Change in ancient cultures- “The White Tiger” by Aravind Adiga

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga has won (2008) the Man Booker Prize for his very first novel. Curious, I had placed a hold on the book at my town library and sure enough the book is in big demand and is on a strict 15 day turn-around.

Note for readers unfamiliar with current day India : This post is dated November 2, 2008 when the book had been released. The movie was released on Netflix on January 13, 2021. Since then there is great interest in this post. Note that the movie is set in 2008 and India and the world has made great technology strides in the meanwhile. The biggest is cell phone cameras and social media participation in a very participatory and exuberant democracy like India. For eg. , towards the end of the movie the existing taxi contractors remain docile upon being harassed by police in Bangalore (now Bengaluru- the Silicon Valley of India). We believe that this is very difficult in 2021 as the you can expect a vociferous opposition because of huge connectivity between people. We mention this to put the 2021 movie in historical context.

STATOSERVE

Adiga has written a gripping tale and covers both India and China with the protoganist Munna  or “The White Tiger” writing from Bangalore as a now powerful taxi operator who provides taxi services to the call centers of big brand companies like Microsoft and so on. Munna is an “entrepreneur” writing to the Chinese Prime Minister (throughout the entire novel)  who is visiting Bangalore and wants to meet local Indian entrepreneurs to understand their story. The book is about Munna’s evolution as an “entrepreneur” from abject  poverty based roots as a Rickshaw Puller’s son.

The most fascinating thing about the book is the understanding that Adiga brings about the changing  ancient social structure in India. He does so in a sort of cynical manner highlighting rare betrayal by the servant of the master.  I rather prefer the lighter approach  of PG Wodehouse called the “feudal spirit”  where Jeeves is pretty much always loyal to Bertie Wooster. 

To Adiga’s credit however, he does bring out continuity and change in the Indian social fabric as the economy booms and “catching up”  with China is on peoples’ minds. Adiga’s incredulous observation that dependable “servants” literally drive the economy is masterful. He mentions the diamond trade among others  where trustworthy assistants move around with millions in diamonds or cash with literally no “legal” controls and almost no problems. While “The White Tiger” or Munna is a deviant – you do get the feeling of continuity and stability in a  bizarre sort of way. Definitely worth a read.

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Stock market bubble,sub-prime lending, Alan Greenspan and the monkey story

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I have only limited understanding of the financial sector , particularly the ways of the stock market,mortgages and the the sub-prime mortgage mess. Have been therefore talking to  friends who are closer to mortgages and banks and they have been trying to explain what was going on and how the global meltdown has escalated.

It was not until I saw Alan Greenspan's testimony on TV that I got some better insight. But check out the clip from YouTube:

Not yet clear? Check out the monkey story explaining stock market bubbles and "moral" bubbles that a dear friend sent  me via  email:

QUOTE
Once upon a time in a village, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10.

The villagers seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts.

The man further announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort
to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ' Look at all these monkeys in the big cages that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns
from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50. '

The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys.

Then they never saw the man or his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!
UNQUOTE

I am beginning to get the picture….

When Machiavelli and Plato collide- change and innovation may not be difficult !

Innovation and attendant change is difficult – for people are normally opposed to change.  Many people are resistant to change in even silly things like the cup we use for our  morning coffee ! In good or even in moderate times, leaders have a real tough time in promoting innovation and change. 

Machiavelli has a great quote on the difficulty that leaders face in facilitating change :

And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new.

Machiavelli, Niccolò. [1513] 1992. The Prince.

However, the current global financial crisis (refers to 2008) will make change and innovation easier for leaders  countries,companies and individuals.

Why ? Because as Plato said “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  Sure, if there was a time that required change – it is this.

Staying still is not really an option both for corporate leaders and entrepreneurs today.

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700 or 2% of US car dealers may close- but could there still be light for US Auto?

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With all the turmoil in financial markets the troubled US auto industry seems to be on the verge of total collapse.  700 dealers might close because customers can't get finance as Ford and GM stock touched a57 year low.

All may not be lost for US auto as the GM-Chrysler deal might promote receiving some federal funding to re-tool. On the distribution side with the closing distributorships I was cheered to read some comments here . According to these comments most if not all these 700 dealers will be US Auto dealers and not import dealers. These auto dealers are ones with large product lines,little differentiation among offerings and too much territory squeeze much like McDonald franchises who might wake up to find another McDonald just across the road and much more competition.

If this is indeed true for US auto distributors then there might be streamlining of the distribution channels and remaining dealers might become more healthy when the credit situation improves.

I tried comparing the "locate" the dealer feature for "Chevy" on the GM website and the locate a dealer for Toyota.Toyota offers one dealer when you search by ZIP code after which you have to dig deeper for more dealers.On the other hand, GM starts with 3 dealers on the first page and offers 3-4 pages of dealers. Too much choice for lesser numbers of cars sold and probably too many dealers.

Seems similar to the US auto upstream supplier policy of having many component suppliers who have a hard time turning a decent profit. Here downstream distributors seem to also have too much "internal" competition to turn in good profits. The situation is off course much more difficult in tough economic times.

US Senate approves India agreement for cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy- a day before Gandhi’s Birthday

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I guess the bailout approval by the Senate eclipsed a very significant bill that was passed by the US Senate-A bill to approve the United States-India Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. Check out the official Senate announcement here – passed 50 minutes before the bailout bill. Interesting, I could not find any major US news report online on this very significant development, with all the other excitement surrounding the bailout and elections. I guess – the mainstream US media just has too many things going on.

In any case, the agreement will end India's 34 year  isolation from accessing the latest nuclear power technology and supplies. This is really special because as the Senators explained, although India is only one of the three countries that has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty  the world's largest democracy India(with a great peace record)  and the world's oldest democracy – the USA would be able to make this agreement work.

The  co-operation between US nuclear suppliers and the booming electricity sector in India would provide business to US companies – at least 3 of the 8 initial nuclear reactors. This in turn would create  much needed jobs here – an estimated  250 000 US jobs , according to the US Chamber of Commerce.

A cause to celebrate the Mahatma's birthday today.The world seems to buy the idea that Gandhi 's India will remain peaceful and focussed on "green" nuclear energy development and not proliferate nuclear weapons.

Banking is a mess, B2B trust and Karl Marx smiles at “mother of all bailouts”

Karl Marx Smiles @StratoServe

The “nationalization” of institutions like Freddie, Fannie, AIG and so on and so on reminds me of what we thought we had left behind. Namely, socialism, the socialistic pattern and communism. Marx would be smiling and his more moderate followers like “Fabian Socialists”  would be laughing more loudly. Nationalization protects the consumer somewhat but creates public sector monsters.(Note : This post was posted September 19, 2008) .But I digress…

B2B scholars, including myself, have been studying  trust the glue that holds business together for a while  (Read Morgan and Hunt’s interview here). We all were studying industrial firms supplying nuts bolts and other verifiable stuff that went into a value chain. Then came along the Internet and the study of trust went on to “e-Trust” and so on.

Banking,Insurance, Finance  value chains were frankly not on the B2B scholarly radar. The fact that home values were being pumped up (by appraisers threatened by real estate brokers) , home owner incomes were not being verified ( by bankers – I am  not clear what the incentive/threat was ), and mortgages were instantly sold (at a discount as a fancy” instrument”) and then resold again and again with no “value add” seem so obvious in hindsight. The truth came to me very sharply when someone on a TV talk show said that today bankers won’t lend money to each other because they can’t trust each other… this brings us to the mother of all bail outs aka nationalization and a smiling Karl Marx with a “V” sign…. more as things play out ..

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Hurricane Ike and gas prices

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Hurricane Ike has caused immense damage and hardship in the Gulf coast. 25% of the US refining capacity is in this area and most of this capacity is shut down and will take weeks if not months to come up. Despite crude oil prices being relatively low at about 100$ a barrel gas prices have jumped all over the US and may be back at 4$ per gallon and even 5$ per gallon. Apparently the wholesalers of gas have increased prices and retailers are doing likewise. In some parts, gas prices changed upwards as folks were in line to fill up. Ike was being predicted for some time and the refineries were shut down Friday. Could better supply chain co-ordination between refiners,wholesalers and retailers reduced this latest price increase? Perhaps…

“Hot Flat and Crowded” The ET industry

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Hot Flat Crowded
Thomas Friedman was on NBC with Tom Brokaw this morning on Meet the Press and was talking about his new book. Watch the video here.

I am a  fan of Friedman and of the flat world book. Tom Friedman observes the world and reflects and then tells us stuff which is absolutely compelling. In this interview Tom was calling for a new industry "ET" or "Energy Technology." Innovations in the energy sector has become absolutely critical. Why? Because each one of us is thinking about how to reduce energy consumption (have online meetings, merge errands, get a better oil burner and so on). The global market is simply hungry for energy innovations and Friedman's book is timely. Friedman is calling for hundreds of thousands of innovators in the "ET" sector who would come up with ideas and even if a few succeed as with the IT revolution,the world will be a better place. It'll be greener and better for succeeding generations.More on this, after I read the book.

Outsourcing and innovation – Hackett Study and NESCON Workshop

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Apparently there is a new study  by the  Hackett Group that finds that while Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is on the rise because of cost savings , outsourcing executives are generally unhappy with the innovation by suppliers. I will address some of these challenges in an upcoming talk at NESCON.

Here is the summary of the upcoming talk on October 6, 2008 at Marlborough MA.


Your organization has crunched
all the numbers and evaluated offers and signed the global outsourcing
contract. You are rather pleased with your efforts including involving your
internal users in the RFP, perhaps organizing a great global reverse auction
and concluding some great win-win supplier negotiations. Your CFO and CEO are
delighted with the projected savings that will come from executing the global
outsourcing contract. In fact your CEO (followed by your HR) proudly mentioned
that all displaced employees might be possibly absorbed in other parts of the US organization,
avoiding layoffs.  This would be possible
as global outsourcing will reduce costs and many more new product development
and innovation projects might be speeded up –substantially. More and speedily
developed new products for global markets would actually mean more jobs in the US organization!
You knew that global supply chains were the way to go….


Two years down the line you find
that the envisaged contract volumes have not emerged. The suppliers are complaining,
your internal organization had changed with the outsourcing contract, and it’s
difficult to find the people who knew what was going on in the first place.  The global innovation engine is moving much
slower than expected.

Check out the program here. Should have some interesting feedback.

CRM on iPhone

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The new iPhone 3G is great, although being tied down to one carrier (AT&T) might be constraining for some as are the extra charges for Internet access. However, it is really a great device particularly for those who need to get onto the web while on the go. And now CRM vendors like Salesforce.com and biggies in the ERP business Oracle and SAP are getting into top gear to provide access via the iPhone 3G. Check out the scoop on all of this in the article here.

Driving the CRM application to the iPhone or Blackberry will certainly improve adoption of CRM software. More so, in these challenging economic times when new business is difficult to get and existing customers might have needs that businesses might find less costly to service.