The modern all pervasive corporation

Disclaimer: This post is just food for thought. I don't have any plans to start a revolution. I am quite comfortable in my corporate environment and see the merits far outweigh the concerns. Also, this post is not intended to undermine those passionate achievers, entrepreneurs, leaders etc. who have caused a positive shift in human life. This post is for the larger majority of us who think we make a difference but in reality just add up to the numbers

The pandemic has got me thinking at levels I have not done in the past. Questioning the purpose of our existence, our actions. The fact that I read a bit of Harari's seminal work Sapiens in this period has also contributed to the thinking. 

There is no doubt that the human race is at its most comfortable stage in its history. In terms of human suffering due to war, food shortage, poverty etc. we have made great progress as a collective. In terms of general comfort whether its toilets, running water, accessibility, a roof on our head, gadgets to make everyday life easier; the current human race has it all and things will only get better. There are challenges no doubt, of unequal distribution of wealth and resources, poverty, lack of freedom in pockets but all these have seen a reduction in last 100 years.

In my view, there are 3 large contributors to our current state. The first 2 are fairly obvious. The third needs some discussion

1.The industrial and scientific revolution and the mass appreciation of role of education and science in making human life far more easier 

2. The role of democracy in allowing free thought, freedom to pursue your interests 

3. The role of free markets and the emergence of the role of large corporations in making everything an economic decision. 

The role of corporations in making the world more efficient and self-sufficient cannot be understated. Many areas get resolved when corporations come in. Large projects are executed, capacities created, bottlenecks resolved. Structural cost reduction, Structural demand generation (breakfast cereals??) etc. I have seen firsthand how the mandatory CSR spend requirement of the government in recent years has seen so much more professionalism and structural work being done in this space. Even the space of sustainability is driven by corporates seeing it to be of long term value. Electric cars are being made more efficient and economical by the day. Pharma companies continue to research in making more effective and cost effective drugs. Telecom is continuously trying to reduce cost, improve access. Start-ups are trying to identify gaps in the market and plug them with unique solutions.  Every corporate is working on making itself larger, more productive, more cost efficient, more responsible. All this makes the world a better place to live. Many of us have created tremendous value through our corporations. Henry Ford, Dhirubhai Ambani, Steve Jobs and many more such legends have achieved greatness through the route of corporations.

How has this modern day corporation evolved. It was not a concept that existed 500 years ago. Yet today, many of these are larger than the economies of some of the countries of the world. And who knows, 50 years hence, people may be known by the corporation they represent rather than their country or race or religion. 

But this is not the objective of my post. It was just context.

What is a corporation. A collection of people, driven by a common objective, creating a pool of assets and resources. People come and go, the objective remains, the resources increase. How has the modern day corporation managed to be so pervasive. An average human spends one third of his productive life dedicated to the service of a corporation. If you add time spent travelling, time spend preparing to become worthy (education, technical trainings etc.) to this, it may seem that the purpose of modern day life has become to be worthy of serving a corporation. Makes me wonder if we have conquered the hardships using corporations or converted hardships from the earlier ones to now serving corporations. Has the purpose of humans become serving corporations?

While at a whole, every organisation is striving for excellence, at the micro level it is doing this by creating a very high sense of purpose for its employees. Terms like vision, engagement, value creation, customer centricity and many more have got coined to capture, justify and rationalise everything we do in there. Banal pursuits become matters of life and death. High stress environments are created.  The vision and purpose of the organisation and serving its customers becomes the purpose of existence of all its employees. I may be working for a cigarette manufacturer and killing my customer, but i have to make sure every single packet is made, supplied and sold as quickly, efficiently and creatively as if everyone's life and not death depends on it. 

In some sense, isn't a modern corporation similar to a religious cult? Here we worship the customer, the shareholders profit and the corporations vision. Isn't it curtailing our freedom to do as we please? Doesn't it limit our actions, regiment us to think, talk and act in a particular manner? 

Case in point is Messi. One of the greatest footballers ever, richest sportsperson of our times, loved by millions for the joy he has given to them with his skill. Stuck in a contract to play for a club he doesn't want to. If he opts out, his career is stuck in a legal battle where the only people who win are the legal corporations on both sides. With all his riches and fame, he is a slave to his situation due to the modern corporation.

The corporation has given us all an opportunity to create impact which we may never have done as individuals. However, it may still merit a thought if this justifies it becoming a purpose of existence. 

Fundamentally, the purpose of all our existence is the same, the pursuit of happiness. How to achieve happiness may differ for each individual. In varying degrees, all of us have different things that make us happy. Some may get happy creating wealth, some by travelling, some teaching, some watching their children grow, some pursuing arts, some sports. However, the corporation regiments us. It tunes our thinking to make happiness equal to reward, and hence performance. Performance to meet the organisations vision, targets, KPIs. Of course this has caused tremendous human progress in last 200 years. It has created tremendous value, sustainable solutions for many problems, advanced technology. All of us have reaped the benefits of corporations in action. But then how do we balance the overriding influence the corporation has put on our worth and on our behaviour and our priorities?

Maybe, its time to for us to stop worshipping corporations and stop being corporate slaves. Or maybe, that time hasn't come yet. Lets just live for the weekend until then. 

Diary of a Nationalist

 

8 am: Dear Diary, today is going to be a wonderful day. It is the day I get to show off my new Bharat Mata tattoo. Got it done on my biceps yesterday night. It looks fab, especially with my black 'Being Human' tee.

This tattoo is an answer to all those intellectual traitors who keep giving sermons using big words like Jingoism etc. I think they know nothing other than big talk. We should be proud of our county and what better way to display the pride than this tattoo. I am going to get so much attention at the nationalist march tonight. More on that later, right now I am just excited walking around with it.

9.30 am: The day continues to be awesome. Managed to sneak into the bus before it halted and beat all those losers standing in the queue. I was lucky, managed to grab the last vacant seat. Now I can sit and browse thru the Indian Army Fans page on facebook and like and share all the pics. Nothing makes me feel more patriotic than sharing pics from this page. I share everything. My friend Vikas started lecturing me that day on sharing responsibly. Bahut pakaya, something about checking facts etc. Who has the time boss. Share what you like, and let people who want to, figure out if it is true. Anyway, this old lady came and stood beside me and started staring. Stupid old people, try to stare you into feeling guilty. Not going to happen woman. Here, look at my tattoo!

10 am: Too much traffic boss. Don't think I will reach college on time. Not that is matters much, but sitting in this heat is quite irritating. Atleast in the college hostel there is eye candy. And this aunty continues to stare at me. No way are you getting this seat lady, not in this heat and traffic. Wish I had a bike, then I could cut thru this traffic, jump signals and get to my destination faster. Need to start pestering dad for that bike he promised me for finally clearing first year.

10.30 am: My cousin Pinku called. He is in 10^th and wanted my advise on further course. I told him how to go about making a fake caste certificate. It will help him get into science and then either medical or engineering. He didn't know this was possible. I explained to him how I did it and managed to get into BE in Mumbai university. After all, its all about getting in. Baad mein toh degree mil hi jaati hai. Pinku was quite surprised and grateful. I even gave him the contact of Anil Bhai, who does the caste certificate work, and told him how to haggle for a lower fee. Pinku was going on and on about how thankful he was, so I asked him to send me some fresh raunchy clips… he is always well stocked with those on his cell.

Feels good when you can help your family. Now I feel like a responsible elder brother, responsible and patriotic.

11.30 am: Finally reached and settled in the canteen.  The bus ride was quite sad, but I made it up by managing to brush against this hot chick wearing a tight kurta, in the subway crossing. It was dark inside and a bit crowded and I too full advantage of the situation. Mast maal thi… she gave me a dirty stare, but who cares, bahut mazaa aaya. Awesomeness level of the day restored. Now to boast about it to my gang.

3 pm: Attended Prof Nene's boring lecture post lunch to nap on the last bench. Got caught and thrown out. Since everyone’s attention was on me, I ensured that my tattoo got a lot of visibility. Even some of the chicks were staring at it. The gang met up finally in the canteen. Could not get to boast much about my morning exploits in the subway though as Sunil kept yapping. He is such a talker, has so many things to share. Today he was telling us how his dad managed to evade taxes and convert white money to black.  Apparently, there is a concept of charity. So you give money to these farji charities in cheque and they return you cash, after taking a small cut. You can show that entire cheque payment for tax deduction. Solid idea hai, tax bhi bachenga aur white to black bhi. Let me tell dad. He was cribbing last week that this time he may have to end up paying tax. Let me also use this opportunity to make my case for a bike.

6 pm: What an afternoon! Our students union met and conducted a dharna outside Prof Phanse's residence on campus. That asshole actually had the guts to fail our president Ganesh for the third time in his Vivas. This time we had warned him of consequences, but he failed him again. So we started a rumor that Prof Phanse insulted our national leaders. Wasn't difficult at all. He is anyway a jhola carrying commie, all with a beard and kurta and all. Also keeps quoting Marx etc in class. We just put some random statement against his name on whatsapp. Anyway, people believe everything they read on whatsapp. There was a good turnout of 45 of us. We made some placards, clicked some selfies and shouted nationalistic slogans. Sunil gave the idea to do some toh-phod. So we threw stones and broke his window pane. I took advantage of the situation and even threw 2 stones on Prof Nene's window. 
Need to head home now.  We have to attend this nationalist march in the evening. Need to be ready for that. This march is a big deal for us. Dad is one of the organisers and has taken a target of getting 100 participants. All of us are going and doing our bit to help. He is giving me and Sonu Rs 10000 and mom Rs 15000 for help him. Mom and Sonu already blew the money on shopping yesterday as they want to look their best in the evening. Sonu has her eyes set on this top on display at the Gucci store. It has the right colour for today’s event too. It will however be no match for against my new tattoo. I also ended up saving Rs7000, which I plan to blow up tonight. All us friends will go to the disc after the march and get piss drunk. Post that, we plan to drive to Igatpuri in Sunil's car.

Mom has conned our maid into attending with her kids by promising to pay her for the 4 days she took leave last month, when she had jaundice. Mom has an awesome way of dealing with these lowlife losers. She just cut her salary and told her to give proof of illness.Now she is giving her that same salary if she promises to get 4 people in the march. I am sure she will find a way to recover this later. Last time she just chipped an old plate and blamed the maid and cut 200 Rs. Mom is the smartest, I tell you.

Dad has invited all our neighbours from the society. Many are joining. Except for that stupid Mr. Dhingra and his wife. They have a solid superiority complex. Just because their son is in the NDA, they think they know best. Mr. Dhingra started lecturing my dad on the being patriotic in actions and not to show others, or some such crap. Too much pak pak the Dhingra’s do. And Mrs. Dhingra, she really doesn't know how to dress up. Her son is a year elder to me, but she still wears jeans and skirts. She even goes to the society Gym. Once I was sitting with my gang and she passed by, I got a smart idea and cooked up a nice story about how she had invited me home one day afternoon, when no one was around, and seduced me. That story became quite famous.

Anyway, I will sign off now diary. Don't think I will get time to update tonight after the march and post march partying. It’s been a good day. Rather it has been a great day. I feel so proud and patriotic with my new tattoo. It’s too bad that the sleeve of my t-shirt keeps slipping down to cover the face of the tattoo. Wish Bharat Mata could see my exploits.

My generation

I am a youth of the 21st century
I only see what's in my face

I have a shot attention span
And love the media for manipulating this

I have opinions on all issues,
as under thought and under researched as they may be
After all Ignorance is bliss

And who has time after PS3

I believe in presentation over substance
after all its so easy to judge it
who will dig the fact when all one does
Is applaud and go home and forget

I believe online petitions n good intentions change the world
since they are so convenient to do

Its better than cribbing from my armchair
which also i love to do

I generally take out my frustration on innocent call center execs
and any other meek around
And believe consumption is the solution
To everything that's sad and unsound

I am the youth of the 21st century
there is so much I wish to do
but then, all I can do is write this poem
because I Suck, honestly I do!

why i will go for the commonwealth games

Ever since the day I declared my intent to go and watch the Common Wealth Games, a lot of friends have been looking at me strangely and some have frankly told me so. Clearly the event preparations have left a lot to be desired but its more clear to me now that we are a media puppet generation that feeds and reacts to all that is shown without bothering to see the bigger picture or the complete fact (a la peepli). There is no denying that there has been a lot of hanky panky (i am aware of it since 2 years now, when my colleague was trying to sell some paint into a CWG project site) and a lot of people need to be taken to task. However, all that can and will wait... its time now to go and watch the games.
Here is the reasons why I will go and watch the games in Delhi. Please note that Jingoism is consciously not part of any reason. Hopefully, some of these reasons will appeal to you and you will join me at watching the games. The reasons are in ascending order of priority

1. Infrastructure: A lot has been done to make the city ready for the games. I am really looking forward to viewing the T3, the complete metro line, the CWG lanes etc. Delhi infra is closer to first world now and I really hope mumbai catches up. Until then, I will go and enjoy the Delhi infra.
2. Celebrating Sport: Not really an original concept, but sport is a brilliant invention. It keeps us humans competitive without hatred, occupied without destruction, happy without making anyone else sad. Sport is a solution to world peace. It needs to be celebrated, and so we will.
3. This is a once in a life time event. I lot of us (who can afford) go and watch sport across the world. Its ironical that we choose to ignore it when it happens in our own backyard. And quality sport at that. 
4. Volunteers and organisers: Baring some bad apples, a lot of effort and planning has gone into making this event. Thousands of organisers have toiled away. Many volunteers have contributed with their time and effort into making this a smooth and successful event. I can only imagine the scale and extent of the effort required to make an event of this proportion. As someone who really enjoys event organising, and who has experienced the high one gets, when ones event is a success, I wish to contribute to all these organisers and volunteers getting their high.
5. Last but not the least , the athletes: These athletes have toiled away for years to be as good in their sport. They are extraordinary humans for their skill. They certainly deserve to be cheered and applauded for their skill. I for one have been a very loud critic of our nations one track obsession with limited over cricket at the expense of murdering all other sports (and domestic cricket and test cricket). Events like these, that encourage so many sportpersons are wonderful opportunities to make amends.

of reunions and social networking

Recently, there was one more failed attempt at doing a reunion of my engineering class. Having attempted it earlier, I was very cynical. However, I was still looking forward to it happening and had planned my day accordingly. Alas this one didn't take off. Only 5-6 people were finally turning up. Its a very standard affair with these engineering reunions. The junta in the states will always responds, maybe cos they really miss catching up with classmates or since they have the most genuine excuse. Then it is the regular 4-5 punters who turn up every time. Rest dont bother.

22nd may was the Mumbai leg of Anusmaran, the annual reunion of IIMB. Its been 5 years since we left campus and exactly 5 of the batch of 200 (atleast 50 are in town) turned up to celebrate the occasion. Clearly recession is over... last year we had a lot of networkers turning up! As one good friend of mine, who is a keen networker and quite social, justified to me in the morning, 'Jin se contact rakna hai, ho jata hai. Baki se milne me no enthu'

I quite enjoy reunions. Its a great joy for me to bump into long lost friends at reunions and catch up on their life. Have attended every one of those held of my Engg and MBA college. Just missed a recent school reunion.

Hence, it quite disappoints me when well planned unions fail to get a turn out. Also makes me wonder why and what can be done to turn this around.

Clearly the internet and Social networing have played their part. I had lost touch with all but 2 classmates from school. Now, most are on my friend list and we even have a community of our own. Atleast 10 wished me on my birthday recently. Have caught some movies with a few off late.

So while social networking may have played its part in connecting long lost friends, it may also be contributing to the reduced interest in meeting

However, i feel that the most important factor is the bandwagon effect. (This is one of the rare terms of Kotler that I actually internalised). Most people want to be a part of a fun, successful event. They ask their cool friends. Each one is waiting for someone else they like to say he is going. Chicken n egg, and in the end, no one goes.

Bandwagon is also responsible for the rise and fall of social networking. In 2005, Orkut was cool (in India). By 2007, facebook came in. Today, its twitter. I remember a friend of mine telling me, orkut is so lame, facebook is cool. Of late, people say the same of fb and twitter (which really is nothing much than 1 feature of fb, if u ask me). As someone who has active friends in all 3 places, let me tell u that I still know a lot of very cool people (some of my coolest trek friends) who are very active on orkut and dislike facebook. Similar with twitter. Clearly, it is not interface or functionality. It is pure and simple bandwagon. I will be active where people bother to acknowledge my activity. People who I want to network with have to be there. That's that! Interface is just an excuse.

Today Twitter is the rage, tomorrow it would be lame. Since, I have always been about a year late on these phenomenons, I might begin to appreciate it then. Anyway, the point here is not to say which is better, it is to say that all parameters of cool and lame are just based on which people we know are active where.

So in summary, its not social networking that is killing reunions, but bandwagon effect that is determining the success of both! Now you know, doesn't make an earth shattering difference to your life, carry on doing what you were, before you read this!

Politics of Rabblerousing

1 day after local political parties fell over each other trying to establish their love for the state, some views that I have been thinking on. Let me pre-warn that these are my personal views and there may be factual gaps due to my limited research and knowledge. Also, one may choose to disagree, but it has to be done maturely. Please post comments, if you wish, but no long sermons.

9th March 2010, Raj Thackeray celebrates the 4th anniversary of MNS. Immediately after that, some party people go and throw stones at an Airtel Office. Their reason, some service that Airtel was not providing in a local language. Cut to March 2006, after touring some parts of the state, Raj Thackeray announces the founding of MNS. His first speech is quite a surprise. Anyone who has some awareness of his ways, was expecting a hard line agenda. However, he surprises all by talking of development and development only. I am discussing this with an office colleague and it seems to us that he was clearly trying to align to a more moderate line and target a larger segment of the youth, and honestly, as much as I was aware of lack of intention, I am heartened by the assessed approach. Ofcourse very few will remember this now.

So what changed - The first election results. Raj Thackeray realised that while his moderate stand and pro development agenda was getting him positive reviews, it stopped at that. He hardly got any votes and drew blanks in the first few elections the MNS stood in. Soon he changed course and by late 2007, the MNS had firmed up an anti migrant (specifically North Indian) agenda. Raj was clearly unapologetic on his views and more the English media castigated him, more it helped him in his positioning. Congress's tacit support helped. The 2009 assembly elections saw MNS beating the Sena in Mumbai and Nasik and clearly chipped away a huge chunk of the Sena vote. While some people may have been surprised by the quantum of their vote, not too many were surprised by the overall trend. Immediately the Sena went on an attack to protect its vote bank and since then the Marathi Manoos has had everyone falling over to please him. Thus, the over board approach to Maharashtra day yesterday.

So whats my point here. The above is just an example of what I have observed in Indian politics over a few analysis. To create a loyal vote bank out of zilch, one cannot take a slightly off center stand. One has to go hammer n tongs on an issue that matters deeply to a few to establish to them unequivocally that you are 100% committed to the same. The vote bank does not evaluate you objectively on your intentions (for example, Raj Thackeray's kids go to a high society cbse English medium school that still has Bombay in its name) but focuses more the decibel and destruction levels of your campaign. This is precisely where the English media has contributed to Raj Thackeray's growth. By giving him so much negative attention, they have helped him remain in the lime light and also won him more sympathy from those who are leaning to the Marathi manoos cause. I admire the man for his political acumen. He deliberately chose to give all interviews in Marathi in the run up to 2009 assembly. Moreover, he chose to allow the English media to take his case (most will remember the Rajdeep Sardesai interview), where possible ,to increase his vote banks loyalty. Congress was smart enough to not arrest him, they realised it would only make them the villain and help his cause a lot more than they wanted.

One has to be a Rahul Gandhi to be able to take a rationalist view on issues and gain positive votes for the stand. This will not dent the traditional vote base and will only add. Raj Thackeray may be capable taking the rationalist view, but he will not capture a vote bank for it. Politics of rabble rousing is an essential ingredient for any nascent political party to establish itself. One cannot take a moderate stand and survive. One has to identify a cause significant to a few. Moreover, stating ones support for a cause is not sufficient, one has to destroy public property and cause disruptions to be able to gain political mileage from the stand. TRS is an example here. Even if the BJP supports the Telangana cause for a few years now, it is only the TRS and its ways that help them gain votes on basis of their stand. Ditto will happen in case of Vidharbha, where again BJP is pro division. Expect a Vidharbha Rashtra Samiti or something similar to come up soon and start attacking public property and then end up with 5-10 MLAs in the assembly putting token protests once in a while!

So now that we have established the point, let us try and see why the politics of rabble rousing actually works. Few reasons that I have derived are

1. Development is a much maligned word. It is thrown around all the while by all and sundry. No voter believes a politician when he uses the D word. Only a Shiela Dixit and a Narendra Modi can get away with those for a while, that to after proving themselves over a few terms. No one is going to believe K Chandrashekar Rao or Raj Thackeray if they harp the development agenda.
2. Attention spans of people are dwindling. No one remembers (or cares for) what you said 2 years ago. Its your current stand that matters and there to, its what you say that matters. Who cares weather you walk your talk or genuinely mean what is said.
3. Bulk of the educated and thinking class (which may be a bit less susceptible to point 2 above) finds it below its dignity to vote (and I have every right to criticize here as i have not missed casting my vote in any election). Clearly a lot of us just want to do token lip service. And ofcourse, we are champions at externalising. So we will not vote since we don't find any candidate suitable. We will not bother that, our not voting, is leading to the political parties to put up candidates who will appeal to those, who will vote come what may! I have very strong views against my elitist friends from south Mumbai who went all bonkers after 26-11 coining slogans and joining facebook communities like 'Enough is Enough' but then skipped voting in the election 4 months later as it was too hot or the kids had their summer vacations (Colaba recorded a pathetic 40% turn out, hypocrites). So since majority of the rationalist do not vote, why bother targeting them.
4. Media loves sensationalism. The smart politicians have realised this and are using the media to propagate their views. Cause some mayhem and suddenly you are on national news. Even Barkha Dutt (sic) wants to interview you and in conjunction to point 2 above, you have arrived in main stream.

So now that we have established the point and the cause, whats the way forward. Clearly words like raising awareness etc do not work. We have to take our democracy and its polity for what it is. Even the level of maturity and fairness in the system is a miracle for a country with 1 billion people, deep prejudices, limited levels of education and the arrogance of the educated class. I clearly do not have a solution. But I do believe that understanding the problem is part of the battle won. And hopefully as more of the educated and aware classes start voting, this point will get less relevant. And once again, for yet another reason, I believe that our immature media needs greater regulations.

Things and People I have never understood

1. Airline Passengers, be it the jeans n tee strutting budget traveler or the tie n laptop variety of corporate travelers (really pity the later souls actually)

a. Their inexplicable knack of queuing up to get anywhere... be it while checking in (the bus will not leave without u buddy) or piling at the door of the bus (the flight will not leave without u buddy) or in the aisle when the flight lands. The last one I find most strange since it is obvious to all that, one can only alight when the ladder is out and besides, one will still have to wait for the bus and then the bags... so what value is served by standing at all those awkward angles and violating each others personal space?
b. Their absolute need to remain connected to the rest of the world all the time. Dude, cell phones were not invented for the first 20 odd years of your existence and you managed just fine. So why don't u just follow the law and switch off your phone. Also, why cant you wait for the flight to come to a halt before switching it back on. It may seem like a pointless rule to you but whosoever has made it probably knows more about communication systems than you and me. Besides, ain't you the guy who cringes n cribs when he sees someone else breaking rules outside of this aeroplane?

2. The auto rickshaw wallah
As a supply chain guy, system efficiency is always top on my priority list. Thus, I have always had issues with the auto rickshaw driver and his absolute disdain for the same. He is always cutting lanes and causing more traffic mayhem, thereby increasing travel time for himself and everyone else without realising that this is also reducing his fuel efficiency and hence increasing his costs. I have tried to explain this logic to a few of them but it seldom has any impact

3. Timelines of road projects
Why does it take longer to build a small bridge, when large apartment complexes get made in shorter durations. Why don't the authorities cost the loss to the county in the reduced fuel efficiency of all cars stuck in consequent jam. If this is done, one would realise how much we are losing every day the project is delayed. This penalty should then be recovered from the delaying agency and all concerned.

4. News channels
Their total confidence in the intellectual disability of their viewer is quite strange. While sensationalizing, reporting unconfirmed data and subtly passing off opinions as news is endemic problem, what I cant fathom is their insistence on repeatedly bombarding you with the same point in 5 different sentence constructions, 15 times. Most irritating is the live correspondent who seldom has anything new to add but insists on repeating all the facts 2-3 times and refuses to go back to the studio... Footage-hungry bugger!
Thank god for online news sites, I have not seen TV news for almost 2 months now.

5. Random Studies
"A recent study has found that being born is the chief cause of death. After 2 years of studying 20000 deaths over that have occurred 200 years, researches have concluded that 99.93% of the people who died were indeed born, thus establishing without doubt the correlation"
The above may have been inspired from onion (check it out) but you get the drift. Loads of money is wasted establishing correlations which are plainly obvious and loads of news space allocated to publishing such pointless results. Bulk of them are pertaining to how exercise can reduce obesity, prevent xyz disease etc. Cant you guys just state the obvious and stop wasting everyone's time and money in establishing it!

Of ethics in marketing

“Complan peene waale bacchen badhe baki bacchon se teen guna jyada!”

Thus goes the punchline of the latest campaign by Complan. And suddenly it hits me… all these years of cursing our genes. All these years of looking up at the tall Europeans. Darn, if only our ancestors had discovered Complan earlier, we would have ended up being a taller race. Darn, if I had switched from bournvita back then, I could have been a 6 footer by now… stupid me getting conned by the catchy jingle.

I am sure you get the drift of my sarcasm. It’s clearly stupid to believe that one energy drink can impact your height or make you grow faster. But then again, why are they claiming such. And why is there an independent study to back this claim. Then again, this is just one example of so many such campaigns.

In MBA, I belonged to the famous majority of confused about career choice. I clearly liked operations and supply chain, but with the limited courses and career opportunities on offer, I had realized my passion a bit too late, or so I thought. Consequently, as a back up, I took a few marketing courses. Marketing was definitely interesting (much more than finance definitely) and I did manage to get a hang of it. Ofcourse, I did not share the same level of passion that I saw in some of my batch mates, nor was did I dwell on it enough to gain “greater insights”. I did manage to get a job in one of the FMCG cos in sales but to the best of my memory, the interview was mainly personals and the guy was quite impressed by my passion for F1 and event organizing rather than any marketing insights I might have had. Moral of the story, I would certainly have been a very ordinary brand manager, if ever I survived to make it there. Moreover, my marketing knowledge is half baked and can be looked at as an outsider’s perspective (too many rides, criticism wary are us!).

However, it not the fact that I would be doing something that interest me less or something that I would be just about average at (small assumption here that I am good at what I do right now) that makes me shudder at the thought. It is the thought that I could have been that brand manager responsible to developing the campaign above, and such others. I mean, what if I was the brand manager required to deliver the above positioning? One skill that I might have been able to put to use is a good knowledge of stats which might help tamper the sample data and hence results of the “independent research”.

Supply chain (especially outbound logistics) is so much simpler. You do not have to fight with your conscience at basic levels. Your job is to get things done most efficiently and at the least cost. No real conflicts there. Ofcourse sometimes there are ethically tough decisions to be made, but then, those are seldom in the realm of fooling someone (whom you are supposed to worship) with inadequate and wrong information. It is a problem that I see mainly in sales and marketing.

Ofcourse, unlike lawyers and politicians, not everything that a marketing guy does is evil. Clearly, brand positioning and hence communication is just one of the many things a marketer does. Moreover, not every brand communication is filled with lies. To my knowledge, Brand communication has 3 objectives and hence types

1. Communicating the functional attributes of your product (or category in its nascent stage)
2. Creating an aspirational value for the brand (a la pepsi, adidas etc)
3. Providing customer insights on why your brand is better than competition

It is point 3 (and in a tighter interpretation, point 1) that I see most disturbing and gray. My limited experience in the paint industry leads me to believe that any product is a slave to its technical design. No two products are directly comparable. Moreover, especially in case of competitive products from big brands, it is very difficult to hit a winner. So while your product may be better off in some attributes, in others, it may not meet up to competition parameters.

Now the question for a sales or marketing guy is, would you put all facts on the table and let the customer make his decision, or would you go hammer and tongs on the attributes that are superior. Would you get “independent studies” carried out to back up your claims? Or would you just make a convenient interpretation of some tangential fact and make a claim that is unverified? (an old example in this regard http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?204602)

More interestingly, What if you yourself believe that your product is inferior (and also badly priced) compared to a competition product?

Marketing as a field throws some really tough ethical questions, especially for the guy who genuinely believes that the customer is the king. (A good king, not a stupid one who should only be told what you deem is relevant)

Ofcourse, these problems are not restricted to marketing. They are also linked to product design. Infact the product design team has the tough job of working in the tightest of constraints. Possibly, it is they who come up with some of the most creative tests and results to establish the superiority of the product they have designed. However, they are not the ones talking to the customer. Moreover, since that was never in my list of options, nor are any of my potential readers in that field, I will leave them out of this discussion for now.

So here is the question to all my brand manager friends, would you go ahead any glorify your product based on incorrect/incomplete/conveniently doctored information? Would you let yourself be a party to the Complan campaign as it is? Or am I missing something here?