To Do Lists and Food

You may have noticed that I have not posted for a month or so now.

(If No - I shall assume even that if you haven't, you were probably down with the worst case of dysentery, and that the location you live in is plagued by an attack of idol-carrying-warriors who yelled and chanted late enough into the night that resulted in you trying to catch some sleep inside the washing machine & *mumble* *mumble* ....cut your access to the most important part of your online world - my blog)

Wouldn't it be easier to have said yes, instead of read through that random paragraph?

Taken from here

Now the topic for the day is To-Do Lists and Food. The latter part I am well versed with, endowed with magical digestion *touch wood* properties of Ghatotkacha and the likes. There hardly is a restaurant in Mumbai that doesn't smile at the sight of a wobbling customer, more so if he wobbles naturally and without beer in him already. And when it comes to wobbling figure, you know who's the boss. *wink wink*

I actually wanted to write about another of my Taxi driver encounters (the best yet actually) I controlled my urge to do so. (You see, I have updated my IndiBlogger web details, I did not want them to categorize my website under "Weird Transport driver obsessed Blogs". As it is there are enough obsessions in this city to deal with)

So coming back to the To-Do list. I am big fan of making these lists. I sit down, and spend a lot of time in thinking through how I should categorize them, how I should number them, which pen I should you use...etc. After which I write them in the best handwriting, and so concise that even Twitter would be proud of. And I insist that I mark them as done and not done and all that. Once I am done, I dust my page for effect, turn the page and inspect the imprint on the back page, and then ......*drum roll*........

.....

*vuvuzela roll*

*chicken roll*
....
....close the book.

I didn't say I actually did something about what I was supposed to do. You see, I'd like to know things that I need to do, so that in case someone catches me off guard, I can always thrust my neat book in their face and say - "See, it's right there. Point 7, 3rd sentence after the appropriately grammered semi colon.That too in handwritten Verdana  font size 11. Ha."

I can see some of you nodding heads. This strategy works especially well, when cornered in a high level meeting, or if lagging behind on task and there is a cricket match, or when the wife wants you to get something, etc.Of course, the more often you use it, the less effective it gets. It's mostly okay to just threaten to bring out the To-Do book to scare them, instead of actually bringing it out.

Now coming to the second topic. Food.

Food is good. Food is tasty. Which reminds me, its time to have some.

:) M

Age of Destruction

Its that age
The Age of Destruction

With The Bible of Enthusiasm
You're Baptised by fire
One Day you will reach the moon
Till then you won't tire

You're neither here
and you're neither there
The world's your playground
and your stuck in a snare

You beat your arms to reach higher
While you sink, Quicksand all over
One moment your good, great
The next your spent and late

You think you have time
But in reality you don't
You juggle too many things
Hoping to make it count

And then,You Can't wait
Can't rewind
So you start pushing
Your tagged, and left behind

You regret what you have done
And more what you haven't
"Make your own future"
Life catches up

One moment in love
The next, married to someone else
Under the burden of expectations
from others and yourself

Too young to ignore
Too old to be carefree
You learn to be responsible
And yet yearn to be free

The Road has been tough
For the less troden path
Its Frustating cos theres no light
At each lampost you pass by

And yet we will go
In search of redemption
Its the age
The Age of Destruction.

M

Red Alert - W.O.R.K Virus

You know what am talking about. Oh Yeah. I see those heads bobbing up and down.

Well fear not. Yours truly is about to reveal the master code on bracing yourself for those monthly attacks of the deadly, the dangerous, the despicable, the (running out of "d" words) ....

Willing Oppression & Recreation Killer.

Some more business jargons explained

This is a add on to a Sales jargon explanation I had given some time back on Daily Mirror. It was titled Sales Fundas

  Considering that the recession has hit and many are trying to make head and tail of what they hear and are asked to do, I believed it was my moral duty to continue on explaining these jargon's for the common man. So here goes

Dedication

A behaviour expected from a employee whereby

he works 36 hours a day to achieve a target which the whole company together believes cannot be achieved. ( which they will not tell you, of course!!!)

Strategic planning

A piece of paper where you right down how you are going to fool your clients in to giving you absurd amounts of business and convince them to pay  more for it as well.

Cost cutting

A scientific procedure where the company tries to reduce expenses and thereby increase profits. This can be calculated using the following formula

Cost savings = No coffee/tea expenses + No travelling expenses + no stationary expenses

Cost cutting = [(YOUR Salary - Cost Savings) - YOUR Incentive - YOUR allowances] + more work + more time spent + more pressure

Downsizing

A weekly activity where the management sitting in Air conditioned halls for 7 hours, complete with state of the art electronic equipment, in cosy la' italia' spine support customised cushion chairs, discussing the early morning golf game, decide that people down the line are not spending enough time working. And thereby remove people other than themselves from their jobs. 

Market share

The percentage of the market that will buy your product, after you increase the price ten fold and make it available only in pack of 100's

Return on investment

An excel sheet that will explain that though the client is loosing money by dealing with you, and that he should probably be throwing you out his office window immediately (he threw you thru the door the last time) it is in his interest to continue as your client and "invest " (pronounced L-
O-S-E) money which he doesn't have and "expect" ( pronounced D-O-O-M-E-D) a guaranteed amount of money ( -3) as an interest in about 3 or 4 decades....

.....by the time which he would have closed down anyway.

and finally

Productivity/Efficiency

A plot by the upper management into get you to double your efforts, work longer hours, take no breaks, no holidays, no vacations, no overtime allowances,for the same salary or less whereby increasing your "productivity"(pronounced S-L-A-V-E-R-Y) and filling the companies pockets.

PS ( the post is in good humor. Any resemblence to working conditions in any organisation, in any country is purely incidental (HA!) and has not been financed/planned/encouraged by me!!!)

Have a rocking weekend

Cheers!!!

MadDy

Sales Fundas

Inspired by the Corporate Manual on Cogito,ergo sum,I decided to have some sales oriented fundas, which sales guys will usually hear in and off the field. Here goes...

Target: 

This is an astronomic number created by consultation from psycho maniacs, multiplied into 3 and then added twice. This will create a number which will be passed from top to bottom of the management chain, while each person in the chain adds on a good 50%. This number is communicated to the last person on the ring and is expected to achieve this "number"

Salary Package:

An amount of money given to you so you survive and.... 

...no thats all. only enough to survive.

Team Work: 

Methodology where you do the work so someone else can get the credit.

Leadership skills:

A person who can take the blame for crappy work and pass on the credit to the boss for good stuff.

Incentive:

A scientific number derived after negating whatever possible from 0, and then assuring you get that amount of the derived number,in a years time IF you achieve your "targets" THROUGHOUT the year

Motivation:

Feeling which makes you do all the crappy work, your colleagues crappy work, listen to your bosses freak out sessions, get ripped off by your client, get a lousy pay and still continue working for the same organisation.

Report:

A systematic way of ensuring that you write or type down whatever you have done over the past week/fortnight/month or all the three, to ensure you know what a crappy work you have done.

360 Appraisal:

A continuous way of making you know that though you have been useless to the company, the company in all its majesty will retain you for the same lousy pay you are already getting. This way of making you know consists of collecting complaints and all problems you have created across all the people you have known, more from people who despise you.

Business Development:

A tactic of knowing what you have been doing each day in every place you visit for your sales call, knowing what your competition is doing in that call on that day, knowing what you can do knowing the previous information to improve what your doing.

And knowing all this your expected to work in the same position.

Month End :

A period during the end of the month, where you try to do 90% of  your target, either by threatening, begging or resolving to unfair practices. Failing which you screw your bosses happiness;who promptly will make sure your booty is put in the worst place possible, like selling refrigerators in Antarctica.

Man!!!

Jet Kingfisher V/s Employees

The shocking news of yesterday was that Jet had layed off 1ooo odd employees, citing that they were under loss. This comes as a huge shocker, as this is the first of its kind mass layoff in the aviation industry.

I watched a lot of debate on to aspects of this case. One was the major bailout demand by the Goyalmallya combo. Second was the mass layoff.

Taking the bailout issue, the question is of using tax payers money to help private sector airlines to be able to operate in profit. They are able to make this demand as the goyalmallya combo controls nearly 60 % of the market in aviation, and the aviation industry in India is small and weak. The reduction of flights would in turn hit the aviation industry and the market as a whole. Communists argue that the tax payers money is hard earned money, not some lottery ticket to help private sector mint money. On the other hand pro bail out parties suggest that the aviation industry is a vital component of Indian development, which will in turn affect all the tax payers as well. 

My personal view would be to give a long term credit to these parties, make them share some of their controls and resources with Government Airlines. There is no way that the Government can allow Indian aviation to collapse. At the same time giving a complete bail out sets a bad precedent. Interest should be charged as against a interest free loan that has been demanded.

It remains to be seen as to what the Govt Does.

The second case is of the mass layoff. If the airlines were running under loss why did they hire such a large numbr of trainees and probationary employees? They have no right to protect their interests by compromising on the interests of its employees. Even if the non sacked employees join the layed off guys and show solidarity, the goyal mallya combo would conveniently put this back on the Government to further their cause of bail out.

Its a sad state of affairs that these kind of bad Govt policies and inefficent business practices has affected the dreams and life of the layed off employees. Today its JET AIRWAYS, tommorrow it could be anyone!!!!

BE Airware!!!

Cheers!!!

Rock ON...!!!

Well whatever i wanna post would only be a repetition of what i have already said...so theres nothing interesting to post..tired of doing the same things...looking forward to having a rocking month..so lets keep rocking...rock on :) !!!

LOREAL Experience- BA Management 2

Hi... today am going to continue about BA management. Like i mentioned in the last post the initial stage is to connect with your BA's and make them a part of your team. Remember without this there is no point in going ahead with part 2 as it wont work without the initial understanding and faith.

Any way in part 2 we look at how to get BA's to do their work honestly and diligently. Usually a BA will not see the logic in doing a particular work, when in essence it would definitely efect her. Confused??
Let me explain with an example. One of the task of the BA is to maintain the products in the shelfs in a particuar manner ( planogram) and very tidy. To the Ba these tasks sound similar to "cleaning the house and keeping things in place". What they dont understand is that product placement at eye level effects customer decison making and that effects sale which directly affects achievment of sales target and thereby incentives :)

That is product placement==>customer purchase==>better sales==>achieve target==>get incentive.

This logic has to be explained to the BA. But ah...the jobs not easy and not enough to convince the BA. You have to prove th logic!!! only then does the BA realize the logic.

That was just an example. I am sure most cosmetic companies would agree with me that the BA is a powerhouse of information and possibilities. Getting them to invlve actively in the selling process and providing market inteligence is a massive task. one can only expect this as that is the possibilities of such an involvement by the BA!!

Any way am planning to do some innovations, but my BA's are resigning left right and center so i need some time to set things right:)

till then friends

cheers!!!

the LOREAL experience-BA management

The last 4 days has been very busy with meetings and meetings. It has been fantastic, tiring and most inspiring. I have come to know what really a team means, how targets work and how subtle things can be in an environment which is full of targets, managing people and enjoying the process...


Today i thought i would say something about BA management. BA as in Beauty Advisors. For those in the sales field these terms would be similar to sales reps, sales promoters etc. But when we speak of Beauty advisors in a cosmetic company we mean more of a permanent nature of advisors who are there at LOREAL or maybelline counters who are present to explain to the customers about the products, new launches and offers. As an employee who has to manage these BA's I found a lack of information regarding the same on the net.

Managing BA's is not as simple as handling sales reps. A BA has to be checked on many fronts. first and foremost, for a Brand like LOREAL its important that our BA at all time has to be very well presented, because she is a reprsentative of the company and an ambassador to the customer. Second how she attends to the custome and whether she is able to fulfill needs afte identifying them. Third is whether the BA is actually present at the counter, or is busy makng up reasons and not coming to the counter.

It is also very difficult to enforce the rules and policies of the company because it takes a great deal to keep the discipline alive in a BA because over a period these things get monotonous. For a BA who has to be at the counter for 9 hours standing and doing the same things day after day, motivation and energy levels tend to die down.

So how does one keep the BA going and still motivate her to go for her targets??

Well the trick is to build relations or like my boss says PR. Personal relations. Suboordinates usually see their superiors as people who are out to make their lifes miserable (if not hard) to achieve their goals. This is where the imediate superior has to build bridges ( "connect") as my boss says.. and he is as usual right on. For any relation to build there has to be two things...trust/faith and confidence. When you have confidence in the superior you tend to accept their guidance and ensure excellence. And when you have faith in your superior you know that come what may he will always stand by you and help you.

Building this relation is the essence of handling BAs, Sales teams and people......


Cheers!!!

Hi to all. Now its been a long time since I wanted to blog but life ha a time for everything and I have found mist of the things happen at times when you least expect them. we hardly know why things happen but when we do realize their relevance its to late to appreciate.

Such has been the long part of my life, which I hope to share in the future with you. For a start let me give my introduction.

Am a post graduate, in a field where we learn to manage things, people or what some call management. Currently just switched to a major cosmetic MNC from a minor cosmetic start up. For all practical purposes I could say that its the start of my career.

My previous company is a start up, put together by few businessmen who wanted to sell what they make rather than make what is required. Unfortunately or fortunately in the heat of summer placements, I got lured into it by the promise of a big post, which of course I did get.
What looked like a great opportunity soon became a tiring affair. Especially since I dint know a thing about how sales is actually done and neither did anyone in the company. My theory told me how things were to be done, but over time I came to know that by bosses were more interested in just one thing. Cutting costs. And for them costs meant marketing, salesmen, promotion and etc ( Get the drift ?!!!) and it so resulted that nothing was acheived..come on you gotta spend to earn and vice versa. But I was only asked as to what hapened and why something dint happened...and it was taking its toll on me

So finally I got fed up and grabbed a beautiful opportunity and moved on. But here comes the rough part. The company Was just planning a launch for the product(for the hell of it of course!!!) and my current company wanted me to join immediately. I chose the latter and dropped off with just a phone call and a resigning e mail.

Well here comes the question...whats more important in life.. doing things the right way ;or doing the right things? both are equally important but how do you choose between the two. how do you know what is right... and is it really important to be right?? Phew!! I have done something that would benefit me( and to some extent my ex company, considering I dint do much other than collect my salary!!) but thats not the point. What about when you need to make decsions everyday and every moment...