e-Junction

Upgrade Yourself from the World of Coding

2010-02-17T20:54:00.001+05:30

THE other day, I met a bright young engineer in MindTree and asked him what his ambition was. He was very clear. "I want to be an architect". My next question to him was, what does he read? He looked surprised and then replied that he does not read much outside what appears on a computer screen. My next question to him was whom all does he admire in MindTree among the three best architects? He named the predictable three. Then I told him what the fundamental gap was between him and the best three. It was about the ability to make intelligent conversation about any subject under the sun - a capability borne out of serious reading habits.

The next thing I asked him to do was to poll these three on what were the six books they had read last. The result was amazing. The three named eighteen books in all - of which at least six were common. Ninety percent of the books had nothing to do with information technology. The exercise proves a key point - to be a great nerd, one has to have interests outside writing code. However, many engineers think that the path to a great technical career is about technical skills alone.

Long back, Bell Labs conducted an interesting study - closely watching the common characteristics among a group of technical professionals who rose to the top. The exercise revealed nine key factors outside just technical competence that differentiated brilliant technical folks from the masses. The study was conducted by Robert Kelly of Carnegie Mellon and Janet Caplan of Williams College. As I see the Indian industry today, I think the study done at Bell Labs remains relevant in every detail.

The Bell Labs engineers who did extremely well for themselves - as they progressed in their career, showed the following qualities that differentiated them from their peers: taking initiative, cognitive ability, networking, leadership, teamwork, followership, perspective, organisation savvy and show-and-tell capability. Let us look at each of these and see what lies underneath.

Taking initiative

This is about accepting responsibility above and beyond your stated job. It is about volunteering for additional activities and promoting new ideas. None of these will jump out as apparent as a young engineer gets in to her first job. She will tend to think that her career progress is really dependent only on the ability to write code. The concept of initiative begins by looking for technical and other opportunities in the organisation and volunteering for them. The idea of volunteering is little understood - both by organisations and individuals. In the days to come, it will gain increasing prominence in our professional lives.

Initiative is also about two other things - dealing constructively with criticism and planning for the future. The latter is a function of many things - a good starting point is to start mapping the environment, learning to understand how the future is unfolding and then stepping back to ask, how am I preparing myself?

Cognitive abilities

The concept of cognitive development is about understanding the interplay of technology and trends in how they are getting deployed. It is also about recognising the business eco-system in which technology works. It is about situational understanding and consequence thinking. The importance of consequence thinking is very critical. It asks us to look beyond the immediate deliverable of a task and it is about asking who will be impacted by my work, what is the end state? People in our industry just think in terms of modules and seldom ask where is it going, who is my customer and more importantly - who is my customer's customer? Cognition is a key faculty that determines how much we are able to read patterns, make sense of things. Refining cognitive skills helps us to go beyond stated needs of our customers to explore unstated needs.

Networking

We tend to think of networking in a social sense. As one grows higher in life, we are often as powerful as is our network. Building a professional network requires us to step out of the comfort zone to look at whom can I learn from. Quite often, and more as one progresses in life, the learning has to come from unusual sources. At MindTree, we expose our people to social workers, architects, graphic designers, teachers, people who lead government organisations, leaders from client organisations. The interesting thing about benefiting from a network is that it works like a savings bank. I need to deposit in to it before I withdraw. We all have heard about how important internal and external knowledge communities are. Again, in MindTree, we encourage people to belong to 26 different knowledge communities that run on a non-project based agenda and are vehicles of learning. These create networking opportunities and open many doors.

Leadership

Next to networking is development of leadership skills. Many technical people associate it with "management" and shy away from developing key leadership skills like communication, negotiation, influencing, inter-personal skills, business knowledge, building spokespersonship and so on. Take for instance negotiating as a skill. Imagine that you are an individual professional contributor. Why should you learn to negotiate? Tomorrow, your organisation becomes member of a standard body and you have to represent the organisation as a technical expert. You will find yourself needing to negotiate with powerful lobbies that represent a competing viewpoint or a rival standard. Unless you have honed your capability alongside your hacking skills, you will be at a complete loss. Yet, you do not discover your negotiating capability one fine morning. You need to work on it from an early stage. Negotiating for internal resources is becoming another critical need. You can choose to remain an individual professional contributor but from time to time, you have to create mind share in the organisation where resources are limited and claimants are many. Establishing thought leadership is another key requirement of growth and independent of whether I want to be a technical person or grow to be a manager, I need to develop as a leader who can influence others.

Teamwork

Our educational system does not teach us teamwork. If you ever tried to solve your test paper "collaboratively" - it was called copying. You and I spent all our school and college life fiercely competing to get the engineering school and seat of our choice. Then comes the workplace and you suddenly realise that it is not individual brilliance but collective competence that determines excellence. Collaboration is the most important part of our work life. Along with collaboration come issues of forming, norming, storming, performing stages of team life. Capability to create interdependencies, capability to encourage dialogue and dissension, knowledge sharing become critical to professional existence. All this is anti-thesis of what we learn in the formative years of life. Add to it, our social upbringing - our resource-starved system tells us to find ways and means to ensure self-preservation ahead of teamwork. In Japan, the country comes first, the company (read team) comes next and I come last. In India, it is the other way round.

Followership

The best leaders are also great followers. We can be great leaders if we learn and imbibe the values of followership. Everywhere you go - there are courses that teach leadership.

Nowhere you will find a business school teaching you followership. Yet, when solving complex problems in life, we have to embrace what is called "situational leadership". I have to be comfortable being led by others, I must learn to trust leadership. Many people have issues reporting to a test lead as a developer, or being led by a business analyst or a user interface designer. In different parts of a project life cycle, people of varied competence must lead. I must be comfortable when some one else is under the strobe light. I must have the greatness to be led by people younger than I, people with a different background or a point of view. That is how I learn.

Perspective

This is the hardest to explain. It begins with appreciating why I am doing what I am doing. Quite often, I find people having a very narrow view of their tasks; many do not see the criticality of their task vis-à-vis a larger goal. So, a tester in a project sees his job as testing code or a module designer's worldview begins and ends with the module. He does not appreciate the importance of writing meaningful documentation because he thinks it is not his job or does not realise that five years from now, another person will have to maintain it.

I always tell people about the story of two people who were laying bricks. A passer by asked the first one as to what he was doing. He replied, "I am laying bricks".
He asked the second one. He replied, "I am building a temple". This story explains what perspective is and how the resultant attitude and approach to work can be vastly different.

Organisational savvy

As technical people grow up, they often feel unconnected to the larger organisation. Some people develop a knack of exploring it, finding spots of influence, tracking changes, creating networks and in the process they learn how to make the organization work for them. The organisation is not outside of me. If I know it well, I can get it to work for me when I want. Think of the difference between one project manager and another or one technical lead from another.
One person always gets the resources she needs - the other one struggles. One person knows who is getting freed from which client engagement and ahead of time blocks the person. One person reacts to an organisational change and finds himself allocated to a new project as a fait accompli - another person is able to be there ahead of the opportunity. Larger the organisation, higher is the need to develop organisation savvy. It begins with questioning ones knowledge about the larger business dynamic, knowing who does what, tracking the work of other groups, knowing leaders outside of my own sphere and a host of other things. Importantly, it is also about tracking what the competitors of the organization are doing and keeping abreast of directional changes.

Show and tell

This is the bane of most Indian software engineers. We all come from a mindset that says; if you know how to write code, why bother about honing communication skills? Recently, we asked a cross section of international clients on what they think is the number one area of improvement for Indian engineers? They replied in unison, it is communication. Show and tell is about oral and written communication. Some engineers look down upon the need for communication skills and associate it with people who make up for poor programming prowess. It is the greatest misconception. Think of the best chief technology officers of companies like Microsoft, Oracle, IBM Global Services or Sun. Their number one job is evangelizing.

If they cannot forcefully present their technologies, nothing else will matter. So, every engineer must pay attention to improving the ability to present in front of people, develop the ability to ask questions and handle objections. In a sense, if you cannot sell the technology you create, it has no value. So, building salespersonship is a key requirement for technical excellence.

The foregoing points are not relevant if you have already filed your first patent at the age of eighteen. Everyone else, please take note.

The author is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/july212004/av1.asp

Nine easy ways to beat stress

2009-08-31T19:12:00.001+05:30

Radhika had lost weight. Yet, this young homemaker from Pune was not rejoicing. She was sleeping less at night. She did not feel like meeting family and friends. She always seemed preoccupied.

Ask her what was wrong and she would say, "Aren't you scared? There's swine flu, there's panic at my son's school, my husband's job pressures are ever growing, and oh... the list is endless."

Radhika may not have much reason to worry about swine flu. But she definitely has a larger problem to worry about and that is: stress.

We all know stress, but here are some quick facts:

Stress contributes to heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes, and other illnesses in many individuals
Stress also affects the immune system, which protects us from many serious diseases
Almost 75 per cent of people experience 'some stress' every two weeks (National Health Interview Survey)
Of these people, half experience moderate to high levels of stress during that two-week period
Worldwide workplace stress is growing by the day. A report estimated billions affected
The use of tranquilisers, antidepressants and anxiety-relief medicines has gone up considerably in our country
Stress plays an important role in alcoholism, obesity, suicide and substance abuse
Excessive stress can cause many physical and emotional symptoms, including headaches, fatigue, muscle pain, lethargy, overeating, anxiety and depression

So how can you help yourself deal with stress?

We spoke to a few health professionals and they came up with some easy tips on how to deal with stress, irrespective of the cause.

1. Create a balance in your life, says Mumbai-based psychiatrist Dr Dayal Mirchandani. You have to make time for activities that are important to you -- spend time with family, friends.

2. Make time for rest and regeneration, he adds. Listen to music, watch movie, take walks, whatever you like doing. Carry your iPod wherever you go.

3. Don't let small things bother you. If something is on your mind, find out more about it instead of relying on undependable sources. Dr Adhiraj Joglekar, consulting psychiatrist says, "Take for example swine flu. The first thing to acknowledge is that the virus is contagious (spreads) but not virulent (deadly). If it was deadly, then deaths would have been a lot higher than they are." Learn how you can protect yourself instead of panicking.

4. Exercise. "Even if it means walking for 10 minutes everyday or climbing the stairs, do it," says Dr Mirchandani. Exercising releases endorphins that help in keeping you positive and happy.

5. Make time to relax at work. "Take those five minutes to look out of the window when you are at office. It is better than later undergoing a stress workshop for two hours a day," says Dr Mirchandani.

6. Rekindle that hobby -- it could be shopping or painting or whatever you like. Do activities that make you happy and take your mind off the routine.

7. Meditate. Cliched as this sounds, there is no shortcut out of this, says Dr Mirchandani. Take short breaks during your work-day to meditate in a quiet corner of your office. Do some deep breathing exercises to calm your mind.

8. Change your habits, if need be. If something is bothering you, a change in habit can work wonders.

9. Change your mindset. "Ultimately, it is how you look at life. Don't let stress get the better of you," says Dr Mirchandani. "If something bothers you, look at it rationally and see how you can reduce its effect on you or eliminate it. Don't let it reach a stage where you need professional help."

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2009/aug/28health-nine-easy-ways-to-beat-stress.htm)

Why the Rs 1 lakh tax-free investment limit is useless

2009-07-03T21:38:00.000+05:30

A case study on why the Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) tax-free investment limit for Section 80C of the Income Tax Act is ridiculously low and impractical.

There are a number of approved methods to reduce out tax outflow. The major among them, for salaried employees, is the provision under Section 80C of the Income tax Act.

Before getting into the case study we need to get a better understanding of Section 80C.

Benefits of 80C

Section 80C provides for reduction in taxable income up to Rs 1 lakh if certain investments or expenses are made. There are a good many benefits from this section:

Taxable income itself reduces. For a person earning Rs 2.5 lakh (Rs 250,000), an investment of Rs 1 lakh will bring him below the taxable income bracket. For women, the income can be as high as Rs 2.8 lakh (Rs 280,000) before they pay tax if they use Section 80C to the full limit.
Forced Savings Habit. Section 80C will ensure that some amount is saved every year for future use.
Easy Access to 80C instruments. The investment options that are covered under Section 80C can be accessed and availed very easily.

The Options Under 80C

The items that are included in Section 80C, which are available in the market currently are as follows:

EPF (Employees Provident Fund) upto 12% of the basic salary
School Fees for Children (No sub limits. Only school tuition fee is acceptable. Transport, special fees, private tuition, etc, cannot be included)
Life Insurance Premium (only if the premium is less than 20% of the sum insured; in other words life cover has to be at least five times the premium). This includes ULIPs (Unit Linked Insurance Plans) and traditional plans from all insurance companies. No sub limits.
Pension Plan Premium without any sub limits. This was earlier under Section 80CCC with a sub limit of Rs 10,000. 80CCC has now been merged into 80C itself.
Housing loan Principal without sub limit. The interest comes under a section 24 with a limit of Rs 1.5 lakh.
Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS) Mutual Fund schemes. No sub limits
5 years Tax Saving Bank Deposits. No sub limits.
National Savings Scheme Certificates. No sub limits.
Public Provident Fund (PPF). The limit is Rs 70,000 per person per year. Investments in children's names will also be included in the limit for the parents.

Limit of Rs 1 lakh

Though we have a lot of options for investments and one expense item (school fees) too, the limit to which the tax benefit can be got is only Rs 1 lakh. The investments can be in any proportion and there is no minimum amount that needs to be shown.

In case the tax payer has invested cumulatively say Rs 1.35 lakh (Rs 135,000) and earns Rs 5 lakh (Rs 500,000) per year. The taxable income will be reduced only to the extent of Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) and will be assessed at Rs 4 lakh (Rs 400,000).

Limit not enough

The limit may be enough for those who have income in the less than Rs 3 lakh (Rs 300,000) category. Once the income is more than Rs 3 lakh per year (Rs 25,000 per month), the benefit of this section is on a reducing scale.

Let up see an example of an actual salary slip of Ramesh* (*Name changed for protecting privacy). He is a sole earning member of the family, working as a finance executive in a BPO company. He is married with 2 children in school.

Salary Slip Analysis of Ramesh related to Section 80C
(all amounts in Rs.)
	Per Month	Per year
Salary	25,000.00	300,000
Basic	10,000.00	120,000
Section 80C investments
EPF	1,200.00	14,400.00
School Fees	2,000.00	24,000.00
Life Insurance	3,000.00	36,000.00
Pension Plan	1,250.00	15,000.00
Housing Loan Principal		29,601.00
Total Section 80C Investments		119,000.00
Note
1. Terms plans for self and spouse -- Rs 6,000, Children' plan ULIPs -- Rs 30,000
2. EMI on Rs 8,00,000 loan for 15 years at 10% interest -- Rs 8,600 per month started 2 years ago
3. Two children. Both in same school.

The section 80C limit as seen above is quickly exhausted. In another scenario, for a person earning Rs 50,000 per month, the EPF alone may cover as much as Rs 30,000 out of the available Rs 1 lakh.

Need to increase 80C limits

One of the requests from the salaried classes to the finance minister has been to increase the Section 80C limit to Rs 250,000 in the forthcoming Budget. The increased limits can bring in much required investments to build our nation's infrastructure.

This will benefit the country more than the actual tax received as the quantum of investment through such investments will be at least three times more than the tax received (at the 33.3% income tax slab).

To save tax Ramesh (10% income slab) has invested Rs 1 lakh. If he has paid tax till March, it would have been only Rs 15,450 (10% of income between Rs 150,000 and Rs 300,000 plus Educational cess).

In a few days more, we will get to know whether our wishes have been granted.

(http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/jul/03/budget09-why-the-rs-1-lakh-tax-free-investment-limit-is-useless.htm)

Cisco joins the DOW at GM's expense

2009-06-02T12:33:00.000+05:30

With GM now in bankruptcy protection, it's getting the boot from the prestigious Dow Jones Industrial Average. In GM's place, the DOW is set to add Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) to the index.

Cisco could be added to the DOW as soon a June 8th (according to the Wall Street Journal). It is no surprise at this point that GM is in bankruptcy protection and similarly no surprise that a bankrupt company (though once one of the world's largest) is getting kicked off the DOW.

The addition of Cisco should also not really be seen as a big surprise. Cisco with 65,000 plus employees and multiple tech divisions spanning consumer, enterprise and governement networking and collaboration gear is a stalwart of the US economy. It is, and has been for some time a good leading indicator for buyer sentiment in technology.

Cisco CEO John Chambers was among the first tech leaders to point out that the current economic slowdown was global and would affect technology vendors like Cisco. The buying patterns that Cisco sees from government, enterprise and consumer customers gives it a broad cross section of the economy and makes it a decent benchmark for buyer sentiment in my view.

Cisco is also a company with some $30 billion or so of cash on hand, and despite the challenging economy, seems to be staying the course of sustainability for its business.

The addition of Cisco to the DOW also marks an interesting milestone for tech. Cisco is the first "pure" technology vendor to be added to the DOW since Micrsofot (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) in 1999.

Though Cisco today is already among the most heavily traded stock on the Nasdaq, I would expect that with its inclusion on the DOW it might receive just a bit more interest from an even broader base of analysts and investors.

The addition of Cisco to the DOW, ultimately will not likely make any real difference to Cisco's technology initivatives. It does however give them even more prominence as a key element of one of the world's leading financial indicators.

(http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/06/cisco-joins-the-dow-at-gms-exp.html)

8 amusing facts about your home loan

2009-05-29T17:53:00.001+05:30

A loan agreement is the document that lays out the terms and conditions of the lender. It also informs the lender of the borrower's consent. It is very important to read what you sign for that very reason. Be informed before you agree.

The agreement could be the last thing you want to read. The miniscule font size alone is a turn off. Add to that, too many asterisks, and more than ample number of sections. So, even if reading the document seems to be a mind-numbing task, you have to get it done. This document is legal and once you sign it, you are bound by its terms and conditions.

But you must read the document very carefully. Because not only will it inform you, it has immense potential for amusement. Are you ready for some fun then?

1. If you have a dispute with the bank during the loan tenure, as a borrower, you cannot issue a stop-payment instruction with respect to post-dated cheques for as long as the 'facility' (loan) or any part of the dues is outstanding. In case such an instruction is issued, the bank can initiate criminal proceedings against you under the Negotiable Instruments Act (1881).

2. If you, the loan borrower, do not understand English, a declaration in vernacular language needs to be executed and signed by you in the desired vernacular language. There is a special instruction in the agreement regarding the same.

3. There is a special 'Memorandum Regarding Signing' for those who understand a vernacular language, for an illiterate, and for a blind person.

4. According to the agreement, you cannot sell, exchange, partition, mortgage, charge, encumber, lease, or dispose the property till you have got 'discharge' from the bank in writing.

5. You cannot hold the bank responsible for any delay in construction, giving possession of, completion of property by developer, promoter or society even if the bank has approved or sanctioned any facilities to such a person or entity.

6. If you are a resident Indian, you cannot leave India for employment or business or stay long-term outside India without fully repaying the loan. You cannot stay out of India for any purpose for more than 60 days. There should not have been a change in the citizenship nor should you have made any earnings or income during this period from abroad.

7. If you have taken a 'home equity' or a 'top-up loan' you cannot let out your property for use/ occupation by another person without prior written permission from the bank.

8. Oh yes, and this one is a personal favourite, see if it's yours too. It is not clear whether banks are bound by law to notify you of changes in their policy. But, the agreement binds you to remain acquainted with a bank's rules/ terms and conditions affecting or relating to the loan taken.

(http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2009/may/29/eight-amusing-facts-about-your-home-loan.htm)

When You Buy A Good Company, Eat Your Ego

2009-04-27T18:24:00.000+05:30

It was the largest acquisition by an Indian company in the technology space. But that was not all that set apart HCL Technologies’ takeover of Axon in September. HCL Tech had countered Infosys Technologies’ bid of 600 pence a share for the UK-based SAP implementation firm, with an aggressive offer of 650 pence a share. Just when it seemed like the two bidders might engage each other in an endless game of bids and counterbids, Infosys withdrew and Axon became the fourth company to fall into HCL Tech’s M&A kitty last year. The other three, though smaller, were US-based Control Point Solutions and CapitalStream and British Liberata Financial Services. BW’s Binu Kwatra spoke to HCL Technologies’ CEO Vineet Nayar on how he makes mergers and acquisitions work in times of a global economic crisis.

What should be avoided after acquisitions such as Axon, for instance?
Impose on them the HCL brand. Call them an HCL SAP division. Give them an HCL e-mail id. Put HCL hoardings in their offices. Number two, they are used to using tools and technology and conducting business in a certain way, which works for them because they are five times more successful than I am. So, eat your ego and kill your own ways of doing business and adopt their ways. The third is what I call trust. You acquire a company because they are good; then you don’t trust them and you put somebody from your side on top of them. For God’s sake, why are you doing that? So, leave them alone. The last — the value is between that company and its customer. The value is not in the interface between HCL and that company. So, focus on how you can enable that, so that the company can create a higher value for its customer.

How crucial is this ‘enabling’?
The critical question that your reader should ask himself is — what were the fundamentals under which you wanted to do the mergers and acquisitions? New capability acquisitions, access to new geographies and making your non-performing business performing? In the slowdown, has any of the three factors changed? If they have not, then M&A is not a three-letter word. It should be pursued vigorously. If anything, it has become easier.

So, the Axon management stays and your SAP head reports to it?
Yes… and all the 2,500 people.

Global business environment has changed considerably since the Axon takeover. To what extent have you lowered revenue expectations from your acquisitions?
I think the global economic slowdown has given us the ability to absorb these acquisitions. Because we are growing at a lower growth rate, there is a better management banquet, there is more time to absorb, there is more time to do re-orientation. So, the pause button that has been pushed in the global market is the most wonderful thing that could happen to you from the acquisition point of view.

How long will it take for these acquisitions to contribute to HCL Tech’s growth?
Starting this quarter, I think. Why should they not contribute to growth? Now would you see the growth in the business that we acquired? Maybe not.

In terms of profit as well…
Yeah, why not? I don’t see any reason why you would not see growth. But the way the street looks at growth is wrong. If you have acquired X, (they ask) and has X become 2X. (This is) Wrong. It is like camphor the catalyst — you acquired X because you wanted to convert the milk into cheese, because cheese is more expensive. Now you are asking me what has happened to that catalyst. It does not matter. But has HCL transformed, has HCL’s image transformed and hence has the business grown? Yes.

Are you facing greater challenges integrating these companies into HCL Tech because of the recession?
Most companies, when they try and do that, they fail, predominantly because they do it at a pace that is not required or they are so obsessed with their own so-called goodness that they ignore the culture and the structure and everything that is good about the acquired company. So, I would say that integration is the least important thing in any acquisition, predominantly because if you are acquiring a successful company, then you should surround them and enable them. So, I change the word integrate to enable. So what we did was, from day one, we reverse-merged our teams into Axon. So actually Axon, which is a high-performance team, bought HCL’s SAP practice, which became HCL Axon.

So, there were no re-designations, no re-orientation of salaries and no restructuring?
No.

Will they never be merged?
Will they be merged if we don’t change our business? Never. Will they be merged if we change business? Yes, because we have acquired Axon, not for its SAP practice alone. We have acquired Axon for two capabilities — consulting capabilities and SAP capabilities. Its SAP capabilities need no merger. As far as consulting is concerned, the bigger question is, where it fits into HCL’s scheme of things. Once we answer that question, then obviously Axon will have to play a deep role in that.

How have you handled the technological, marketing and distribution challenges after the acquisitions?
From a relative point of view — between growing organically and acquisition — acquisition. the way we have constructed it is the least challenging option. However, if you grow using only HCL people, then there are significant challenges regarding cultural integration, ways of working, alignment of objectives… all those issues. But I think options, and I think of the least challenging option.

Technologically, did the two organisations come together? Were they using different sets of technologies?
All business-facing solutions and technologies of HCL have been scrapped and Axon’s have been used. So, the front is only Axon. The back office system is one standard system, which is HCL’s.

(Businessworld Issue Dated 27 April-04 May 2009 - http://www.businessworld.in/index.php/Corporate/When-you-buy-a-good-company.html)

How to handle a bad boss

2009-04-10T07:44:00.001+05:30

It happened again. Maybe the boss broke his or her word, bad-mouthed you, or torpedoed your promotion. You're not surprised. Your boss already ignores your ideas, talks down to you, and expects you to be a mind-reader. And that doesn't even count the eavesdropping. What's worse, your boss won't talk about it with you, telling you to "move on." as if nothing ever happened. OK, you've been saddled with a bad boss.

Having to answer to a boss is a fact of working life. But what are your options when you're undermined by the person whose goodwill you need? Sure, you can lash out or call human resources. Unfortunately, companies are like Vegas casinos: The house always wins. Still, you have options. When the anger starts to boil, consider the following:

Don't act immediately

Initially, you'll want to fight back. You may fantasise about writing a blistering critique of your rotten boss. . . and e-mailing it to the CEO. And those thoughts aren't necessarily harmful. But thoughts don't have to lead to action. Sure, your boss may be small-minded, two-faced, spineless, and technically inept. But would a dramatic gesture be worth the lost salary? Is it worth a hole in your resume, the one you'll be explaining for years to come? This isn't the economy to choose pride over practicality.

Play the game

You were cheated or unfairly smeared. Welcome to the real world. But don't let it turn you sour or sloppy. And don't let your boss get to you, either. Nod and smile when he delivers another self-serving sermon. Maintain a can-do attitude, like you have your dream job. Respect and defer, even when trust is lost. You'll work with plenty of jerks over your career. You may as well start practicing now.

Prepare

Start collecting references and recommendation letters from clients, peers, industry pros, and local leaders. Keep a file of positive citations to your work too. Even more, focus on activities that position you to lead and produce measurable results. No one can take those experiences away from you. And they'll enhance your credibility when the next opportunity arises.

Forge alliances

Identify the job you eventually want. Get to know the players in that department. Grab lunch with them. Help them out during downtime to prove yourself. Build a relationship with a mentor or your boss's own boss, too. They can provide direction, intelligence, and even a reference. Beyond that, get involved in corporate initiatives, such as community outreach or strategic planning. Your boss has the power and network to blackball you. Stay visible and broaden your circle to counter that.

Don't jump to conclusions

Sometimes, there is more going on than meets the eye. The higher-ups may veto your boss's efforts. Conditions change or extenuating circumstances emerge. Your boss probably has a full plate - and you may not be his or her top priority. And your boss may simply be unaware of his or her behavior and its impact on you.

Bottom line: Management is often grueling and thankless. We all need someone to blame, but give your boss a little empathy. Don't mistake the person for the perception. They're usually far more complex than your caricature.

Keep your boss in the loop

Everyone likes to feel like an expert and give back. Your boss is no different. Maybe you need to reel your boss closer, rather than pushing him or her away. Ask what traits or skills you need to develop to reach the next level. Ask for specifics; look at establishing benchmarks to measure your growth. What's more, become a true partner with your boss.

You know your boss's flaws: Train yourself to ask the right questions, clarify, and work through the details. This is perfect training for what's really important in business: anticipation, flexibility, relationship-building, collaboration, and execution (not to mention making your boss look good).

Focus on the big picture

Your boss will betray your trust, then tell you to stay positive. Your boss will chastise you for your behavior, then act the same way. Sure, you can quit, but have you gained anything besides an ulcer? Instead, make the most of your time. Focus on gaining the right experience, building your interpersonal skills, and policing your attitude. They are your ticket out.

Absorb those daily humiliations, so you never become like your boss. Most important, don't write off the message because of the messenger. Your boss didn't reach this level by accident. Be open to criticisms and suggestions. You'll likely miss some valuable nuggets if you completely tune out your boss.

Wait

If your boss really is a jerk, chances are the clock is ticking on him or her. Charm, connections, and reputation only give bosses so much rope. They'll inevitably drop their guard and slip up with someone higher up - and it won't be pretty.

In the meantime, view your job as a means to an end and start laying the groundwork to get there. You have bigger things ahead of you.

(http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/apr/09/how-to-handle-a-bad-boss-8-tips.htm)

How to adjust to the downturn

2009-04-01T16:46:00.001+05:30

During the Great Depression, one in four Americans did not have a job. Today, that number is more like one in 10. So things are really not as bad as they can get, claim some experts. What they forget is that the recession this time around is global and almost every working person is feeling the impact. The International Labor Organisation estimates that if the global recession continues, more than five crore people across the world would have lost their jobs by the end of 2009.

What such studies don't reveal is the number of people who have had to take salary cuts, and an even larger number who work in organisations that have announced a bonus freeze. And these companies are spread across the world. It's all very well to say that India is not in a recession; the fact is that thanks to outsourcing and a hugely globalised economy, job insecurity is rife in the country. We all know people who have been asked to leave, many of us know that we won't get a bonus this year, and those who do get it, realise it will be a fraction of what they would have got in happier times.

There's nothing we can do except make the best of what we have. Surveys show that job and career Websites are reporting a perceptible rise in traffic, not just to find jobs but to look for tips on recession-proof jobs (education, healthcare, security, etc), or even part-time work. There are tips galore on how you should sell results, not skills, how you should prove that you can either make or save money for your company, and how you can negotiate a better structured salary so that you don't miss the bonus payment.

Over the next several pages, we take you through the various ways in which you can cope with job insecurity or even job loss. We look at viable alternatives to a full-time 'office job'-by building your existing skills, by striking out on your own, even by taking up part-time or freelance assignments.

A professional in a sunrise sector, who won't get any variable pay this year, and whose salary of Rs 70,000 a month will be cut by 5% from April 2009.

- EMIs (home and personal loans) constitute 50% of his salary.
- 5% of his annual income, or Rs 40,000, will be gobbled up by the Ulip premium that he has to pay in March 2009.
- Finances are stretched as he was banking on the variable component and possible salary hike this year.
- After the pay cut in April, his monthly budget could go awry, with 60% of his lower income committed to EMIs and insurance premiums.
- But all is not lost as he can still manage by rejigging his finances.

For those who still have jobs but are forced to take a pay cut or deferred bonus payments, there are ways of negotiating your existing work and salary to allow you to manage. We even look at how a job loss could have a positive impact on your career. Through all these, there runs a constant thread: how to manage your finances.

Whether you consider moonlighting, part-time work, entrepreneurship or skill-building, it's vital that you keep an eagle eye on your finances because jobs are not the only victim of the recession. Prices are going up even as salaries fall or dry up. Yes, the writing has been on the wall ever since the sub-prime crisis hit the US, but we in India have believed that we would be insulated from its ill-effects.

The RBI bolstered this view, when, in its mid-term policy review in September 2008, it estimated that the GDP would grow by 7.5% this year.

Pune-based Vineet Mahajan was so confident that the US economic crisis would not affect him that he bought a house for Rs 40 lakh in late 2008. Mahajan's monthly income was Rs 70,000 and the home loan EMI worked out to Rs 30,000-or over 40% of his salary. He believed that his bonus payment and performance-linked incentives would more than take care of the loan repayment. In fact, he was so confident that he added a personal loan (to buy furniture), increasing his EMI by Rs 7,000.

Mahajan was in his happy bubble till about a month ago, when his company announced that due to low sales, cancelled orders and a sagging bottom line, there would be no variable income next year. And from April this year, employees also have to face a 5% salary cut. In very non-financial terms, Mahajan is in hot water. Apart from the fact that from April, he will be spending over 50% of his income to repay his loans, he also has to shell out Rs 40,000 as annual premium on a Ulip that he bought last March. If he doesn't pay, the policy will lapse and the premium will be forfeited.

It may be cold comfort, but Mahajan is not as badly off as the people who have lost their jobs. Here's a bit of good news. You can still meet your financial commitments. It calls for changes in your investment and spending patterns, as well as some adjustment in your current lifestyle, but these changes will pay off.

Repay loans

The first step towards some financial sanity is to draw up a list of your expenses, which includes all loans, bills and regular payments. Sort out these expenses on the basis of priority, keeping the loans upfront. This is because lenders are quick to react (especially during times like these) when faced with a delayed payment or a cheque that's not honoured by the bank. A good credit record is what will separate you from the bad guys (in the lender's opinion), and if you don't default, a lender may be willing to give you a longer rope when you really need it.

But what if you simply don't have enough money to pay the EMI? Banks do offer several repayment options (see box). "Many borrowers have approached us with such problems. While it is not possible to allow zero payments, we do consider rescheduling their loans if their repayment record has been good," says Manish Jain, vice-president, retail banking, Axis Bank.

It's also a good idea to unlock the value of your property in times of a crunch. If your house is not mortgaged, you can take a loan against it. This is better than a personal loan in many respects: the interest rate is lower and you are charged from the day of withdrawal till the day of repayment.

Be realistic when assessing your loan portfolio and repayment capacity. Is your income loss temporary? Are you confident that you will find a job in three-four months? How big will your next increment be? Answer these questions honestly to find out how you are placed. If your auto loan EMI is beyond your means and you still have five years to repay, you might be better off selling the vehicle. A vehicle is a depreciating asset and if you delay the sale by a year, its price will come down by another 20%. Finally, remember this: "It's usually not a good idea to take one loan to repay another," says Harsh Roongta, CEO of Apnaloan.com. "You are only digging a bigger hole if you take a loan to pay for a car that you can't afford."

Cover your Health

Spend money on health insurance. No, we haven't gone raving mad telling you to shell out one more premium at a time when you should be saving all your resources. The sad fact is that if you have lost your job (or a pink slip is imminent), you're not just foregoing your salary but also the perks. One of these is the group medical policy that most companies offer, and one that ends the minute you cease to be an employee.

Many people might see medical insurance as an unnecessary expense when they are low on funds. But this is precisely the time they should consider taking medical cover for themselves and their family. The logic is simple: if someone is finding it difficult to pay a premium of Rs 4,000-5,000 for medical insurance, how will he manage to pay the hospital bill of Rs 40,000-50,000 in case of an emergency? "Health insurance is a must because an unemployed person may not have the money to pay for treatment if somebody in the family requires hospitalisation," says Yashish Dahiya, CEO of Policy Bazaar.

The good news is that there are plenty of policies available. Rahul Aggarwal, CEO of Optima Insurance Brokers, advises a basic floating cover for the entire family. A Rs 2-lakh cover for a family of four would cost about Rs 3,500 per year. That's a small price to pay for your peace of mind for the rest of the year.

Life insurance

Next on the list of priorities are premiums for life insurance policies. If it is a Ulip and three premiums have already been paid, you can delay (or even skip) the premium. This is because the value of the units accumulated over three years is normally enough to continue paying the premium for several years.

What if you have a traditional endowment or money-back plan? There's some good news here as life insurance companies offer several premium-paying options. Also, unlike Ulips, insurance companies are willing to restart endowment and money-back policies even after several years of missed payments. “Many people make the mistake of assuming that if they don't pay the premium and the policy lapses, it cannot be revived,” says U.S. Roy, CEO and MD, SBI Life Insurance.

If you are sure that your money crunch is temporary, you can take a loan from the insurance company to pay the premium. LIC charges a flat rate of 9% on such loans, while private insurers charge a little more. You can even switch from an annual option to a monthly payment option. “The monthly option is psychologically less intimidating than the annual option in case of high-premium policies,” says Debasis Sarkar, senior director and chief marketing officer of Max New York Life.

Many people have a bouquet of insurance policies-money-back, endowment, Ulips and term plans. While the premiums for almost all plans can be deferred, the term plan premium has to be paid when it is due. “One should pay the term plan premium first,” says Roy. This is because if the term plan lapses, it cannot be revived and a new policy will come at a higher price.

Lifestyle changes

For over a year, Money Today carried a regular feature on how small savings over time can result in the creation of wealth. That was not an academic exercise. It might be a good idea to take a look at some of those ideas now (visit www.moneytoday. in and search for 'Small Fortune'). For instance, don't send out for your afternoon pick-me-up from a coffee shop. The stuff dished out by your office vending machine may not be as good as a frothy cappuccino from, say, Barista, but it's not going to cost you Rs 50. “While the prices of coffee have come down in the past decade, the prices of cappuccinos at coffee shops have gone up,” says Subramanyam. Saving Rs 50 a day can add up to Rs 1,500 a month. Similarly, instead of eating out four times a month, just go once a fortnight and save about Rs 1,500 a month. Make these two small lifestyle sacrifices and save Rs 36,000 a year. Do the same with stuff like a floor-cleaner, where an unbranded version costs a fraction of the branded one, but does pretty much the same job. To repeat a cliche, little drops of water make a mighty ocean.

Simple Strategies

Insurance policies

Traditional insurance plans offer several options to policyholders if they are facing a liquidity crunch and can't pay the premium.

Strategy 1 Skip premium for 3-year-old policy

The impact: Life cover will stop but policy can be revived by paying penalty.
Watch out for: Policyholder will not be covered if the premium has not been paid. This defeats the purpose of insurance.

Strategy 2 Take loan on policy to pay premium

The impact: LIC gives loans at 9% per annum. Other insurers also offer this option. Life insurance cover continues.
Watch out for: At best a stop-gap arrangement. Avoid adding to debt burden if income crunch is likely to get extended.

Strategy 3 Convert it to a paid-up policy

The impact: The insurance cover will come down but will not end completely.
Watch out for: Reduction in life cover compromises financial security of family.

Strategy 4 Change the payment option
The impact: If unable to pay a lump sum, switch to a monthly or quarterly payment.
Watch out for: Premium is higher in these options. Also, it adds to paperwo

Budgeting Expenses

Too much month left at the end of your money? Here are a few simple strategies that could help you tide over the financial tsunami.

Strategy 1 Cut down on luxuries

The impact: Cut down on eating out. Avoid coffee breaks at Barista. Don't go for big brands. Join a car pool.
Watch out for: Sudden lifestyle changes can be difficult and emotionally traumatic.

Strategy 2 Shift to a smaller house

The impact: Shifting from a 3-bedroom swanky apartment to a modest 2-bedroom flat can cut the rental cost by almost half.
Watch out for: Location is crucial. If the new area is far flung, the gains from lower rent may be offset by higher cost of travel.

Strategy 3 Unlock value of fixed assets

The impact: Credit against a house or car can help get over a crunch. Such a loan is cheaper and more convenient.
Watch out for: Use this facility carefully. The sudden infusion of liquidity can be dangerous for the undisciplined spender.

Investing & Saving

If there is uncertainty about future income, your first step should be to reduce the risk in your investment portfolio and focus instead on capital protection.

Strategy 1 Exit from stocks completely

The impact: Eliminates risk in the portfolio. If you have lost your job, stick to risk-free deposits to protect capital.
Watch out for: Selling stocks when markets are low may result in losses. Also, you lose out if markets recover.

Strategy 2 Reduce equity exposure to 10%

The impact: If household income has declined, reduce the risk but keep a window of opportunity open. Useful for former double-income families.
Watch out for: Reducing equity exposure can result in opportunity loss.

Strategy 3 Sell shares, buy index funds

The impact: Index funds are less risky than individual stocks or regular mutual funds because they invest in a basket of blue-chip shares.
Watch out for: Index funds may not be able to match the returns from direct investments in equities or diversified equity funds.

LOANS & EMIs
Unable to pay your EMI? If your record is good, your bank may offer you easy repayment options. But sometimes you may be better off disposing of the asset.

STRATEGY 1 Extend tenure of the loan

The impact: The home loan EMI comes down, freeing the cash.
Watch out for: The interest cost of the loan goes up. The total interest paid on a 15-year loan is 60% higher than what is paid on a 10-year loan.

STRATEGY 2 Convert to a step-up loan

The impact: EMI comes down in the initial years, freeing some cash for the borrower. After a few years, the EMI increases progressively.
Watch out for: The interest outgo is higher because your principal does not reduce. Also, the EMIs later in the term are higher than in a normal loan.

STRATEGY 3 Foreclose loan and sell the asset

The impact: Eases liquidity crunch for the borrower. Proceeds from the sale can be used to repay other debts and for living expenses.
Watch out for: Distress selling in a depressed market usually does not fetch a very good price. If you sell a house that had been rented, there would also be a loss of income.

(http://in.finance.yahoo.com/insurance_basics/10/how-to-adjust-to-the-downturn/)

What an IBM-Sun deal could mean for India

2009-03-19T12:14:00.001+05:30

The news of global IT giant IBM buying Sun Microsystems has been doing the rounds for years. So, despite the Wall Street Journal reporting that an approximately $6.5 billion buyout is imminent, analysts remain sceptical.

However, if the deal were to happen, analysts feel IBM and Sun have a lot of overlaps in technology and in product offerings. Hence, it would be an integration challenge.

In the short term, there may be no impact on the 1,200-odd Indian employees of Sun. In the long run, some could get impacted due to platform and technology consolidation. Sun, though, has been cutting staff over the past few quarters.

"IBM will be the clear market leader (if the deal fructifies) in the server market in India, dominated by HP. But there will be conflict of platforms for IBM," said an analyst.

There's a lot of software overlap in databases -- IBM has DB2 and Sun has MySQL.

India is now an important market for Sun Microsystems, both for its products and creating intellectual property (IP). For instance, the number of programmers working on Sun Microsystems' platforms in India is 780,000, retaining the country's position as the leading developer location in the world. This is over half the total developer community in the country.

In fact, the Rs 1,700 crore (Rs 17 billion) Sun India, with around 1,200 employees, has consistently witnessed close to 30 per cent q-o-q growth in the country, according to Dataquest India estimates.

Servers garnered around Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion), storage Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion), and software and professional services accounted for the rest in FY08. Sun's presence in services is negligible.

An attempt was made to address the anomaly in 2008 with Sun Learning Services, which accounted for Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million). Its professional services, under Sun Tech Consulting, took off as well.

Sun's India Engineering Centre (IEC), the first in Asia, was set up in Bangalore in 1998. The company has also set up its APAC's first Control Centre in Chennai -- the third such centre globally.

The India R&D centre has also played an important role in creating IP. Of the total 11,000 patents awarded, over 170 are from the Bangalore R&D centre.

However, for engineers at Sun India, this is much more than just an acquisition. "It's about the culture that Sun promotes. Some of the people working at Sun India have never shifted to any other firm," said a source.

Java is Sun's best asset, but the platform was never monetised. IBM could help it do so. Sun also has some interesting ideas on cloud computing, IBM's forte. Finally, Sun can allow IBM to consolidate a data centre rival and bring things back to equilibrium, now that Cisco has entered the market.

Globally, IBM -- which also has a significant presence in India, with over 70,000 employees -- can acquire server and storage share. With Cisco entering the server market, profit margins could be squeezed, especially if the server essentially becomes a storage and networking box, too. By acquiring Sun, IBM could get more scale. The same argument holds for storage hardware.

Sun is a powerhouse in Unix, still a key platform, but isn't exactly making waves. IBM could acquire Sun and establish both Linux and Unix. Sun would enable it to put pressure on HP's Unix-based businesses, too. However, IBM sells AIX Unix servers, while Sun sells Solaris.

There are issues to be worked out on hardware. IBM has refrained from commodity servers and Sun plays in that space. Hardware is often the entry point for IBM's software and services. With a stronger hardware business, it can fend off HP in the marketplace.

(http://business.rediff.com/report/2009/mar/19/what-ibm-sun-deal-could-mean-for-india.htm)

How IT revolutionised politics

2009-02-12T17:09:00.001+05:30

There were a couple of successful electronification initiatives, which, by demonstrating the capability of technology to millions of Indians across the country, were transforming popular opinion in its favour. One was the electronification of India's elections with the introduction of a colourful, pop-art style, easy-to-use voting machine, which became an enormous hit with Indian voters.

'It took us twenty-seven years to implement electronic voting from the time we conceived and built the machine,' the Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami tells me. 'When we tried to use the machines in a 1981 Kerala by-election, one of the contenders challenged their validity but lost at the state's high court, so we went ahead.' But in the election, the politician who had fought against the machines won, and the loser challenged the result at the Supreme Court. 'The SC tossed out the results because the law required paper ballots.'

Amending the law took six years, and then the machines went on the backburner. In 2001, after a long hiatus, the Election Commission again tried the machines out. In Tamil Nadu, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetru Kazhakam, AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa made a fuss, alleging that the machines were unreliable. 'This time, the Supreme Court threw her case out,' Gopalaswami says. 'Good for her, because she won that election.' Since then, it has been smooth sailing -- in 2004 all elections across the country had electronic voting, with one million machines deployed across over 700,000 polling booths.

India's elections have typically been corrupt and chaotic, with 'ballot-box stuffing' part of the nuts and bolts of getting yourself elected, and voting fraud in some areas have been as high as 40 per cent. The electronic voting machines (EVMs) considerably reduced the problem of ballot stuffing.

As Gopalaswami says, 'When one vote is cast, the machine takes twelve seconds to reactivate. So the "productivity" of the fraudsters goes down, since you can't just stuff bunches of paper into a box.' The time delay has also helped the Commission figure out when 'stuffing' has happened with a machine. 'If we spot a series where votes were cast every twelve seconds, we simply cancel that result,' he says.

Gopalaswami seems to take these challenges of our elections in his stride, and when he tells me of his technology-aided solutions to stop box-stuffing, I cannot miss the twinkle in his eyes. Recently, the commission began to clean up the system by digitizing other parts of the process -- such as using randomizing software to choose the presiding officers for election booths. 'There are exclusion parameters that the software uses, which eliminate, for example, the guys whose home town is in the district.' In addition, these presiding officers used to be selected a week before the election, which gave candidates enough time to ply him with his weakness of choice -- alcohol or money. The new software, however, chooses the name of the presiding officer on the day of the election. It has, the commissioner tells me cheerfully, really annoyed some candidates.

And the sincere ballot-stuffers bring artistry and skill to their efforts. As Gopalaswami points out, 'They can figure out elegant ways around regulation and anti-corruption measures. But IT helps us make it a lot harder for them.'

Another major initiative that transformed the popular perception of IT and brought India's masses in direct contact with it was the electronification of the railways. The Indian Railways is a huge part of travel for most Indians; it cris-crosses the length and breadth of the country and transports fourteen million passengers a day. The computerised reservation system could not have been a better introduction to the value of IT systems -- it was highly efficient and allowed the poor to bypass the long queues for tickets and the ineffectual, often exploitative bureaucracy.

At the railway ministry, I meet Sudhir Kumar, an IAS officer with a wide, infectious smile, one of the sharpest minds I have known, and a tendency to quote the management gurus Gary Hamel and C K Prahalad to get his point across. He is animated about how much computerising reservation and ticketing has helped the rail traveler. 'We transformed lives for a lot of people with computerised reservation systems,' he says. 'We freed up passengers from long queues, the mercy of touts and tickets being sold in the black. But there is so much more we can do with IT.'

One of his plans, he says, is 'electronic dispersal of tickets through railway kiosks'. He is hugely optimistic about the options technology offers in future services. 'Software, intelligently applied, can help us mine a lot more information on customer behaviour, and build dynamic pricing systems,' he says. I get a sense that while people in India see the present transformation of the railways as dramatic, for Sudhir things have just started rolling.

(from Nandan M Nilekani's book Imagining India)

Satyam's path to disaster

2009-01-15T18:41:00.001+05:30

Following is the chronological summary of events which saw IT major Satyam Computer Services, founded in 1987, on its path to disaster:

1. December 16: Satyam gets board's approval for acquisition of Maytas Infrastructure and Maytas Properties for $1.6 billion.

2. December 17: Defers Maytas' acquisition on stiff investor resistance.

3. December 18: Schedules board meet for the proposal of buyback of shares on December 29.

4. December 18: British mobile solution provider Upaid files a law suit against Satyam in a district Court in the US over Maytas deal.

5. December 24: World Bank bans Satyam for 8 years on charges of data-theft.

6. December 25: Satyam objects to World Bank's statements; asks Bank to apologise to the company or face legal action.

7. December 25: Mangalam Srinivasan, non-executive and independent director resigns from board.

8. December 27: Postpones board meeting to January 10, 2009 to consider buyback of shares.

9. December 27: Promoters disclose that their entire holding in Satyam pledged with institutional lenders since 2006.

10. December 28: Two independent directors - Krishna G Palepu, Vinod K Dham - resign from the board.

11. December 29: M Rammohan Rao, another independent director, resigns from board.

12. January 1: Satyam-Upaid case hearing over the Maytas deal in Texas court on January 7.

13. January 2: Promoter holding in Satyam drops to 5.31 per cent from 8.27 per cent after sale of pledged shares by lenders.

14. January 5: Satyam brings up old report by research firm Forrester complimenting company's innovation strategy.

15. January 6: IL&FS Trust company sales 2.45 crore shares of Satyam pledged to institutional investors by the promoters

16. January 6: Raju family holding in Satyam falls to 3.16 per cent after sale of pledged share by lenders

17. January 7: Satyam Chairman Ramalinga Raju sends letter to board tendering his resignation and admitting to fraud in accounting books.

18. January 7: Satyam Managing Director B Rama Raju also resigns.

19. January 7: DSP Merrill Lynch terminated its advisory engagement with company.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2009/jan/07satyam-path-to-disaster.htm)

Govt rules out bailout package for Satyam

2009-01-15T14:23:00.001+05:30

The government on Thursday ruled out any bailout package for crisis-ridden Satyam Computer, but assured to do everything required to save jobs under the framework of its responsibilities.

"This is a decision that the new board of Satyam would take. This government is not going to directly or indirectly subsidise wrong doing and fraud in Satyam," Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar told reporters on the sidelines of a Petrotech-2009 conference.

When asked, is government not in favour of bailout package for Satyam as such, Kumar said that the new Satyam board "... are the ones to decide. The government would try and support within the framework of its responsibilities and do whatever it can to preserve and save jobs and to protect the good name of India in corporate sector".

He said, "The government will try to ensure to the extent possible that the brand equity of the country and Stayam in terms of its intellectual capital is preserved and the jobs are secured to the extent possible".

The minister said, "I do believe that Satyam aberration should not in any way take away from the great success story of India in the IT sector."

Earlier speculation was rife that the government is considering a package of up to Rs 2,000 crore to bail out Satyam Computer. But shortly after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's review meeting on Satyam on Tuesday, there was media speculation that government would be considering a financial assistance ranging between Rs 500 crore and Rs 2,000 crore but the PMO office declined to comment on it.

However, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who attended PM's review meeting, had said that the government was open to consider a financial package for Satyam Computer.

The official sources had also indicated that the government appointed Satyam board had written a letter to the finance ministry raising concerns about the liquidity crunch in the troubled company.

Satyam has 53,000 employees and needs over Rs 500 crore a month to meet the staff cost. Satyam had plunged into a deep crisis following the founder-chairman B Ramalinga Raju's admission that he fudged the company accounts to the tune of Rs 7,800 crore.

(http://in.news.yahoo.com/48/20090115/1238/tbs-govt-rules-out-bailout-package-for-s.html)

Success tips from world's top management guru

2009-01-15T13:19:00.001+05:30

He's the world's most influential living management guru and the first Indian-born to be so honoured.

Which is why, in these troubled economic times, when countries are slipping into recession, companies are going bankrupt, CEOs are taking pay cuts and pink slips are the norm, it makes sense to take Coimbatore Krishnan Prahalad's sage words of advice.

Strategy is about stretching limited resources to fit ambitious aspirations.

Management is a lot of blocking and tackling.

Many companies don't understand yet that outsourcing isn't about exporting jobs. It's about importing innovation.

You have to have faith. You cannot lead if you don't believe.

The technology eliminated the tyranny of the few over the many.

Invest time in languages and intercultural awareness. Focus on becoming part of the global citizenry. In exchange for the opportunity to participate everywhere/ anywhere in the world, you have the obligation to do something productive which will improve the world. Develop a personal mission, a desire to leave personal legacy.

You cannot solve the world's problems in a small company. The goal is not to say that we are going to do it anyway, with or without money. It's a nice, brave thing to say, but very soon you'll be running out of cash.

The negative side of a small company is that there are no dampers. Just because you can make a change quickly, the temptation is to act. Speed is nice to have, but going faster to hell is not how I want to run a company. I want somebody to keep pushing the organisation. I also want somebody to say, 'Let's be thoughtful about getting this done right.'

It is the bamboo that bends in heavy winds that has another day to live. The trees that don't bend get uprooted.

If you do precisely what you're supposed to do, and you're boxed in, then you're going to do that very well. But if pressed to do things that aren't in your normal job description, the challenge can push you to a new level of achievement.

If you want new ideas, you have to push yourself into the periphery.

How many senior executives discuss the crucial distinction between competitive strategy at the level of a business and competitive strategy at the level of an entire company?

Especially in troubled times, leaders must behave like emotional and intellectual anchors. You must steady the organisation and have a passionate belief that what you are doing is important.

Leadership is about what you do when the going gets tough� The critical issue is about faith, passion, and, most importantly, authenticity -- so that people know you are not pretending. People can see a sham."

I spend a lot of time talking about what we're doing in terms of strategy. You have to give the same message over and over again.

Consumption can and does increase income. Consider health care. If you are legally blind with cataract, you can't work and neither can the family member who cares for you. But if you get access to inexpensive cataract surgery, now you can see and both of you can work. Have you consumed eye surgery or increased the family's earning power? You've done both. It's two sides to the same coin.

In an organisation, one unique person makes a difference, but you need teamwork to make it happen.

In a company like ours, if we want to do something, we can just call a meeting. But in a small company, you have to exercise caution and build your own personal dampers so that you don't act on everything. Sometimes not acting may be smart. But if I get the feeling that everybody's becoming so thoughtful that nobody's doing anything, I want to go and light some fires somewhere.

If you are a good manager, you always worry about your competitors. To take the competitors for granted is a mindset of a closed economy. Nobody in the open market takes anybody lightly.

Leaders do not allow themselves to be weighed down by the difficulties of the present but are focused on the possibilities of the future. Instinct, passion, courage and confidence are the precious ingredients of managing differently. A vision of the future is critical to motivate people to become innovative.

Being anchored in reality and taking small steps towards that vision is equally critical. We have to learn to look at the stars and count the grains of sand at the same time.

Any company that cannot imagine the future won't be around to enjoy it.

Managing differently calls for a major revolution in the way we perceive our own roles as managers. The biggest transition that needs to be made is to move away from managing to leading, from administration to entrepreneurship.

Whether it is quality levels, logistics, costs, scale, working capital management, or capital efficiency, there is no room for the second best. Good is not good enough anymore.

If you want to understand how the future is being created, you have to understand how decisions get made, how people allocate resources, how choices get made.

Why don't people have economic opportunities? Because there's no information. You don't know what the price of fish is in the next village. The large-company Internet business models, the Internet poor, the new business models -- they're one big circle. They all interact with one another. But we have to make this a business issue.

A commitment to lead in the creation of new opportunities -- an opportunity-led management system -- is critical. Most often, managers change in reaction to a crisis or a problem, not in search of opportunities

People are intelligent enough to know what they are getting and not getting.

The greater the angst of sales and marketing managers over the decision to sell core products to outsiders, the more likely it is that the firm's in-house channels are less efficient than alternate distribution channels

How to distinguish non-core capabilities from core competence? In the broadest terms, a company many have 40 or more primary skills, but only 5-15 core competencies. Senior management has to focus on which competencies are at the centre of their business.

Excitement is manifested strategically by employees seeing how their jobs link up with attainment of a goal. The new strategic intent presents a challenge, and engages employees' intellectual energy. Like Ford did in the early 1980s with its quality campaign, managers must make every employee aware that without their help, the company will not regain or increase its competitiveness.

Companies that create the future do more than satisfy customers, they constantly amaze them.

Beyond reengineering a firm, top managers must know how to reengineer their entire industries, a la CNN, Wal-Mart, and Service Corporation International. Pathbreakers all, they recognized their core competencies and developed strategies to reshape industry structures around their competitive competencies.

Rebuild leadership before you need to.

Business must start with the assumption that consumers don't want to apply the same amount of effort to construct all their experiences. Today, I will take whatever coffee I'm given -- but on another occasion, I might be more particular.

Management must be performance oriented. Meritocracy, stretch targets, clear measurements and rewards based on contribution are the keys to a high performance culture.

We have company think, not consumer think. What we make is not what they want.

People shift their priorities, where they want to customise, where they want to invest their energy and expertise.

If you build systems for total participation and co-creation, buying off-the-shelf is a sub-set and is also possible. If you only build a system for what's available and what you make, then people cannot co-create.

Over time successful business recipes become dull -- your success leads to business structures that may become dysfunctional. What we need to ask ourselves is -- is there a different way?

To be extraordinarily sensitive and concerned about key competitors, especially those who have more experience and technology capabilities, is not a wise thing to do. I think we have to distinguish between being respectful and being concerned about competitors.

At headquarters, managers are focused on the markets already being served, not the potential markets of the future. When this happens, the company is hostage to existing markets, even though it may possess highly-evolved core competencies which can be leveraged for the future.

By creating a mismatch between aspirations (more) and resources (less) you create entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs leverage resources and change the business model to get more, for fewer resources. So the task for us is, how to create aspirations that rest outside the current resource base

You have to have faith: otherwise, every time there's a minor problem in the implementation, you'll change direction. Just because you are going north, doesn't mean it's going to go in a straight line.

Start with clear specifications and a clear idea of gaps by auditing your own internal structure. Then create small internal experiments to move one step at a time rather than turning everything upside down.

Consumers did not have much share of voice. Now they do. There is a fundamental transition that is taking place -- from a firm-centric society to a consumer-centric society.

Creating a new market is key... not to create new needs for these consumers, but to find new ways to sell the same products and services in an innovative way

It's a question of taking a lot of small steps: don't try to eat the elephant in one big bite.

The social architecture -- the mindset of managers -- must change. You cannot procrastinate. People must be empowered to act. Real time action requires a managerial mind-set. It also requires distributed leadership -- a shared agenda commonly understood, but access to information at very distributed levels.

Everyone should act in a way that's consistent with the broad philosophy of the company, so you enhance your brand, you enhance the experience of consumers.

(from http://specials.rediff.com/money/2009/jan/15slide1-success-strategies-from-worlds-top-management-guru.htm)

Telecom giant Nortel granted bankruptcy protection

2009-01-15T11:30:00.001+05:30

(http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090114/Nortel_board_090114/20090114?hub=CTVNewsAt11)

Nortel Networks Corp. has been granted protection by an Ontario Superior Court judge from its creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.

A lawyer for Nortel said in court that the bankruptcy protection was necessary because the company was quickly burning through its cash reserves.

Nortel has also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, the company announced Wednesday. It is expected to file for protection in Europe in the near future.

The move comes just one day before the telecom firm was due to repay a $107-million interest debt on bonds, which would have amounted to about 10 per cent of the company's North American cash reserves.

But the company is vowing to stay alive as a smaller operation, by ridding itself of non-core businesses and restructuring itself to deal with the North American recession.

The moves mean more jobs will likely be shed from its 30,000 global workforce. The filing also will affect the company's sponsorships, but Nortel says it remains committed to sponsoring the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Nortel is also a major sponsor for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Once Canada's most valuable company, Nortel stocks traded as high as $124.50 a share during the tech boom in 2000.

On Wednesday, it had dropped 24.5 cents to close at 12 cents on the TSX, off from a 52-week high of $14.

"People who are close to the situation are saying to us that although there is a great deal of equity in the company the possibility of it staying together as the Nortel Networks we knew is fairly slim," BNN's Michael Kane reported Wednesday.

"We're likely going to see it sold off in bits and pieces."

Ian Lee, director of the MBA program at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business, told CTV Newsnet that he doesn't think investors are going to see a return from Nortel.

"I think you can them as wallpaper in your rec room," Lee said, referring to Nortel stock certificates. "I don't mean to be flippant but I don't think the investors are going to see a return."

While many on Bay St. are not confident for a Nortel revival, the company's CEO remains bullish on its prospects.

"There are very significant changes happening in a very large industry, we refer to this as the world of hyper-connectivity," Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski said. "I believe we are very well positioned to do very well to profit from those significant changes in the marketplace."

In an earlier press release Zafirovski called the bankruptcy filing "imperative" for the company's survival.

"Nortel must be put on a sound financial footing once and for all," Zafirovski said in a press release.

"These actions are imperative so that Nortel can build on its core strengths and become the highly focused and financially sound leader in the communications industry that its people, technology and customer relationships show it ought to be."

The company's board of directors reportedly met in Toronto Tuesday to discuss the decision.

In Wednesday's press release, Nortel said day-to-day operations are expected to continue without interruption.

"The global financial crisis and recession have compounded Nortel's financial challenges and directly impacted its ability to complete this transformation," said the press release. "Nortel is taking this action now, with a $2.4 billion cash position, to preserve its liquidity and fund operations during the restructuring process."

Political reaction

In Ottawa, Industry Minister Tony Clement said the federal government was willing to provide financing to assist during the company's restructuring phase.

"The government of Canada appreciates the importance of the telecommunications industry to our economy and will continue to work with Nortel during its restructuring through Export Development Canada," Clement said in a statement.

"EDC has agreed to provide up to $30 million in short-term financing through its existing bonding facility and is open to discussing with Nortel post-filing financing in conjunction with other financial institutions."

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said the province has $2 billion available in various programs to help struggling companies. However, he said Nortel hasn't applied for any money yet.

"We'll see how things shake out in the end and what it means specifically for jobs in Ontario," McGuinty said Wednesday.

"I remain hopeful that Nortel will experience ultimately a renaissance of some kind and that will be of benefit to the Ontario economy and to Ontario workers."

After the telecom bubble burst, the company failed to re-establish itself and was plagued by accounting scandals and weakening demand.

"It has been a changing landscape that Nortel has been unable to adjust to," Kane said.

Still, Peter A. Chapman, of Bankruptcy Creditors' Service Inc. in Pennsylvania, said Nortel could survive despite Wednesday's move.

"There's every indication at this early juncture that Nortel will survive, confirm Chapter 11 and CCAA plans, and successfully emerge from its restructuring," he said in an email to The Canadian Press.

"The Chapter 11 and CCAA proceedings will provide Nortel with the ability to sell useless assets, walk away from every bad business deal, improve its operations and operating margins, and knock its $11 billion debt load down to a reasonable level."

Nortel employs about 32,000 people around the world, including several thousand in Ottawa and Toronto.

Chapman said shareholders will likely lose whatever money they had invested in the company.

Drop a dress size in two weeks

2009-01-13T18:36:00.000+05:30

Corinne, a vivacious 23-year-old from Delhi is getting formally engaged in two weeks, with her marriage following in another two months. But what happened today has left her sweating bullets!

She was trying on her engagement outfit, when she got the fright of her life. The buttons on her blouse were peeping open and worse yet, the bottom one had popped out when she bent over.

Lately, she has been careless with her eating, and has not been working out as often as she would like to; but hey, she's young and active. Where the heck did these inches come from?

Two weeks will be here in a flash and two quick months later the wedding will soon follow. Corinne calls up her best friend Sonali, who tells her to go on an extreme diet of fruit one day and vegetables the next, for two weeks straight. Her sister Jasmine tells her to take the same fat-busting pills she regularly takes to lose weight before special events. She can shed nearly 10 kgs in two weeks -- perfect for the engagement party!

Corinne knows stress, overeating and lack of exercise and sleep have done her in. How on earth will she look slim, radiant, and glowing if she goes on an extreme diet or takes those awful diet pills? But then again, her engagement is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Do you find yourself sailing in Corinne's boat, on the wrong side of unexpected weight gain?

Irrespective of whether you're a man or a woman, here are a few healthy quick-fix suggestions -- the first three are compulsory and the others you need to embrace wholeheartedly. They will not only help you lose weight in two weeks, but can be uses as a jumpstart effort to look great from this day onwards, for better or worse, till death do you part.

Watch and cut back on portion sizes -- Eat 5-6 small, low-calorie meals a day, but ensure they are balanced nutritionally. Never take second helpings, and drink plenty of water.

Exercise 45-60 minutes every day -- Dance, skip, take the stairs, just keep moving.

Eat a good and light breakfast every day and never skip a meal -- Carry a fruit and 6-8 nuts with freshly-cut veggies to chomp on. No cold coffees, fruit milk shakes and juices.

Lunches must include small salads with no oil -- Have lemon juice dressings, low-fat yoghurt, dal and chapati or grilled meats at every meal. No spicy curries, heavy biryanis, restaurant soups, breads and definitely no desserts.

Keep only healthy snacks at home -- Good examples are fruit and sliced vegetables such as carrots and cucumber. Try bean salads, bhuna chana, raisins with a couple of almonds, lentil sprouts, a small cup of skimmed milk or fat-free yoghurt. No namkeens, cream biscuits, pakoras, samosas, kebabs etc.

Ask your partner to help -- Eat in rather than eating out. The chances of overeating or eating unhealthy, fatty foods are higher when you eat out. Go dancing after dinner and let those calories burn off, sweat out the fat and feel aglow with the flowing endorphins.

Avoid all alcohol, it's where those calories creep in -- A rum and cola here and a 'lite' beer there add up fast, so drink water instead. It hydrates you without the additional calories. Alcohol adds an easy 100-150 calories per serving. Ditto for sodas, juices and cocktails. Add a slice of lemon to water if you crave some flavour.

Skip prepared desserts -- Instead, enjoy ripe fruit dripping with juices, they make for a luscious dessert that you can share with your partner.

Get a good night's rest -- Your body rejuvenates itself when you sleep like a baby. Lack of sleep increases stress and decreases your ability to discriminate -- perfect scenarios for emotional overeating. Get adequate rest and if you find yourself in an emotional and stressful situation with your family or work (which you and I both know happen from time to time), get onto a phone and talk it over with friends, instead of turning to food for comfort.

Remind yourself, you are worth every calorie and every inch dropped.

Dropping a dress size means different things to different people. Some may need to drop 2-4 kgs, while others may need to lose 6-7 kgs before they see a difference. But usually, inches decrease before weight does.

Eating 500 fewer calories a day and exercising to burn another 350-400 calories a day should sensibly work out to not only losing 2.5 kgs in two weeks but also losing some unnecessary flab and bulk.

(http://us.rediff.com/getahead/2009/jan/12drop-a-dress-size-in-two-weeks.htm)

Wipro did nothing wrong

2009-01-13T13:49:00.001+05:30

Hours after World Bank made public that Wipro has been debarred from doing any business with the global lender, the company's chairman Azim Premji wrote to its over 100,000 employees saying that the company had not done anything unethical.

Denying charges levelled by the World Bank that Wipro provided improper benefits to the bank staff, Premji said, "Let me reaffirm that Wipro was right from a legal as well as ethical standpoint. We believe what we did what was right and we did it in the right manner."

World Bank bars Wipro, Megasoft, 3 others

The company, in 2000, had provided World Bank staff option to purchase its American Depository Shares at IPO price through a Directed Share Programme. However, the World Bank in June 2007 determined that this was a conflict of interest.

In an internal communication to the company's employees, Premji said, "We have always prided ourselves for setting the highest standards of business ethics in our dealings with all our stakeholders. We have built a strong culture which upholds compliance in letter and spirit. The approach was no different in this instance also."

The World Bank deemed the IT firm ineligible to bid for direct contracts from it for the period 2007-2011. The World Bank also named other companies that were barred from doing business it in a list made public on Monday.

Premji further explained that all participants in the Direct Share Programme signed a conflict of interest statement that their purchase did not violate any ethics or conflict of interest policies of their company.

Though the company maintained yesterday that the announcement will not have any impact on its revenues, its stock took a beating at the BSE on Monday. It, however, was trading 4.5 per cent up at Rs 237.6 on the BSE on Tuesday.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2009/jan/13satyam-wipro-did-nothing-wrong-premji.htm)

Toyota refuses to lay off workers

2009-01-09T11:31:00.001+05:30

Toyota is struggling to sell trucks and SUVs like everyone else, but unlike the competition, no full-time workers from stalled factories are getting laid off. The 4,500 workers at idled plants are instead bettering themselves through education by taking classes on safety, diversity, and Toyota history. They're also doing community service while on the clock and even some gardening. The workers will be learning how to work faster and smarter during the down time, and are even being shifted to busier plants on a temporary basis to help plants that are working beyond capacity to keep up with demand.

Toyota's plan to keep its workers busy at all costs isn't cheap, as about $50 million is being spent to keep workers busy with training programs. Of course, you can't please everyone and the plan isn't sitting well with all of Toyota's workforce, as workers at running factories don't like the fact that laid off workers are getting a leg up on training. A more skilled plant could have an advantage over others in getting earmarked for future products, so unaffected workers also want the extra training.

While expensive and a bit of a logistics nightmare, Toyota's plan is a good one if you can afford it. It should help create a more loyal, better trained workforce that also forges ties with the surrounding community. We bet Toyota hopes it will prevent any talk of unionizing, as well. And with Toyota's record profits over the past few years, $50 million is a drop in the corporate bucket.

Seven golden home loan rules

2008-12-25T16:16:00.001+05:30

Rule # 1: Never choose a lender till the property is identified

Speak to your bank about home finance only after you have identified a property/home/flat you want to buy. While most banks will provide finance for ready-to-move-in properties, some banks do not readily finance a property which is being self-constructed or a property under construction.

Also, if the property is very old or is being developed by a relatively unknown builder, the bank might have an issue with providing a property loan. Take a sanction for the loan only after identifying the property. Banks are known to reserve the best deals for immediate disbursement cases.

Rule # 2: Get clarity about the loan amount eligibility

Banks have different ways to calculate loan eligibility. If loan eligibility based on your income is likely to be an issue, then talk to several banks to find out which bank can give you the maximum amount.

It may so happen that based on your own income, as well as your spouse's, you may still not be eligible to get the amount of loan that you require.

Then you must seek a bank that allows you to club the incomes of your other close relatives (parents, siblings, children etc) to increase your loan eligibility. Some banks may agree to club the incomes of two siblings for the purpose of calculating the loan eligibility.

Rule # 3: You must have 10-15 per cent funds of the house cost

If the house costs Rs 5 lakh, the bank expects you to pay at least Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 from your own sources, while the remaining Rs 4,50,000 to Rs 4,25,000 is provided as loan subject to your income based eligibility.

If the value of the house goes down in future, your down payment ensures that the bank's interest is protected by ensuring that outstanding loan amount is less than the realisable value of the property. Once you decide on your dream property, the bank will get the cost of the property evaluated by its own personnel.

Surprisingly, this evaluation can throw up a price different (in most cases lower) from the actual price you are paying for the property. In such cases, you will need to shell out the difference between the actual price and the bank's valuation as additional down payment.

So again, it makes sense to ask the bank to value the property (on payment of a small fee), especially if it is an old resale property. The small fee will be worth the while to avoid future hassles.

Rule # 4: Go window-shopping, bargain more & more

You should shortlist four or five banks and get the short listed banks to compete for your loan. The cost of your loan depends a lot on your ability to negotiate. Remember that all terms and conditions of a housing loan are negotiable.

Interest rates offered by banks take your income and repayment profile into consideration, apart from, of course, your negotiation skills. Apart from interest rates, also check various charges like processing fees, pre-payment charges, legal fees, valuation fees and other hidden costs. Take all these factors into account before choosing your bank.

Rule # 5: Be prepared to lose your processing fee

Your lender will charge you a fee to get the loan proposal on roll. This fee is called the 'processing fee'. This fee varies from bank to bank, but is usually around 0.5 per cent to one per cent of the total housing loan amount.

Paying the fee doesn't mean that you will get the loan, but this is the fee to get the lender to even 'take a look' at your application. No matter what the bank representative informs you; the processing fee is 'NON-REFUNDABLE'.

Don't trust any verbal promises about not encashing the cheque if the sanction is not done or is not as per the promised terms. Get all such promises in writing. This means that if your loan application is rejected or is sanctioned for a lower amount or at a higher rate than promised, you cannot claim the processing fee back.

Rule # 6: Fixed or floating, there is no substitute for vigilance

Even when opting for 'fixed interest', remember that in some cases, it may remain fixed only for a certain period of time, as the bank may have the right to arbitrarily change even the so called 'fixed rate'. So, probe further and read the fine print before you sign on anything.

Like a majority of consumers, if you have signed a floating rate loan, check whether the rates of your chosen lender had floated down in the years when interest rates were dropping like a stone.

To know whether your lender offers 'transparent floating rates', ask for and check the bank's floating rate records from 2002-2003, when interest rates were going down. This is a fair indicator of what you can expect as (not if) and when the interest rates start moving down and the time comes for the bank to pass on the benefit to you.

Rule # 7: Let your family inherit the house, not the home loan

We know little what fate has in store for us. When you take a home loan, it is on the basis and assumption of continuing income. We run into all kinds of risks in our daily life. Accidents and health issues like heart attacks, strokes, paralysis, kidney failure and other physically crippling ailments can cause loss of income or in some cases, even your life.

Housing loans are a fairly long-term liability. This is why when you take a home loan it is advisable to take a life insurance and critical illness policy.

Life insurance policies provide monetary benefit in case of an unfortunate incident like death and ensure that your family members inherit your home not your home loan. Critical illness policy will take care of the home loan liability if your income gets interrupted due to unforeseen, unavoidable circumstances which such conditions may create. That will be one less thing to worry about while you are anyway under severe stress.

Best of all, most banks will be happy to finance the one-time premium payable for both policies, enabling you to get this protection at a small addition to your regular premium.

(http://specials.rediff.com/getahead/2008/dec/15slid1-seven-golden-home-loan-rules.htm)

World Bank bars Satyam for 8 years

2008-12-24T11:44:00.001+05:30

The World Bank has barred Satyam Computer Services from doing any business with it for the next eight years even as the share prices of India's fourth-largest IT firm tanked 13.5 per cent on rumours that B Ramalinga Raju, founder and chairman, has resigned.

Speculation was also high on news that Wipro Technologies, India's third-largest IT firm, might acquire Satyam, something both companies denied.

Foxnews.com on Tuesday reported that the World Bank ban started in September this year "due to alleged malpractice's including bribery". The news report said the World Bank debarment -- the harshest sanction ever made by the bank since 2004 -- was meted out for 'improper benefit to bank staff' and 'lack of documentation on invoices'.

"The information is true," Sudip Mozumder, a spokesman for the World Bank in New Delhi, told Reuters. Moreover, Robert Van Pulley, the information security official, admitted to the ban during a recent meeting with officials of the Government Accountability Project, a 30-year-old whistle-blowing organisation based in Washington.

When contacted, a Satyam spokesperson said that "the company does not comment on individual clients".

According to reports throughout 2003 to 2008, the World Bank has paid Satyam hundreds of millions of dollars to maintain and manage its software systems across global networks as well as look at back-office operations.

In 2005, the bank's chief information officer, Mohamed Muhsin, was asked to leave after being accused of improperly buying preferential stock options from Satyam, even as he awarded the firm major contracts. A top-secret investigation led to Muhsin being banned permanently from the bank in January 2007.

Satyam has been in the line of fire since it made an attempt to acquire Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties for $1.6 billion that are partially owned by the promoter family. Within 10 to12 hours of this announcement, the company retracted its decision due to investor outrage.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/24world-bank-bars-satyam-for-8-years.htm)

Anti-theft software for cell-phones

2008-12-23T19:22:00.001+05:30

Own an expensive hi-end mobile phone? Petrified of losing it?

Police recently tracked down a mobile theft - a rare occurrence – but the moral of the case was it was better to be safe than sorry.

J. Vikram works as a Security Engineer with a top software firm in Chennai. A few months ago, Vikram lost his brand-new Nokia N 70 mobile phone. He registered a police complaint and in just two days the handset was back in his pocket. It was not just the swift action of the Cyber Crime Cell of the city police but it was Vikram’s prudence that gained him back his handset.

The ‘saviour’ was Guardian 2.1, a free mobile antitheft software installed in the phone. “The software when installed on the phone will ask for your International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI) along with area code and a nominated mobile number to pass on automatic SMS alert when your handset is lost and used by someone else,” Vikram says.

Apparently, Vikram had nominated his sister’s mobile number. When his mobile got stolen and every time a new SIM card was inserted, the Guardian software in the phone started working. And as a result, Vikram’s sister got the warning message on her phone from the illegally inserted SIM.“Immediately I alerted the cops and they nabbed the culprit and got back my phone,” Vikram adds. The interesting element about the anti theft software apart from being free to download is that its presence inside the mobile phone can’t be detected.

Vikram is one of the few who managed to retrieve his mobile phone. According to M. Sudhakar, Assistant Commissioner, City Cyber Crime Cell, nearly 700 cases of missing mobile phones were registered with the city police last year. “But the recovery rate is 50 percent. People buy expensive mobile phones but don’t know how to safeguard them. A simple installation of an anti-theft software can prove effective when the handset goes missing,” stresses Sudhakar.

There are a number of mobile anti-theft softwares apart from Guardian, which can be downloaded to guard your expensive high end mobile phone. Sudhakar recommends softwares that primarily feature the following three options: a) Two mobile numbers can be nominated to receive alert SMS in case of loss of the phone b) Locks the stored data when a new SIM is inserted c) Exports all stored data to the nominated mobile numbers.
“High-end mobile phone users must make use of these softwares. In case of theft or loss of the handset, the software inside makes the police investigation less time consuming. The culprits can be nabbed quickly and in turn increases the percentage of recovery,” Sudhakar adds.

So if you own a high-end expensive handset, it is high time you protect it with some advanced technology that is easily accessible on the internet.

The software

Mobile phone anti theft software Guardian 2.1 can be downloaded for free from http://www.download.com/guardian/3000-11138_410612972.html or http://www.symbian-toys.com/ or http://www.symbian-toys.com/
guardian.aspx
Anti-theft softwares works well on Nokia models like the 6600, 7610, 6630, 6670, N 70, N 72, N 80, N 93, N 95 and also on a few models of other mobile makers.
Virtual Mobile Security (VMS) suite from Mumbai-based Innova Technologies is also an anti-theft software that would lock up the phones in case of unauthorised SIM card change or if the owner sends a text message alert to the culprit. The password-protected software would literally render the handset useless to anyone but the owner.
It would also forward the new SIM card number, the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the handset and the cell phone number of the new user via an SMS to a mobile phone nominated by the user.

(http://www.goergo.in/?p=231)

How India is weathering the financial tsunami

2008-12-22T18:13:00.000+05:30

The global financial turmoil has hit a number of financial institutions overseas, resulting in write-downs, bailouts and bankruptcies. In contrast, the Indian financial system has largely escaped unscathed, thanks to a stringent regulatory framework, which was considered stifling in times of upturn.

Not that the Indian banking system has not had its share of worries during the recent crisis.

Four large Indian banks with significant foreign presence had to make provisions for potential losses due to their exposure to overseas financial institutions.

These are: ICICI Bank (international assets accounts for 22 per cent of total assets), State Bank of India (7 per cent), Bank of India (18 per cent) and Bank of Baroda (19 per cent).

But by and large, the Indian banking system has been left untouched by the unfolding crisis, not only due to regulatory restrictions, but also because of their limited exposure to US-mortgage backed securities.

The central bank's stranglehold has also ensured that the Indian financial system has a leverage of 13:1 -- small in comparison with the US investment banks' leverage of 30:1.

Another factor that provides succour during such times is the dominant role that government-owned banks play in the Indian banking sector. These banks hold financial assets worth 77.2 per cent.

Moreover, all banks, irrespective of ownership, need to invest over 32 per cent of their deposits with RBI or invest in sovereign bonds.

Reserve requirements set by RBI are among the highest in the world. This ensures that RBI and the banking system have enough muscle to support the economy when there is a slowdown or liquidity crisis.

Effectively, this also means that banks have limited credit risk and the balance sheets have significant liquidity.

Consider these facts: Over 90 per cent of borrowing with the banks is in the form of deposits.

Almost 75 per cent of risk assets are in the form of loans rather than bonds or securities.

The industrial loan book is fairly diversified across sectors -- the top five sectors account for 58 per cent of industrial loans.

The consumer exposure, including mortgages, is less than 25 per cent of the system's loan book.

In the case of bank failures, the Indian regulator guarantees a payment of up to Rs 100,000 to each depositor. This guarantee extends to over 95 per cent of depositors.

Also, over 50 per cent of deposits by value are protected.

Indian banks have stronger balance sheets compared to the past, as net non-performing loans of Indian banks have fallen consistently over the last five years.

In fact, subsequent falls in government bond yields have translated into sufficient gains for banks, helping them clean up their books.

The best way of judging a bank's health is to look at some critical parameters such as capital adequacy ratio, asset quality and earnings, which define banks' ability to pay off their service depositors in times of crisis. On all these parameters, Indian banks meet the accepted norms.

State Bank of India has the highest net worth in capital and reserves among all Indian banks, followed by ICICI Bank. Each of the two has about four times the net worth of the third biggest bank, Punjab National Bank [Get Quote], in this category.

Most Indian banks have non-performing assets amounting to less than one per cent. The average NPA of all banks operating in India (including foreign banks) is around one per cent.

The reduction in NPAs has been primarily driven by higher write-offs earlier and higher recoveries done very recently.

The gross and net NPA ratios have improved from the 1994 levels of 19.5 per cent and 10.7 per cent to the current levels of 2.4 per cent and 1.1 per cent, respectively.

The marked improvement in asset quality is a result of tightened NPL recognition norms (from 180 days to 90 days) and provisioning norms having come into force from March 31, 2004.

The incremental slippage ratio has also trended down from 5.3 per cent in 2001-02 to the current level of 1.8 per cent.

Among the big Indian banks, ICICI Bank has the highest capital adequacy ratio of 13.97 per cent against the mandated 9 per cent. Four banks, all of which are smaller than ICICI, have higher CAR than ICICI Bank.

Overall, 28 Indian banks have a CAR of more than 12 per cent each. Not even a single bank has a CAR of less than 9 per cent. Under the norms, banks need capital worth Rs 9 for every unit of asset worth Rs 100.

Going by FY08 numbers, none of the Indian banks, big or small, can fail.

However, the current fiscal, beginning April, has brought with it some troubling signs of an economic slowdown. The rapid credit expansion in recent years has resulted in a jump in NPAs.

At the same time, a disproportionate rise in the unsecured books combined with the growing lending is a cause for concern.

This, in an economic downturn, could mean a higher probability of default, as well as a lower probability of recovery, if the loans get converted into NPAs.

Over the past six years, the ratio of unsecured loans to total loans has doubled from 10.8 per cent to that of 21.9 per cent.

This means that unsecured loans have compounded at a massive 49 per cent during these years.

For individual private sector banks, the ratio has increased from 6.7 per cent in 2001-02 to 23.4 per cent in 2007-08.

The top three banks in private sector have more than 15 per cent of their portfolios in unsecured loans and advances.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2008/dec/22bcrisis-how-indiai-is-weathering-the-financial-tsunami.htm)

No lay-offs, no matter how bad it gets, assures HCL Tech

2008-12-22T15:12:00.001+05:30

HCL Technologies one of India's leading Information Technology firm, will not fire its employees even if the economic situation gets worse over the coming months, the company's chief executive officer told Hindustan Times. The company, like other corporates is cutting costs through other 0measures like reducing transport and electricity bills amongst others.

"We have not and will not lay off no matter how bad it gets, even if recessionary trends get worse," said Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies. HCL Technologies employs around 55,000 employs across 19 countries. Nayar said that the company's hiring plans were on track but declined to put a number to the target. On expected salary hikes for financial year 2010, Nayar said that the company will take a decision around June next year.

"We will take a decision around June and expect that most of the bad news will be behind us by then," said Nayar. "We will cut costs from all corners, through better utilisation of electricity, reducing cycle time from desire to implement of a project, controlling transportation and vendor bills," he said. He declined to comment on how much the company is likely to save through these initiatives.

(http://in.biz.yahoo.com/081221/32/6z7zo.html)

Balance your professional equations

2008-11-24T18:53:00.001+05:30

After Chemistry and Mathematics, if I were to pick one place where equations play a major role, my choice would be professional office spaces. Yes, within the confines of our daily work places.

The only difference between the academic equations and the ones being referred to within the office space is the change in variables or constituents of the equations -- bosses, peers and various colleagues replacing chemicals and numbers.

The basic rules, however remain the same.

For instance, the results you get are invariably dependant upon how various constituents react.

Be it your equation with your boss, your boss's boss, immediate peers, colleagues working in other departments of the company or the guard who waves to you in the office everyday -- equations affect and matter everywhere.

But why are equations in the offices so important?

The answer can be found in the highly people-driven societies that the workplace has come to be. These days, you do not work alone and may get involved with umpteen number of people within the organisation. Interactions with so many people are bound to leave as many impressions. It is these impressions that can make or break one's efforts as opinions float around easily in these ever so connected confines.

It isn't hard, therefore, to fathom that having good equations with everyone is in one's own interest.

So, if you strike the right chord with your boss, chances are that you'd find yourself in good stead. If not, you could be asking for trouble.

However, the buck doesn't stop at the boss only. You would also need to be aware of the equations of other people with your boss. A budding manager, in spite of her hard work, wasn't finding the commensurate payback for her efforts from her boss. On digging deeper, it was found that she had unknowingly offended the head of another department who happened to be quite close to her boss.

If you deal with other departments of your organisation regularly for your work, the success of the task at hand may depend upon how various people construe you and your team. Having good equations with those teams may ease your task. Others would only be happy to work for your interests.

However, if the equations are not good, you may have to fight a lonely battle. But in spite of that, your boss may be sympathetic to you, if you are on good terms with her, even if you fall short of targets, knowing the equations the other team has with your team.

This also extends to the feedback about you, that your boss might seek from others. Keeping good company and more importantly a halo of positives around you is bound to improve the ratings you get in your next appraisal. That would show that you are able to handle the aspirations and expectations of various people, which is an important trait in a people-driven office.

Knowing then that equations are so important, how does one get to remain on the right side of the law?

One way is to keep your eyes and ears open for any signs of deteriorating relations or appearances of slag in the broth that is cooked up every day in the office.

Check up on the office grapevine doing the rounds every once in a while. These are important sources of the prevailing undercurrents.

Senior team members or those who have been around for quite some time in the organisation are also good sources of internal dynamics. Popping quick and harmless queries before embarking on any endeavour would help get the lowdown of existing power centres within the organisation.

Information gleaned from such sources helps set proper expectations right from the start of the task. You'd know whether you can expect positive contributions from certain quarters in the office or not and thereby direct efforts appropriately.

Brush up your PR skills and keep others' interests in mind while you ask or provide for requests at work.

And finally nothing beats sticking to the tasks at hand without indulging in the politics of the workplace. After all, in the long run, a clean record looks far more appealing than a tarnished image.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2008/nov/10balance-your-professional-equations.htm)

Credit card caution: use it wisely

2008-10-31T09:09:00.001+05:30

With the Supreme Court coming down hard on credit card companies for charging exorbitant interest rates - in excess of 42 per cent a year in many cases - card users can breathe easy, at least for sometime.

Credit card companies, on their part, have argued that they need to charge these rates from the 'existing cardholders' for a variety of reasons - cost of courier, cost of marketing, cost of rewards and loyalty programmes and many others.

The figure - over 42 per cent a year itself, reminds one of all the 60s and 70s Hindi movies, where a village moneylender charged usurious rates of interest. And the inability of villagers to pay puts them in a financial hellhole.

In case of a credit card user, the situation can become quite similar. But here, usually the problem is irresponsible use. Also, a very few take the trouble of reading the card statement properly, which would make them aware of the all the small charges that the card company imposes, even for small requirements like generation of a new pin number or duplicate statements.

In other words, a credit card is simply a slickly-packaged, but atrociously-priced personal loan. It has its utilities, but the charges far outweigh the benefits.

Here are some of the regular costs

Interest cost: The biggest one. This can range from 2.79 - 3.9 per cent per month.

Late payment fee: Credit card companies charge Rs 350 per month on outstanding amount less than Rs 10,000. For outstanding balances between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 the charges are Rs 500 and can go up to Rs 600, for higher amounts.

Overdraft limit: There is a charge if a customer exceeds the credit limit. This varies from issuer to issuer.

Overdue: For overdue accounts and payments that companies collect by sending an executive to the customer, there is a fees of Rs 75.

Cash advance: If the card holder withdraws from the ATM, there is a charge of 3 per cent on the total money withdrawn or Rs 300, whichever is higher. For money drawn through a branch, credit card companies levy an additional fee of Rs 500.

Joining and annual fees: Considering the competition in the credit card apace, a lot of banks entice customers with no joining fees. Later the card holder is charged the annual fees.

Duplicate statement fee: The card issuers, for instance Standard Chartered, charges Rs 25 per statement if the requested statement is more than three months old. Issuers such as SBI [Get Quote] Credit Cards charge Rs 100. (In fact, most representatives at SBI quote a charge for duplicate e-statements as well).

Foreign currency transactions: Transactions outside the country are converted into Indian Rupee at a rate suggested by Visa/Master (network infrastructure provider). Apart from charging 2.5 per cent on foreign transactions, banks levy an extra 1 per cent towards reimbursements to Visa/Master.

There are other charges on cheque return, pin replacement, card replacement and outstation teledraft.

And it does not end there. Even the government penalises expenses on credit cards by charging the customer a service tax of 12.36 per cent on the total value of the transaction.

However, even a customer who may roll over, yet prepays as much as possible, (above the minimum 5 per cent) does suffer because of the way the interest on the outstanding amount is calculated. Let's take an example of how credit card companies charge. Typically, most credit cards allow a person to pay between 5-10 per cent of the outstanding. The rest can be rolled over to the next month.

But even if the card holder prepays a good 40 per cent of the outstanding bill, the card issuer does not take into consideration this paid amount. Instead, the credit card company keep charging interest on all the transactions made until the entire outstanding is paid off. (See interest pinch)

INTEREST PINCH
	Transaction Details	Transaction Amount (Rs)
1/7/2008	Shopping	50,000
5/7/2008	Shopping	40,000
5/7/2008	Dinner	10,000
21/8/2008	Payment Made	40,000
25/8/2008	Groceries	4,000
8/26/2008	Petrol	2,000
Interest on the entire outstanding balance of Rs 100,000 at 3 per cent a month (July 30 - August 21 - 23 days). Though Rs 40,000 is paid, the interest is charged on the entire Rs 1 lakh and not on Rs 60,000
Interest on Rs 60,000 (remaining balance, after Rs 40,000 is paid) at 3 per cent a month (August 22 - till August 29)
Interest on Rs 4,000 at 3 per cent a month on groceries from (August 25 - August 29)
Interest on Rs 2,000 at 3 per cent a month on groceries from (August 26 - August 29)
Next Month if he just pays the minimum he will be charged 3 per cent on Rs 66,000 and any fresh purchases done

As it is clear from the example, even though there is no outstanding balance on June 29, but expenses incurred in August are hitting him very badly.

Similarly, cash advances too rob the cardholder of the grace period. In fact, when cash is withdrawn using a credit card, the interest is charged from the same day onwards. In other words, there are a large number of costs that you have to incur in order to maintain a credit card.

If not used diligently, credit cards can cause a real strain on finances. Of course, the best way to deal is to keep them as a convenient payment mechanism and to limit purchases. More importantly, it is pertinent that all bills are cleared at the due date.

This will ensure that you do not carry forward any balance and, in turn, not incur any exorbitant interest charges. Simple isn't it? But it is like an excellent weight loss plan that few ever implement.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2008/sep/15perfin.htm)

Indian American behind Google Chrome

2008-09-05T16:30:00.000+05:30

When search giant Google launched its own Internet browser, Google Chrome, on September 2, it has one Indian American to thank for making it possible.

Sundar Pichai, a technology whiz-kid and an IIT-ian, was responsible for the development of the Google browser as the company's vice president of product development.

"We realised that we needed to completely rethink the browser. The Web gets better with more options and innovation Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the Web even better," Google's Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

Pichai believes Chrome can capture a sizeable portion of the market. His blog also said that Chrome was designed for newer online content, such as videos, television and music.

Chrome is an open-source Web browser designed to rival Microsoft's new Internet Explorer version 8 and Mozilla Firefox.

The browser can be downloaded for free and since it has an open source code, no rights will have to be paid by those who use it.

With this, the Google strategy to become the category leader in all Internet-related areas is very apparent. Currently, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has over 70 per cent market share, followed by Mozilla Firefox at a distant second spot.

Pichai joined Google in 2004 and now leads product management and innovation efforts for a suite of Google's search products, including Google Toolbar, Chrome, Desktop Search, Gadgets, Google Pack, Google Gears, Firefox extensions and Mac products.

He has over 12 years of experience developing high-tech consumer and enterprise products. Before joining Google, he held various engineering and product management positions at Applied Materials, and was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company for a variety of software and semiconductor clients.

He holds an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School, where he was named a Siebel Scholar and a Palmer Scholar.

"He is responsible for our overall desktop strategy and ensuring access to Google services for our desktop users," said Google spokesperson Jay Nancarrow.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2008/sep/05google.htm)

Portfolio of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala

2008-09-02T14:54:00.000+05:30

For all those affiliated with the stock market, it is always fascinating to know what the other person is investing into, what are the stocks owned? Call it human nature, but its always interesting to know what the other person does, the ever inquisitive nature of mankind.

So we were also a bit inquisitive and decided to take a look at the holdings of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, one of the savviest and smart investors on Dalal Street. He is a CA by profession and his name catapulted into fame when Forbes, in 2007, ranked him as the 51^st richest man in India. Son of an income tax officer, he started dabbling in stocks while in college. Rather than take a job, he plunged into investing, starting with around Rs.5000 in 1985 when the BSE Sensex was at 150; it is now over around 14,000. His privately owned stock trading firm Rare Enterprises, derives the name from first two initials of his name and wife Rekha's name.

Hence we thought it would be very interesting to know about his holdings and the stocks which he holds a substantial stake in. He is a long term investor and does not trade for short term profit. Take a look at his portfolio and maybe learn a few lessons. These shares are held by Rakesh and his wife Rekha Jhunjhunwala and form a part of his disclosed portfolio. There could be more holdings through companies, trusts, proprietary accounts which are not in the public domain.

NAME OF COMPANY	SHARES HELD (as on 30/06/08)	PRX (as on 5/08/08)	VALUE (Rs.in crores)
TITAN INDUSTRIES	39,85,756	1277	508.98
PRAJ INDUSTRIES	1,33,76,624	188	251.48
LUPIN LTD	27,52,135	753	207.24
CRISIL	5,50,000	3631	199.70
NARAGJUNA CONSTRN	1,24,50,000	134	166.83
BILCARE	20,25,000	640	129.60
PUNJ LLOYD	50,40,000	291	146.66
PANTALOON RETAIL	23,30,895	353	82.28
KARUR VYSYA BANK	24,94,073	348	86.79
BHUSHAN STEEL	8,20,000	922	75.64
GEOJIT FINANCE	1,80,00,000	43	77.40
PROVOGUE INDIA	3,80,000	850	32.30
GARWARE WALL ROPE	5,00,000	86	4.30
PRIME FOCUS	8,82,500	460	40.59
VICEROY HOTELS	47,50,000	51	24.22
INFOMEDIA INDIA	15,06,062	155	23.34
AGROTECH FOODS	17,03,259	126	21.46
ZENOTECH LABS	11,50,000	113	12.99
MID-DAY MULTIMEDIA	22,50,000	26	5.85
ION EXCHANGE	5,00,000	153	7.65
ZEN TECHNOLOGY	5,00,000	164	8.20
ALPHAGEO	1,25,000	413	5.16
JB CHEMICALS	10,81,650	47	5.08
AUTOLINE INDUSTRIES	12,11,622	182	22.05
MRO TEK	5,70,834	51	2.91
HIND OIL EXPLOR	61,00,666	136	82.97
TOTAL VALUE OF PORTFOLIO – Rs. 2231.67 crore.

How to score points with your boss

2008-08-22T20:18:00.001+05:30

People don't leave jobs -- they leave their bosses" is an age-old cliche. This statement almost makes bosses look like much-hated autocrats.

However, if you were to dig deep into the boss-employee relationship, it's not always the boss who is to blame. The responsibility of building a strong relationship lies equally on the employees as well.

So, to improve your relationship with your boss, here are a few easy tips:

Be supportive
Support your boss with last-minute presentations, paperwork or arranging a meeting with clients instead of spending time over a gossip session. These are the small things that will strengthen your relationship with your boss and get you noticed. Every boss loves the team member who helps them with the finer details and makes their life a little easier.

Extend respect
Listen to your boss and respect the fact that s/he also has relevant experience and is acting in the company's interests. His/her goal is to make sure that there is a consensus within the team.

A few interaction skills that make a big difference to a respectful atmosphere in your organisation include not interrupting conversations, asking if the person has time to talk and listening to ideas. Remember not to be a know-it-all or in such a hurry that you finish the other person's sentence.

Be sure to comment on their ideas to let them know you have really been listening, not just waiting for them to take a breath so you can jump in with your agenda. Being skilled and intelligent is no compensation for the lack of life experience.

Be genuine
Never try to fake it when you are actually not interested in listening and taking instructions. Be genuinely interested in what s/he is saying. Try and understand his/her point of view and act accordingly. It is always advisable to revert to your boss in case you do not have clarity on a certain issue. Seek his/her support to prepare an action plan. A genuine interest will help you develop trust required for a professional relationship. Take keen interest in new projects and do some due diligence to make it a success.

Communicate honestly
Try to communicate transparently. Don't make commitments that you cannot keep; this will call for some amount of planning from your side. Deliver information which is true and based on facts -- this will not only make you credible, your colleagues will look up to you for support.

Most bosses have a knack of remembering what you say and a commitment that was not met may haunt you after six months during the performance appraisal discussion. A little bit of caution can save nasty surprises towards the end.

Appreciate your boss
Your boss does care what you think about them, s/he however does appreciate your mentioning his/her good work. When you do recognise job well-done, be specific in your compliments. Refrain from saying in an off-handed manner, "Oh, great work, boss." Make it more personal: "Boss, that is the best research that has come across my desk in the last six months. Excellent work. If your boss comments, "Good presentation." Refrain from saying, "Oh, it was nothing." Deflecting a compliment often draws unwanted attention and belittles both you and the person offering the compliment. Just say, "Thank you."

Don't lock horns with your boss
Bosses don't like nor do they cooperate with people who they think are against them. When you are against something, the person thinks you are against them personally. Once you voice your opposition to another person's idea, you become part of the problem. It's as if a war has started with each of you fighting to be right. When you are for something, you begin focusing on the potential for positive change. You start the process of collaboration.

Some people carry this inward, self-focus into the workplace which leads to professional relationships turning sour. Make sure that you play an active role in building a strong relationship with your boss rather then expecting to be pampered all the time.

(http://us.rediff.com/getahead/2008/aug/15office.htm)

Coping With A Bad Boss

2008-07-29T13:16:00.000+05:30

Is your boss a yeller, a micromanager or clueless? Does he put insulting notes on memos that co-workers can see? Does he throw things?

Amy Cunningham's first boss at a Minneapolis public relations firm was a yeller and a micromanager, a tough challenge for a new employee just out of college. After a series of unpleasant incidents, the boss finally exploded when he found out Cunningham had put together a media kit without showing him the separate pieces before assembling it--a routine task she'd done many times before.

The boss stormed into her office, got in her face, yelled and cursed. "He tried to throw out any personal insult he could come up with," Cunningham says. "I've never been in another situation, business or social, that was that scary."

It all worked out. Cunningham approached another executive at the company and got reassigned. The boss left a few years later, and Cunningham stayed on--15 years, and counting.

Having a bad boss is more than an annoyance. It's the main reason people leave their jobs. Increasingly, that's a tough choice these days. A new survey from Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate, says that more than 50 million workers feel some pressure to stay with a bad boss because of the current economic downturn.

"It's difficult to handle [uncomfortable] situations without taking some type of risk, and that's why a lot of people choose to ignore or live with it," says Manny Avramidis, senior vice president for global human resources at the American Management Association.

So if your boss is a jerk and you feel you have no choice but to stay, how do you cope? Here are some basic tips:

The best way to deal with a micromanager is to update him frequently. E-mail the boss a memo or checklist of what you're doing on a project so the boss is reassured, and check off your accomplishments as you go.

For instance, if the boss assigns you a report to write and then dictates what exactly you should have in it, tell him, "You've given me enough guidance. Let me take a shot at it and I'll come back after I have a rough draft. Can we talk about the rough draft when it's done?"

Dealing with an unpleasant boss can be uncomfortable, if you choose to address the situation by confronting him. Weigh the problem and how much bringing it up with him might affect your career. If your boss is a yeller and is creating a tough--or even hostile--working environment, say something like, "These aren't the conditions I work best under. Let's talk about a way to make them better." If that approach doesn't bring results, seek advice from Human Resources.

Sometimes a boss who's perceived as a dummy can actually be good for your career. Use cluelessness as an opportunity to gain more responsibility. Ask if you can take on more projects and even help manage the team.

"For people who like to take initiative, that can be a great thing," says Gini Graham Scott, author of A Survival Guide for Dealing with Bad Bosses. Meanwhile, others find that they're directionless without a boss's guidance. If that's the case, gently force the boss to critique your work and ask you questions.

Ideally, vet your boss before starting a new job. If you're in the final rounds of interviews with an employer, use networking to find someone on the inside. Ask about the person you're likely to work with. What's his skill set? Does he respect the views of his employees? Does he delegate or does he drive people crazy with questions?

Finally, ask the following to flush out any facts your source didn't spill earlier: What do you like--and not like--about working here?

If you don't like what you hear, don't take the job.

(http://in.news.yahoo.com/240/20080728/1302/tbs-5242272.html?printer=1)

How to Feel More Energetic

2008-07-02T11:55:00.001+05:30

Fatigue is a common complaint regardless of age, but it becomes more prominent after the age of 40. Assuming you are in otherwise good health, here are some things that you can do to boost your energy level:

Get more sleep. Most middle-aged adults need at least 7 hours of sleep each night.

Exercise. Starting an exercise program can be overwhelming if you suffer from fatigue. Start modestly -- perhaps stretching exercise and walking. Remember the good, healthy feeling you experience after you complete your workout.

Drink more water. Most people don't drink enough water. Dehydration makes us sluggish. A quick rule of thumb to determine how many ounces of water you require in a day is to take you body weight (in pounds) and divide by 2 and add 8 ounces for 30 minutes of aerobic activity you do.

Pare down your commitments. Doing less is not always easy, but overscheduling is a primary cause of fatigue. Look over the activities of your day or week and often you can find some that may not be necessary or enjoyable. We all have things we must do. Take a look at the non-essentials, perhaps some should move into the rest & pleasure part of your life. Take charge of your life.

Take a B-complex vitamin supplement. The B vitamins provide energy and help maintain healthy muscle and nerve cells. Aging and stress increase our need for these vitamins, while alcohol and caffeine deplete them in our bodies. Take a B supplement that contains at least 50 mg of B-1, B-3, B-5 and B-6, and 400 micrograms (mcg) each of B-12 and folic acid.

Have Fun. Laughter is essential to good health. But merriment is a foreign concept for some people. Finding delight in life is energizing. Find things that give you an emotional lift and enjoy them.

Try licorice. This herb improves immune health, so it's a great tonic for people with fatigue. Use the herb, not the candy. Take 1/2 teaspoon of tincture daily for up to 2 months. If you dislike the taste of licorice, try schisandra (same size dose). Note: Licorice is not safe for people with high blood pressure or liver or kidney disease.

Lose weight. Even a small weight gain is enough to make some people tired. Image carrying a 10 pound weight with you all day long. You will have more energy if you drop unnecessary body weight.

Declutter. Living in a mess - and feeling guilty about it, is tiring. Clutter also distracts the mind, making it more difficult to concentrate. Get just one room, or one area, organized. You will get a boost.

Energy is a beautiful thing. A person with a lot of energy can accomplish twice what someone without much energy can and have more fun doing it. You get more life with more energy. And here’s a way to crank up your engine: Act more energetic. That sounds like shallow, positive-thinking hype, but it’s actually based on solid evidence: It works.

When you act more energetic, it stimulates your body. Lying down is relaxing. Moving around is more stimulating. Moving around quickly is even more stimulating. It gets the heart pumping. It puts the mind in gear.

Our biology has evolved to fit a different kind of world than the one in which we now find ourselves. There were plenty of times in our prehistory when food was scarce. People who wantonly used up energy would be the first to die, leaving no offspring. The bodies following the prime directive CONSERVE ENERGY passed their genes to us.

But times have changed. It’s no longer difficult to find food. If anything, food is difficult to avoid. Calories are everywhere, hugely and abundantly available. As a matter of fact, now a major concern for people in America is being overweight. Times have changed dramatically. There’s no longer any need to conserve energy, but your genes don’t know it. They’ve still got their orders, like a soldier in a jungle who was never told the war is over.

You can be more energetic, but you’ll have to override your feelings. And you can do this. You’ll have to essentially ignore the natural laziness we all share.

The way to override your body’s prime directive is to act energetic whether you feel like it or not.

The truth is, you are energetic when you act that way, regardless of how you feel. Listen to what I’m saying here. You want to be more energetic? By simply acting more energetic, you immediately become more energetic in reality, in the same way that when you act ethical, you are ethical, regardless of whether or not you were tempted to do the wrong thing.

You can become more energetic in ten seconds. Simply start acting more energetic.

You don’t have to feel energetic to be energetic. A nice bonus, however, is that often when you act energetic, it will rev you up and make you feel energetic too.

Experiments show that when people walk quickly, it speeds up their metabolism, making them feel more energetic, and this energetic feeling lasts for several hours after the activity. Acting energetic physically changes your body into a more energetic body.

So don’t wait until you feel energetic before you act. Act first. The feelings will follow.

(http://moodraiser.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-feel-more-energetic.html, http://www.usgyms.net/energy.htm)

Exchange-traded fund

2008-06-30T18:30:00.001+05:30

An exchange-traded fund (or ETF) is an investment vehicle traded on stock exchanges, much like stocks or bonds. An ETF holds assets such as stocks or bonds and trades at approximately the same price as the net asset value of its underlying assets over the course of the trading day. Most ETFs track an index, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the S&P 500. ETFs may be attractive as investments because of their low costs, tax efficiency, and stock-like features. In a survey of investment professionals conducted in March 2008, 67% called ETFs the most innovative investment vehicle of the last two decades and 60% reported that ETFs have fundamentally changed the way they construct investment portfolios.

An ETF combines the valuation feature of a mutual fund or unit investment trust, which can be purchased or redeemed at the end of each trading day for its net asset value, with the tradability feature of a closed-end fund, which trades throughout the trading day at prices that may be substantially more or less than its net asset value. Closed-end funds are not considered to be exchange-traded funds, even though they are funds and are traded on an exchange. ETFs have been available in the US since 1993 and in Europe since 1999. ETFs traditionally have been index funds, but in 2008 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began to authorize the creation of actively-managed ETFs.

Most investors can buy and sell ETF shares only in market transactions, but institutional investors can redeem large blocks of shares of the ETF (known as "creation units") for a "basket" of the underlying assets or, alternatively, exchange the underlying assets for creation units. This creation and redemption of shares enables institutions to engage in arbitrage that causes the value of the ETF to approximate the net asset value of the underlying assets.

ETFs offer public investors an undivided interest in a pool of securities and other assets and thus are similar in many ways to traditional mutual funds, except that shares in an ETF can be bought and sold throughout the day like stocks on a securities exchange through a broker-dealer. Unlike traditional mutual funds, ETFs do not sell or redeem their individual shares at net asset value, or NAV. Instead, financial institutions purchase and redeem ETF shares directly from the ETF, but only in large blocks, varying in size by ETF from 25,000 to 200,000 shares, called "creation units." Purchases and redemptions of the creation units generally are in kind, with the institutional investor contributing or receiving a basket of securities of the same type and proportion held by the ETF, although some ETFs may require or permit a purchasing or redeeming shareholder to substitute cash for some or all of the securities in the basket of assets.

The ability to purchase and redeem creation units gives ETFs an arbitrage mechanism intended to minimize the potential deviation between the market price and the net asset value of ETF shares. Existing ETFs have transparent portfolios, so institutional investors will know exactly what portfolio assets they must assemble if they wish to purchase a creation unit, and the exchange disseminates the updated net asset value of the shares throughout the trading day, typically at 15-second intervals.

In the United States, most ETFs are structured as open-end management investment companies (the same structure used by mutual funds and money market funds), although a few ETFs, including some of the largest ones, are structured as unit investment trusts. ETFs structured as open-end funds have greater flexibility in constructing a portfolio and are not prohibited from participating in securities lending programs or from using futures and options in achieving their investment objectives. Under existing regulations, a new ETF must receive an order from the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, giving it relief from provisions of the Investment Company Act of 1940 that would not otherwise allow the ETF structure. In 2008, however, the SEC proposed rules that would allow the creation of ETFs without the need for exemptive orders. Under the SEC proposal, an ETF would be defined as a registered open-end management investment company that:

    * Issues (or redeems) creation units in exchange for the deposit (or delivery) of basket assets the current value of which is disseminated on a per share basis by a national securities exchange at regular intervals during the trading day;
    * Identifies itself as an ETF in any sales literature;
    * Issues shares that are approved for listing and trading on a securities exchange;
    * Discloses each business day on its publicly available web site the prior business day's net asset value and closing market price of the fund's shares, and the premium or discount of the closing market price against the net asset value of the fund's shares as a percentage of net asset value; and
    * Either is an index fund, or discloses each business day on its publicly available web site the identities and weighting of the component securities and other assets held by the fund.

The SEC rule proposal would allow ETFs either to be index funds or to be fully transparent actively managed funds. Historically, all ETFs in the United States have been index funds. In 2008, however, the SEC began issuing exemptive orders to fully transparent actively managed ETFs. The first such order was to PowerShares Actively Managed Exchange-Traded Fund Trust, and the first actively managed ETF in the United States was the Bear Stearns Current Yield Fund, a short-term income fund that began trading on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol YYY on 25 March 2008. The SEC rule proposal indicates that the SEC is not suggesting that it will not consider future applications for exemptive orders for actively managed ETFs that do not satisfy the proposed rule's transparency requirements.

Some ETFs invest primarily in commodities or commodity-based instruments, such as crude oil and precious metals. Although these commodity ETFs are similar in practice to ETFs that invest in securities, they are not "investment companies" under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

Publicly traded grantor trusts, such as Merrill Lynch's HOLDRS securities, are sometimes considered to be ETFs, although they lack many of the characteristics of other ETFs. Investors in a grantor trust have a direct interest in the underlying basket of securities, which does not change except to reflect corporate actions such as stock splits and mergers. Funds of this type are not "investment companies" under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

(more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exchange-traded_fund)

Teach Yourself to Avoid Favoritism

2008-05-15T15:30:00.000+05:30

How do you teach executives to avoid encouraging sycophants and playing favorites?

Every company claims to discourage suck-ups. Every leader claims to despise suck-ups. If we all hate suck-ups so much, why does so much sucking-up go on?

Sucking-up happens because we all tend to create an environment where people learn to suck-up to us. We can easily see this in others. It is just hard to see in ourselves. You are probably thinking, “Marshall is making a good point. I see others do this all of the time. Of course, I find it to be disgusting!”

As a test of our unconscious tendency to encourage sycophants, I always ask participants in my executive education classes this question, “How many of you own a dog that you love?” Big smiles cross the faces of these leaders as they wave their hands in the air. They beam as they tell me the names of their always faithful hounds. Then we have a little contest. I ask them, “At home, who gets the most unqualified positive recognition? Is it (a) your husband, wife or partner (b) your kids or (c) your dog?" More than 80 percent of the time the winner is the dog.

I next ask these same executives, “Do you really love your dog more than the other members of your family?” They laugh and say no. My next question, “Why does the dog get the most unqualified positive recognition?”

Their replies are always the same: “The dog doesn’t talk back.” “When I come home the dog is always happy to see me!” “Even if I come home late (or drunk) the dog doesn’t care.” “The dog gives me unconditional love – no matter what I do!”

In other words, the dog is a suck-up.

If we aren’t careful, we can wind up treating people at work like dogs. We can unconsciously recognize people who recognize us.

The best way to stop this behavior is to recognize that we all have a tendency to fall into this trap – and the higher we move up in the organization, the bigger the trap gets.

I teach leaders to rank order their direct reports four ways:

1. How much do they like me? I know that you cannot be sure. What matters is what you think. Only bad suck-ups look like they are sucking-up. Great suck-ups appear to be your "true friends."

2. How much are they like me? Some leaders don’t favor people who like them; they favor people who remind them of themselves. A common variation from an engineer might be, “He may be a jerk, but he is an engineer.” As if people who are not engineers don’t have brains.

3. What is their contribution to our company and its customers?

4. How much positive personal recognition do I give them?
If we are honest with ourselves, in a surprisingly large number of cases, we may find that recognition is more influenced by 1 or‘2 than it is 3. And that (without meaning to) we may be falling into a trap that we despise in others – playing favorites.

Make this ranking yourself. After doing a thoughtful review, start monitoring your own behavior. Make sure that you are recognizing people at working for doing what is right for the company – not for making you feel good about yourself.

5 ways to unwind at the office

2008-04-28T19:58:00.001+05:30

ll work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'. Now, nobody wants to be Jack, but invariably at some point during work you find that Jack's shoes fit just fine. It's almost as though the whole office is tuned into the same frequency.

The hum of the systems, clicking of the keys, shuffling of feet coupled with the idle banter can have you lost, waiting to stick your head out for a breath of fresh air.

Unwind, it's easy! You have the controls and the choice is yours to switch channels. The first step is to want to tune out. Once your mind is open to variables at work, possibilities start to pop out of the walls. And this does not include converting cubicles into a little feng shui showroom or involve chimes, bells and nodding dolls that every office already has.

Headphone help
Music is the easiest way to tune out and headphones are as private as you can get. Tune into a personal space that is devoid of the office sounds. If your PC doesn't have a sound chip, speak to the IT department.

Speakers are like a concert in office with everyone on for the gig especially the lip syncers and sing-along-aloud-out-of-tune ones. So turn on the music and have your office tapping to a new groove.

Start with a seed
You can't take a pet to office unless you work at the zoo, leaving plants as the next best living thing to introduce to the office environment. Studies have shown that plants around the office help. But we won't go around watering every plant in the office and put the janitor out of a job.

Simple, plant a seed, watch it grow, this will give you time to take a break, water the plant and just maybe a conversation with the little tree may help.

Meeting meditation
The head honchos know it, Art of Living talks about it and yet we spend five minutes on wondering how to change the future rather than doing the now. Take five minutes out of office time, get to a quiet place -- the terrace, a balcony, the fire escape, the bylane -- wherever, but it should be quiet.

Now this won't give you nirvana but it sure as hell will help you recharge your batteries. Your mind can take you places, it's a magic carpet ride and if you haven't tried it, you should.

Busy with balls
If sitting in one place is your biggest problem, what you need is a ball. Stress balls, the ones with the smiley face are the best. Bounce them of walls, play an innings of cubicle cricket, toss a quick game of catch on the way to the board room or hit some dodge ball when you work late. If this doesn't get your mind racing, it surely will give you an adrenaline shot better than any office coffee.

The dream pillow
If all else fails, and you are really in need for your mind to shut down and reboot. Do just that. Take a nap.

Spend less time chatting at the water cooler and rest your mind and body. It helps. It increases your efficiency and you can be one of the privileged few who still dream while at work.

All you need to do is buy a comfortable little pillow. Keep it tucked away in a drawer and when you need to, instead of trying new and exaggerated methods to find some self-time while at the office, you can do what nature has us do no matter how much we avoid it. Try it, a 15-minute nap can and has changed how people work. Bear in mind, though, that this is not your chance to catch up on the hours of beauty sleep you missed out on thanks to the party last night. This is just to rest your eyes and freshen your mind for 10 to 15 minutes.

There are as many ways as there are workplaces. We can all find what helps us tune out. The best suggestion I can make -- have a talent, take that to work. If you draw, you can tune out on a white board. Musicians can leave a suitable musical instrument in the office for a quick tune and back to work.

Maybe even a boxing bag, pool table, a pinball machine, the possibilities are infinite. It is up to you to take that time out and go play!

(www.rediff.com/getahead/2008/apr/21work.htm)

Want a work-from-home job?

2008-03-11T19:51:00.000+05:30

With the continuing technological advancement of telecommunications, more people are exploring the option of telecommuting -- working from home or elsewhere without having to give attendance at the office.

The reasons for telecommuting or taking up a non-office based job could be numerous. Stay-at-home moms prefer it so they can look after their children, the unemployed make the most of such offers till they find a steady job, others with health concerns may be unable to work from the office and so on.

Here's a few ideas on how to make money while remaining within the confines of your own home. All you need is an Internet connection and a computer. Most of the jobs described here do not require you to be a computer whiz, either -- you just need to have working knowledge of the Internet and programmes like MS Office, Word etc.

~ Set up an online store

This is like owning a retail shop online. You can design your own online store and sell products -- anything from apparel to books, bouquets, accessories, electronics etc. Starting up such a business will not require much of an investment. You will, however, have to be careful about monetary transactions and dispatches, as payments are all made online. If you think, you can't handle the money and logistics part, a better way is to register with an Internet marketplace like eBay.

~ Translation

If you have a good command over two languages, translation could be a very interesting option. If you want to take up some assignments within India, knowing English, Hindi and one regional language is a winning bet. A lot of companies outsource their translation jobs. You can approach them and ask for a contract. Government offices also outsource such assignments; you can try for opportunities with them.

If you know a foreign language and English, it is again a very interesting combination. You can approach a lot of publishers wanting to republish their content in a foreign language. These can be the publishers of books, magazine, software etc. This career can offer you an earning potential of approximately Rs 600 per page!

~ Day-trading

Day-trading in the stock market is a good way of making money from home. All you need is an Internet connection and a demat account. You can make money by operating in the stock market. It is up to you to decide how aggressively you want to operate. While you start speculating, be careful how you are investing your money.

~ Authoring

If you have a good knowledge of any subject, you can get in touch with some publishers to find out if any of them wants to publish a book on the proposed subject. This will give you an opportunity to put your knowledge to good use and utilise your time in a better way while earning money. When you are approaching a publisher for the first time, make sure that you submit a well-drafted proposal, so that you can discuss it in detail. The earning potential in this field depends upon your subject.

~ Proof-reading

Again if you have a good command over a language, you can approach some publishers for a proof-reading job. Any written material, be it a book or online content, needs to be proof-read before actual publication. This presents a good opportunity to those who have a good command over language. You can earn anything from Rs 7000-10,000 to start with.

~ Blogging

If you know your subject well, you can start blogging it. Good content will attract a lot of traffic and hence advertising. You can gain monetary benefits through Google Adsense and other advertisements.

~ Moderating a forum

You can apply to work as a moderator for a forum. There are various forums on the Internet which need moderators. If the job interests you, it presents a good work-from-home opportunity. Usually a forum moderator is paid based on the revenue the forum generates. This should be able to earn you something around Rs 10,000-15,000 per month.

~ Graphic designing

This is a creative field which needs an interest in creativity and a knowledge of working on software. Anything starting from a visiting card to an advertisement needs graphic designing. So, if you have a flair for creativity and knowledge of creating graphics, this could be another interesting field. The earning potential in this field depends on the size of assignment. Designing an A4 size ad for a medium level company should be able to fetch you somewhere around Rs 3,000-Rs 5,000.

~ Typing

Every organisation needs documents to be typed. You can approach some organisations to see if some of them are ready to outsource it to you. Also, you can find some opportunities on Internet. The payments here are made on page basis. This job can get you anywhere from Rs 100-500 per page, depending upon the company and the language you need to type in.

~ Content writing

Many online and print magazines actually pay freelancers to write for them. If this interests you, this field offers some really worthwhile opportunities. You will see many websites advertising for content from freelancers. Approach them and see if there's an opportunity for you. The earning potential this job offers also varies with the company and subject. You can earn anything from Rs 500-4000 per article.

You may ask, how do I get a work-from-home opportunity? The best option is to explore if there's an opportunity with your current employer to work from home, or look up online vacancies. If that is not possible or you are not interested in doing it, you will have to graduate from the university of hard knocks and make your own way freelancing.

The personal qualities you will need to ensure that you are successful in your working from home assignment are:

~ Self-discipline
~ Commitment
~ Maturity
~ Productivity
~ Self-motivation

So, if you think you have the qualities that a home-based job needs, start working on your options now.

(http://in.rediff.com/getahead/2008/mar/11home.htm)

How the Sensex is calculated

2008-03-05T15:28:00.000+05:30

For the premier Bombay Stock Exchange that pioneered the stock broking activity in India, 128 years of experience seems to be a proud milestone. A lot has changed since 1875 when 318 persons became members of what today is called The Stock Exchange, Mumbai by paying a princely amount of Re 1.

Since then, the country's capital markets have passed through both good and bad periods. The journey in the 20th century has not been an easy one. Till the decade of eighties, there was no scale to measure the ups and downs in the Indian stock market. The Stock Exchange, Mumbai in 1986 came out with a stock index that subsequently became the barometer of the Indian stock market.

Sensex is not only scientifically designed but also based on globally accepted construction and review methodology. First compiled in 1986, Sensex is a basket of 30 constituent stocks representing a sample of large, liquid and representative companies.

The base year of Sensex is 1978-79 and the base value is 100. The index is widely reported in both domestic and international markets through print as well as electronic media.

The Index was initially calculated based on the "Full Market Capitalization" methodology but was shifted to the free-float methodology with effect from September 1, 2003. The "Free-float Market Capitalization" methodology of index construction is regarded as an industry best practice globally. All major index providers like MSCI, FTSE, STOXX, S&P and Dow Jones use the Free-float methodology. (See below: Explanation with an example)

Due to is wide acceptance amongst the Indian investors; Sensex is regarded to be the pulse of the Indian stock market. As the oldest index in the country, it provides the time series data over a fairly long period of time (From 1979 onwards). Small wonder, the Sensex has over the years become one of the most prominent brands in the country.

The growth of equity markets in India has been phenomenal in the decade gone by. Right from early nineties the stock market witnessed heightened activity in terms of various bull and bear runs. The Sensex captured all these events in the most judicial manner. One can identify the booms and busts of the Indian stock market through Sensex.

Sensex Calculation Methodology

Sensex is calculated using the "Free-float Market Capitalization" methodology. As per this methodology, the level of index at any point of time reflects the Free-float market value of 30 component stocks relative to a base period. The market capitalization of a company is determined by multiplying the price of its stock by the number of shares issued by the company. This market capitalization is further multiplied by the free-float factor to determine the free-float market capitalization.

The base period of Sensex is 1978-79 and the base value is 100 index points. This is often indicated by the notation 1978-79=100. The calculation of Sensex involves dividing the Free-float market capitalization of 30 companies in the Index by a number called the Index Divisor.

The Divisor is the only link to the original base period value of the Sensex. It keeps the Index comparable over time and is the adjustment point for all Index adjustments arising out of corporate actions, replacement of scrips etc. During market hours, prices of the index scrips, at which latest trades are executed, are used by the trading system to calculate Sensex every 15 seconds and disseminated in real time.

Dollex-30

BSE also calculates a dollar-linked version of Sensex and historical values of this index are available since its inception.

Understanding Free-float Methodology

Free-float Methodology refers to an index construction methodology that takes into consideration only the free-float market capitalisation of a company for the purpose of index calculation and assigning weight to stocks in Index. Free-float market capitalization is defined as that proportion of total shares issued by the company that are readily available for trading in the market.

It generally excludes promoters' holding, government holding, strategic holding and other locked-in shares that will not come to the market for trading in the normal course. In other words, the market capitalization of each company in a Free-float index is reduced to the extent of its readily available shares in the market.

In India, BSE pioneered the concept of Free-float by launching BSE TECk in July 2001 and Bankex in June 2003. While BSE TECk Index is a TMT benchmark, Bankex is positioned as a benchmark for the banking sector stocks. Sensex becomes the third index in India to be based on the globally accepted Free-float Methodology.

Example (provided by rediff.com reader Munish Oberoi):

Suppose the Index consists of only 2 stocks: Stock A and Stock B.

Suppose company A has 1,000 shares in total, of which 200 are held by the promoters, so that only 800 shares are available for trading to the general public. These 800 shares are the so-called 'free-floating' shares.

Similarly, company B has 2,000 shares in total, of which 1,000 are held by the promoters and the rest 1,000 are free-floating.

Now suppose the current market price of stock A is Rs 120. Thus, the 'total' market capitalisation of company A is Rs 120,000 (1,000 x 120), but its free-float market capitalisation is Rs 96,000 (800 x 120).

Similarly, suppose the current market price of stock B is Rs 200. The total market capitalisation of company B will thus be Rs 400,000 (2,000 x 200), but its free-float market cap is only Rs 200,000 (1,000 x 200).

So as of today the market capitalisation of the index (i.e. stocks A and B) is Rs 520,000 (Rs 120,000 + Rs 400,000); while the free-float market capitalisation of the index is Rs 296,000. (Rs 96,000 + Rs 200,000).

The year 1978-79 is considered the base year of the index with a value set to 100. What this means is that suppose at that time the market capitalisation of the stocks that comprised the index then was, say, 60,000 (remember at that time there may have been some other stocks in the index, not A and B, but that does not matter), then we assume that an index market cap of 60,000 is equal to an index-value of 100.

Thus the value of the index today is = 296,000 x 100/60,000 = 493.33

This is how the Sensex is calculated.

The factor 100/60000 is called index divisor.

The 30 Sensex stocks are:

ACC, Ambuja Cements, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Bharti Airtel, Cipla, DLF, Grasim Industries, HDFC, HDFC Bank, Hindalco Industries, Hindustan Lever, ICICI Bank, Infosys, ITC, Larsen & Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Udyog, NTPC, ONGC, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Reliance Communications, Reliance Energy, Reliance Industries, Satyam Computer Services, State Bank of India, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, and Wipro.

(http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/feb/21bspec.htm)

What Interview Questions Do You Ask ?

2008-02-14T19:27:00.000+05:30

Here are some of the things I might ask in an interview. I admit, I'm not the best interviewer, I'm a developer. But, I am part of the hiring process for new developers (and should be). I know many other developers are placed in the same situation. I hope to share my experience and learn from others.

They aren't listed in any particular order and this is neither comprehensive or complete. I'm not worried about publishing it because if a fraction of the people I interview actually took the step of reading the first few pages of Google results for whatever they are interviewing for they'd be ahead anyway.

Most of these are pretty Java specific. We use other languages too but, the majority of dev is with Java right now.

My goal is not to torture a candidate with trivia questions. My goal is find find out if they can write code and how well they can fit in with the team.

I'm curious to see what kinds of things others are asking too.

I actually ask a lot more code questions but, the nature of work makes those proprietary :-(

Start With Something Simple

2008-02-14T18:51:00.000+05:30

(A good article from J.D. Meier's Blog)

What's the best way to build momentum and get results? Start with something simple. Seriously. I get to see folks who get results and those who don't. The difference nine times out of ten isn't smarts. It's simply action. The smart folks who don't get results, either get stuck in analysis paralysis or add too many dependencies up front. The folks who get results start taking action and adjust along the way.

Why This Works
Starting with something simple works. It's not that thinking up front doesn't help. It certainly does. The problem is, three things can happen along the way:

At some point, your thoughts are based on way too many assumptions and you don't know what you don't know. You then find out too little too late.
Somebody faster came along. While you're thinking, they're doing.
In the absence of results, your idea slowly dies inside.

The best way to fuel your fire is to incrementally get results. Start with something simple. Results feed on themselves. If you start with something small, you'll learn faster and you'll start to adapt. You'll inform your thinking.

How To Start
Start with the smallest thing you can personally do. If you don't know where to start, here's key questions to help:

What's the simplest thing you could do?
What could you do today?

Personally, I find asking what I can do today to be the most effective. Time is a great forcing function. It's very easy to cut scope using time. If you don't respect time, then it's very easy to add way too many things that will never happen.

Fail Fast
While starting with something simple helps build momentum, you'll also want to quickly spike on your risks. You can do this separately, after you have some success under your belt.

To fail fast, cut your idea into thin end-to-end slices and test your results. For example, take one story or usage scenario and try to instantiate it. Even before you build the solution, simply doing a dry run will reveal a lot of questions you can use to shape your approach.

The purpose of failing fast isn't to fail. It's to uncover your risks and pick better paths.

10 myths about innovation

2008-02-08T11:48:00.000+05:30

Myth 1 Creativity is innovation:
Creativity is glamourous. "But getting a new idea is just 1% of the job. The rest is execution,"says Govindarajan."Companies don't pay much attention to execution because they think that innovation equals creativity,"says he.There is another problem related to execution: "What they know how to execute is business-as-usual or the core business. Organizations don't lack great ideas, but they struggle in innovation because of over-focus." That's why Wal-Mart outmanoeuvred Sears in the discount retailing format. Or in the more recent Tata Nano case, as soon as the car was unveiled,Ford made a half-a-billion dollar investment in their Indian operations to come up with a small car priced at $7,000 by 2014."They are still not getting it!" says Govindarajan. "Someone has already fired the first shot with a $2,500 car. They ought to be thinking of something better."

Myth 2 You need a great leader:
it's a commonly held notion that we need a hero who champions the idea and works against all odds. "Innovation doesn't require a great leader, it obviously requires an above average leader," says Govindarajan. As for the notion that s/he fights bureaucracy, "It breeds a very wrong view because to succeed, you don't have to fight bureaucracyyou have to learn to coexist with it, to tap into the resource base."

Myth 3 It equals s k u n k wo r k s :
Skunkworks is a notion that the innovation team works in the "basement". It follows none of the rules of the corporate office. "But innovation in big corporations is centred around ways they can leverage their enormous capabilities to work on complex problems which a start-up would never do," says he. While innovation projects do need some space of their own, they also need to be connected to the main organization so as to leverage its resources. This also forces a degree of accountability on them.

Myth 4 You need major organizational changes:
Remember IBM under Lou Gerstner? "As soon as he came, he changed everything," says Govindarajan. IBM, under him, became a metaphor for how to catalyse innovation. "But that doesn't mean innovation requires major changes. Innovation requires targeted changes," says Govindarajan. "Changes have to be made in that part of the organization where that innovation is being cultivated. By wholesale change you can destroy the business-as-usual machinery." Because business-as-usual is what keeps an organization going but innovation is what keeps its future profits secure.

Myth 5 Innovation equals chaos:
"To say innovation equals chaos is dangerous because that's only about the 1%. The 99% or the commercialization partrequires extreme discipline," says Govindarajan.
But isn't Google like that? From outside, the organization has nothing but chaos. "In Google what you see as chaos is empowering people at lower levels to conduct experiments. But they always ask them what they learnt from these experiments and how one can incorporate the lessons," says he.

Myth 6 It's the senior executives' job:
"The job of the people at the top is to come up with the strategy while people at the bottom execute it. People in the middle make sure things happen. But the problem with this approach is that innovation becomes nothing more than responding to changes." The people closest to the action are the so-called doers. So Ford, for instance, has missed a huge opportunity because it didn't empower the people in India to drive the innovation for the people's car. "Their approach is that people in Detroit know what works best," says Govindarajan. "The CEO's job is not to get actively involved in innovation, but to manage the organizational context."

Myth 7 It implies customer-orientation:
In the 1970s Xerox was making a lot of money with their $2,000 copiers when a bunch of engineers ("the doers") thought of $1,000 personal copiers. Xerox asked its customers if it wanted these. The problem with that is: who is the customer of Xerox at that point? It is a big company's central copying department. So the answer is obviously no. "That's the problem of the big three automobile companies in India. The customer who is driving a BMW will never tell you he wants a one lakh car."

Myth 8 Planning is irrelevant:
"There is an element of truth to this because if you are in a rapidly changing industry, when do you plan?" says Govindarajan. But planning is important. "One thing we know is that the future is going to be full of surprises. The worst thing you can do in an organization is to be surprised by a surprise. You need to create a capacity to respond to surprises. Build mechanisms that even if the future doesn't happen like I plan, I have some capacity to respond to it. It is a learning tool."

Myth 9 It requires new products and technologies:
Many of the innovations have nothing to do with new products. The Mumbai dabbawallahs, for instance, distributed the Reliance Energy IPO marketing material with the dabbas to 200,000 households and delivered the filled-up forms to the Reliance office. Says Govindarajan, "Even Apple's iPod, one of the most popular innovations in recent times, is nothing but a handheld hard drive."

Myth 10 There are generalisable tools that companies can use to drive innovation:
Innovation comes in different forms and requires a nuanced approached. "If you apply general principles, you can actually destroy it," says Govindarajan. So the tools to measure various indicators such as performance of, say, GE's Six Sigma which is a continuous performance improvement process vis-à-vis a Tata Nano will wary.

- Vijay Govindarajan (in Times)
(Govindarajan is the Earl C Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadership. He is one of the four Indians to appear on the Thinkers 50, a ranking of the Top 50 business and management thought leaders in the world)

7 signs that employees hate the boss

2008-01-30T16:15:00.000+05:30

There's a reason Dilbert, The Office, and their ilk are so popular. Satire gets old fast, but the appeal of realism endures. And the real world, sadly, is full of lousy bosses. Someone ought to do a study on where these louts come from.

Were they abused by their own bosses? Did they toss overboard the ballast of human kindness to hasten the ascent of their career balloons? Or is this an example of absolute power corrupting absolutely? Such research might also demonstrate how ubiquitous miserable managers are.

The proliferation of boss-bashing screeds with titles like When You Work for a Bully, Nasty Bosses, and How To Work for an Idiot suggests a plague.

A few months ago I enumerated five ways in which bosses could be great. A bookend column about bad bosses would never fit in this space, because while goodness tends to be monochromatic, badness comes in every color of the rainbow.

But bad bosses of all stripes evoke similar responses in employees; consequently, you can often tell that people hate you, even if you're not sure why.Inc. readers, of course, are all purebreds among top dogs. But on the off chance that a misfit manager stumbles across this page, here are seven signs that you are a bad boss:

The staff has developed guidelines for dealing with you and quietly passes them to new employees. "Never suggest that there might be another way of doing something," they might say. Or "Act self-deprecating so he doesn't feel threatened."

You have one or two fanatical acolytes. Yes, such devotion may be a testament to your fabulousness. But often when a boss is perceived as universally loathed, the staff opportunist offers herself up as sole confidante and friend, seeking power and favor at the expense of more honest, critical employees.

You never see people walk by. Employees would rather circumnavigate the entire office to get to the coffee machine or bathroom than take the shortcut past your door and risk being invited in.

Your 360-degree evaluations come back short and full of generically positive comments, with one very mild criticism ("Sometimes she works too damn hard for her own good") thrown in for credibility's sake.

People don't volunteer for your pet projects. The idea sucks, and they're afraid to tell you, or it's brilliant, but the consequences for letting you down are too terrible to imagine. And, of course, if it's your pet project, you'll probably work on it as well. Which means more time spent...gulp...with you.

You have legions of former employees, but they rarely give your name as a reference for new jobs. Either they don't trust you to give them their due, or they worry that because they were so miserable working for you, your recollections will also be dismal.

You have legions of former employees, period. If your staff falls away like linty Post-it notes, ask yourself: Is high turnover the problem? Or am I?

(http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/jan/29boss.htm)

Invest in a gold fund, not jewellery

2008-01-23T11:32:00.001+05:30

As we head into 2008, it is with even greater worries about global instability - both political and financial. Iran's potential nuclear arsenal, a near certain US recession, continued fallout from the sub-prime crisis, all point to one direction as far as your investment portfolio is concerned - load up on gold.

Touching new highs. Other than a small blip in the first quarter of next year, gold prices are expected to continue on their bullish path. Currently, gold is trading in the range of $785-795 per ounce.

T Gnanasekar, director, Commtrendz says: "Typically, when the dollar weakens, gold prices go up, and vice-versa. At the moment, the dollar is strengthening and is expected to strengthen further in the first quarter. This will result in falling prices of gold. So, gold prices could come down to $745, even $700 per ounce, in the first quarter of the year. Subsequently, however, our target price for gold in 2008 is $900 per ounce."

Gold prices hit a 28-year high of $845 on November 7, 2007, when the dollar fell to record lows against major currencies and oil prices rose to all-time record levels. But the metal has lost nearly 6 per cent of its value since then as the dollar rebounds, oil prices trend off record highs and players square positions at beginning of 2008.

Invest in a gold fund, not jewellery. Week to week trends notwithstanding, gold continues to remain a solid bet for the future. In fact, with more and more asset management companies offering gold exchange traded funds, a good way to invest in the yellow metal is in the form of paper, that is, through gold funds.

These funds can easily be bought and sold and there would be no problems in liquidating your gold investments. Also, as the underlying gold of your fund is in the form of bullion, there are no losses in terms of design and making charges.

Traditionally, especially in India, investments in gold are in the form of jewellery and you face a significant loss of value when you sell your gold as a lot of your purchase price goes towards design and making charges.

"People are buying gold anyway in India, and buying this in the form of a fund is a far wiser investment than buying jewellery," says Sanjiv Shah, executive director, Benchmark Mutual Fund. Asset allocation is critical, and given the correlation of returns from other assets, it is appropriate that an investor hedges by investing in gold, feels Shah. "Returns on the metal have been fantastic in the last five years.

Ideally, 5-10 per cent of your portfolio must be diversified and gold is a good option," he says. If you are buying gold purely as an investment, then the storage argument is a strong one to prefer a gold ETF over buying the metal in its physical form.

Bars and coins are also good options. The other popular way of investing in gold is by buying gold bars. Earlier, gold bars were only available in jewellery shops, but now they are available at banks.

Though private players such as ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were the first to begin retailing gold, now even public sector giants have got on the gold bandwagon. State Bank of India recently started selling gold, and currently offers this facility in 100 of its branches. It will see a significant expansion in the next two years.

However, do remember that if you buy gold bars from banks, they can only be sold at jewellery shops. The Reserve Bank of India does not allow banks to buy gold back from its customers.

A little gold in your portfolio can go a long way in keeping your investments buoyant. And now, with multiple ways of buying our favourite metal, there's no stopping the shimmer and the shine this New Year.

(http://us.rediff.com/money/2008/jan/09gold.htm)

10-point checklist for planning your taxes

2008-01-21T13:48:00.000+05:30

Following is a ten-point checklist for planning your taxes

1. The most important thing to do is start compiling a list of the you have paid. TDS operates like tax already paid i.e. from your final tax liability you have to pay only such amount that is over and above the tax already deducted. It is important for all taxpayers to collect the TDS certificates after the end of the fiscal year. Though these don� have to be attached with the tax return anymore, they have to be filed and kept on record and produced before the ITO if called for.

2. If you have availed of housing finance, be sure to collect the certificate of your EMIs and the total interest paid from the housing finance company.

3. If you haven't bought Mediclaim, do so now. There is a deduction of Rs. 15,000 (Rs. 20,000 if you are a senior citizen) available under Sec. 80D.

4. It is time to make your Sec. 80C investments to claim tax rebate. PPF offers 8% tax-free. Equity linked savings schemes are the flavour of the season. Have you considered these?

5. Sec. 88 used to be unavailable to those earning above Rs. 5 lakh. However, its not so with Sec. 80C. Everyone, regardless of income level, can take advantage of the Rs. 1 lakh tax break offered by 80C.

Sec. 80C doesn� impose sub-limits like Sec. 88 used to. For example, under 88, you could invest only up to Rs. 10,000 in ELSS. Or only Rs. 20,000 was available for housing finance. Now, 80C is extremely flexible, as the erstwhile sub-limits have been dispensed with.

The EET tax regime has yet not been notified. Therefore, all your tax savings investments for FY 07-08 will be under the old EEE system. For next year, defer your tax saving investments till such time there is clarity on the issue. The Government is expected to come out with the new tax laws anytime next year.

6. If you have made a donation, you need to submit the receipt issued by the institute (receiving the donation) to get the benefit of the deduction under Sec. 80G. If you have not collected such a receipt, do so soon.

7. If you are a female assessee under the age of 65, do not forget to take into account the special tax exemption slab of Rs 1,45,000 while arriving at your tax. And if you are above the age of 65, remember to claim the special slab exemption of Rs. 1,95,000.

8. If you are a trader, remember, Sec. 88E allows you a set-off of the Securities Transaction Tax against your trading profits. Arrive at your taxes only after claiming this set-off.

9. Last but not the least; get in order all your supporting documents of the tax planning/saving instruments that you have invested in. For employees, this directly affects the amount of TDS on your salary. If you are late, you would end up bearing a higher amount of TDS than what ought to have been deducted.

10. The last date for payment of advance tax is March 15th. However, if your advance tax payable is less than Rs. 5,000, then you can pay such tax while filing the return. Also, if you earn any income after 15th of March, pay tax on it on or before 31st and such tax would also be treated as advance tax.

Interview Tips: How Would You Move Mount Fuji?

2008-01-07T20:10:00.000+05:30

(by William Poundstone, Book Excerpt)

The Impossible Question

In August 1957 William Shockley was recruiting staff for his Palo Alto, California, start-up, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Shockley had been part of the Bell Labs team that invented the transistor. He had quit his job and come west to start his own company, telling people his goal was to make a million dollars. Everyone thought he was crazy. Shockley knew he wasn't. Unlike a lot of the people at Bell Labs, he knew the transistor was going to be big.

Shockley had an idea about how to make transistors cheaply. He was going to fabricate them out of silicon. He had come to this valley, south of San Francisco, to start production. He felt like he was on the cusp of history, in the right place at the right time. All that he needed was the right people. Shockley was leaving nothing to chance.

Today's interview was Jim Gibbons. He was a young guy, early twenties. He already had a Stanford Ph.D. He had studied at Cambridge too - on a Fulbright scholarship he'd won. Gibbons was sitting in front of him right now, in Shockley's Quonset hut office. Shockley picked up his stopwatch.

There's a tennis tournament with one hundred twenty-seven players, Shockley began, in measured tones. You've got one hundred twenty-six people paired off in sixty-three matches, plus one unpaired player as a bye. In the next round, there are sixty-four players and thirty-two matches. How many matches, total, does it take to determine a winner?

Shockley started the stopwatch. The hand had not gone far when Gibbons replied: One hundred twenty-six.

How did you do that? Shockley wanted to know. Have you heard this before?

Gibbons explained simply that it takes one match to eliminate one player. One hundred twenty-six players have to be eliminated to leave one winner. Therefore, there have to be 126 matches.

Shockley almost threw a tantrum. That was how he would have solved the problem, he told Gibbons. Gibbons had the distinct impression that Shockley did not care for other people using "his" method.

Shockley posed the next puzzle and clicked the stop-watch again. This one was harder for Gibbons. He thought a long time without answering. He noticed that, with each passing second, the room's atmosphere grew less tense. Shockley, seething at the previous answer, now relaxed like a man sinking into a hot bath. Finally, Shockley clicked off the stopwatch and said that Gibbons had already taken twice the lab average time to answer the question. He reported this with charitable satisfaction. Gibbons was hired.

Find the Heavy Billiard Ball...

Fast-forward forty years in time - only a few miles in space from long-since-defunct Shockley Semiconductor - to a much-changed Silicon Valley. Transistors etched onto silicon chips were as big as Shockley imagined. Software was even bigger. Stanford was having a career fair, and one of the most popular companies in attendance was the Microsoft Corporation. With the 1990s dot-com boom and bull market in full swing, Microsoft was famous as a place where employees of no particular distinction could make $1 million before their thirtieth birthday. Grad student Gene McKenna signed up for an interview with Microsoft's recruiter.

Suppose you had eight billiard balls, the recruiter began. One of them is slightly heavier, but the only way to tell is by putting it on a scale against the others. What's the fewest number of times you'd have to use the scale to find the heavier ball?

McKenna began reasoning aloud. Everything he said was sensible, but somehow nothing seemed to impress the recruiter. With hinting and prodding, McKenna came up with a billiard-ball-weighing scheme that was marginally acceptable to the Microsoft guy. The answer was two.

"Now, imagine Microsoft wanted to get into the appliance business," the recruiter then said. "Suppose we wanted to run a microwave oven from the computer. What software would you write to do this?"

"Why would you want to do that?" asked McKenna. "I don't want to go to my refrigerator, get out some food, put it in the microwave, and then run to my computer to start it!" "Well, the microwave could still have buttons on it too."

"So why do I want to run it from my computer?" "Well maybe you could make it programmable? For example, you could call your computer from work and have it start cooking your turkey." "But wouldn't my turkey," asked McKenna, "or any other food, go bad sitting in the microwave while I'm at work? I could put a frozen turkey in, but then it would drip water everywhere."

"What other options could the microwave have?" the recruiter asked. Pause. "For example, you could use the computer to download and exchange recipes." "You can do that now. Why does Microsoft want to bother with connecting the computer to the microwave?" "Well let's not worry about that. Just assume that Microsoft has decided this. It's your job to think up uses for it." McKenna thought in silence.

"Now maybe the recipes could be very complex," the recruiter said. "Like, 'Cook food at seven hundred watts for two minutes, then at three hundred watts for two more minutes, but don't let the temperature get above three hundred degrees.'"

"Well there is probably a small niche of people who would really love that, but most people can't program their VCR."

The Microsoft recruiter extended his hand. "Well, it was nice to meet you, Gene. Good luck with your job search." "Yeah," said McKenna. "Thanks."

The Impossible Question

Logic puzzles, riddles, hypothetical questions, and trick questions have a long tradition in computer-industry interviews. This is an expression of the start-up mentality in which every employee is expected to be a highly logical and motivated innovator, working seventy-hour weeks if need be to ship a product. It reflects the belief that the high-technology industries are different from the old economy: less stable, less certain, faster changing. The high-technology employee must be able to question assumptions and see things from novel perspectives. Puzzles and riddles (so the argument goes) test that ability.

In recent years, the chasm between high technology and old economy has narrowed. The uncertainties of a wired, ever-shifting global marketplace are imposing a start-up mentality throughout the corporate and professional world. That world is now adopting the peculiar style of interviewing that was formerly associated with lean, hungry technology companies. Puzzle-laden job interviews have infiltrated the Fortune 500 and the rust belt; law firms, banks, consulting firms, and the insurance industry; airlines, media, advertising, and even the armed forces. Brainteaser interview questions are reported from Italy, Russia, and India. Like it or not, puzzles and riddles are a hot new trend in hiring.

Fast-forward to the present - anywhere, almost any line of business. It's your next job interview. Be prepared to answer questions like these:

How many piano tuners are there in the world? If the Star Trek transporter was for real, how would that affect the transportation industry? Why does a mirror reverse right and left instead of up and down? If you could remove any of the fifty U.S. states, which would it be? Why are beer cans tapered on the ends? How long would it take to move Mount Fuji?

In the human resources trade, some of these riddles are privately known as impossible questions. Interviewers ask these questions in the earnest belief that they help gauge the intelligence, resourcefulness, or "outside-the-box thinking" needed to survive in today's hypercompetitive business world. Job applicants answer these questions in the also-earnest belief that this is what it takes to get hired at the top companies these days. A lot of earnest believing is going on.

To an anthropologist studying the hiring rituals of the early twenty-first century, the strangest thing about these impossible questions would probably be this: No one knows the answer. I have spoken with interviewers who use these questions, and they have enthusiastically assured me not only that they don't know the "correct answer" but that it makes no difference that they don't know the answer. I even spent an amusing couple of hours on the Internet trying to pull up "official" figures on the number of piano tuners in the world. Conclusion: There are no official figures. Piano-tuner organizations with impressive websites do not know how many piano tuners there are in the world.

Every business day, people are hired, or not hired, based on how well they answer these questions.

The impossible question is one phase of a broader phenomenon. Hiring interviews are becoming more invasive, more exhaustive, more deceptive, and meaner. The formerly straightforward courtship ritual between employer and employee has become more one-sided, a meat rack in which job candidates' mental processes are poked, prodded, and mercilessly evaluated. More and more, candidates are expected to "prove themselves" in job interviews. They must solve puzzles, avoid getting faked out by trick questions, and perform under manufactured stress.

"Let's play a game of Russian roulette," begins one interview stunt that is going the rounds at Wall Street investment banks. "You are tied to your chair and can't get up. Here's a gun. Here's the barrel of the gun, six chambers, all empty. Now watch me as I put two bullets in the gun. See how I put them in two adjacent chambers? I close the barrel and spin it. I put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. Click. You're still alive. Lucky you! Now, before we discuss your résumé, I'm going to pull the trigger one more time. Which would you prefer, that I spin the barrel first, or that I just pull the trigger?"

The good news is that the gun is imaginary. It's an "air gun," and the interviewer makes the appropriate gestures of spinning the barrel and pulling the trigger. The bad news is that your career future is being decided by someone who plays with imaginary guns.

This question is a logic puzzle. It has a correct answer and the interviewer knows what it is. You had better supply the right answer if you want the job. In the context of a job interview, solving a puzzle like this is probably as much about stress management as deductive logic. The Russian roulette question exemplifies the mind-set of these interviews - that people who can solve puzzles under stress make better employees than those who can't.

The popularity of today's stress - and puzzle-intensive interviews is generally attributed to one of America's most successful and ambivalently regarded corporations, Microsoft. The software giant receives about twelve thousand r?sum?s each month. That is amazing when you consider that the company has about fifty thousand employees, and Microsoft's turnover rate has been pegged at about a third of the industry average. Microsoft has more cause to be selective than most companies. This is reflected in its interview procedure.

Without need of human intervention, each résumé received at Microsoft is scanned for keywords and logged into a database. Promising résumés lead to a screening interview, usually by phone. Those who pass muster get a "fly back," a trip to Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, headquarters for a full-day marathon of famously difficult interviews. "We look for original, creative thinkers," says a section of the Microsoft website that is directed to college-age applicants, "and our interview process is designed to find those people." Six recent hires are pictured (three are women, three are black). "Your interview could include a technical discussion of the projects you've worked on, an abstract design question, or general problem-solving puzzles or brainteasers. The types of questions you'll be asked vary depending on the position you're looking for, but all are meant to investigate your capabilities and potential to grow. It's important for us to find out what you can do, not just what you've done." Another company publication advises bluntly: "Get over your fear of trick questions. You will probably be asked one or two. They are not exactly fair, but they are usually asked to see how you handle a difficult situation."

Riddles and Sphinxes

"Not exactly fair"? It's little wonder that some compare this style of interviewing to fraternity hazing, brainwashing, or the third degree. As one job applicant put it, "You never know when they are going to bring out the guy in the chicken suit."

Another apt analogy is that familiar type of video game where you confront a series of odd and hostile characters in a series of confined spaces, solving riddles to get from one space to the next. Not many make it to the highest levels; for most, after three or four encounters, the game is over. As classicists point out, those video games update the ancient Greek legend of Oedipus and the sphinx. The sphinx devoured anyone who couldn't answer her riddle: "What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

Oedipus solved the riddle by answering "Man." A baby crawls on all fours, an adult walks on two legs, and the elderly use a cane as a third leg. It was, in other words, a trick question.

The sphinx tale puzzles people even today. Why didn't they just shoot it? is the reaction of most college students. The principal source for the story, Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, is a realistic and psychologically nuanced tragedy. There the man-eating she-monster is as out of place, one scholar noted, as Godzilla would be if he were to lumber into the New York of Coppola's Godfather trilogy. Still, something about this crazy story strikes a chord. We all undergo tests in life. Maybe we succeed where all others have failed - or maybe not; at least, it's a common fantasy. There is something familiar in the banality of the riddle too, and in the weirdness of its poser. They remind us that the tests of life are not always reasonable and not always fair.

Tales of people proving their mettle by solving riddles exist in cultures around the globe. The "ordeal by trick question" was possibly raised to the highest art by the monks of Japanese Zen. Zen riddles are the antithesis of the Western logic puzzle, though one might describe them as demanding an extreme sort of outside-the-box thinking. A student of Zen demonstrates worthiness by giving a sublimely illogical answer to an impossible question. Zen master Shuzan once held out his short staff and announced to a follower: "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?" In traditional Zen teaching, the penalty for a poor answer was a hard whack on the head with a short staff.

So Microsoft's "not exactly fair" questions are not exactly new. The company has repackaged the old "ordeal by riddle" for our own time. With its use of puzzles in its hiring decisions, Microsoft plays to the more appealing side of the digital generation mythos - of maverick independence and suspicion of established hierarchies. Puzzles are egalitarian, Microsoft's people contend, in that it doesn't matter what school you attended, where you worked before, or how you dress. All that matters is your logic, imagination, and problem-solving ability.

For of course Microsoft is an egalitarian meritocracy. It is ruthless about hiring what it calls the "top ten percent of the top ten percent." Microsoft's interviews are carefully engineered to weed out the "merely" competent who don't have the Microsoft level of competitive drive and creative problem-solving ability. It is estimated that less than one in four of those flown up to Redmond for a day of interviews receive a job offer. Like most riddle-bearing sphinxes, Microsoft's human resources department leaves a high body count.

Blank Slate

Microsoft is a fraught place. It represents the best and worst of how corporate America lives today. The software company that Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded was one of the great success stories of the last quarter of the twentieth century. The Justice Department's 1998 antitrust suit against Microsoft has not entirely dimmed that reputation. Maybe the opposite: Microsoft is now bad, and as we all know, bad is sometimes good. People have misgivings about Microsoft, just like they do about pit bulls and the Israeli Army. People also figure that if Microsoft hires this way, well, it may push the ethical envelope, but it must work.

Microsoft's role in changing interview practice is that of a catalyst. This influence owes to a shift in hiring priorities across industries. With bad hires more costly than ever, employers have given the job interview an importance it was never meant to have.

There was a time when a corporate job interview was a conversation. The applicant discussed past achievements and future goals. The interviewer discussed how those goals might or might not fit in with the company's. If the applicant was "put on the spot," it was with one of the old reliable human resources chestnuts such as "describe your worst fault." At many companies, that type of low-pressure interview is on its way out. The reasons are many. References, once the bedrock of sound hiring practice, are nearing extinction in our litigious society.The prospect of a million-dollar lawsuit filed by an employee given a "bad reference" weighs heavily on employers. This is often dated to 1984, when a Texas court ruled that an insurance salesman had been defamed when his employer, insurance firm Frank B. Hall and Company, was asked for a reference and candidly rated the salesman "a zero." The court added a few zeros of its own to the damage award ($1.9 million).

Employment attorneys observe that awards of that size are rarer than the near hysteria prevailing in human resources departments might suggest. They also allow that - theoretically - the law protects truthful references. It is tough to argue against caution, though. "We tell our clients not to get involved in references of any kind," said Vincent J. Appraises, former chair of the American Bar Association's Labor and Employment Law Section. "Just confirm or deny whether the person has been employed for a particular period of time and that's it. End of discussion."

Equally problematic for today's hirers is the generically positive reference letter. Some companies are so terrified of lawsuits that they hand them out indiscriminately to any employee who asks. It's no skin off their nose if someone else hires away an inept employee.

With references less common and less useful, hirers must seek information elsewhere. The job interview is the most direct means of assessing a candidate. But the ground rules for interviews have changed in the past decades. It is illegal in the United States for an interviewer to ask an applicant's age, weight, religion, political view, ethnicity, marital status, sexual preference, or financial status. Nor can an interviewer legally inquire whether a job seeker has children, drinks, votes, does charity work, or (save in bona fide security-sensitive jobs) has committed a major crime. This rules out many of the questions that used to be asked routinely ("How would your family feel about moving up here to Seattle?") and also a good deal of break-the-ice small talk. Hiring has always been about establishing a comfort level. The employer wants to feel reasonably certain that the applicant will succeed as an employee. That usually means sizing up a person from a variety of perspectives. In many ways, today's job candidate is a blank slate. He or she is a new person, stripped of the past, free of social context, existing only in the present moment. That leaves many employers scared.

One popular website for M.B.A. recruiting offers a "Social Security Number Decoder for Recruiters." Based on the first three digits, it tells where a job candidate was living when the social security number was issued. "The point being..." you ask? Well, it's one way of telling whether someone is lying about his past - a way of spotting contradictions when employers can't pose direct questions.

The Two-Second Interview

There are other, more serious reasons to worry about the American way of hiring. In the past decade, the traditional job interview has taken hits from putatively scientific studies. An increasing literature asserts the fallibility of interviewers.

Two Harvard psychologists, Nalini Ambady and Robert Rosenthal, did a particularly devastating experiment. Ambady had originally wanted to study what makes teachers effective. She suspected that nonverbal cues - body language and such - were important. To test this, she used some videotapes that had been made of a group of Harvard teaching fellows. She planned to show silent video clips to a group of people and have them rate the teachers for effectiveness.

Ambady wanted to use one-minute clips of each teacher. Unfortunately, the tapes hadn't been shot with this end in mind. They showed the teachers interacting with students. That was a problem, because having students visible in the clips might unconsciously affect the raters' opinions of the teachers. Ambady went to her adviser and said it wasn't going to work.

Then Ambady looked at the tapes again and decided she could get ten-second clips of teachers in which no students were visible. She did the study with those ten-second clips. Based on just ten seconds, the raters judged the teachers on a fifteen-item list of qualities.

Okay, if you have to judge someone from a ten-second video clip, you can. You probably wouldn't expect such a judgment to be worth anything.

Ambady repeated the experiment with five-second clips of the same teachers. Another group of raters judged them. Their assessments were, allowing for statistical error, identical to the ratings of the people who saw the ten-second clips.

Ambady then had another group view two-second clips of the same teachers. Again, the ratings were essentially the same.

The shocker was this: Ambady compared the video- clip ratings to ratings made by the students of the same teachers after a semester of classes. The students knew the professors much better than anyone possibly could from a silent video clip. No matter - the students' ratings were in close agreement with those of the people who saw only the videos. Complete strangers' opinions of a teacher, based on a silent two-second video, were nearly the same as those of students who had sat through a semester of classes.

It looks like people make a snap judgment of a person within two seconds of meeting him or her - a judgment not based on anything the person says. Only rarely does anything that happens after the first two seconds cause the judger to revise that first impression significantly.

All right, but the raters in this study were volunteer college students. Who knows what criteria they used to rate the teachers? Who knows whether they took the exercise seriously?

A more recent experiment attempts to treat the hiring situation more directly. Another of Rosenthal's students, Frank Bernieri (now at the University of Toledo), collabrated with graduate-student Neha Gada-Jain on a study in which they trained two interviewers for six weeks in accepted employment interviewing techniques. Then the two people interviewed ninety-eight volunteers of various backgrounds. Each interview was fifteen to twenty minutes, and all the interviews were captured on tape. After the interview, the trained interviewers rated the subjects.

Another student, Tricia Prickett, then edited the interview tapes down to fifteen seconds. Each fifteen-second clip showed the applicant entering the room, shaking hands with the interviewer, and sitting down. There was nothing more substantial than that. You guessed it - when another group rated the applicants just on the handshake clip, their opinions correlated strongly with those of the two trained interviewers who had the full interview to work from.

This would be funny if it weren't tragic. These studies suggest that the standard job interview is a pretense in which both interviewer and interviewee are equally and mutually duped. The interviewer has made up her mind by the time the interviewee has settled into a chair. Maybe the decision is based on looks, body language, or the "cut of your jib." What's certain is that it's not based on anything happening inside the job candidate's head. The questions and answers that follow are a sham, a way of convincing both that some rational basis exists for a hiring decision. In reality, the decision has already been made, on grounds that could not possibly be more superficial.

Human resources experts categorize interview questions with terms such as "traditional" and "behavioral." Traditional questions include the old standards that almost any American job seeker knows by heart. Where do you see yourself in five years? What do you do on your day off? What's the last book you've read? What are you most proud of?

Traditional-question interviews walk a tightrope between concealment and disclosure. They often invite the candidate to say something "bad" about himself, just to see how far he'll go. These questions seem to be about honesty. Really, they're about diplomacy. What you're most proud of might be your comic-book collection. That's not necessarily what the interviewer wants to hear, and you probably know that. There are safer answers, such as "the feeling of accomplishment I get from doing something - it could be anything - really well." The trouble with the traditional interview is that both sides are wise to the game. Practically everyone gives the safe answers. The interviewers nod, not believing a word of it.

This has led to the rise of behavioral questions. These ask the candidate to describe a past experience bearing on character and job skills. An example (used at Microsoft) is "Describe an instance in your life when you were faced with a problem and tackled it successfully." Another is "Describe a time when you had to work under deadline and there wasn't enough time to complete the job." The rationale for asking behavioral questions is that it's harder to fabricate a story than a one-liner.

Unfortunately, traditional and behavioral interview questions do almost nothing to counter the two-second snap judgment. These are soft, fuzzy, and ambivalent questions. Rarely addressed is what you're supposed to make of the answers. It's mostly gut instincts.

Ask yourself this: "Is there any conceivable answer to a traditional interview question that would cause me to want to hire someone on that answer alone? Is there any possible answer that would cause me to not want to hire someone?" I guess you can imagine alarming answers that might betray the candid psychopath. But most of the time, job candidates give the cautious and second-guessed answers everyone expects. With half-empty or half-full logic, an interviewer can use any answer retroactively to justify the first impression. Rarely does an answer challenge that first impression. This probably makes some interviewers comfortable. It may not be the best way to hire. It is far from clear that traditional and behavioral questions are a good way of spending the always-too-limited time in a job interview.

Future Tense

Microsoft's interviewing practices are a product of the pressures of the high-technology marketplace. Software is about ideas, not assembly lines, and those ideas are always changing. A software company's greatest asset is a talented workforce. "The most important thing we do is hire great people," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has stated more than once.

But how do you recognize great people? It is harder than ever to equate talent with a specific set of skills. Skills can become obsolete practically overnight. So can business plans. Microsoft is conscious that it has to be looking for people capable of inventing the Microsoft of five or ten years hence. Microsoft's hiring focuses on the future tense. More than most big companies, Microsoft accepts rather than resists the "job candidate as blank slate." Its stated goal is to hire for what people can do rather than what they've done.

Because programming remains a youthful profession, Microsoft hires many people out of college. There is no job experience to guide hiring decisions. Nor is Microsoft overly impressed by schools and degrees. "We fully know how bogus [graduate school] is," one senior manager is reported to have said. This attitude has changed somewhat - Harvard dropout Bill Gates now encourages potential employees to get their degrees -but Microsoft has never been a place to hire people because they went to the right schools.

Microsoft is also a chauvinistic place. The private suspicion in Redmond seems to be that Sun, Oracle, IBM, and all the other companies are full of big, lazy slobs who couldn't cut it at Microsoft. The only kind of "experience" that counts for much is experience at Microsoft. So even with job candidates who have experience, the emphasis is on the future tense. Microsoft does not have a time machine that lets its human resources people zip ten years into a subjunctive future to see how well a candidate will perform on the job. Predictions about future performance are perforce based largely on how well candidates answer interview questions.

"Microsoft really does believe that it can judge a person through four or five one-hour interviews," claims former Microsoft developer Adam David Barr. Barr likens the interview process to the National Football League's annual draft. Some teams base decisions on a college football record, and others go by individual workouts where the college players are tested more rigorously. At Microsoft, the "workout" - the interview - is the main factor in hiring all but the most senior people.

Why use logic puzzles, riddles, and impossible questions? The goal of Microsoft's interviews is to assess a general problem-solving ability rather than a specific competency. At Microsoft, and now at many other companies, it is believed that there are parallels between the reasoning used to solve puzzles and the thought processes involved in solving the real problems of innovation and a changing marketplace.

Both the solver of a puzzle and a technical innovator must be able to identify essential elements in a situation that is initially ill-defined. It is rarely clear what type of reasoning is required or what the precise limits of the problem are. The solver must nonetheless persist until it is possible to bring the analysis to a timely and successful conclusion.

What This Book Will Do

The book will do five things. It will first trace the long and surprising history of the puzzle interview. In so doing, it will touch on such topics as intelligence tests for employment, the origins of Silicon Valley, the personal obsessions of Bill Gates, and the culture of Wall Street.

The book will then pose the following question: Do puzzle interviews work as claimed? Hirers tout these interviews, and job candidates complain about them. I will try to supply a balanced discussion of pros and cons - something that is often missing from the office watercooler debates. The book will present a large sample of the actual questions being used at Microsoft and elsewhere. Provided your career is not on the line, you may find these puzzles and riddles to be a lot of fun. Many readers will enjoy matching their wits against those of the bright folks in Redmond. For readers who'd like to play along, there's a list of Microsoft puzzles, riddles, and trick questions in chapter four (most of which are in widespread use at other companies as well). A separate list of some of the hardest interview puzzles being asked at other companies is in chapter seven. I will elaborate in the main narrative on some of these questions and the techniques used to answer them but will refrain from giving answers until the very end of the book.

The final two chapters are addressed in turn to the job candidate and the hirer. There is a genre of logic puzzle in which logical and ruthless adversaries attempt to outsmart each other. This is a good model of the puzzle interview. Chapter eight is written from the perspective of a job candidate confronted with puzzles in an interview. It presents a short and easily remembered list of tips for improving performance. Chapter nine is written from the opposite perspective -that of an interviewer confronted with a candidate who may be wise to the "tricks." It presents a list of tips for getting a fair assessment nonetheless.

If this appears a paradox, it is only because these interviews have been touted as being difficult or impossible to "prepare" for. Most logic puzzles exploit a relatively small set of mental "tricks." Knowing these tricks, and knowing the unspoken expectations governing these interviews, can help a candidate do his or her best.

The hirer, in turn, needs to recognize the possibility of preparation and structure the interview accordingly. The merits of puzzle interviews are too often defeated by the hazing-stunt atmosphere in which they are conducted and by use of trick questions whose solutions are easily remembered.

HOW WOULD YOU MOVE MOUNT FUJI? gives a proposal for how innovative companies ought to interview and explains how this type of interview can be improved by refocusing on its original goal of providing information that the hirer can use.

How to invest in a Mutual Fund

2008-01-07T13:20:00.001+05:30

Sanjay Prakash, CEO, HSBC Asset Management (India) Pvt Ltd, has an interesting tale.

Six years ago, he began to invest diligently every month in a mutual fund for his daughters.

From an amount as low as Rs 500 a month, he increased it to Rs 1,000. He then set himself a target of increasing it by Rs 500 every six months.

Today, he invests Rs 7,500 in each of his daughters' names every month.

Though very young and still in school, each girl has Rs 700,000 to her name.

Where did he invest? In a diversified equity fund.

How? Through a Systematic Investment Plan.

What is that?

An SIP is a vehicle offered by mutual funds to help you save regularly.

It is just like a recurring deposit with the post office or bank where you put in a small amount every month. The difference here is that the amount is invested in a mutual fund.

The minimum amount to be invested can be as small as Rs 500 and the frequency of investment is usually monthly or quarterly.

My friend would do well to learn from this.

Recently, when the Sensex rose to dizzying heights, the Net Asset Value of her funds soared too. The NAV is determined by the market price of the stocks the fund has invested in. So when the markets rise, the NAVs follow. And vice versa.

Being smart enough to sense she would not get a return like this in a while, she sold her units and made a tidy sum. Now, she is waiting for the market to slump and the NAVs to fall so she can buy them back cheap.

The theory is good; but does it work?

Nobody can time the market. Nobody can predict when it is going to fall or rise and by how much.

While she is waiting for the market to drop, she is missing out by just sitting on her money.

And just because she got it right once does not mean she will win again.

How an SIP works

An SIP allows you to take part in the stock market without trying to second guess its movements.

AN SIP means you commit yourself to investing a fixed amount every month. Let's say it is Rs 1,000.

When the NAV is high, you will get fewer units. When it drops, you will get more units.

Date	NAV	Approx number of units you will get at Rs 1,000
Jan 1	10	100
Feb 1	10.5	95.23
Mar 1	11	90.90
Apr 1	9.5	105.26
May 1	9	111.11
Jun 1	11.5	86.95

Within six months, you would have 5,894 units by investing just Rs 1,000 every month.

Over the long run, you make money

Let's say you invested in Prudential ICICI Technology Fund during the dotcom and tech boom.

Say you began with Rs 1,000 and kept investing Rs 1,000 every month. This would be the result:

Investment period	Mar 2000 - Mar 2005
Monthly investment	Rs 1,000
Total amount invested	Rs 61,000
Value of investment of Mar 7, 2005	Rs 1,09,315
Return on investment	23.87%

Had you bought the units on March 13, 2000 at Rs 10.88 per unit (that was the NAV then), you would have lost because the NAV was just 7.04 on March 7, 2005. But because you spaced out your investment, you won.

How an SIP scores

It makes you disciplined in your savings. Every month you are forced to keep aside a fixed amount. This could either be debited directly from your account or you could give the mutual fund post-dated cheques.

As you see above, it helps you make money over the long term. Since you get more units when the NAV drops and fewer when it rises, the cost averages out over time. So you tide over all the ups and downs of the market without any drastic losses.

Also, a number of mutual funds do not charge an entry load if you opt for an SIP. This fee is a percentage of the amount you are investing. And if you do not exit (sell your units) within a year of buying the units, you do not have to pay an exit load (same as an entry load, except this is charged when you sell your units).

If, however, you do sell your units within a year, you would be charged an exit load. So it pays to stay invested for the long-run.

The best way to enter a mutual fund is via an SIP. But to get the benefit of an SIP, think of at least a three-year time frame when you won't touch your money.

Sample interview questions for H-1B visa

2007-12-13T11:04:00.001+05:30

The following are some questions you should be prepared to answer irrespective of whether you are going to the consulate for a fresh H-1B visa or an H-1B renewal. These are suggestive and not all-inclusive.

1)      What does your US Company do?
2)      What will be your job duties in the US Company?
3)      How many employees does the US Company have?
4)      What is the annual turnover of the US Company?
5)      Show US company brochure and photographs, if you have
6)      Where will you be working in the US?
7)      What computer languages do you know? (Information Technology professionals are often asked this question)
8)      What computer languages are you currently using in your company?
9)      How long have you worked with your current employer?
10) What is your current salary?
11) Have you ever been in a 'no-job no-salary' kind of situation?
12) What is your role in the current company?
13) Which university in the US did you study in? (This is in case you have a degree from the US)
14) What is your highest degree?
15) Where will you be staying in the US?
16) How long do you plan to stay in the US?
17) Which state do you live in the US? What's your opinion about the state?
18) Have you paid for your H-1B visa?

Dealing with changes in job location

Roving H-1B employees require special attention and analysis. If an employer sends an H-1B worker to a new worksite, not listed on the Labor Condition Application (LCA), the employer must act to maintain compliance with the regulations. The regulations include a detailed definition of 'place of employment' which governs what an employer must do to maintain LCA compliance.

The definition creates several exceptions that are not considered new places of employment, such as places where an H-1B may travel temporarily for developmental activity or to receive training. If there is no new 'place of employment,' then the employer's LCA obligations remain fixed at the home base.

The first question to ask is whether the roving H-1B employee is going to a new 'place of employment' or 'worksite'. If the answer is 'yes', then the employer must do one of the following:

~ Re-post (if the new worksite is within the area of intended employment). In this case, the employer must re-post notice of the LCA at the new worksite before the H-1B begins work there;
~ Use the short-term placement rules; or
~ File a new LCA for the new worksite

The regulations define a new type of H-1B employee whose work is 'peripatetic' or roaming in nature in that the normal duties of the occupation require frequent travel. Peripatetic workers may travel constantly, but may not spend more than five days in one place. For such peripatetic workers, a new location is not considered a new 'worksite', and therefore does not require a new LCA.

Similarly, H-1B workers who travel occasionally on a casual short-term basis (not exceeding ten days) to a new location are not considered to have a new worksite with new LCA requirements. Although in these cases, the employer is not required to take one of the three steps above to maintain compliance, the employer is required to pay travel expenses for each day the H-1B is traveling (both weekdays and weekends).

The short-term placement rules permit an H-1B to travel up to 30 or 60 days per year to another 'place of employment'. However, the employer may not use the short-term placement rules in any area of employment for which the employer has a certified LCA for the occupational classification. If the employer has such a certified LCA with an open slot, then the employer must use that and add a copy of that LCA to the employee's public access file. If the employer has a certified LCA, but it doesn't have any open slots, then the employer must file a new LCA. The regulations specifically prohibit employers from continuously rotating H-1B employees to short-term placements in a manner that would defeat the stated purpose of these rules. The rules are designed to give employers flexibility.

H-1 visas issued by US Embassy/Consulates to Indians in India

US Fiscal Year

No. of H-1B issued

2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006

46,020
25,247
28,730
37,041
39,521
43,167

Future scenario of H-1B visa

The US Department of Labor predicts 130,000 new information technology jobs each year for the next decade. Yet American colleges are producing only 25,000 graduates in computer science a year, 40 per cent fewer than in the 1980s, and only 20,000 electrical engineering graduates, one-third fewer than a decade ago.

Although many high-tech jobs do not require such degrees, the decline in computer and engineering degrees can only aggravate whatever shortage exists.

Estimates put the number of information technology jobs going unfilled in the United States at more than 350,000, and rising fast. The Department of Labor projects that the demand for computer systems' analysts, engineers, and scientists will double in less than a decade, from 1.5 million to more than 3 million.

Many of the skilled trades are currently facing a shortage of workers and the number of people needed to fill these jobs is expected to increase dramatically over the next several years. Construction laborers, operating engineers, carpenters, iron workers, cement masons, bricklayers, truck drivers and many other construction related crafts are among the trades expected to see the greatest demand in workers over the next 6 years.

While immigrants are less than 10 per cent of the US population, they comprise 30 per cent of research and development scientists and engineers with PhDs. More than one-third of the engineers in Silicon Valley are foreign born.

Anti-immigrant groups in the US have so far, successfully disallowed reforms proposed by Pro-immigrant lobby consisting of US high-tech industry and several senators and congressmen. The reforms related to increase in quota for H-1B and decrease on restrictions on H-1B visas.

Though the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill has failed in the US Senate, certain stand-alone issues such as H-1B visa may get attention in future months as hoped by pro-immigrant groups and US business which is keen to ensure competitive edge of American in world economy.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/dec/05abr.htm)

H-1B visas: Are you qualified?

2007-12-13T11:03:00.001+05:30

Every year the H-1B application filing date opens on April 1. This is the time that US employers can file H-1B applications for foreign workers that they have interviewed and selected to employ.

~ Individuals cannot file their own H-1B visa applications - only the employer company (known as the "sponsor" can file the application.

~ With only a few months left before the start of H-1B filing period, it is important forworkers and students who want to obtain an H-1B visa, to start their H-1B job search as soon as possible.

How do you qualify for the H-1B visa?

The education requirements for the H-1B visa are the equivalency of a US bachelor's degree, or four years of post secondary (college/university level) study. If you do not have a four year degree or if you have an incomplete degree, you can combine with a post secondary diploma from a government recognised institution or you can use work experience.

USCIS uses the three to one rule. Every three years of progressive work experience in the field is equivalent to one year of post secondary study. For example, three years of university study plus three years of progressive work experience in the field is equivalent to four years of study or a US bachelor's degree.

If you have no post secondary study, you can show 12 years of work experience as equivalent to a US bachelor's degree. Two associates degrees may NOT be combined, but an associates degree (two years and six years of work experience may be combined to be equivalent to a US bachelor's degree).

For the USCIS to accept your work experience you need employer's letters stating your dates of employment, designation and job duties. This must be on the employer's letterhead and signed. You will still have to provide USCIS with verification of the work experience which has to be submitted with the original documents or it will cause a delay in fulfilling your evaluation.

Market your skills

Having identified potential employer/s and/or H-1B solution provider, you must market your skills with effective presentation of yourself through your resume/CV

Employers rely heavily on the resumes they receive to 'screen' for the best potential candidates. Given the choice of two candidates of equal ability, hiring managers will always prefer to interview the one with the most professionally constructed and attractive resume. For this reason, candidates with superb qualifications are often overlooked, and companies end up hiring from a pool of talent made up of those candidates whose experience is represented by powerfully written, visually appealing resumes.

Many aspiring candidates send their resumes to immigration lawyers and visa consultants. This does not help, as professionals assisting in visa services cannot find a job for you or locate employer for you. Resumes should be given only to prospective employers and web sites offering services to locate jobs.

Documents required for H-1B visa

Mandatory documents

Photocopies of the first page, address page and last page of your current Passport.
One photograph.
Original DS-156, nonimmigrant visa application form.
Original DS-157, supplemental nonimmigrant visa application form.
Original, valid HDFC Bank Visa Fee receipt.
Copy of Notice of Action (Form I-797).
For US consulate in Mumbai only: Additional questionnaire.

Supporting documents

Original Passport
Interview appointment letter.
Form I-797 - the original Notice of Action.
Form I-129 and letter from employer that describes your proposed duties.
Letters verifying your employment history and specific work skills.
Original degree certificates along with mark sheets. (Secondary school information is not required)
Relevant diplomas or certificates, e.g. computer certification.

First time applicants are also requested to bring the following items:

Names and current phone numbers of the personnel managers at the applicant's present and past jobs.
Photographs of the inside and outside of current or most recent employer's place of business.
Names and contact information of two co-workers from your current or most recent place of employment.
Names and contact information of two co-workers from past jobs.
A complete resume and cover letter describing current job duties in detail.
Personal bank records for the last six months.
US company information: photographs of the inside and outside of the company's offices, prospectus, brochures, and annual report.

The US consulate will not accept documents received directly from the company by mail or fax. All documents should be brought by the applicant to the interview. The consulate will not make this information available to anyone and will destroy the documents after review.

If you are currently working in the US on an H-1B visa, submit your pay slips for the current calendar year and your federal tax returns (IRS Form 1040 and W-2) for all years in which you were employed in the US.

All H-1B applicants are recommended to bring one extra photocopy of any original documents they presented with their application package that they wish to be returned.

Applicable to US Consulate in Mumbai only:

Submit all the documents listed above as 'Mandatory documents' at least 5 days before the interview.
Carry rest of the documents at the interview.

For all other consulates, carry all the documents to the interview. Do not send anything anywhere before the interview.

(http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/dec/04abr.htm)

How and when to apply for H-1B visa to the US

2007-12-13T11:00:00.001+05:30

There is a misconception many aspiring Indians have that one can apply for an H-1B visa directly and get to the US for a job.

You cannot apply for an H-1B visa yourself.

US Immigration law is vague about the definition of the word profession (relevant to H-1B visa) stating only that the meaning includes such occupations as architects, lawyers, physicians, engineers and teachers. Other occupations, not specifically mentioned in the law, but routinely recognised as professional include, accountants, computer systems analysts, physical therapists, chemists, pharmacists, medical technologists, hotel managers and upper-level business managers.

You must hold the educational equivalent to a US bachelor's degree to qualify for an H-1B visa. Also, the job duties must require education equivalent to a US bachelor's degree in the occupation for which you are hired.

If you were not educated in America, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as part of judging your H-1B eligibility, will often ask for an academic credential evaluation from an approved consulting service to determine the American equivalent of your educational level.

Before sending your academic documents to a Credential Evaluation Service, you may want to telephone in advance to discuss your prospects. Usually, you can get some idea of the likelihood of receiving good results. If your prospects are bleak, you may decide not to order the evaluation and to save the service charges. For details, contact:

Credentials Evaluation Service, AVAP Credential Evaluation Service
International Education Research Foundation Inc
Suite 19, 5053 Ocean Building, P.O. Box 3665
Sarasota, FL 3242

Culver City, California 90231-3665
Tel: (1)-941-346 -1427 or Tel.: 310-258-9451
Fax: (1)- 941- 349-4370 or Fax: 310-342-7086
Email: eval@auap.com or info@ierf.org

Present

Under the existing law, 65,000 H-1B visas are issued for each fiscal year (October 1 through September 30). Of these, 6,800 visas are kept exclusively for Chile and Singapore according to a Free Trade Agreement with the US.

In other words, only 58,200 visas are actually available annually. The visas are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Accompanying relatives of H1-B visa holders are not counted in this total.

Under the "L-1 Visa and H-1B Visa Reform Act of 2004", effective March 8, 2005, up to 20,000 additional H-1B slots are available to graduates of US masters degree (or higher) programs.

There are some types of jobs that are exempt from the H-1B cap. Not every H-1B applicant is subject to the cap. Visas will still be available for applicants filing for amendments, extensions, and transfers. The cap also does not apply to applicants filing H-1B visas through institutions of higher education, nonprofit research organisations and government research organisations. Physicians taking jobs under State 30 or federal government agency waivers based on serving underserved communities are exempt from the H-1B cap.

One of the highlights that makes this visa so desirable is that, unlike many other nonimmigrant visa categories, it is a "dual intent" visa. This means that a visa will not be denied simply because an individual has intentions to become a permanent resident. The applicant does not have to show his liquid and fixed assets as justification to return to India. The assumption is that if for some reason the permanent residency petition in future is denied, the person would still have the intention to return home.

Thus, assuming the applicant meets all of the statutory requirements for the H-1B visa, the main reason it would be denied is if the consular officer feels there is good reason to believe the applicant will not comply with the terms of the visa or the employer's credentials are in doubt.

Numerous cases have been reported where fraudulent employers presenting themselves as consultants and promising jobs in the US prepare 'artificial' jobs and attempt to convince Visa Officers through the applicant about 'so called' genuine job. Such situations have often resulted in application going in for long or unending administrative processing under Section 221(g) and the applicant lose precious time and money in the process.

Another advantage to the H-1B category is that the employer does not need to demonstrate that there is a shortage of qualified US workers and, consequently, a labor certification process can be avoided. Aside from documenting that the position offered is in a specialty occupation and that the employee has the appropriate credentials for the job, the employer need only verify that the H-1B worker is being paid the prevailing wage for the work being performed and that employment of a foreign worker is not harming conditions for US workers.

Non-graduates may be employed on an H1B visa where they can claim to be 'graduate equivalent' by virtue of twelve or more years' experience in the occupation. Positions that are not 'specialty occupation', or for which the candidate lacks the qualifications/experience for an H-1B visa, may be filled using an H-2B visa. The disadvantage of the H-2B visa is that it requires 'labor certification' - an expensive and time consuming process that involves extensive advertising of the position, and satisfying the authorities that there are no US-workers available to do the job.

New H-1B legislation requires certain employers, called 'H-1B dependent employers' to advertise positions in the USA before petitioning to employ H-1B workers for those positions. H-1B dependent employers are defined as those having more than 15% of their employees in H-1B status (for firms with over 50 employees - small firms are allowed a higher percentage of H1B employees before becoming 'dependent').

Step one for H-1B visa thus is to locate a good genuine employer. This could be done in various ways. Explore international placement bureaus, recruitment agents, your own friends/contacts/relatives in the US who could help locate one and the World Wide Web which is the biggest source of information on employers.

Web sites such as http://www.nostops.org/; http://www.h1bsponsors.com/; http://www.h1base.com/ are some of the web sites where you register yourself by paying certain fees and use their sources to communicate with possible employers in the US by placing your resume. Nostops.org is an Indian website operated from India and could be a better bet to start with whereas the others would want remittance for registration in US dollars.

You have to be aware and beware of body shoppers or scamsters who give false hopes, charge advanced hefty fees when there is no guarantee of a job.

Procedure

The procedure of filing for an H-1B visa petition is a three-step process and this is usually done by the attorney of the visa sponsoring company:

~ Verification and approval of the company by the Dept of Labor to file an H-1B petition on behalf of the candidate. (Qualify to be paying the Prevailing Wage Requirements, that they won't displace any domestic workers, show good faith in hiring practices, etc)

~ Verification and approval of the candidate by getting the transcripts of the candidate from overseas evaluated as per the minimum standards required to do the particular job for which the H-1B petition is filed. (Educational evaluation based on the applicant's education and work experience, awards, performance letters, etc) - This is done by the World Evaluation Services, which evaluates the foreign degrees as per the US standards.

~ Actual filing of the petition, which includes collecting documentation of both above and including the full non-refundable fees for filing the H-1B petition (which has to be paid in full). The company pays the entire amount of the H-1B petition filing fees upfront to the USCIS to receive grant of an H-1B petition approval for the H-1B aspirant.

Interaction with Customers - Some useful tips

2007-12-07T07:18:00.000+05:30

1. Do not write "the same" in an email - it makes little sense to them.
Example - I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you of
the same when it is done. This is somewhat an Indian construct.
It is better written simply as: I will try to organize the project
artifacts and inform you when that is done

2. Do not write or say, "I have some doubts on this issue"
The term "Doubt" is used in the sense of doubting someone - we use this
term because in Indian languages (such as Tamil), the word for a "doubt"
and a "question" is the same.
The correct usage (for clients) is: I have a few questions on this issue

3. The term "regard" is not used much in American English. They usually
do not say "regarding this issue" or "with regard to this".
Simply use: "about this issue".

4. Do not say "Pardon" when you want someone to repeat what they said.
The word "Pardon" is unusual for them and is somewhat formal.

5. Americans do not understand most of the Indian accent immediately -
They only understand 75% of what we speak and then interpret the rest.
Therefore try not to use shortcut terms such as "Can't" or "Don't". Use
the
expanded "Cannot" or "Do not".

6. Do not use the term "screwed up" liberally. If a situation is not
good, it is better to say, "The situation is messed up". Do not use
words such as "shucks", or "pissed off".

7. As a general matter of form, Indians interrupt each other constantly
in meetings - DO NOT interrupt a client when they are speaking over the
phone, there could be delays - but wait for a short time before
responding.

8. When explaining some complex issue, stop occasionally and ask "Does
that make sense?". This is preferrable than "Do you understand me?"

9. In email communications, use proper punctuation. To explain
something, without breaking your flow, use semicolons, hyphens or
parenthesis.
As an example: You have entered a new bug (the popup not showing up) in
the defect tracking system; we could not reproduce it - although, a
screenshot would help.
Notice that a reference to the actual bug is added in parenthesis so
that the sentence flow is not broken. Break a long sentence using such
punctuation.

10. In American English, a mail is a posted letter. An email is
electronic mail. When you say "I mailed the information to you", it
means you sent an actual letter or package through the postal system.
The correct usage is: "I emailed the information to you"

11. To "prepone" an appointment is an Indian usage. There is no actual
word called prepone.
You can "advance" an appointment.

12. In the term "N-tier Architecture" or "3-tier Architecture", the word
"tier" is NOT pronounced as "Tire". I have seen many people pronounce it
this way.
The correct pronunciation is "tea-yar". The "ti" is pronounced as "tea".

13. The usages "September End", "Month End", "Day End" are not
understood well by Americans. They use these as "End of September", "End
of Month" or "End of Day".

14. Americans have weird conventions for time - when they say the time
is "Quarter Of One", they mean the time is 1:15. Better to ask them the
exact time.

15. Indians commonly use the terms "Today Evening", "Today Night". These
are not correct; "Today" means "This Day" where the Day stands for
Daytime. Therefore "Today Night" is confusing. The correct usages are:
"This Evening", "Tonight". That applies for "Yesterday Night" and
"Yesterday Evening". The correct usages are: "Last Night" and "Last
Evening".

16. When Americans want to know the time, it is usual for them to say,
"Do you have the time?" Which makes no sense to an Indian.

17. There is no word called "Updation". You update somebody. You wait
for updates to happen to the database. Avoid saying "Updation".

18. When you talk with someone for the first time, refer to them as they
refer to you - in America, the first conversation usually starts by
using the first name. Therefore you can use the first name of a client.
Do not say "Sir". Do not call women "Madam".

19. It is usual convention in initial emails (particularly technical) to
expand abbreviations, this way: We are planning to use the Java API for
Registry (JAXR). After mentioning the expanded form once, subsequently
you can use the abbreviation.

20. Make sure you always have a subject in your emails and that the
subject is relevant. Do not use a subject line such as HI.

21. Avoid using "Back". Instead of "Back" Use "ago". Back is the worst
word for American. (For Days use "Ago", for hours use "before")

22. Avoid using "but" instead of "But" Use "However".

23. Avoid using "Yesterday" hereafter use "Last day".

24. Avoid using "Tomorrow" hereafter use "Next day".

Effective Teamwork

2007-12-03T12:31:00.001+05:30

Smart managers don't repeat mistakes

2007-11-28T14:50:00.000+05:30

There was a very famous guy called 'T'. Wilson, who really was the eminence grise of the Boeing airplane company for many years. In fact, he was the guy who, in the postwar period, built up the Boeing airplane company.

When I got to know T Wilson -- he was a lot older than I was -- I was lucky enough one day to be having a drink with him. He was the guy who brought the Boeing 707 to the marketplace, which was really the first highly successful commercial jet airplane. Like a lot of other things, the Brits got there first but simply never turned it into a serious business venture. These guys in Boeing did it. But as a result, the demand for the aircraft rose so quickly that they were buying immense volumes of aluminum, which was a major piece of the material for the construction of the aircraft.

I was asking him, when he looked back over his career, what were the most difficult times he'd had in dealing with the investment communities and the analysts of the New York markets. He reminded me of a situation that I'd heard about briefly but didn't really understand.

They were buying such big volumes of aluminum at the time, and the lead time on taking an order and delivering an aircraft was three to four years - depending on the market supply and demand - so prices fluctuated violently. It's very similar to the oil situation today, actually. So you could sell an aircraft and assume a price for aluminum of X dollars per kilo, but by the time you actually came to buy it, it could have changed dramatically, either upward or downward.

T Wilson said to me, "We just had to find a way of managing this risk and getting it under control." He said, "I called the guy who was the chief buyer and said, 'Look, for these reasons, we have to find a way of stabilizing the risks in this program, and we think we need to look at some form of hedging policy.'"

Well, this was in the 1960s. Today, hedging policies are perfectly normal events. We hedge currencies, we hedge material prices, we hedge oil prices; but at that time it was pretty revolutionary. Anyway, this guy understood the basis of it, went out, and was effectively buying aluminum ahead of rates. The market suddenly turned against [Boeing], they lost a ton of money, and they had to go to the market and announce an exceptional loss.

T Wilson, as the chief executive of the company, had to go to all the big institutional investors in New York and explain what had happened. You start off with the investors, then you go to the analysts, and then eventually - because the analysts talk to the press - you have to talk to the press about it.

Eventually, this guy finished talking to the press. He was having lunch with a journalist, and the first thing this journalist said to him was, "I sure was sorry to hear about the loss on your hedging book on aluminum, but I sure as hell hope you fired the son of a bitch who was responsible for it." There was a bit of a pause, and I said to T. Wilson, "Well, what did you say to him?" He said, "I looked this guy straight in the eye and I said to him, `You what? And learn that lesson all over again? For sure as hell I didn't fire the guy.'"

That's a great story that tells you about how management interacts with the guys that have to do the job. It's also a lesson that tells you, in management terms, that you only have to be right 51 percent of the time to be on the right side of the curve. Here was a guy who had stood up and defended a guy who had cost the shareholders and the company an immense amount of money and kept the guy on in the belief that the guy would never, ever make that mistake again.

That always stuck in my mind, when I've had guys working for me who've made some seriously big mistakes. It's very unusual for a high-quality person - and hopefully when you put guys in these positions they are high-quality people-to make the mistake a second time around. That was another big lesson for me in this business.

TAKEAWAYS

Everyone make mistakes, regardless of career experience, length of service or seniority. Firing someone for making a mistake maybe an error on your part. Once that person has made a mistake and realized the reasons behind it, they are highly unlikely to ever repeat their actions.
Trying something new and untested can lead to mistakes, which should be accepted as part of the learning curve and used as a foundation for future projects. You may find you learn best from your failures.

(Excerpted from: Leading By Example, Lessons Learned Series.)