And Vijay Says…

I landed in India at the city of Kochi – popularly known as the queen of Arabian Sea . And about an hour later , I delivered the Inaugural address for the international conference organized by the School of Management and Communications Studies . To my pleasant surprise , I was given a very warm traditional welcome by a group of beautiful ladies – who I later found out were top scoring business school students too . Beauty and Brains !!!

My special thanks to the faculty , students and fellow speakers – it was an excellent experience for me , and such an honor . The theme was “building customer trust” – something that is very close to my heart .

I had crowd sourced the keynote – and several friends gave me wonderful ideas on what this audience would like to hear. Judging by their reaction – I think the keynote was well received , and I am firmly convinced that crowd sourcing is the way to go for my future keynotes too.

The quality of service and food in Indian hotels and restaurants never ceases to amaze me . Like last time , this time too I stayed at the Taj Vivanta at Whitefield. Exceptional experience – they have definitely acquired my loyalty and I look forward to next time . The photo below is what I got for breakfast – Masala Dosa and Bonda . And the state of India today is well represented by the fruit preserves kept on the table for folks who like a western breakfast . There is something for everyone here . Plenty of Japanese and Chinese options too .

The highlight of the keynote was Vishal Sikka’s keynote – as always .

I have always been a fan of Vishal’s speeches – and if I could change anything about it, I have two suggestions

1. Vishal should wear a SAP mentors jersey to keynote stage . This year, we got Michael Reh to wear a mentor jersey to his part of the key note – next year , I am counting on Vishal doing that too 🙂

2. Try to cut down the length of time for the keynote to 60 minutes – or maybe 90 minutes at most . This is quite hard given the awesome content – but maybe more than one keynote at the event is the answer .

All parts of the SAP portfolio were well represented in the keynote – proving SAP is both a platform company AND an applications company .

Hopefully the keynote from Bernd Leukert puts to bed the recurring questions on blogs whether SAP has moved away from apps business .

If I were to pick the three highlights from the keynote for me – they were
1. Announcement of SAP Ganges by Abdul Razack (his first keynote I think)

2. Open sourcing part of SAPUI5 as openUI5 by Michael Reh

3. Announcement of River by Jake Klein

All 3 are important first steps in their respective domains – and I am sure those teams are going to execute out of their skins to get all three to live up to their promise .

For all of us who worked hard to make BW on Hana trial a big success (1000 sign ups , 40000 hours used in about 2 months ) – Michael and Vishal gave us a big shout out . Thanks guys 🙂

After his keynote , I got to interview Vishal on SAP teched live TV .

Pls checkout the replay here

http://events.sap.com/teched/en/mobile/session/8854

The highlight for me in this interview was Vishal clearly articulating that BW on Hana is NOT something that is on a death bed . On the contrary, he explicitly called out SAP’s continuing investment in adding innovative capabilities to BW on Hana . We even have a brand new release coming out in few days – BW 7.40 . The BW on Hana pod never had anything less than three deep crowds – which makes me a very happy camper.

Special thanks to the people who made it happen – Ingo , Rohit, Marcus and CAL team, Dan Kearnan , Bill R and marketing team, Praksh D, Daniel R and solution management team, Lothar H, Thomas Z, Klaus N , Stefan Sigg and all others from dev and product teams , and everyone else who came together to make this happen. I am incredibly proud to be a member of this amazing team.

I also got to host a panel on the future of innovation in India . There is work to be done – but the panelists were upbeat on India’s ability to be an innovation powerhouse . Thanks Abesh , Kumud (also wish you a very long and happy married life) and Amit !

Check the replay here

http://events.sap.com/teched/en/mobile/session/8854

And then there was Failfare – learning how to fail fast and fail responsibly – my dear friend Marilyn Pratt’s brain child .

Marilyn couldn’t make it to the event due to a personal emergency , but Jeanne Carboni did a fantastic job to back her up .

I traded my speaking slot with a better speaker – my buddy Yariv Zur (we have a running contest on who is the bigger expert at failing) . Kumud and Jhansi were the other panelists and both were very good . I enjoyed listening to their experiences . Lucky did the emcee job to perfection .

A huge shout out to Neel , Ravi, Rakesh, Joe, Gian , Abhijeet, Gansu and other colleagues who made Ganges a reality . In the one year that I worked at SAP , there is only one project I liked as much as the BW on Hana trial that we did – that was Ganges . It is not every day that amazing technology gets used to fundamentally improve the life of common man – in this case, the mom and pop retail shops in India . You guys made the impossible possible . I am happy to have had a chance to be a cheerleader for you . Rock on guys !

Goes without saying – a big part of the enjoyment of being at teched is hanging out with SAP mentors . It was a blast – thanks folks . Let’s keep those conversations going . Special shout out to Tammy Powlas for staying up late and attending our sessions remotely .

Last but not least – HUGE thanks to Chip Rodgers , Margaret Laffan, Jason Lax , Maggie Fox, Mark Finnern, Andy Dey and other colleagues who made my first teched in India so memorable . I will be back !

As I look back at the last one week in India , I am both incredibly proud of what we have accomplished as a country – and incredibly sad and angry at how much is left to be done to bring India socially forward from 1800s to 2013 .

Let me get the awful stuff off my chest first . Supreme Court ruled that consensual sex is criminal , if the parties involve are of the same gender . Essentially they upheld a law that was made in mid 1800s under British rule and over turned the high court verdict that decriminalized this . Supreme Court took a very narrow view of the matter – essentially , they kicked it to the legislature to amend the law .

India is a free country – so why does the government think it is constitutional to get into the sex life of its citizens ? Essentially this law also negates the possibility of gay marriages . It is a gross violation of citizens’ fundamental rights for government to decide who they can have consensual sex with and who they can marry . Life imprisonment apparently is the punishment for gay sex. I can’t believe we have to deal with this in 2013 .

Congress party has made its stance clear that they oppose the judgment . BJP seems to be in support of the judgment – which is not a surprise given the party has limited secular credentials . Not sure where AAP stands on this . But essentially – this means the legislative route will take a while since there is no broad base support to pass legislation smoothly . There are legal options the government can file – including a curative petition . I hope they do that quickly .

I am rudely surprised I did not see the President and Prime minister of India making a comment on this SC verdict .

What was most appalling for me was the reaction I saw in Social media . People who should know better came out in BIG support of the Supreme Court ruling . Broadly their argument was
1. It is unnatural and god doesn’t approve
2. Only a minority of people are gay and rules should not be bent for their benefit

How do these people get to judge what god likes or doesn’t like ? Why didn’t the rest of us get that memo ? India has a clear distinction between church and state – so why is religion even brought into this discussion ? And why is there no similar extreme outrage when people cheat in their marriage and sleep around with others ?

Also – if minority rights don’t matter , why are politicians dead worried about religious minorities at election time ? Would they stop having reservations for education , jobs etc based on religion and caste ? Clearly the answer is NO . So why is being a minority being used against only gay people ? Gay people have all the same responsibilities in India as other citizens – so why should they alone have less rights ?

I got so worked up seeing the social media conversations that I unfollowed and unfriended a bunch of people . I cannot believe these folks could stoop to such a low level .

Political parties have a lot to answer for – this arcane law has been around for ages . When the HC overturned the law – and the appeal went to SC, why didn’t the government start a parallel legislative effort to erase this from the law books ? Clearly they are worried about how the voters will react in next election . So they tried to play it safe and thought they can leave this alone for judiciary to deal with . Judiciary inexplicably issued this terrible judgment as a result .

This is just a reflection of the larger social outlook in India . Being gay is still not a socially accepted thing in India – large part of the population still think it is a sin of some sort , and they react in terrible ways . The way to change this is only via education – over a long period of time . But in the short term – there is no excuse for not pursuing legal and legislative options right away .

Please don’t forget – Gay people are people too ! Live and let live

I am not so sure all the 14 principles apply today for the information economy. I can’t say for sure about manufacturing though. For what it is worth, here are my quick thoughts. This post got triggered in my mind when I read my friend Jonathan Becher posting on validity of MBOs. http://jonathanbecher.com/2009/02/02/eliminate-management-by-objectives/ . It is a great read – but who would expect less from Jonathan 🙂

Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service with the aim of becoming competitive, staying in business and providing jobs..

Definitely a good thing to keep focus on product and service. But I am not sure constancy of purpose is the best way to put it – purpose changes with market. Sometimes you need to focus on revenue, some times on market share, some times on profit and so on. There is no universal constancy of purpose. Life is all about trade offs.

Staying in business and providing jobs is a good thing too – but not an end in itself. World does not need yet another company doing the same thing. Why not free up the investment for a better opportunity than just stay in business? I do wish the “job for life” principle in Japan was universally true – but it clearly is not.

Adopt the new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins.

I am not sure whether Deming started this or someone else did – but over time, I have realized there is no such thing as “win win”. Some one loses – or charitably, some one always wins less. “Win Win” is possible for a given interaction for a short time – so the only way in which a vendor and customer has “win win” is if transactions occur repeatedly over very long periods. That very seldom happens given the barrier to entry for competitors will lower over time.

Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality.

This I agree a 100%. And now with big data techniques, and lower HW costs – it is economic to achieve even higher quality at same or lower cost.

End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone.

Again – agreed a 100%. The only time when I think price is justified as a sole criteria is for commodity purchases. Commodity at spot prices are fine, and should not come with premium.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production, service, planning, or any activity.

Partially agree. The trouble with incremental improvement is that over time it is a guaranteed way to get disrupted by competition.

Institute training for skills.

Partially agree. Institutional training is fine for manufacturing skills probably . But encouraging a culture of continuous learning where the onus is on employee to keep up with the modern techniques is way more productive today. Corporate training has serious limitations on speed and agility.

Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration.

100% agree – absolutely a necessity. And sadly not enough of that happens in our industry. High time we took a better interest in leadership development.

Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work effectively.

100% agree – but sadly a lot of IT industry is based on fear. Many will not admit it in public, but fear is routinely seen as a management instrument.

Break down barriers between departments.

100% agree – there should be absolute minimum barriers. My team once spent 2 months designing BI security for a customer , and then I asked the COO of the company why there is such a lack of trust between employees. 15 minutes later, he killed that tight control mechanism. Anything not mandated by legal requirements was canned. Ever since, I proactively ask such questions to the highest rung person I can find before we start a project. It is unbelievable how much lack of trust exist in the world.

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels of productivity.

Slogans do tend to work for a short period. But beyond that we get into eye rolling territory. Over advertising internally or externally is a bad idea and will back fire. I have had fierce arguments on this topic with colleagues and usually I have lost.

Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.

This is where I have strong disagreement . If there is no trust between leader and followers, I think MBOs dont mean any thing. However, if some trust exists – MBOs and quantitative goals are by far the best way to ensure baseline performance.

The root cause of all evil is in the necessity to predict performance, especially in public companies. If the CEO and CFO has to commit to a numerical EPS or revenue or whatever to street, they cannot then stop driving those things down the chain.

Abolish the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.

Partially agree – doing it just annually means little to nothing. However, competition is a good thing as long as it is done with good spirits and trust. Some conflict is also unavoidable and I dare say it is a good thing to have some healthy conflict. Someone needs to give a heads up when emperors walk around naked.

Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

Again, institutional training is a limited vehicle for education in my opinion. I have rarely seen it work for informational workers, especially the experienced folks.

Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation.

Agree 100% – this is why it is important to set a strategy and then tie all goals of individuals and teams to the corporate strategy. Random projects and proof of concepts generally don’t go anywhere because there is no tie to something the company as a whole is tied to. Transformation cannot be accomplished by a corporate strategy group or a group of Vice presidents with slogans . It needs everyone to pitch in. And they wont pitch in till they believe in the end state. I would rather see no transformation than people chasing vague concepts and ideas that someone up the chain thinks is important, but cannot articulate in a way that rest of the company understands.