The rise of Indigo

Indigo is india’s biggest profitable airline with roughly 40 percent market share . The airline has risen in last 10 years. It has got 135 modern and new aircrafts. The story of indigo is all the more exciting as the established airlines like air india, jet airways and kingfisher have made huge losses during last 10 years. Kingfisher has gone for bankruptcy and is closed down Air India has debt burden of 50000 crores. And the government is planning to privatise it. Jet airways could be saved because of timely investment by Ethihad. What has gone right for the indigo? Obviously many things. That’s why it has gained strength in a very difficult market. The key word here is business model innovation and coherent strategy where each part of the action is linked to the other to create unique positioning in the customer’s mind.

Indigo is low cost airline. For any low cost airline to survive , it has to bring down the cost operations to the minimum without affecting the quality and as well safety of passengers. Indigo bought single type of aircraft that was A 320 . The single type of aircraft brought down the cost of maintenance as well training to the staff members. The turn around time for one flight to another is also minimum. The company and its staff members reap the benefits of experience curve economy. As you gain experience doing same same things over and over again, your productivity and efficiency increase. The idea is to keep the aircraft flying for maximum number of hours to gain more revenue

Indigo gave bulk order to the Airbus industries and got maximum possible discount. That brought the the most essential fixed cost of buying aircrafts. The aircrafts are owned by the subsidiary company of the indigo which has leased the aircraft to indigo . While giving rent to its subsidiary, the cost of buying plane does not show up on its accounts. This is business model innovation which has made the airline profitable after first two years of its operations.

Indigo work force is young and aggressive. It has been able to ensure that flights are on schedule. Flights getting delayed have been very common in India By improving processes, it has been able to get almost 98 percent of flights on time. Punctuality has been the biggest driving factor for the growth of the airline. There many small process innovations which have made indigo such a powerful airline.

The airline spends good amount of time and money on training of the staff. That shows up in the operations. The rise of indigo has proved that if companies can get their acts rights and innovative , they can manage the tough external environment too.

In my workshops with executives on innovation , I try to emphasise that innovation should not be misunderstood with new product launch and research and development, it has got far wider meaning of doing new things, improving processes, doing business model innovations and looking at the innovative pricing to crate unique positioning of the company’s product in the minds of customer. The rise of indigo reinforces this view .

Review of Mergers and Acquisitions deals in 2016-17: A record year for India

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) are considered to be one of the most important ways to expand the business inorganically and respond to the changing market conditions. The wave of M&A activities is not new across the globe and India. The last financial year 2016-17 was a record breaking period for M&A deals in India. The monetary worth of M&A transactions increased from $27.62 billion (2015-16) to $61.26 billion (2016-17). The reason of increase in the volume of M&A deals is the consolidation of various sectors such as telecom, energy & cement and increasing interest of Foreign Instutional Investors (FIIs) in the Emerging Indian market.

Source: Livemint

Graph 1: Representing deal value ($ billion) and no. of deals of M&A in India

The consolidation wave of merger in the cement industry included large players focusing towards building of capacity and bringing in synergies through the acquisition route. Some of the most strategic deals included acquisition of Jaiprakash Associates’ Cement Plants in five states and a grinding unit by Ultra Tech (owned by Aditya Birla Group) for $2.41 billion, Lafarge India’s 11 million tonne (mt) cement business acquisition by Nirma for $1.4 billion and ADAG Group’s cement capacity acquisition by Birla Corp’s (MP Birla Group) for $710 million.  This consolidation wave has led to concentration of 58 percent of market share in the hands of top five industry players.

Another most prominent consolidation wave has been witnessed in telecommunication sector. Idea Cellular led by Kumar Mangalam Birla agreed to merge with the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone (U.K. Telecom Company) for $23 billion to form largest telecommunication company of India. This merger will have a capacity to serve approximately 400 million clients by capturing 41% market revenue and 35% customer base.  Post the announcement of Vodafone and Idea merger, other telecom giants like Airtel and Reliance Communications (Rcom) also announced various mergers and acquisitions. In 2016, Rcom acquired Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd. (SSLT) operating under MTS brand which added approximately 6 million customer base. In 2017, Rcom announced its merger with Aircel which will lead to increase in its customer base by 81 million approximately. In 2017, Telenor’s Indian group was acquired by Bharti Airtel. Telenor is a Norwegian government entity operating in India since 2009. The major reason behind this telecom consolidation wave included spectrum gain; 4G Edge; increase in subscriber base; footprint in densely populated areas such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, UP and Assam; and lastly to gain edge over competitors.

Other top ten acquisition deals in India includes Appirio acquisition by Wipro for $500 million, Geometric Limited acquisition by HCL Technologies for $200 million, Cutrus Payment Solutions acquisition by PayU for $130 million, Jabong.com acquisition by Flipkart owned Myntra for $70 million, The BIO Agency acquisition by Tech Mahindra for £45 million, Babyoye.com acquisition by Firstcry for ₹3.6 billion, Caratlane acquisition by Titan Company Limited for approximately ₹3.5 billion, Happy Creative Services acquisition by Dentsu Aegis Network for $44 million, Ocular Technologies Sarl acquisition by Sun Pharma for $40 million and Forever 21 India acquisition by Pantaloons for $26 million.

The wave of consolidation among various sectors in India can be viewed as a catalyst for expontential and linear growth. M&A have become the integral part of the economies across the globe and will continue to trend, as inorganic growth is considered to be fastest and safest mode to grow the business. Furthermore, it becomes inevitable to grow business organically in the current era of volatility.

LinkedIn Profile Checklist For Students!

LinkedIn is a professional networking site which has grown from just 500,000 users to 50 million users over the years. It is not only said to be a social-professional networking platform, but is considered to be a necessity tool for every person out there wanting to connect with each other for business, hiring, research or networking purpose. Yes, personal branding is as essential as marketing a product in the market.

For today’s millennial generation, who are aspiring to enter into the world of corporate space (and strategies!),  it is so very important to keep a regular check on LinkedIn profile essentials.

If you are just starting new on LinkedIn, the process can be a little overwhelming for you. To make things easier, we have made a quick checklist for MBA students, and all other kinds of aspirants to help you get started on the right track.

Here is our 6 point checklist for your LinkedIn profile :-

1. First Step To Start

  • You must have over 100 connections
  • Make sure you put a professional photo
  • Your profile should be SEO driven. Keep a check on your keyword strategy, it should be in place for higher & right visibility of your profile
  • Work on your unique LinkedIn profile URL. 

2. Headline/Job Designation

  • Headline is possibly the most important thing on your LinkedIn profile. It permits you to use 120 characters to define yourself in every right and attractive manner for a user to simply click on your profile.

3. Summary

  • Your profile summary is a short description of your experience; skills, talents, and how you could (or can) add value to a company.
  • A summary should definitely include the quantified results with numbers and figures that was achieved in previous companies.

4. Experience

  • This section gives you a systematic way of displaying your work associations with previous employers, and also to add relevant amount of media files/pfs/blogs to portray your work establishments in a much extensive manner.
  • It is highly recommended to be detailed while writing the specifications about your work experience by providing employer’s background, years of association with the particular organization,  project details, accomplishments & KRAs.
  • This section also permits you to proceed with filling in some specifications about – Education, Courses, Certificates etc.

5. Recommendations & Endorsements

  • For right LinkedIn optimization it is suggested to at least have top 3 recommendations filled in. Recommendations are the best way to make your own profile speak for you from your references.
  • Endorsements are the display of your top skills on your profile. You must keep a check on the endorsements you receive from your network (and what you give back to your LinkedIn connects). Endorsements work like a give and take strategy. The more you connect with people on LinkedIn, the endorsements increases with time.

6. Networking & Connecting

  • Be a part of at least 10-15 relevant groups on LinkedIn. There is a large community on LinkedIn that could help you know what’s trending and bustling in your chosen domain around by just digitally interacting with them.
  • It is said that sharing is important, but only if it relevant & effective. Post relevant articles on your profile at least once a week.
  • Make sure you connect with two new much relevant users on LinkedIn on a monthly basis.
  •  Messaging on LinkedIn is one of the strongest tools to sustain your network. You must message to your known network, one to an unknown LinkedIn user on a weekly basis.
  • Make sure you follow at least 5 new companies that you are interested in.

References : 
– LinkedIn
– Levo League
– Career Contessa

Teamwork : The Other Name of Voluntary Leadership

A good team work exist when a group of people work together in close coordination towards a common goal and creates a positive work atmosphere thereby supporting each other so as to pool in individual strengths to enhance team performance. Teamwork is significant for an organization since it provides employees with an opportunity to bond with each other, which improves relations among them. Improved employee relations also result from the fact that teamwork boosts close coordination among members which has resulted due to increased trust among them.

The knack to perform synchronously as an individual and also with the employees is a vital element to attaining growth and success. Steve Jobs, the man behind the success of Apple Inc. changed the entire paradigm of living with his innovative and creative thoughts. However, without the support of his team of hard working and efficient employees’ abilities, it would have been impossible to incorporate and accomplish his ideas successfully. Therefore, in effect teamwork is extremely essential in order to accomplish the mission and goals of an organization.

In the present day world, it is next to impossible to survive in a workplace by being a master of one trade or even ‘jack of all trades’ unless an individual is inept to work as a team. Another crucial point that team members need to note is trust and respect for one another which is extremely important. Moreover, the success of a team also depends on the characteristics of a team’s leader. The brawl that had happened in the recent past with the noted television comedian Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover (known popularly as Guthhi). The success of the comedy show “Comedy Nights With Kapil Sharma” lost its charm as the central character of the show are missing. No wonder the team leader has enough potentialities, but how long it is possible for him to be successful in pulling up the show’s TRP.

Even in an academic administration, the utmost challenge is to find the right set of administrators who have a passion for making a difference in the higher education or rather professional education. Academicians these days are willing to go beyond the conventional wisdom and willing to challenge the current situation for a dynamic and industry specific future for their students. Some of the universities across the globe are forging this new path with a great combination of administrators vis-à-vis academicians.

Few of the vital reasons to understand the significance of teamwork in a work place are :

(a) Team motivates unity in the workplace
(b) Team provides different perspectives as well as offers feedback
(c) Improved efficiency and productivity is possible to attain with a collaborative and supportive team
(d) Team provides active engagement and learning opportunities and above all
(e) Team promotes workplace synergy and allows to feel a greater sense of accomplishment.

Minus the ability to work successfully in a team environment can impede on the success of developing, formulating and implementing innovative ideas. The synergy of individuals is a brilliant instrument which brings glory at workplace.

People, the fifth P as we say in “Marketing” are the most important resource of an organization. Needless to say a business leader needs to pay utmost attention and nurture such significant resource of an organization. The stakeholders or precisely speaking, customers, can be happy only if the people of an organization are happy and improved productivity can happen only when there is apposite synergy among individuals.

The Future of HR

HR has been evolving a lot as a function in the recent times. The talent pool has been increasing, and as a consequence organizations are looking at HR as a strategic role more importantly than before.

SEE ALSO: Women in HR profession

In a recent survey done by the Society for Human Resource Management, HR professionals say that the three biggest challenges facing HR executives over the next 10 years are :

  1. Retaining and rewarding the best employees as in Talent Retention.
  2. Developing the next generation of corporate leaders as in succession planning.
  3. Creating a corporate culture that attracts the best employees and creating a talent pool as in Talent Engagement.

So if we look at the upcoming 10 years of HR, here is what will be different and dynamic :

HR will be flexible

As per a recent survey of SHRM, providing flexible work arrangements will be a top priority for organizations. 9 to 5 work culture may move to more flexi timings, as young professionals are looking for places where they can have the chance to take time off to be creative, be able to take a break without being monitored, or even work from home with pre-assigned objectives.

Employees want greater flexibility and will excel in their performance if they are allowed to adjust both their work and personal lifestyle. HR is starting to understand that, we see many startups and MNC’s implementing such methods and the next 10 years will only bring more of this.

HR will be more social.

Intranet, internal social platforms, and many other ways of promoting online collaboration and communication across the company will be part of HR responsibilities in the future. HR can use social tools to predict behaviors in office performance by giving extra benefits to high performers of the month or give incentives to employees who are great performers and represent the organization. The work experience will be taken live and will bring a stronger social component to organizations and their culture.

HR will be mobile

We all know that mobile is the new hot trend in almost every industry; HR is no exception. HR can be app based out of your smartphone in the future (organization specific) .You will want to leave comments, assign tasks, and when arriving to the office have your team already working on such tasks. You will want to able to check, while having a coffee before entering an individual performance meeting, what comments were given during the last meeting. You will want to be able to check how you’re performing in terms of workforce happiness, to check the latest stats on your mobile and give a report to your CEO.

All in all, the lifestyle of an HR person will not be desktop-based. It will be wherever they are, whenever they want and in fact mobile / on the move.

HR will be about data

How many days does it take to hire a new person? What is the best quarter to hire specific profiles? When are people the happiest throughout the year? Who are the most performing people and why? What are the trending skills we need to acquire in the next hire? These and many more questions are all connected to the hot topic of big data. But data is meaningless without interpretation and context. HR will have a great deal of responsibility in analyzing the data, interpreting it and making the right decisions in order to ensure the right acquisition, training, development and retention of talent, all a part of people analytics.

HR will be integrated

HR will be composed by tech savvy people, data scientists, and recruitment experts. People that are able to do copywriting, for job descriptions that correspond to the company culture. People that are able to read and interpret data and forecast trends. People that are on top of the latest technology and can solve problems or bring additional benefits to the company. People that are connectors, socially active and can attract more talents to the company. HR will be about diversity of skills.

The next decade is crucial for HR to evolve and become a key role in any organization. HR might no longer be a single department in the future. HR might be part of something greater in the years to come.