Moser Baer - setting examples...

I've been on the look out for some of the Indian companies that have gone out to excel in their fields globally. One such company is Moser Baer. It came to me as a surprise that Moser Baer is an Indian company, as the name isn't remotely Indian. The name sounds like German and I thought that since there's a manufacturing plant of Moser Baer in India, it must be an MNC. However, the misconception was absolved for the good, and I'm here blogging about it.
Moser Baer has gone miles since its inception and serves as an exemplar for aspirant technopreneurs. I add here a brief description of Moser Baer as in it's website.

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A typical CD has a unique spiral track of data, which, if straightened, would be around 5 km long. It takes a single-minded, precise and persistent approach to lay such a path. At Moser Baer, our spiralling growth is a result of the same meticulous approach we use to make our media, applied to running our company.
The company was founded in New Delhi in 1983 with a clear vision— to operate in products with high entry barriers, from the technology as well as capital point of view. Given the fact that high obsolescence usually goes hand in hand with high technology, the risk and reward equation had to make sense. It started as a Time Recorder unit in technical collaboration with Maruzen Corporation, Japan and Moser Baer Sumiswald, Switzerland.
However, it was in 1986 that Moser Baer found its true calling. This was the time when the data storage field—the marvel of creating a memory second only to the human brain out of some plastic, specialty chemicals and dyes— caught the attention of an engineer with a masters degree in mechanical engineering from the Imperial College, London. So what if this meant breaking into what was till then the exclusive preserve of Japanese and Taiwanese manufacturers, questioning the paradigm that no Indian manufacturer could be competitive in the global space and fighting the image that India was a country that borrowed technology and did not create it? Such challenges only further inspired Moser Baer founder and managing director Deepak Puri to take the company to the forefront of the optical media industry.
Undertaking its first and only diversification into the data storage industry, Moser Baer initially manufactured 5.25" Floppy Diskettes, graduating to 3.5" Micro Floppy Diskettes (MFD) in 1993. Today, Moser Baer is the world's fifth-largest manufacturer of MFDs. Its unique strength in diskette manufacturing comes from products conforming to stringent international quality standards with a cost-effectiveness that few can match.
In 1999, Moser Baer spread its wings into Recordable Optical Media, setting up a 150-million unit capacity plant to manufacture Recordable Compact Disks (CD-Rs) and Recordable Digital Versatile Disks (DVD-Rs). The strategy for the optical media project was identical to what had successfully been implemented in the diskette business—creating a facility that matched global standards in terms of size, technology, quality, product flexibility and process integration. The company is today the only large Indian manufacturer of magnetic and optical media data storage products, exporting approximately 90% of its production.
Since inception, Moser Baer has always endeavored to create its space in the international market, something that very few Indian manufacturers have been able to achieve. Aiding the company in its efforts has been a carefully-planned and sustainable model—low costs, high margins, high profits, reinvestment and capacity growth. Along the way, deep relationships have been forged with leading OEMs, with the result that today there are hardly any players in the field that Moser Baer is not associated with.

Milestones:

1983	Year of Incorporation
1985	Production of 8.0"/5.25" disks commences
1987	Production of 3.5" disks commences First Public Issue
1998	Moser Baer India gets ISO 9002 certification
1999	Production of CD-Rs commences
2000	Production of CD-RWs commences
2002	Production of cake and jewel boxes begins
2003	Entry into DVD-R formats Commissioning of the world's single-largest optical media production facility in Greater Noida Largest-ever Indian manufacturing deal with Imation Corp, USA Introduction of the 'moserbaer' brand in the Indian market
2004	Technology license agreement with Hewlett-Packard to manufacture optical media using 'Lightscribe' technology Private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC invests $149 million (about Rs 675 crore) in Moser Baer Agreement with Hewlett-Packard to manage the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of HP-branded DVD+Rs, DVD+RWs, CD-Rs and CD-RWs, storage media in India and the SAARC region

Our Values

• Meticulous: To persevere till we reach quality perfection, and beyond
• Open: To encourage and be accessible to new ideas and feedback
• Selfless: To give back to society
• Ethical: To be honest and ethical in our business
• Responsible: To fulfill our commitments on time, every time

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Hats off!!!

The cucumber seller from Chennai

Here's something I came across. It makes you think about where you are in the scheme of things...

By SUBROTO BAGCHI (The author is co-founder & chief operating officer at MindTree Consulting.)

On a hot July day, my colleague Moses and I were trying to locate our car on Chennai’s Nungambakkam High Road in front of Nalli Silks when I saw a roadside cart laden with cucumbers. The seller was vacantly gazing at passersby. Clad in a white shirt and a dhoti worn in the traditional Chennai style, he had long hair and an unkempt beard. I did not know Tamil, and asked Moses to find out the price. One rupee apiece, came the reply. We wanted one piece each. The cucumber seller began deftly slicing them to put salt and the delectable red chilly powder on the neat halves. As we bit into the cucumber, I asked Moses to tell him that his pricing was too low, and that he should raise it. Moses conveyed this. The seller shook his head, and replied that “customer atisfaction” is more important than extra profit. The words ‘customer satisfaction’ were in English. I gulped my patronizing comment. At this time, Moses excused himself to find our car. After a few moments, the seller asked me in English where I was from. From Bangalore, I replied. What follows here is our conversation. His statements are highlighted.

Isn’t the Karnataka budget due to be presented tomorrow?
Yes, that is true. Living in Karnataka, it was easy for me to concur on this.

I wonder how the governments of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will ever solve the watersharing problem. Man cannot solve this problem. It has to be God. After all, it is an issue of how much rain is going to fall! I nodded. I was not sure if I had a view at all.

See the way the monsoon is progressing. It does not look good. The progress of the rains is leaving a ‘V’ of a dry patch as the clouds move north. Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and the states up north will have problems. Politicians are the ones who use such problems to create a divide among people. They always do it. They use water, religion, anything they can, to create a divide. Look at the way Amarinder Singh of Punjab is taking a stand. I looked at him, in part admiration and part disbelief.

You’re from Bangalore. Things are going well for you folks. But I don’t understand how people with shady business interests can become representatives of public opinion there. It was part complaint and part observation.

At this point, a fellow peddler arrived — helped himself to some of the cucumber, and the two had a quick conversation on some issue I did not understand. After the other person left, I asked him if selling cucumber was his full-time vocation. He told me that right now it was. Earlier, he sold lottery tickets, the trading of which has since been banned. As a result he had to switch his business to selling cucumbers on the wheeled cart. No complaints and no issues. Meaning to engage him further, I asked him his religion. This drew an instant look of disappointment from him: “Sir, I am an Indian. That is my religion. In my eyes, all people are equal, and it does not matter to me at all.”

The clarity of his response and his conviction took me completely by surprise. His net worth was probably equal to his day’s turnover. The newspaper and magazines he reads, to keep abreast of things, wipe off the disposable income he generates. Bare feet on this busy, dusty road, he sold a low-value, perishable product from a rickety cart. At peace with himself and with the world rushing past, this man was dressed in poverty. But in his presence, it was I who felt poor.

We are not complete if we are not connected. It is only when we are connected that things make sense. Only when things make sense, we can form an opinion. Standing there, I wondered how many in the corporate world know who the chief minister of Punjab is, and about the progress of the monsoon! How many have an informed view on river water politics and budget proceedings of another state.

Soon, Moses appeared with our car. It was time for me to go. I shook hands with the nameless cucumber seller of Chennai. Actually, I wanted to touch his feet.

The cucumber seller's conviction is close to ideal. I think Indians are gradually, but steadily looking at things in the right perspective. This is a truly inspiring article and there is something for everyone in it.

The Entrepreneur's Sacrifice

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: The Entrepreneur's Sacrifice: "A great tale about the entrepreneur's sacrifice:

Rob Shostak, a long-time entrepreneur and founder of five-year-old startup Vocera, told a story about meeting one of the founders of software maker Lotus Development Corp. shortly after it had gone public. The guy had just cashed out $18 million of stock and invited Shostak back to his apartment to see a present he had bought himself. It turned out to be a modest Jeep Cherokee. Shostak followed the founder up to his apartment, expecting to find a palatial penthouse. But it was an average place furnished with only a mattress on the floor. 'I was kind of dumbfounded when he volunteered, 'Actually, they just took all the furniture out to go to my ex-wife's place,'' Shostak said. 'It was a striking and poignant moment for me to realize the cost of his commitment to the company.'

It's a more common story than you might think. The long hours, low pay, and volatility of startup life takes a toll on the people who are close to entrepreneurs. 'Make sure if you value the relationship with the person you’re living with that they’re up for this,' Shostak said. In addition, make sure that you choose your co-founders carefully. 'You literally will be seeing these people more than you’ll be seeing your spouse,' Shostak added.

Choosing this way of life is seriously not normal. But it sure seems like it when you are working on something you believe in. The easiest rule to forget is to pay yourself. The easiest sacrifice is de-prioritizing everything outside your business, even the things you are really working for -- like yourself, friends and family."

Idea Change ..not Creativity

Renee Hopkins Callahan writes in
Coranteabout the annual conference of the American Creativity Association where Edward De Bono gave a keynote speech.

The summary she says :
"Creativity" is too large a word and "design" is too small a word.

For De Bono, "creativity" is not a focused enough word. He prefers "idea change," which he says better captures the "skill in thinking" aspectof creativity, as opposed to considering creativity as a gift or something that manifests itself only in certain circumstances.

"Design" is too small a word for De Bono because he considers "design" as more than just putting together visual elements. He uses the word "design" to describe the process of deliberately putting together new ideas in order to deliver value.

Check out Bono's book 'Serious Creativity'. Awesome read !

The bottom of the pyramid

I have always been fascinated by C.K.Prahlad's theory on the bottom of the pyramid. Here's one interesting article on Red Herring titled Selling to the Poor

Here are a few excerpts

“There are five billion people in developing countries that are currently underserved, but can’t wait to join the global economy,” says Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad, a University of Michigan professor and author of best-selling business books, including The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits.

Consumers “at the bottom of the pyramid”—as Mr. Prahalad refers to the poor—can’t afford the same products as Western consumers. On average, they earn less than $2 per day. Mr. Prahalad, considered one of the world’s most influential business thinkers, believes companies can make a profit targeting this market, if they make their advanced technology affordable.

The funda:

First, price/performance ratios need to improve by a factor of 30 to 100, he says. “But contrary to popular belief, there is more to it than just taking existing technology and removing some functionality,” he says. “Products for developing countries often have to be more advanced than those for the developed world.”

How can one sell more advanced products at lower prices and still make money? “Through

innovation,” says Mr. Prahalad. The $39 you pay for a DVD player that was made in China isn’t all about low labor costs, he says. It is about doing things differently.

“In India, car manufacturers such as Tata and Hyundai sell cars for $7,000—for $9,000 you have a car with a video screen in the back seat and the quality is high,” says Mr. Prahalad. “Why do we sell cars in the U.S. and Europe for $20,000?”

Here are a few brilliant examples quoted:

Jaipur Foot, a self-sustaining company that makes artificial feet that allow amputees from rural India to continue working in their fields, is one of Mr. Prahalad’s favorite examples. With Jaipur’s advanced prosthesis, patients can squat, sit cross-legged, and walk barefoot on bumpy terrain—things that are impossible with artificial limbs made in the West. Priced at only $30, it’s more than 250 times cheaper, too.

U.S.-based Gillette is also adapting to serve emerging markets: its new razor designed for the Indian market can be cleaned without running water; millions of consumers lack access to a tapped water supply. Indian men like to use double-edge blades, Gillette researchers found, but they shave less often then men in the West, so have longer stubble. That, coupled with their use of still water, clogs twin blades. The “push clean” button on the new, cheap “Vector Plus” solves the problem.

Vision 2020 : A vision for the new millennium

Having just finished reading the book with the above title, I'm left spellbound.
"The ultimate inspiration repository"
A must read for any aspiring entrepreneur in India.

I found some of Kalam's views striking and I record them here

• First and foremost, is the lack of awareness and paranoia in Indians. Throughout the book, there are innumerable instances of great innovation from Indians, right from the age of Tippu Sultan. However, I concur with Kalam, when he says that Indians don't believe that they can be innovators themselves. One instance cited is when one of the persons from the Indian intelligentsia belittles Tippu Sultan's contributions to missile development, saying that Tippu's rockets were built with the help of the French, though it was completely indigenious. There are many such cases, where Indians have done the grassroot design, but have lost the edge in the field by allowing others to consolidate on our innovation(Not allowing others to take the lead implies innovating continuously to have an edge over others) Given a huge and challenging task, there are very few Indians who start off positively. Most people shun the challenge.
• I quote Mr. Narayan Murthy here :

  "It is very easy to set your goals low in this country. It's high time to change this trend if India has to survive".

  I think this is one of the biggest problems - setting low goals. I can give an example here - When a person A goes to his teacher and says that he is intrigued by some field and wants to know more about it, the teacher scornfully replies that A has not even scratched the surface and has no scope in that 'hi-funda' field now. Is this the reply A wanted or expected? A figured out that the range of answers would be between "You can start with some basic math required" to "Thats amazing! What do you know about the field?". Agreed that the teacher may be very busy and may have prior experiences of being dissatisfied with other students, but isn't the teacher acting as an impedance in this case?
• Its high time we started innovating. I can bet that you can't name 10 innovations from India that have made huge impact in a particular field. Does this mean that we don't innovate? I think that the reason is a combination of setting low goals and losing out on developments in a new field. This is to be set right immediately. When I say innovate, it doesn't constrain to the engineering aspects only. When Richard Branson came up with Virgin one, everyone realised that it was an excellent scheme and incorporated modifications in their system on the lines of Virgin one. Is it that we can't ithink of such schemes? Nope, its just that we don't try. And we effectively wait for others to innovate and then use their methods. Isn't this dependency? Is this really independence we are enjoying? OK, globalization forces you to be dependent, but the degree of dependency is an alarmingly high number in India's case. The book brings out myriad fields in which urgent innovation's required.
• An excerpt from the book :

  ...My co-author Y S Rajan was recently in a meeting to discuss the effects of sanctions. This was before the usa had announced the details. All were Indians and working for foreign banks. One elderly gentleman emphatically said how we all have to learn to be proud of ourselves and take actions to nullify the sanctions. He narrated an episode about his visit to Japan. A leaking tap in his hotel room disturbed his sleep. He complained. Two people came, worked for half an hour and made it right. They showed the performance to him and he was satidfied. Then they apologized deeply for the inconvenience caused to him and informed him of the hotel management's decision not to charge room rent for that night. So far one can perhaps explain this as normal professionalism. But then, with a bow, the two workers showed the tap piece to him and said, 'Sir! Please see, the trouble caused to you is not by a Japanese product but an imported. We will continue to do better, Sir!' The message is that most Japanese are proud of their country's capability. They want to excel in their work. If each of us attempts to do so in our spheres of work the status of developed India will arrive sooner than we expect, because our country has many natural core strengths and competitive advantages...

  The paragraph says it all.
• One more thing that struck me was the fact that developed countries don't want other countries to be developed. This is much like the economic analogy of a monopoly, but this is a lot more consequential and can't be escaped attention.

These were some of the points that are to figure out in every person's checklist...
Read the book for more...
One thing that flabbergasted me was the amount of information collected by the authors on every field. Its amazing, and shows that this is the time to blossom, when the right person's on the throne.

Doors of Perception, in Delhi

Jeremy Faludi writes on World Changing:

Doors of Perception is a biannual conference put on by the Dutch ministry of Education, Culture and Science; it is a collection of designers, technologists, and other creative people from diverse fields. This year it is held in Delhi, and the theme is “Infra”, meaning infrastructure, but it’s about a range of ways in which technology and innovative design or ideas can help international development and general worldchanging. The first day’s most interesting presentation was by Solomon Benjamin, a researcher/consultant from Bangalore...

Benjamin described how the most innovative places in India, the places where new technology and manufacturing starts, are slums. There is almost no infrastructure, and certainly no help from government; in fact, most activity is underground in order to avoid taxes and general governmental disapproval of things that weren’t part of their plan. These entrepreneurs have no capital, evolving their own methods of financing; they also have no IP law. And yet whole clusters of interdependent companies sprout up making things that are found nowhere else in the country (computer cable mfr.s were his main example).

And it turns out this phenomenon is not unique to India. He pointed out an example in New York, and I would say the same is true in reverse of Silicon Valley--its explosion of innovative companies created an unplanned, unregulated city-sprawl. It’s not a slum, but it does have the highest concentration of Superfund sites in the country. This brings home the point that innovation causes social problems as well as benefits.

Benjamin’s talk reminded me of a characteristic of many non-industrialized nations that I think will push India ahead in the future: everything here is patched, hacked, and customized. You have to do that, because there’s insufficient infrastructure to support the products you use, and because people’s needs are always far beyond what they can buy. As a result, everyone here is a hacker, meaning everyone is an innovator. Normal westerners don’t have the hacker mindset, because products already exist for their needs, and any need can be solved by a purchase; the people who push the envelope only do so because they enjoy it. (This is also why normal people in the industrialized world depend on branding to express themselves, rather than making their possessions into personal folk art like people in the third world do.) Having everyone in your country start with a hacker mindset will help you leapfrog from cheap-labor-source to vital-technology-hub.

The barrier to such leapfrogging is infrastructure, and as technology become more self-contained, more mobile, more peer-to-peer, infrastructure becomes less and less necessary. Ironically, the playing field gets more level the more advanced technology gets. (Not linearly, and not universally, but enough to be hopeful.) As another speaker, Ezio Manzini, phrased it, we’re starting to see the existence of “poor-to-poor” networks, and we should do as much as we can to facilitate them.

Bottom-up-innovation is an absolute necessity these days in India. And its prime time young entrepreneurs to shine in such innovation.

On the tombstone

Here is a snippet from a conversation that Tuck graduate students had with The Sage of the Omaha - Warren Buffet

Q: After all your accomplishments, what legacy do you want to leave behind?

A: I think an example is the best thing you can leave behind. Obviously, you want to leave the right example. I mean, Wilt Chamberlain's tombstone may say, "At last, I sleep alone," and that's probably not the example you want to leave. If what I've done with Berkshire Hathaway - running a unique and independent company in true pursuit of shareholder value - persists and people learn from it to improve the way they invest and run their companies, that would be a fine legacy to leave.

Yes, let us leave an example behind ourselves........a good one.

On the tombstone

Here is a snippet from a conversation that Tuck graduate students had with The Sage of the Omaha - Warren Buffet

Q: After all your accomplishments, what legacy do you want to leave behind?

A: I think an example is the best thing you can leave behind. Obviously, you want to leave the right example. I mean, Wilt Chamberlain's tombstone may say, "At last, I sleep alone," and that's probably not the example you want to leave. If what I've done with Berkshire Hathaway - running a unique and independent company in true pursuit of shareholder value - persists and people learn from it to improve the way they invest and run their companies, that would be a fine legacy to leave.

Yes, let us leave an example behind ourselves........a good one.