Raution Jaiswal, MBA

Business Case for Business Cases

raution — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:19:33 +0000

One of the basic requirements of any business is to justify any dollar spent in marketing efforts, technology upgrades or employees training as most of the time these expenses are considered as supporting functions rather than core operation. Even if these expenditures are well thought of and have reasons such as to increase productivity, increase revenue or raise employee satisfaction. Management has one basic question whenever such initiatives are discussed. The question is “what is the business need for this particular initiative”. Even though the qualitative benefits can overwhelming, but it is a rational questions and a well written business case having both quantitative and qualitative analysis would be a good answer to the particular questions.

After speaking with several managers and consultants, I have realized that there is a wide understanding of what is a business case. Several consulting companies have mastered the art of writing business cases and no two companies resonate with the structure and basic ingredients of a comprehensive business case. Each format of a business case is as unique as a company. There are some generic formats which is more common than other. One of such format includes the following pieces:

Fact/Situation Analysis
Core Issue
Alternatives
1. Strengths
2. Weaknesses
3. Recommendations

This is a basic skeleton and can be customized based on the requirements and situations.

There are many reasons why a company writes a business case. These are mentioned below:

Defining current situation and acknowledging the gap
Alignment of strategic directions
To validate business requirement
Justify investments (by creating Return on Investments model)
In-depth analysis of alternatives
Selection of the best of the breed and process

Understanding a need for business case and writing it in a correct structure not only provided a good insight of the issue and the solution but also it gives a greater clarity to the strategic direction of the management.

Defining value within Organization

raution — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 06:35:41 +0000

Do we know what portion of our business is value added service, value enabler or non value added?

I am not surprised to learn that most of the business thinks that either the questionis too theoretical or too complex to answer. In either case most organizations fail to follow up or answer the question. Most often businesses end up growing into a complex set of processes and it is not east to classify them based on the value added, non value added or value enabler activities.

Value added activities are those activities that actually change the form, fit or function of the product to meet customer requirements.

Non-value added activities consume resources, time or space and do not add value to the product for example, time delays, transportation, planning documentation etc.

Value enabler are those activities that consume resources, time or space and do not add value to the product but are required for business or regulatory reasons (impossible to avoid or eliminate).

Open Source in Business Management

raution — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 07:13:02 +0000

The concept of management may be the product of industrial era. But I am confident to state that management as a concept is as old as the development of societies. It is since then, man has learnt to manage men in tactful ways be it business affairs or domestic issues. Management is all about getting things done efficiently and effectively with and though other people. There are enough evidences that early societies have learned the art of team management for activities like hunting, agriculture or cultural events. Management has evolved since then, even though the basic tenet of the theory is same but there is always a shade/color of the society and its relevant customs. Bringing back to management today and how businesses models have shifted in the past few decades, it would not be ambitious to state that management style of a company will no more be its proprietary. Several reasons to support my statements include global nature of business, increased movements of employees to other companies, and similar fibre of the issues experienced by the companies.

Question is when the issues of the businesses are same then why do we have to think of different solutions? Can we have a solution that will benefit both side of the business? To answer such question there was a better need of open source. Open source is a collaborative style of business which is a winner for all. Open Source is a relatively new concept with the development of software as an industry in early 1960. One of the best charms of open source is that once the blue print is created, it is distributed among the end users and the users could modify and source code as per their need to make it bigger and better. This collaboration begets a better product for the community of users and the stakes were shared too. This model has been extremely popular and successful in the last two decades.

As we have experienced that Open Source is applied basically for programming in IT world. However, I am convinced that there is much more to gain from this business concept. One of the ideas is to design Open Source codes for management style. As we all know that there are a lot of common grounds in regards to how businesses are done in an industry or a geographical region. Designing business management protocols and semantic to share and collaborate will help all businesses in the community and industry to gain from this collaboration.

For example, if a firm designs a prototype of hiring and if we consider it as a basic source code which and is shared with others with an intension to modify the sources to a bigger and better version. I am convinced that there is much more to gain than to hold back and have monopoly. As we know that even major business rivals like IBM, Oracle and Sun collaborate and modify codes so there is a bigger and better market for all.

To reiterate the point again that once we are able to prototype business models, processes and systems, it will not only make the business systems more efficient but also expand the market for all.

There is a radical shift in the ways how business was done in the past and there is a higher need for collaboration for any business to succeed.

“I’m thinking of changing the world with open source. I know that’s kind of communist.” Michael Hand

Yoga Sutras II

raution — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:20:12 +0000

Yoga Sutras

raution — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 04:21:02 +0000

Sleep with an idea

raution — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 08:04:20 +0000

When we were kids, parents or grandparents told us stories before we go to bed at night. There were many advantages of such practices like developing values and morale, instilling important elements of communication, preparing them for reading and developing a bonding with us. Then we grew up and with age came certain degree of independence. May be this is the period of application of the moral science stories to find better friends who will help us realize the goals of our life. Habits changed and so was our routine. Now we are out of the habits of reading or listening to stories before going to bed. For many of us, this habit regains its power when we are in midlife. Now if we look closer to these patterns of our life stage and analyze them, then these will be the trends we will notice.

When we were kids, we listen to bed time stories and it helped in the following ways.
1. Bonding with your Child
2. Reading Preparedness
3. Comprehension and Logic
4. Morals and Values
When we grow up, bedtime stories are replaced by friends and cell phones and Wii and the following links are missing that helps us to add value by involuntary thinking.

As a kid, we enjoyed the storied but there was a basic science behind the whole scene, which is not understood my either parents or the kids. When kids listen to these stories which have values and morals and then go bed then the gap between their deep sleep and lying on bed is the time when they think about the story and the underlying issues in the story. So now even when they are sleeping their sub conscientious mind ponders over the idea and as a result they have a better frame of the issue and in the process a character is being built within us

Now in the later stage of the life when we tend to be away from the bed time stories, our sub conscientious mind is not that organized and may have random thoughts and leads to nowhere.

There is a great value associated with bed time reading. It helps in organizing thoughts, defining ideas and developing frames to fit in the abstract thoughts which is the result of reading good and informative books.

Everything has a denomination

raution — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:14:36 +0000

Ideal way to understand related ideas, theories, concepts or data is to convert them to a common denomination and then try to find comparisons. This is too basic for all of us to understand and follow. But then the challenge is it is not always possible to factorize ideas and theories and then to compare them as it is not always apples for apples. These relationships are in more complex form than a simple human mind can comprehend. Sometime we know there is a relationship but we fail to understand the logic or theory behind it or the relevant equations which give rise to these conclusions. We fail to understand how sleeping is related to prosperity of health. It is obvious and we know the fact that both of them have a strong relations but the equation of this bonding is not known. But if we understand the logic governing the relationship then may we will be better informed in making decision related to either of them.

Not I will tell you the core of the theory I am trying to introduce here. This is not a rocket science or something I have discovered. This theory comes to us from thousands of year old scripts of Hindu Ancient Vedas and Upanishads and I am just trying to reintroduce them. It seems that practitioners of ancient world understood human science better than we do today. It states that every action is a result of Karma and every action will be saved in the form of Karma. It can be negative or positive. This karma is further denominated to a form of cosmic energy and it has the same two colors, positive and negative. So when we sleep, we gain more of this cosmic energy and this happens only when we are in deep sleep. In the state of nothingness we are able to consume more and more of this cosmic energy. This helps us to take care of the needs of our body. But if there is not enough deep sleep we will lack that energy is some parts than other and such parts of the body will suffer from some forms of diseases.

This was one of the examples of showing relationships between sleep and health. There were many more relationships that can be denominated and restates how this cosmic energy does plays a greater role in understanding ourselves.

Dream it, do it and prove it!

raution — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 07:43:04 +0000

I have grown up as a kid and have learned to compromise as if it is a way to survive. No one ever told me that I have rights to dream and I should gather all energies to realize those dreams. We all have dreams but few have the courage to drag it to reality from virtual world. But then things happen and we rise to occasions and start believing in ourselves. Unlike many, I love challenges in life and my dreams have many segments and some pieces are bigger than the others. I have driven myself to chase them with mixed results but bigger hurdles do not discourage me rather makes me stronger and prepares me well. Such was an event then I decided to come overseas. I had friends, families and acquaintances who would listen to me but I am sure, they knew the obvious answer. I will not make it and such reactions were mental dopes to push me harder. Hard work and determination pays dividends and here comes the day when I am on the other side of the world. I know that this is a part of the bigger piece and one day I would connect all the dots to paint the complete picture. Till then remember: “a great pleasure in life is to do what others say you can’t”.

Log your actions!..Good or Bad

raution — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:32:02 +0000

There are several ways to keep tract of our daily actions and learn from these actions to be a better individual. Few of us keep a personal diary and log all the action of the day. Few of us reflect by the end of the day to evaluate all activities and some of us have a secretary and calendars. Unfortunately, I do not belong to any of these categories. But then my big question is why do I need to keep tract of my activities and what do I gain from such soul searching. I am positive that all of you agree and do think what I can do to be a better individual and be HAPPY and satisfied. However, there is no absolute answer to this question as we interpret happiness and satisfaction in different ways because of our culture, religion, society and our personal opinions. Whatever be our interpretations, we do think of actions like helping others, not hurting someone and not causing harm to others. These actions give us happiness and satisfaction. Once we know that one of our actions has hurt someone we feel bad and try not to do that again. But as human we tend to forget or may be the efforts to remember such actions are not on our priority.

Today, I will tell you one of my practices that have helped me keep track of the important actions of my life and how do I learn from them. I had thought on this issue and had decided that I would design a model which may not be unique by practice but would have a fresh perspective and would be more focus with better results. Sole purpose of this design is to ensure that we keep tract of our actions, follow them, understand their rationale, analyze them and then conclude what could be done to have desired results rather than being swayed by emotions to make the mistakes which was never a desired outcome.

Simply, try to have a log of your actions. If you use computers on a daily basis then you can have a spreadsheet with date, one positive action of the day and one negative action of the day and try to update them by the end of the day. If you are comfortable with pen and paper then that should be helpful too. There are several advantages of this model.

As we try to relive yesterday and can recall most of the action it will help us figure out some of the valuable moments, thoughts, action or commitments which we can be easily forgotten.
Second, regularly observing our previous day and once it becomes a practice in few weeks we will realize that there is a pattern how we do things, how we react, what motives us, etc. Once we understand that we will be in better position to understand ourselves and be able to condition to situation with desired outcomes.
Third and most important, this log will help us understand our negative actions or the actions which we think are not right. It will make us cognizant to these actions and we will be more conscious of such situations and the unfavorable actions to follow. On the brighter side, every good action in the log book will motivate us to do more of such actions and will make our social environment and company more pleasant.

I try to advocate practices which I do myself and find it helpful. I am positive if you practice to have a log of actions in terms of good deeds and wrong deeds, you will find it surprising that the repetitions of the same mistakes has reduced considerably and you will be more conscious of the actions and you will be more focused to perform action that is favorable to you and to others.

Emotional Turbulance…How do I deal with it ?

raution — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:49:34 +0000

There are different ways how we vent our anger. Sometimes venting of anger is not only harmful to us but also to those who are related or may not be related to the issue. Anger is one form of emotions and it is like fire which cares for nothing and is ready to turn things into ashes irrespective of its value. So I try to control my emotions and make sure anger does not control me and harm me for greater value then I can afford to mend. Anger is dangerous and most often it disconnects me from my cognitive thinking and navigates me to non-desired zone of decision making with outcomes that I would have never appreciated in a stable state of decision making. It limits our rationale thinking and blurs the decision making.

There are occasions in my life when I am trapped in a situation and I don’t know what I need to do or what are the right actions for this moment is. For example, I am a bit angry now and I feel like reacting to it. But I am not sure how to bring my mind to equilibrium devoid of this emotional surge. I decided to write this blog and even though I am not out of the situation I am considering as if I am re-living this situation as a guest (trying to: observe it). I hope this helps me to find answers which I would have normally failed to see if I would have been into the situation and tried to solve it.

I am not sure how much of this is making sense. If you are with me on the same page and understand that this is a common situation for all of us. And we try to deal with our own ways sometimes right sometimes wrong. But then the whole idea is to give you a perspective of being into a situation and being out of it at the same time. There are bigger questions associated with it for eg. How long will this situation last and what amount of internal energy should be put into use. What will be the result of this whole situation?

May be the issue is too small but then considering something too small and ignoring the importance of it brings our weakness of not paying enough attention to details. So, I will give full credit to the situation and analyze it minutely to ensure that there is nothing I am missing and will deal the situation with complete and undivided attention. And these questions will be my pole start navigating me to the desired results.

Thank you.

“A state of mind”…. Peace