Green shots for the Indian Economy - Lessons from here and there.

I do take a local train for commuting for work and I do meet a lot of strangers discussing the stock market, the economy in general and some rants about the high real estate prices in Mumbai. As they say, I have made some 'train friends' about whom I know nothing, except their destination stations. Yet, we smile and speak about random topics.

The train I take generally has a lot of individual traders running their own firms out of shops based in south Mumbai since generations. These traders are also the ones who trade in stock markets regularly. Since some of them are importers of commodities (distributors), some are exporters and so they are also well informed about the international markets.

The recent stock market collapse and the fall in the commodity prices has also had a detrimental impact on these people. Lots of importers are suffering heavy losses because of the Rupee depreciation against the rupee. Most of them have lost a lot of money. However, they take these losses in their stride and not worry too much and look forward with hope and determination. Every day they laugh and make fun during the commute as though nothing has changed. Every week they have their celebratory sessions of Jalebi -Fafda in the train.

These people have been in the trading business for generations together and have seen many business cycles and they treat this slowdown in the economy as nothing different from the previous ones.

Some importers are highly optimistic and say that India has a great prospect now that China is in trouble. According to them, now is the time India has to invest in building manufacturing infrastructure and compete in areas which have been dominated by the Chinese. According to them, a person who has manufacturing technology and cool head should now consider building factories and setting up infrastructure. Current prices of steel and cements are down, capital goods equipment suppliers currently are offering great discounts. Building capacities and catering to the Indian market (import substitution) should be the way forward.

One trader to whom I spoke while discussing a couple of fragrance compounds said 'Aap manufacturing shuru karo, India mein market ki kami nahi - ban jayega'.


Indeed, some days after I heard this view, I came to know that in my home town, there is a hustle bustle in industrial construction and a lot of cold storage, oil mills and other small scale factory projects are now taken up for implementation. The CAPEX projects that were stalled due to high commodity prices of steel and cement are now re-looked for implementation.


These green spots in the small scale sector in India and the determination of the small traders and manufacturers makes me hopeful about the Indian economy and its future. So, inspite of all the gloom that newspapers and tabloids are talking about, one needs to be disciplined and hopeful about Indian economy.

So, be positive, invest in the stock markets in a disciplined manner, work hard, stay healthy and remain hopeful.

A pleasant experience - TCS

A lot of media coverage was given to TCS for the title sponsoring the New York Marathon event recently and a lot was said about the brand building exercise - some positive and some criticism. While listening to one such debate about TCS, I recalled a pleasant and a seamless experience I had at the TCS campus some months back.

I had chosen to be a scribe for a visually challenged friend of mine for the RBI recruitment examination to be held at the TCS office in suburban Mumbai. I expected that since this is a government conducted examination, there will be a lot of hassles. However, on reaching the campus, I realized that the entire examination exercise was outsourced to TCS and its employees and staff was responsible for conducting the examination.  

 

The entire experience of registration, verification, examination was very pleasant and very smooth. The best part was the treatment of the candidates. Not once there was a display of sympathy; neither was any apathy shown. The treatment was just about adequate. Adequate attention was paid to all the requirements of the candidates.  

The watchmen and the security staff was given the respinsibility of administration and ushering the candidates inside to their respective places, technical employees of TCS was given the responsibility of examination (the exam was a computer administered test), the managers were given the task of verification and other asks where fast decision-making was necessary . The entire team comprised approximately 15-20 youngsters with 3 managers of mid-age.  

Some instance which I found noteworthy were - 

1. The verification process - a lot of candidates had brought only the original document of identity proof whereas the requirement was that a photocopy that had to be attached. A government organisations would have asked candidates to go outside and get copies. The TCS employees on the other hand took the originals and got the photocopies made and returned the originals to the candidates without giving trouble to anyone.  

2. Knowing that the candidates were visually impaired, arrangements were in place to communicate using loud speakers and there were volunteers available in case of any trouble.  

3. Seating arrangement was paid adequate attention to. It was ensured that there is adequate space between two candidates so that when a candidate speaks to the scribe others are not affected.  

4. The canteen of the office was opened up for the candidates inspite of it direct being a holiday for the staff.  

In short, careful planning was done for conducting the examination and attention to details was paid by the company in every regard.  

For me personally, this meticulous planning and implementation of the examination smoothly was a demonstration of the company capability. This pleasant experience will make sure that I will always look upon TCS with respect. No branding exercise can help inculcate such a goodwill. 

However, it is good to see that an Indian brand is participating in an event of global repute and doing well. I hope many more Indian companies are able to create an impact globally .  

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On Multi-level marketing

Multi-level marketing phenomenon has been in the Indian market since a long time now. I got to know of this concept when my maternal uncle joined the Amway bandwagon. Ever since, I have come across a lot of multilevel marketing brands from Tupperware to Speak Asia to now Q-net that have made it to the upper middle class Indian markets.

Tupperware and Amway are product-specific companies while Speak Asia is online survey based and Q-Net is selling what - Luxury holidays and luxury products which one doesn't really require.

I was approached by one of my batchmate who had joined one Q-net to discuss about the prospect of me joining her circle. I met her and a collegue of her who had recently joined Qnet leaving an esteemed job at a global logistics company. During the meeting, I wasn't informed anything about the company or its products. The pitch rested heavily on how doing something on my own - part-time was the only way to have assured money for the future and how joining Q-net was the best solution. The pitch was more about motivating me to do something other than a job rather than about explaining me about the company. Details of the company and the products were sent to me by email. Examples about how a lot of people who have joined Q-net have become rich suddenly were provided. At the end of the meeting, inspite of telling very little about the company or my role, the person had the audacity to tell me that very limited time is available  and he needed me to confirm my intent soon by transferring around Rs. 2 lakh. Imagine someone - a stranger- asked me for Rs. 2 lakh over a cup of coffee. I straight away declined to join such a proposition and never gave a thought about the episode.

However, today I was shocked to know that one of my friend who, I believe has a good financial acumen, has actually joined such an entity. He is a Chartered Accountant and is extremely calculative about the investments he makes. Yet, it is extremely disappointing to know that he has joined such an entity. Someday or the other, I believe such an entity is going to bust. Some news has already started cropping up in this regard.

I fail to understand how the lure of fast money is so prevalent - even among learned, well educated people working for some of the best MNCs in the country. How can people working at good posts of respectable companies be duped to fall for such schemes? How can such educated people  invest so much money somewhere without and paperwork and without and guarantee is beyond my thinking?

In my opinion, one must never believe any investment scheme which promises more than 12-14% return. Such schemes are bound to bust eventually.

I hope others do not fall prey to such ponzi schemes and do not invest in such phony schemes.

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Contrasting Public Ganesh festival celebrations in Mumbai and Sangli

Ganesh festival is one of the most important festivals celebrated in India; especially in Maharashtra. Publicized by Lokmanya Tilak to bring people together for freedom struggle, the way the festival is celebrated has changed considerable with time. In fact, different places have different ways in which the festival is celebrated.

I've closely watched the festival celebrated in Mumbai and Sangli, a small town in western part of Maharashtra and there is a lot of difference in the way the festival is celebrated. The basic concept of bringing the Ganesha idol at homes or public 'pandals' (Sarvajanik Ganpati) for a period of 1.5,3,5,7,9 or 11 days remains the same as has been traditionally being carried out over the years. And yes, on the idol immersion day called Visarjan Day, both the cities have a similarly charged-up atmosphere - People dance on streets, play music at decibel levels that cross the maximum level of a sound meter, litter the roads, use firecrackers; politicians try to exploit the opportunity by providing free food and water, police try hard to control the traffic are common site in both the cities.  However, the manner in which the celebrations are held at Sarvajanik Ganpati pandals differs a lot in these two cities.

In Mumbai, public celebrations involve bringing an idol of Ganesha, keeping it in the pandals for the stipulated number of days and then immersing the idol into the sea (called Visarjan). The focus is on the beauty and the size of the Ganesha idol in the pandals. There is a competition between different pandals w.r.t the grandeur of the idol and the number of people attracted by the idols. People visit different pandals offering prayers to the Ganesha idols. Some old public pandals like 'The Lalbaug cha Raja', 'Ganesh Galli', 'Wadala cha Raja' have acquired holy status where hordes and hordes of people offer prayers and ask for wishes to the large, grand Ganesha idols. People from different parts of Maharashtra come to Mumbai and wait in queues for hours together to get one look at Ganesha.

In contrast to the focus of the grandeur of the idols and offering only prayers and asking for wishes, the focus of Ganesha public celebrations in Sangli have their focus on bringing people together, spreading some message amongst them, educating children about the myths and a host of other such things. The focus is on creating picturesque visuals using costumes, lights and other mechanical equipment on temporarily built stages to depict different events of history or stories of importance. Here, as well, people from nearby villages and towns travel to have a look at the visuals in different parts of the city.

This implies that in Sangli, every year there is something new displayed on the public pandals. On some occasions, there is a depiction of a King kong shaking the stage, sometimes there is a Himalayan cave made using wood, and sometimes you have a burning train story shown on stage using toys to generate awareness of no smoking in trains. These creative activities help bring a lot of people connect and explore different things and at the same time educate people. A lot of pandals are handed over to children where they are given a chance to display anything they want on the stage. Ofcourse, there is a small idol of Ganesha in the pandals. But, the focus of attention is on the displayed visuals/ artwork.  On the other hand in Mumbai, the pandals are always set in a similar manner and there is not much creativity on display. Focus remains only on the idols without making any effort to explore any other possibility. A lot of people I know have now given up on visiting the Sarvajanik pandals because of the monotony.

There is a strong case for Sarvajanik Ganesh pandals  in Mumbai to try something new is creative and educational to bring people together.

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Role Models

In this ever changing dynamic world, where it has now become customary to rapidly switch jobs, it has become pretty much common sight to see employees complaining about their managers and the management of the organizations they work for or for those they previously worked for. I often come across a lot of people complaining about how their bosses are too lazy to work, how less their work is appreciated, how the politics in the organization is destroying their career, how the management of the organization shows apathy to their condition and so on. However, one fine day when I came across a couple of people who were all praises for their organization and its founder, it was a pleasant change from the usual bickering remarks.

These two employees, of a mid-sized chemical company, whom I had a half hour conversation with considered the founder of their organization as their role models. The sincerity in which they spoke about their organization and its working clearly showed how deeply they revered the founding chairman of their company. One of them went on to explain how this founder, who was a role model for him, in spite of being around 60 years of age would rush to the top of a distillation column (6 floor height in general) at times of troubles in plant operations. He shared stories about how this founder was able to keep the company afloat during tough times and how now he has been able to bring to company to where it is today. These two gentlemen clearly were inspired by the work and life of this founder and tried to learn as much as possible from this role model founder of theirs.

Generally, celebrities, sportsmen, successful businessmen and well known personalities are considered as role models by people. While the stories of these successful and well-known people are good for inspiration, I believe a role model should be one who inspires plus is easy to talk to / interact. By having your role model to speak to you, he can as well be a mentor + role model who will be able to guide you and at the same time inspire you by his deeds.
Going by that definition students/youngsters shall have fathers/mothers/teachers/guardians as their role models cum mentors; while working people should have their bosses/ founding chairmen as their role models.

South Indian actors - Popularity

Why are the South Indian actors so high on popularity? The thought occurred when I was in Chennai some years back when I saw long queues of people waiting for watching the first day first show of a new movie. People were waiting the whole night for the opening show of a Tamil movie. Such is the popularity of another South Indian actor Rajnikanth that I have heard some NRI’s coming to India only to watch the movie in movie halls with the crowd. Watching Dhanush in a new promo of the upcoming movie Raanjhanaa made me ponder on the same point again. What is it about the South Indian actors that make them have such huge fan following? Why do the other actors in Mumbai/ Bollywood, inspite having such wide reach, not have popularity as loyal and dedicated as the South Indian ones?

I believe that the image they have off screen has a great deal to do this with. The Bollywood actors generally have larger than life images even in the off-screen world. They generally want to live up to their on screen image in their public life as well. In contrast, the off-screen image of South Indian actors is that of simplicity, humility, unfussiness and down to earth personality, totally in contrast to their on screen image. I think this sets the South Indian actors apart from the other Bollywood actors. When one looks at Rajnikanth without make-up, it is hard to believe that he is one of the greatest actors ever born in this soil.  He always makes himself appear as one of us. I think this is what leads to a connection with the fans. The look of Dhanush in the promos of Raanjhanaa and what he is off screen is also similar.

I am generally not a huge follower of the movies and no ways an expert in this. However, this proves that simplicity and humility are great traits to win over hearts. 

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Some observations in chemical sector

I have been working in the USD 3 trillion chemical industry since the past 4 years and I have observed that this industry has peculiar and unique things which are not generally observed in the other sectors.

1.      Strategic Joint Ventures between competitors - The chemical industry must be the only industry in which fierce competitors have joint ventures extensively. (Yes, Samsung and Apple too fall into a similar category but that is an exception).

E.g - SABIC and Exxon Mobil are strong competitors w.r.t crude refining and petrochemicals. However, they have set up JV Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company (KEMYA) in the middle-east to make specialty elastomers.

Three things determine JVs in this sector:

a. Access to the RMs

b.Access to technology

c. Access to markets.

Pure economic factors come into play. Producers are even ready to consume materials supplied by competitors if the landed price at their premises is lower than their supplied price.

For eg:- Akzo Nobel in India uses a product called tertbutylhydroperoxide (TBHP) manufactured in Europe by a competitor (LyondellBessel) even though Akzo Nobel is the world’s leading manufacturer of this product with plants in Japan, China and USA.

The only place where there can be differentiation is the Specialty chemicals segment which makes up around 20% of the total industry. For the bulk / commodity segment differentiation doesn’t fetch any premium.

Access to Raw Materials and ensuring supply is another major reason for JVs. Jurong island in Singapore is one shining example where most of the large chemical companies have invested together so as to enjoy access to raw materials easily.

In countries like India, China where technology development is a constraint, JVs happen where a foreign company brings in technology and the foreign company gets market access.

Thus, competitors are strategic partners in this sector.

2.      Trader’s knowledge and contribution is most important – To gain economies of scale, the chemical plants, especially for the bulk commodity chemicals, are of large sizes and are concentrated at few locations (where raw material is available). As a result, the chemical manufacturers are heavily dependent on the traders to distribute their products worldwide. Because the manufacturers are dependent on traders, they generally do not know much about the local markets. The knowledge about the end user market is generally amongst trading population. A few occasions, I have found that traders and middle-men have better knowledge about the applications of a product as compared to the manufacturer. A lot of middlemen are also required for regulatory approval of the products for use in food and pharmaceutical industry. These regulations are different in different countries. 

      Thus, distributors and traders play a significant role for this sector and contribute to the growth of the sector much more when compared to other industries.

3.      Low profile & information asymmetry – The industry is generally low profile with not much news about this sector appearing in the news and media (other than Oil and gas). The technology barrier which causes information asymmetry plays a major role in keeping the number of major players limited in this field. Constant innovation and changing regulations also causes limited information about different manufacturers and their processes to be in public domain. As a result, consultants and market researchers play a strategic role in this industry – much more than any other sector in my opinion. Also, because the industry is generally B2B and understanding the products require some technical knowledge, very limited information is generally known to general population and as a result the industry is low profile. Since the industry is generally upstream, the growth in chemical sector sets the pace of other downstream sectors and I believe that chemical sector acts as an indicator for other industries.

4.      Growing and Hiving off –  The chemical sector is one of the oldest industries in the world and as such there are plants that have been in place since a long time with managements changing over a period of time.  A look at the histories of Evonik and Ineos since 1890's till today show the intensive M & A’s that have happened for a chemical plant. Probably, consolidation is a regular characteristic of the chemical sector. As companies grow by M&A’s, the number of products increase and there comes a time when it is not possible for a company to oversee all these products and so to optimize the product portfolios, some sectors of the acquired company are hived off. Most of the M&A’s in this sector is based on the concept of hiving off a particular business unlike other industries complete companies are generally sold or acquired.

5.       Technology and Risk – The chemical sector thrives on innovation. New products, processes, applications are discovered continuously. Manufacturing any major new product on a commercial scale requires setting-up a capital intensive plant. There is always a risk that the new technology or the process may not work on a commercial level. There have been several occasions when technology has failed to help produce the desired product and the whole capital expenditure had to be written off. Also, because of the race to be the first to come up with products, there have been cases when excess capacities have been created and the margins have been rendered to nil on many occasions. At present such a thing is developing in USA. Because of the envisaged shale gas boom, a lot of capital intensive plants producing ethylene & derivatives are being developed. There shall be excess supply of these ethylene derivatives in the future and unless new applications for these are developed, there is a risk of the capex to fail partially or completely.  Thus, risks associated with this sector are high and have huge implications.

The chemical field is such a vast and complex field that many people fail to recognize the enormity of this sector. Large chemical companies like Dow, Exxon, BASF, Chevron, Shell, DSM, Akzo Nobel, Lyondell, Reliance, etc. have become so huge in size and contribute so significantly to the GDPs of their respective nations that they have a major say in the policy making. 

In support of Ordinariness

I was catching up on the railway budget on the social networking sites to know what all announcements were made during the railway budget and I noticed that there were some specific things that were discussed (and ridiculed) much more than other major announcements of the railway budget. The announcement of providing free Wi-Fi facilities on some trains caused maximum excitement and clamor in the media space as compared to other major announcements. In fact, I believe that this provision of free Wi-Fi facilities would be the least costly of all the promises made during the rail budget. Important announcements like freight cost increase, electrification, thrust on safety, new rail factories, etc which shall use tax payers' money and more critical for economy to progress received very less attention on the social networks and also the media space.


When looking at renting/buying apartments, the amenities provided by the builders are highlighted everywhere. However, things like the kind of build, internal plumbing, etc. which actually matter the most are rarely discussed. Much less is said about people working for the utilities like electricity generation, production, water treatment, etc when they actually form the backbone of the economy.

The human tendency for adventure, for doing something different from routine coupled with constant validation by the media are some reasons we tend to focus more on the unusual and unique aspects of things. This focus on extraordinary things causes one to think of the usual ordinary things as boring. This has led to consideration of jobs in production, clerk jobs, and government jobs as ordinary and boring. As a result, less and less people like going to these jobs (which are in fact very important for the economy) and so sub-standardness becomes rampant there leading to the reduction of overall output. In the future, I feel there shall be shortage of people willing to join these fields for work (in spite of the availability of skills).

Something ought to be done to make usual ordinary jobs more desirable. Parents, media and people should together focus and highlight the favorable aspects of the usually routine jobs so as on looks forward to the jobs.

I have worked in a plant before and I can tell from personal experience that working in shifts helps cultivate long term friendships, inculcate a sense of discipline and respect for others.

Before closing this preachy post, I would like to highlight that the billionaire Warren Buffet has grown his empire by investing in sectors like railways and solar power. So, my urge is to look at things in their entirety and not get carried away only by what is highlighted by the media.

As I am writing this, there is an outrage over Women’s bank (announced in the Union Budget) on twitter. Completely trivial.