The top 12 books on Innovation and Design by Business Week

Here it is ... Finally , we have the list of top 12 books on Innovation and Design for 2008.

Business Week has a great list here, but has missed out on 2-3 books which could have made it to the list.

Read it here Best Innovation & Design Books of 2008

I have read three of the books in the list

The Game Changer by Ram Charan and A.G Lafley

The Age of Innovation by C.K Prahalad and M.S Krishnan

The Back of the Napkin by Don Roam

Want to read :

Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Book that should have made to the list :

The New rules of Marketing and PR by David Scott

Tribes by Seth Godin

Share your thoughts and your list... would love to have opinions here

How the Rs 10 soup selling gal gets its right and Satyam doesn't on customer service

The race to MBA degree is mind boggling. In India especially, it is craze sometimes rivaled only to cricket. You can see it for yourself the hordes of mba wanna- be's and the media coverage peak during the Nov-Jan season every year. What a spectacle to watch . Almost every magazine worth its salt come out with b-school survey giving a list a top 50 colleges "you should study at " . Some even bring out a separate book to cash in on the boom. And, hey .. don't count me out.. I am in the race too .

A degree in MBA teaches you to understand cash flow statements, how to come up with great marketing ideas and all that jazz. But I wonder how did Shankari ,a 1 st year B.Com student from a low rung women college get great ideas on marketing and customer service.

Let me give you the story first .

I love soup and for having that one or two cups of it I go all the way to Ananna Nagar park where this guy sells really mouth watering , pipping hot soup ( completely natural ) at Rs 6 per cup. He has good stuff. You have to give him that credit !

These days( 3 months approx) , I drink soup from one of the Fresh retail outlets i visit. The soup is sold in small kiosks at Rs 10 per cup. You would have seen similar kiosks selling sweet corns and popcorn's at a retail store near to your house. Small enterprising men/women take franchise contracts from the company which sells these products , then pay rent to the retail store and put up a kiosk outside and sell it. Great business idea . Has the ideal ingredient of entrepreneurship, job and wealth creation and good products to customers at affordable rates.

Now, getting back to the story . Shankari is a 1st year student studying for B.com at W omen's College. She sits at the kiosk every evening with a book in hand selling Rs. 1o per cup soups. I have options to chose as well - Tomato, Plantain, Mushroom, Vegetable. For reasons unknown to myself I always buy Plantain or Mushroom. I knew what I was buying but never gave it much thought to it. I just go up ask , say , Monday it is plantain soup , Tuesday it is Mushroom. It is cyclic.Till the day - about 3 weeks back - shankari popped the question at me , " Sir, why do you always buy Mushroom and Plantain soup, why don't you ever try Tomato and Vegetable?" ...

I dint know what to tell her. I muttered and gave some lame answer about my preference for mushroom and not liking tomato taste and stuff.. the next question caught me by surprise.

"Sir , other than mushroom and plantain, what other variety you like ?" ..

I gave her my options. And then asked what is she gonna do about it . She said , " I will ask my brother to check if the company can give us the soup of your choice" ..

That bowled me out completely . Why did she bother to find out what my taste are ? why didn't she just sell the soup at Rs 10 and continue to sit and study with that book in her hand ? why ? why ?

Normally, unless you pack it to your house, one drinks the soup standing there right next to Kiosk. There are 2 advantages to it - One , the soup remains hot and two you get extra corn as second helpings. I love the corn which comes with the soup , so I stand there and finish the soup then drop it in the dustbin and go back home.

That day, while I was standing there drinking the soup ( I was drinking vegetable soup with lots of pepper. I had cold and shankari said drinking that soup with lots of pepper helps) she was asking the same question to other customers of hers. Not every one. But a lot of them . Similar questions . In her own ingenious way she was conducting a survey. Maybe she realized what she was doing . Maybe she dint. That is not the point. She was proactive. She tried to understand her customer.

Later when i asked why she only asked the questions to a select few customers , she replies , " They are my regular customers" ..

I felt privileged to be her customer and beamed...

Her brother has taken the franchise contract from the parent company. While she sits at the fresh outlet , her bro is doing the same thing some other part of the city.

I wonder if she had read any of those management books? Did she read "The New Age of Innovation: Driving C0-Created Value through Global Networks" by C.K Prahalad on how to serve customized products to a customer in a collaborative environment with the N=1 , R= G rule ? How did she get this idea what a Univerity of Michigan Author did after much research ?

By the way, The New Age of Innovation made it to the top 12 books on innovation given out by Business Week.

Read it here : Best Innovation & Design Books 2008

But how come Stayam Computers dint get it right ?

The big fiasco of merger/buying Mayatas infra and properties which caused ripple of appalling magnitude among the investors across the table is there for everyone to see.

I read somewhere that the ISB's dean was also part of the board which took the decision to buy out the two companies ( run by Ramalinga raju son's). I am no authority to question the merit of the proposed buyout. Nor am I an investor. As a rule i don't directly invest in Sensex. No speculative, sentiment prone gambling for me..No Sir.

But what I would like to know is how come such highly educated ,the creme-la-de creme managers and CEO and CFO of the company dint have the inclination to ask its investors and clients their opinion before taking such a decision? How come the MBA's of IIM and MDI and blah blah dint know the tenets of customer service when such a proposal was mooted in the first place?

But man, what a PR and Corp Comm nightmare they should be having right now ? I cant but feel sorry for the guy who is handling the company's PR account. He must be literally running pillar to post to get things "done" .The green horns must be having a great time in learning the art of crisis management. what better case study can they get .. ?

By the way , I loved the new Idea Cellular ad . About asking the people first before taking a political decision. The creative guy and the copywriter deserve full marks for the new ad . The previous ads were highly creative but not practical . The new one is very creative, very practical and got the execution right . kool Ad huh ?

IBM has a great caption going for its print ads - "STOP selling what you have and Start selling what they want". Now, they get it ! .. Bingo ..

You get the drift ?

About time we looked at Rural India !

My uncle wanted to know if I was preparing for IIM exams ( notice that he dint ask me Cat or Xat but IIM) i dint have much to answer him except that , " No, I am not interested in IIM's or XLRI's or any of the so called top colleges" ... he gave me the incredulous look that you would have probably see when you hear that"Kumar" Mayawati has become the PM of our country.

And so when he asked me what my future plans were . I had to give him the truth . I told him though i am in the advertising field I would like to explore opportunities in Rural or Health care marketing . I also told him that 5-10 years down the lane I would like to specialize in marketing/branding for rural areas and start a non-profit company.I am very passionate about using the tools and knowledge of marketing and integrated PR in Health care/fitness Industry or Rural Marketing.

He gave me that OK-i-don't-get-your-stupid idea look with a you-aint-gonna-go anywhere with that kinda nod and changed the topic. But not before it got me thinking about , " why not rural India ?" .

Have you guys read the phenomenal book " Fortune At the Bottom Of The Pyramid" by C.K Prahalad (Alumnus of Loyola College , IIM-A and Harvard)? If you haven't yet .. then run to your library or better still buy yourself a copy of the book read it . Now is the right time to read the book. As global recession is going south bound and no one has a clue to what to do next .. here is the book which will give answers to the big MNC 's .. and entrepreneurs alike .

(This is not a book review. As a personal principle , I don't write write reviews. I recommend books to my friends but i never give them or at least try not to unless asked, a review of the books I read. Who am i to take a judgment call on another man's work ?)

Getting back to the crux of the post and in conjunction to blog title , I think multinational companies in India and abroad should start looking at reaching out to rural cities/villages to stay afloat during recession. Or prevent another recession

Most SME's and MNC's ignore rural areas because they believe that people in such cities/villages have no buying power. They are considered poor by most global standards. But, that is exactly why we need to see them in a completely different perspective . C.K Prahald challenges the myth that considers poor people as poor when they are not . He quotes the work of Hernando De Soto's book "The Mystery of Capital" which postulates that poor countries ; people from rural areas are not really that poor. They are often asset-rich and capital -poor. To quote from the book , " Assets cannot become capital unless the country guarantees a rule of law- primarily the law of contracts - whereby the ownership of assets is clear..... For example, he ( Mr Hernando Soto) estimated that the trapped resources of Mexico are about $ 300 Billion" .

That is a phenomenal number! Imagine what potential can India have when 80% of India's population in the Bottom of The Pyramid (BOP) slab will be able to quantify ? This 80% currently accounts for 67% of the current consumption. Aint that an awesome information to behold ? India is quite simply and easily one of THE richest nations in the world and all that potential waiting to be tapped and unearthed. We should be doing that now!

The Big Idea ? If MNC's and SME's ( Small and Medium Enterprises ) can come up with innovative, cost effective and customized products for the rural markets we would unleash a massive wave of marketing and innovation revolution in India. This would also force goverment to work with private companies to set up better infrastructure, proper health care and free education.

Here are my thoughts on a macro scale where we can make some mega changes in this sector :

Not just 4 metros : Metros are so termed because of the huge population and infrastructure growth. I suggest the state govt with the center remove the metros tag altogether. metros means metropolis. Taking TN as an example, let there me more metros in TN alone. Identify and improve those cities . say - Trichi, Coimbatore, Erode..etc .This idea can also be reflected in other states ..

Infrastructure : Have you been noticing that the number of cars in Chennai increasing and really pissing you off ? Ever wondered why ?The answer is obvious, the middle class are getting prosperous and buying new/more cars. But why only chennai ( and other metro cities across the country) city alone? Because every year, of the lacs of engineers,diploma holders who pass out of universities come to cities like Chennai to work. Because MNC 's are well entrenched in metros. Simply put - they seek out better job opportunities and enhanced standard of living. Why not give these Young Turks opportunities in their home cities? Why not prevent them from migrating to the cities? Instead provide opportunities in their native places.

Young Turks : Have better local knowledge: These Young Turks ( as i would like to call them) can be better exploited or rather groomed by companies as they will have better working knowledge of the people in their area. Give them proper training and they will reward you with a better perspective on marketing, product development and sales, much better than IIM grads. And hey, you don't have to pay top dollars for these turks . Pay them not with just good salaries but show them how they are contributing to their society through the company and you would even reduce attrition rates. Make them not - sales executive and stop their career growth. Give them titles like - Sales Manager or Marketing Manager of the area.. This will usher in sense of ownership as well. Unlike high funda grads these guys are more loyal to companies than most.

Streamline these grads - take care of them : Assign a experienced mentor and segregate these grads to become experts in Rural Management,Micro Finance, market research,rural marketing etc , step up teams and send them out to the field to visit the villages . Make the job profile exiting. A team can consist of 1 rural management expert- he will evaluate and micro manage, 2 market research experts- 2nos because this involves number crunching , 1 micro finance guy - who will identify how and how much loan to provide and 1 marketing expert - he will conduct survey and collect customer info and come up with ideas on marketing. The marketing guy with the rural management guy can work on business development and sales. 5 in a team for one area/district, as necessary. 20-50 teams can be supervised by a General Manager . 10 General Managers can come under one Head . 5 Heads will report to Vice -President Operations of that Area - say South Market .. etc ..

And when they are out in the field- in villages and rural cities for days - give them the sense of security that their families are taken care of when they are not around. You will see ever lasting commitments to the parent company from these guys. Indians from rural cities give more value to relationships and sentiments than money and luxury.

Teach them to be innovative : Pick the latest copy of Businesswold. You will read the cover article about "The Real Nation builders". They are not from IIM's or IIT's . what i am trying to convey here is if you can teach grads from rural areas to be innovative they will bring in results. They will give you great ideas . The MNC only has to identify the right idea , ideate on it , strategize and implement them. There you may need the IIM and XLRI graduated guys with Mckensiey background to do the work.

Use technology : The best software is not good enough if it cant deliver. India is already a tech/software giant. Software companies can then join hands with services companies and launch customized products in rural areas and benefit from that .

You don't have to depend too much on global money when it is right there to be taken from our backyard.

Rural India is a gold mine waiting to be tapped. MNC companies wont just rake in profits but also built a nation in its truest form. All they need to do is understand customer demographic profile clearly and launch products according to them.

Welcome your thoughts and ideas on this .. If you like what you read here.. spread the word around and would love discuss more of the same- here in my blog.

Further reading from Economic Times :

Rural spend,housing to rescue growth

Innovation is the key to social media marketing not random banner ads

The article Advertisers face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites in The New York Times is once again bringing to light on the fact that putting up banner ads and fan page in social networking sites need not be entirely successful. Being a social media evangelist myself, i echo same point here as well.

Putting up in-expensive banner ads or creating a fan page is not good enough. The users will sign up/become a member of the fan page just to show their solidarity to the brand. Fair enough. But that is not branding .

Branding is all about reinforcing the name of an existing brand and the product or luring in new customers to buy the brand. To put in simple language , that is. Bottom line .. all this is done is to increase sales. Dynamic banner ads is not the solution for that .

One thing is that social media marketing and networks are at a very nascent stage. In order to leverage social media companies should find much better ways to use social networks in branding and lead generation.

One good way is to start a blog ,connect with relevant bloggers and run a viral campaign. Implement multiple viral/buzz/online word of mouth marketing campaigns and learn from trial and error method. But make sure there is one "Big IDEA" behind every campaign which is run. For this , the marketing teams should innovate and launch highly customized products to users and propagate it without being intrusive and irritating.