Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs

2012 was the year when I was on the freelance wanderlust on reading on the net. Among several subjects I pursued, one topic which has attracted my attention was Quality Management, in its quite wide spectrum.

If Tanmay Vora’s QAspire or Rajesh Setty’s wide-ranging articles or ASQ came up on the radar early on and have drawn my major (reading and seriously pursuing) attention, my quest for more and more wider ranging blogs /authors has remained quite fruitful.

Come 2013, and I firm up my freelancing reading into following a serious hobby of writing on what I like of what I read.

So here comes Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs, to be published on every third Sunday of the month.

In order to collect a fair number of articles under one roof, I have chosen the format of Carnival.

I have chosen this format because, “blog carnivals are a great way for bloggers to recognize each other’s efforts, organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere” (Courtesy: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/p_about.html).

I will be publishing these Carnivals as posts on my Blog – The world is too small? or Is it? Under  — — Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs category.

The focus of articles and blogs here would be relating to the Quality as a Profession and as Way of Life.

So, I look forward to 20^th Jan.,2013, the first-ever  3^rd Sunday when I plan to publish the First edition of this Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

બિઝનેસ મોડલ ગરીબોને ફાયદો થાય એવું બનાવો – Create a business model that benefits the poor – www.divyabhaskar.co.in

બિઝનેસ મોડલ ગરીબોને ફાયદો થાય એવું બનાવો – Create a business model that benefits the poor – www.divyabhaskar.co.in.

Not long ago Dr.C K Prahlad used to passionately advocate the concept of ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ and had explicitly established that given the right business model, this consumer segment had far more  untapped potential – both, in terms of profitability and  the market size.

He also used to establish that so-called ‘poor’ nations in fact did not suffer because of paucity of resources. They suffered because they are not utilizing their resources efficiently and effectively. This calls for invoking the instincts of innovation, inherently available in every human being but generally remaining very dormant.

Not many years ago, when there was hardly any presence of private enterprise – generally presumed to be efficient and innovative – many of the products and services of the public sector in the fields of education, health care, TV, Radio etc. were exemplary.

However, surprisingly the advent of private  sector in these fields in last 20 years seem to have deteriorated the performance and standards of performance. This is considered to be the most adverse comment on the free-market orientation of deployment of resources. The free-market mindset seems to be highly pliable to path of least resistance. The practitioners of free-market orientation need to read Robert Frost’s poem – The Uncharted Road.

in fact, reaching out the bottom of pyramid , the so-called “Aam Aadmi”, is the Challenge of 21st Century, as evidenced by Occupy Wall Street movement and the likes.

What incentives the young professionals of 21st Century need to take up this challenge?

The King of Good Times is now the pauper of bad times.

The growth of airlines industry in India seems to have happened quite unplanned.
Before, any meaningful comment can be offered, one needs to study the market share , the patterns of traffic, the cost structure, infrastructure management practices etc. of of each airline.
However,  few observations can be recorded at this stage:
1. Airlines seems to find competition uncomfortable. It is time that they are able to work out strategy of differentiating on factors other than price. As a customer, I have not preferred price alone. I would be necessarily guided by the preferred time slot for my travel, the experience of on-time travel. However, the airlines do not seem to have been able monetize their such USPs.
2. Certainly, [only] some routes may be profitable! but is it only the average, day-in-day-out load factor the only parameter driving that routes profitability?
3. The airlines are facing the monopoly in several other areas, like airport charges, fuel cost etc. But, this is not very much new for the industry as a whole. There are many industries  which have many customers [ meaning difficult to achieve segmentation and loyalty]; many players [Classic application of ‘Rule of 3’ – relatively fragmented supply side] and few [oligopolistic] structure of input suppliers [meaning that not much control on your input cost and /or quality performance parameters].

Certainly, the industry is in unenviable situation. But do they have not landed themselves in that condition themselves? If so, why, someone else should help them out?

[This is copy of my Comment to the original blog-post on BlogAdda’s Spicy Saturday Picks – Nov. 12, ’11]

Seth’s Blog: Questions for a new entrepreneur

Seth’s Blog: Questions for a new entrepreneur.

Really a smart piece, more for its brevity.

The last line is The Punch Line [of course, in my view], reproduced here – “why? Why are you doing this at all?”

Even as answering this question is universally important for any phase of anybody’s personal and professional lives [ so also, for the organizations], the truth full rely, including the genesis of the reasons – has profound bearing on initial and sustenance phases of  Entrepreneurship.