Reflections

THE COMPETENCY MATRIX : A BASIC LOOK AT FUNDAMENTALS This article is an instrospective analysis arising from a study of a multitude of sources relating to Management Theory and Practice, and has been born out of studying the Business Failure of a couple of organisations where I worked; thus, this is an attempt to answer some questions on where organisations fail, and how can we prevent failure. I have looked / am looking at many parameters of functioning – Logistics & Supply Chain, Sales, Marketing, Finance, and more… here, I focus on a part of Organisational Development and Business Strategy. Do leave a comment with your thoughts on the same. This is an article born of introspection and  studies of both theories as well as case studies - but I have abandoned theoretical approaches for a more brusque basic approach to explain the concept,  A Competency Matrix is a tool that documents the required competencies for each position in the organization; and ...

It is said that everything happens for a reason; of late I too have begun to subscribe to this viewpoint. As another confirmation, an event occurred which I can only state as yet another proof of the above – that things happen for a reason. It is also proof, for me at least, that once you start walking the spiritual path, you will automatically meet people who are of the same bent of mind, and are on the same path. This has happened before as well, though not on this scale, as spiritually inclined people came into my life repeatedly over the past 2 years. THE SUGGESTION However, yesterday was on an entirely different scale altogether, as I received a suggestion to attend Gurudev Rakesh Jhaveri’s sermons from an acquaintance. It was also an invite to meet Guruji personally for a short darshan. The clincher was that Guruji was a disciple of Shri Rajchandra, whose life-play Yugpurush was earlier reviewed by me. This was not an opportunity to be missed – and I grabbed it wi...

A Few Thoughts on Skill-Set Obsolescence One of the in-vogue-things in the modern world today is the suspected onset of AI etc enabled job losses. It came to me in a meeting yesterday, when for the first time I was confronted with the impact of technology on Jobs. . It came to my mind - so what is new about this? Throughout history in-demand Jobs, Skill sets have been changing; this is actually par for the course ... ledger accounting of the 70s has now given way to computer based accounting, for just one example; manpower intensive production of the earlier times has given way to leaner systems, for another example. Image Credit : Canva, Photo by Matan Segev WHAT IS NEW HERE? What is new about this shift from one skill to a newer one, basis technological change? Nothing... this has happened before, and will for sure happen again. That is the nature of life itself! Admitted, this time the scale is larger due to the pace of technological advancemen...

A HAPPY EXPERIENCE WITH A STARTUP AS A CONSUMER A startup, whose app did not impress me at all due to its seeming over reliance on Google maps for address mapping , just won my heart on a more detailed usage. A milk app, it did what no other has done, and I have tried more than a few app based daily consumption products startups. Most have failed on the customer satisfaction aspect, with a poor understanding of the separate requirements of customer consumer and shopper. Either that or they failed on  the aspect of core business processes like billing and /delivery. Image source : Google Search THE EXPERIENCE 1. Human interface, not those indecipherable IVR that make you want to do 3 PhDs in Language, technology and soft skills!! IVR connects to a human being (💖💖💖💖💖) in a few seconds flat!! Too many businesses, especially customer facing ones, forget this all too simple reality, that an IVR system is not necessarily the optimal choice. While essential as a ...