Mont Blanc

I am the world most premium writing instrument maker. So I decide to take two actors who have not made any great name for themselves, who could be as far from writing, as 'far' could be and make them my brand ambassador.

I really wish to know who really put that ad together for Mont Blanc and who there was foolish enough to approve of the same. In a country with a population of more than a Billion people; they could not find one descent family that was into writing. I really want to know what great thing Anil Kapoor wrote.

It is quite obvious that Mont Blanc has spent quite a bit of money on that stupid ad. It really gets me thinking how many Ad companies really screw such brands over...

Run and Get Hit

It appears strange to me that there is a 'Hit and Run' case, when someone jumps in the middle of the road and gets hit by car that is travelling at 100 Kmph. There should be a 'Jump onto the road and get Hit' case. Why is it that the person driving the car is deemed wrong irrespective of whomever's fault it may be? There is a desperate need for addressing this.

Today as I drove back from the Bangalore International Airport, there were several of these suicide attempts that I witnessed and the thought struck me, that if any of these attempts, succeed. The driver of that vehicle will be put through the pains of having to answer to the court, police, family of the deceased, etc. There has to be a means by which the victim can clearly be identified. Just because someone is safe or has managed to survive an accident should not by default render them as the criminal party.

Global Warming

One of the key issues facing the world at the moment is Global Warming, there is a lot of money that is being committed by companies, industries and nations alike. There is a paradigm shift in the way business calculate costs due to legislations related to Global Warming coming into effect. The truth of the matter is that there is no empirical proof that can justify the cause and effect. It may not be necessary that cars are causing the warming, it might be that the increase in human population is causing the same.

It is a well know fact that there were ice ages and somehow the thaw happened, did it not, the ice ages went away and there were no cars at that time. The industrialization of the world had not taken place and neither had humans stepped on the planet. Then why is that the phenomenon of 'Global Warming' is squarely blamed on the same. Is it just a way of ensuring that people succumb to committing money to unnecessary activities and a new industry is spawned?

We may never know. The only one who would know the truth are the people presenting the 'Inconvenient Truth'. All I understand is that global cooling and warming has been happening on a repeated basis for ages. This is not something new. Then what is the entire fuss all about?

Or as George Carlin rightly put it "The earth is not dying, it has been here for billions of years and will continue to remain for another billion years long after we are gone... The earth is not dying, WE ARE..."

Nobama

I had almost stopped writing blogs completely and then they gave the Nobel prize of Barack Obama. I simply had to write. The Nobel committee says that Obama has given great amount of hope for peace and hence he has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If that is the case, then a lot of people who work for NGOs should also be given the same they also give hope. Every psychological rehab should be given the Nobel, the only thing they do it give their patients hope so that they can get better.

Nelson Mandela and many others who were given the same prize for a lifetime of work would feel like fools. They actually went that last time to create peace.

I just remember one quote of George Carlin's - Americans, we are war-like people. We just like to fight wars. Its exciting, its good for the economy. We are a country that is 200 years old and has already fought 10 major wars. That is an average of one major war every 20 years. We like bombing the hell out of people.

I think Obama is just being rewarded war not conforming to the same philosophy.

Obama - The best marketer of 2008

Obama was the theme of 2008. The entire year he was involved in the process of marketing himself and his idea. First against Hillary Clinton and then against John McCain. He gave the Americans exactly what they wanted to hear; that he was going to bring to change to the country.

If we had to go by statistics, the likelihood of Obama having become the president of USA was very slim. To start off he was black(creamie), America had never had a black man for a president. Secondly, he was not someone who had a strong political or for that matter a corporate clout standing behind him. Agreed there were those who believed in his ability to take the position, but nonetheless; he did not have a strong clout of rich and powerful people behind him.

What he had, was the clarity of positioning. He positioned himself as a savior for the black people. He positioned himself as the one who can turn the nation around. He positioned himself as the one that did not have any bias or inclination which would force him to do the wrong thing. He used his disadvantages to his advantage over the course of the election campaign. His positioning appealed to a large number of Americans. He had cracked the marketing code that was required.

Now that he has taken care of the marketing end of the job and got himself into the white house, let us see if we can deliver on the promises that he has made!

Satyam Fiasco

By now everybody in the civilized world is aware of the scam that is Satyam, from beginning to the end. What was reason for such a huge failure in corporate governance? More importantly, these so-called panels that were awarding Satyam awards for corporate excellence, what were they basing their judgement on? The point here is that it is not the failure of one, but all.

The accounting firm hired by Satyam, PWC might be breathing its last; with calls for banning the firm from all across the world, the odds of them surviving this fiasco looks slim. Though, it throws an even more important question into light, should the scrutiny of the accounts be left alone to independent organizations. Would this have happened if SEBI or a company that is under SEBI was responsible for verifying the accounts. I agree, humans have a horrible vice - Greed; and there is room for corruption here as well. Certainly, the magnitude of fraud would have never reached these proportions.

Satyam has shown that SOX act is also not effective at curbing corporate frauds, being listed on the NASDAQ, the financials had to meet the US GAAP Standards and also comply with SOX requirements. If there is a will; there is a way. So much for Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley.

The need is to come up with better solutions in order to prevent such frauds from happening. The board has to be more responsible to its investors. They can't just resign claiming ignorance. Technology enables us to have unlimited access and scope. We have video conferencing, ERP systems, classified access and all this if not used for the purpose of governance; then what? Vinod Dham sits in NY and says he was not aware of the accounts books, was he aware of the cash coming into his account? What was he drawing it for? The entire board independent or not must be held accountable for this.

Mr. Raju acquits everyone in his letter; Rubbish! How can the vertical heads not know how their businesses were doing? This is just unjustifiable nonsense.

Let us see what happens? 48 hours after his confession, he has not even been arrested thanks to the political backing that Raju has. Is he just going to walk away from this?