ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ค. 2024
- Once upon a time, Indian firms thought local. Then they started thinking national. Do they need to think local again?
Welcome to Episode 37 of Everything is Everything, a weekly podcast hosted by Amit Varma and Ajay Shah.
In this episode, Ajay and Amit discuss the great waves in the evolution of Indian firms. Until the 1980s, firms thought local, and the branch manager of a firm was like a regional satrap. In the 90s, technology enabled them to nationalise and bring in best practices and processes. But they need to evolve further, as India is not one homogenous market, but is deeply diverse, much more so than Aurope or Africa.
On a related note, do we need to rethink the very design of firms?
Oh, and Amit's newsletter is furiously active again, so do read and subscribe at indiauncut.substack.com/
If you like watching Everything is Everything, please like, subscribe, share, comment. :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
00:00 Packaging
00:13 Introduction: Ajay the Baazigar!
02:20 Chapter 1: The Bad Old Days of the Old Indian Firm
07:59 Chapter 2: The True National Firm
14:44 Chapter 3: India is Diverse
27:17 Chapter 4: A Homogenised Market of One
32:20 Chapter 5: How Can Companies Adapt?
34:57 Chapter 6: Should We Rethink the Optimal Design of Firms?
46:49 Chapter 7: Amit's Recco
48:42 Chapter 8: Ajay’s Recco
USEFUL RESOURCES:
1. Amit on Twitter: / amitvarma
2. Ajay on Twitter: / ajay_shah
3. The Seen and the Unseen -- Amit's audio podcast: seenunseen.in/
(Also on all podcast apps. And TH-cam, though less than 1% of listens come from here: www.youtube.com/@TheSeenAndTh...)
4. Ajay's organisation, XKDR Forum, on TH-cam: / @xkdr
5. In Service of the Republic -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah: amzn.eu/d/hwGILb3
6. The Art of Clear Writing -- Amit's writing course: indiauncut.com/clear-writing/
7. The India Uncut Newsletter -- Amit's newsletter at indiauncut.substack.com/
8. The Beauty of Finance -- Episode 21 of Everything is Everything: • The Beauty of Finance ...
9. How Family Firms Evolve -- Episode 34 of Everything is Everything: • How Family Firms Evolv...
10. Kitaben Bahut Si -- Song from Baazigar: • Kitaben Bahut Si - HD ...
11. Is India a Flailing State? -- Lant Pritchett: dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/444...
12. Beta Tumse Na Ho Payega! -- Scene from Gangs of Wasseypur Part 2: • Beta Tumse Na Ho Payeg...
13. Sirf Ek Naam Sunayi Deta Hai -- Dialogue from Chak De India: • Sirf Ek Naam Sunayi De...
14. CMIE data: consumerpyramidsdx.cmie.com/
15. The Reason British Kit Kats Taste Better Than America's -- Gregory Lovvorn: tinyurl.com/fhfhymw8
16. Japanese Kit Kat Flavours -- The Complete List: www.japancandystore.com/blogs...
17. Main Aai Hoon U.P. Bihar Lootne -- Song from Shool: • "Main Aai Hoon U.P. Bi...
18. Rahul Matthan Seeks the Protocol - Episode 360 of The Seen and the Unseen: • Ep 360: Rahul Matthan ...
19. The Third Way - Rahul Matthan: amzn.eu/d/bkZ8Rhx
20. The Nature of the Firm -- Ronald Coase: tinyurl.com/292vd6tw
21. Seeing Like a State -- James C Scott: amzn.eu/d/9azMHSH
22. A Venture Capitalist Looks at the World - Episode 213 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Sajith Pai): • Ep 213: A Venture Capi...
23. The Indus Valley Playbook - Sajith Pai: / the-indus-valley-playbook
24. Ranbir Kapoor's dialogue from Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year: • Ranbir Kapoor Motivati...
25. Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh - Shrayana Bhattacharya: amzn.eu/d/101ZCBl
26. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman - Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya): • Ep 259: The Loneliness...
27. Vivian Gornick on Amazon: tinyurl.com/58xnzdjh
28. The Loneliness of the Indian Man - Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja): • Ep 303: The Loneliness...
29. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner -- Alan Sillitoe: amzn.eu/d/66N66iV
30. The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Trucker - Episode 192 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajat Ubhaykar): • Ep 192: The Loneliness...
31. The Discovery of India -- Jawaharlal Nehru: amzn.eu/d/dRaO9Z9
32. Glimpses of World History -- Jawaharlal Nehru: amzn.eu/d/4hOeY90
Produced by Amit Varma
Shot by Vaishnav Vyas and Nomsita MS Haritashya: / vaishnav.vyas
Edited by Nomsita MS Haritashya: / nomsitaharitashya
Thanks to Gaurav Chintamani for helping with sound: / gaurav_chintamani
Chapter images & additional illustrations by Simahina: / i_am_simahina
This is such a great episode. May be one of my favourites!
This reminded me of an Indian company I worked which had acquired many companies in Europe and some in the Americas. One of the reasons the non-Indian companies started doing badly was that there were increasingly more controls from the Indian HQ, with homigenised policies and processes. The European firms were family run and their promoter managers were not used to foreign firms that too in our case an Indian one dictating terms. Also the reporting also involved increasing usage of telecommunications and emails. In hindsight, I felt that some degree of decentralization would have been beneficial.
Marketing in the age of machine learning.
Ajay makes an interesting point about national firms getting lazy about catering better to local markets. I remember reading Gurcharan Das many years ago talking about how Hindustan Lever was able to create a new profitable segment by selling shampoo in small sachets that were affordable at the village level. The whole concept was devised by local marketing managers who understood their customer (and village/small town economy) better than HQ.
One may get dosa all over the world, but when I crave bene dosa it has to have the local Bangalore flavor.
Simple but incisive! Amit, in the last two episodes you vilified Nehru giving him labels of Prof. at Ashoka university & a podcaster. In ur own witty sense, you have showed mirror to our society.
Ajay, I interacted with you thru email, two decades back about illiquidity in small caps and resulting headache of price volatility.
I wish both of you to continue for ever.
TGIF! Best podcast in the world!
You’re forgetting TSATU
Great episode as always ! In time , is it possible to have an episode on first principles thinking and how can integrate the same into problem statements we face at work and in personal lives . Far too often, thinking is by analogy or based on knowledge which is never questioned , resulting in rabbit holes of poorer and poorer decisions.
AJAY is an economist and AMIT is a humanist.
If people read "discovery of India" I don't think modi would have been able to vilify him as brazenly as he does today
Love Ajay’s shirt
For argument's sake, if we consider an individual as a small firm, choosing between planning and flexibility in organizing one's interests/obligations/projects is also a problem. How do/would you guys look at it?
Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the episode on productivity, but I am keen to know how you guys think about it and manage it personally, especially when you can get so much done!
This reminded me of the emergence of region language content platform like Lersia Play which is a Mizoram based startup.
Also reminded me of stream platforms producing regional content. Eg Kerala Crime Files which was the first malayalam language webseries.
A Raja said India is a sub-continent. He got pilloried.
What are the differences show in 3 regions of Kerala?
All that's sought to be shown is the map and the geographical areas that are the 3 homogeneous regions that make up Kerala.
Hi Amit, i see two crutches next to Mr Shah , hope Mr Shah is well.
Check the hiking episode.
Loved the content, but the edit looked off. Many mid-sentence cuts made it a little jarring.
Actually, we didn't cut any of the content. The cuts that look abrupt do so because some of the chapter breaks were conceived post-facto. So not a word that we said was actually cut. Ajay and I could have planned the chapter transitions better.
Our editor is the best editor in the world. Thelma Schoonmaker is a close second.
Apologies, I didn’t mean to be rude here. Loved the content as usual. I’d love a chettinad masala Maggie, if anyone from Nestle is reading this 😂
Thank you for getting back. Cheers.
👋😊
Have to disagree with Amit on TH-cam ad customisation. I have been fed Marathi ads for a decade now despite never watching any Marathi content. Clearly the targeting is completely wrong.
Agree with Ajay on this - the data set they are using to target me is flawed and not fit for purpose. Explanation in the Book - We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves
by John Cheney-Lippold.
The ads you are fed is a separate point. What is the *product* you are getting? I bet all the videos your feed shows you are customised to you. Unless you've watched a Marathi video, there will be zero Marathi videos in there.