would be “No, not at this time”. I recommend this book to those reads fast and won’t spend more than a day or two to finish a 200+ page book.
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Change is Imminent


As an avid reader of Technology news, I felt a major shift in PC market. Most of the analysts are already talking about the shift from PCs to Tablets, Smart Phones and other kinds of hand held devices. Here are my opinions about these changes. I am NOT an expert in anything that I discuss in this post. I am just an observer with some interest in both business and technology.

I feel that we are witnessing the raise of a few new leaders and the fall of a few giants. Could Apple, Samsung or Motorola can be replacements of HP
and Dell? Can Qualcomm and TI overshadow Intel and AMD? Is it possible to see Microsoft making way to Google as the largest Operating System vendor? I feel the answer is “Yes” to most of these questions. If you are interested to see my views on these, keep reading…

PC market is contracting fast. New hand held devices market is all set to fly high. We are witnessing one of the great technological changes in the history. Most of us might have seen the evolution of computers at the end of 20th century. Now it’s the turn of hand held devices. Demand for PCs is reducing at an alarming pace. PC makers are busy with redefining their strategies. We may witness disappearance of some of the today’s technology giants. At least some of them will lose their relevance eventually.

With the introduction of iPhone, Apple has created a new wave of technological change. iPhone introduction erased the boundaries between powerful PCs and
not-so-powerful hand held devices. As most of the PC users use them for accessing Internet, Apple wanted to lock them in a whole new market. Apple, in fact, created this new market. iPhone let the users access Internet at their finger taps. Users don’t have to be at home or to carry a big ~7lb laptop/netbook. Users don’t have to be technically sound. Even a lay man can easily use it. Apple’s focus on user interaction made things much easier to the end user. As the trend setter, Apple has established its brand very well in the hand held device market. Thanks to iPod, that laid the foundation to Apple in consumer market.

Apple is able to manage a much impact by its later releases of iPhone too. However, this new market attracted new players as well as its future has become very
attractive. Google entered the hand held device OS market with its Android Operating System. It’s already out numbered Apple in the number of pieces sold. Its open software strategy worked well to promote Android in less time. As a result, most of the smart phone vendors readily grabbed a well developed, well designed and free-to-use Operating System. Motorola, Samsung, HTC are the first to release smart phones with Android on them. As of now, Google didn’t
declare their strategy on Android, to make money out of it. However, they are keen to compete Apple in smart phone software market. Android is all set to become the Windows of hand held devices.

Tablets are the devices which might make PCs look awkward. People are preferring to use a light weighted , easy to use and easy to carry tablets to PCs. PCs gave way to laptop which in turn made the way to netbooks. However, Netbooks didn’t enjoy the supremacy for a long time. They had to give up the market to tablets. Again Apple is the one to ignite the craze. Though iPod and iPad are not the first devices of their kind, they made their categories popular. There were iPod-like devices and iPad-like devices before they entered the market. However, Apple was the one to nurture the consumer interest in those markets.

After observing the developments in PC market, I strongly feel some companies are going to get affected negatively and some positively. Here are a few players to start with.

HP

Being the world’s largest PC maker, Hewlett-Packard is going to get hurt with the diminishing PC market. They acquired Palm some time back to have a jump start in hand held devices market. Though HP had their presence in smart phone market in the form of iPAQ, I don’t think they commanded any significant share in that market. With the acquisition of Palm, HP got their hands on Palm’s positively-reviewed OS, WebOS. This new move changed its plans for its table PC, the release which was deferred as a result. Back when HP Slate was introduced in CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show), it was running Windows OS on it. Rumors are, HP might release it with WebOS on it.

Pros:

 

  • As HP has expertise in PC manufacturing and marketing, it won’t be hard to them to turn a corner. They can easily jump into the tablet PC market.

  • They can leverage Palm’s expertise to fare well in smart phone market too.  WebOS has already received kudos from critics.

Cons:

  • Obviously HP is not the forerunner in this market. It has to compete in this market as a follower, at least initially.

  • Palm’s WebOS doesn’t enjoy the existence of plethora of Apps that iPhone’s OS and Google’s Android do. In fact, lack of Apps could even rule out WebOS or any other smart phone OS of the market.

Microsoft

Yesterday’s software leader, Microsoft could be another loser. As per one of the reports, Microsoft’s Windows phone OS could fall below 4% of the market share
by 2014. Already phone makers like Samsung and HTC joined the Android bandwagon by ditching Microsoft. Microsoft itself released a couple of mobiles with their Windows OS on them. However, many people are unaware of their existence too. Kin one and Kin two, the two Social Networking based mobiles, hardly made their mark which were eventually abandoned with in a couple of months of their inception.

Pros:

  • As we all know, Microsoft Windows is the most widely used Operating System and it would be so for some more time. With their expertise in OS, they can come back again with a well revamped Windows Phone OS (Windows Mobile was recently renamed to Windows Phone).

  • Considering their deep pockets, they can go for shopping. Dell could be a choice of interest. Dell can give Microsoft a quick jump into hardware market. (It is still a mystery to me why Microsoft is not in to hardware market yet). Otherwise, not many companies are left in this domain to grab.

Cons:

  • It seems like Microsoft is losing their ground in their PC OS market too. Vista was one of the worst reviewed operating systems that Microsoft has ever produced. It was so bad that most of the Vista users were allowed to upgrade their OS to Windows 7 for $0 (zero dollars).

  • iOS and Android are ahead in the race of hand held device OS market. It might be too late for Microsoft to regain its lost market share.

  • Microsoft has been fighting Open Source community for a while now. Even if it manages to get some share from iOS, Android would be a hard nut to crack. It might not be easy for Microsoft to grab share from Android, given Windows’ not-so-open platform.

  • Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn’t have any hardware unit to back its operating system. It has to depend on hardware vendors like HP, Dell etc.

Research In Motion

Another sufferer by the change in smart phone market would be Research In Motion. Its smart phone brand, Black Berry is already seeing decreasing growth levels while losing share to its rivals. We still have to wait and see how RIM can perform in days to come. At least as of now, it doesn’t seem to be in a good shape.

Intel

Another big giant that could get affected by this trend shift is Intel. They have recently lowered their outlook on revenues of next quarter, sighting, the decrease in PC demand as the reason. Lately, they announced their purchase of Infineon’s unit that manufactures processors for smart phones. I see this as a desperate move to get into hand held devices market. Intel processors are impeccable for PCs. However, their hand held device counterparts are always complained as power thirsty. High power consumption is an intolerable aspect to the mobile vendors. Either Intel has to make their processors more power efficient or inves some money to invent better battery technology. The latter would not be a real solution to the problem. However if the research pays off, the invention could patch the problem temporarily. Currently Hand held devices’ processor market is dominated by the companies like Qualcomm, Texas Instruments etc. Intel-bought Infineon unit has a meager 5% market share approximately.

Nokia

Nokia is the largest mobile phone maker in the world. It has been enjoying this place for more than a decade now. Today, it sells one mobile out of every three
mobiles sold world wide. Though Nokia has one third of the mobile phone market share, company’s future doesn’t seem to be bright. During last few years it has been losing market share to other companies. They have to impress the consumers with a real smart phone yet. Their prestigious N-series is far from competing iPhone-like smart phones. As the mobile phone world was changing very rapidly, Nokia doesn’t seem to be responding to any of those changes.  Their yet-to-be-released N8 is coming with a new and revamped version of their Symbian OS (Symbian 3). However, it looks like, Symbian couldn’t be an answer to iOS or Android. Unless Nokia embraces Android OS, it might be hard to them to retain their position. Nokia is also betting on a Linux based OS called MeeGo. MeeGo is also open sourced and it uses the same Linux kernel as Android does. Nokia is developing this in collaboration with Intel. However, it could be too late by the time Nokia releases a mobile with MeeGo.

Dell

Dell could be the biggest sufferer of this shift. Historically Dell did well as a reason of their procurement process efficiency.  They made the purchase, a pleasant experience to the customers. As the practice paid back, Dell has become the largest PC seller in the world before it lost the position to HP. Dell is a living example (living at least as of now) to the fact – Operational Excellence can’t be a strategy. Dell has believed and overly relied on operational excellence which was easily recreated by their competitors, like HP. Now Dell is at number 3 after HP and Acer.

Dell has foreseen the technological shift coming in the PC market. It recently came to the market with their new hand held device – Streak. Dell Streak falls
somewhere between a smart phone and a tablet. However, response from consumers doesn’t seem to be overwhelming if not, disappointing. Unless they come up with a very impressive device with good quality hardware, the state of the art technology and best design, days are numbered to them. An acquisition could give Dell some oxygen. Could that be Microsoft or Google? Could be.

AMD

AMD is another company that would be hit very badly. It is the only major alternative to Intel in PC world. However, this market itself is losing the demand.
Hence chances of growth at AMD are minimal.

While struggling to cope up with the dynamics of the market, the current leaders are making the way to smaller/newer players like Samsung, Qualcomm, TI, ARM Holdings etc. This month, Samsung launched their tablet with Android OS on it. All four major carriers, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel and T-Mobile are going to sell this tablet. Samsung might emerge as one of the leaders in this field. Its new Android based smart phone Galaxy S already hit the market and reaping fruits to the company.

Qualcomm and TI are the current leaders in hand held device processor market. They could become the Intel-like companies in this arena.

Bottom line:

Change is imminent. It’s always been in the air. Those who foresee it and respond to it, can reap the benefits. While others who fail to respond will face loses,
may even disappear. Corporations could be big. But they can’t afford being so big that their own progress is impeded by their size. That’s what, I feel, has been happening with Microsoft and other few big companies.

Pisupat Venkata Krishna