Right workplace

"Workplace is place of worship. We work hard at this place to achieve our goals that we set ourselves to achieve. Some of us are employers while others employees but basic characteristic of a work place remains the same."

 

If what is stated above is true why do we keep hearing of companies trying to set-up amenities at workplace that prompts the worker to show at work for longer hours? May be they have been preached by some consultants belonging to following school of thought- Keep him stay long and he will be worth nowhere except here :).  We are most productive if we work short and specific. Workplace should have minimal distractions and an environment that lets you focus and work better. If we limit the time spent on aligning with each other we will be complete tasks on time.

 

Imagine a situation- You work with 100% focus for 8 hrs. Leave office at 6 pm to a gym or a game of squash or tennis or an evening back. You return home by 7:30 pm. Chat with kids. Refresh the lessons learned from your kid's books. Eat with them and then go to sleep at 10:00 pm.

 

Working long is making us socialize less in real life and over-socialise over facebook, linkedin and orkut. Our employer states, "Focus on end results and I do not care what you do" but rates a colleague of yours higher who spends longer hours at work.

 

 

 

Failed Economics of retail in India

Offering organized retail as a choice of shopping for extra price-sensitive Indian consumer was never going to be easy. Failing to attract enough footfalls into their stores, the road ahead lies in effective positioning and branding. Will the sector get there?

Few years back all looked upon organized retail as the next big thing in Indian economy. Players like Reliance, ABRL, Shubiksha launched their offerings in supermarket, Specialty and Hypermart formats. Supermarkets were opened next to Kirana shops with size ranging from 4-7k sqft. Hypermarts were opened in city outskirts where the real estate development was just happening ensuring enough parking space and recreational facilities for visitors while Specialty stores were restricted to prime market space. Rentals in a typical Class B city in India would have been INR 90 per sqft per month for Supermarket, INR 45-50 per sqft per month for hypermarts and INR 110 per sqft per month and upwards for Specialty.

Business plans developed had a pay-back period between 15-20 years with EBITDA margins of 7-9%. Merchandize mix was premised to offer 13-15% at gross levels and 7-9% at EBITDA levels. Choice of financing mix was going to be critical to ensure erosion of just 1-1.5% between EBITDA and PBT (Profit Before Tax). Players with deep pockets could have only survived and almost all had plans to bring in a foreign player by 5th to 7th year of operation.

So what went wrong?
a) Rentals increased disproportionately due to boom in realty sector
b) Merchandize mix in earlier days had limited local brands for sale which otherwise had a strong consumer loyalty
c) Overstaffing at stores
d) Supply chain flawed- procurement was centralized.
e) Limited understanding of catchment area
f) High shrinkage especially in case of fruits and vegetables (F&V)- F&V was expected to be footfall driver instead consumers stuck to Kirana store while they shopped F&V from these stores
g) Excessive Competition- multiple players opening stores in the same locality
h) Rapid expansion plans- some players opened more than 1000 stores within a year

Ultimately most of the players failed to make profits at store level. Further, challenges relating to centralized supply chain, merchandize procurement and manpower recruitment and training all impacted the operations. Within first few years of starting, operations went out of control and top management was devoting more time to review the operations and decide on appropriate merchandize for each category of stores than focusing viability of the business plan drawn.

By the time things went out-of-hand for some, they were trapped in high debt while business plan was premised on negative working capital requirement.
Today, visiting a supermarket store in locality is a pain. Billing counters have been reduced significantly. Management of stores has been outsourced to agencies that lack sales ethics and merchandize is complete only for 10-15 days in a month. 
Only FDI in multi-brand sector can provide an exit option of some of the best corporate houses trapped in the web of retail. When is it coming? Some are losing sleep over the issue…

Approaching Due Diligence

Due diligence is a critical step to rope in an investor into the company.

The hunt begins when 'need' for external money is felt. Though with due considerations to set norms of approaching an investor, 'want' of it may not be synonymous with the 'need' felt. Agreeing on a valuation, post first-hand understanding of the business is at times a sticky issue. All the academic research on arriving at a correct valuation metric seems to go unheeded. Parties usually prefer 'comparable firms' approach with strange discounting factors on the multiples. Finally, a prelim document called 'Term sheet' is signed and dates for due diligence are finalized. Work on an exhaustive checklist begins.

All kinds of possibilities are evaluated by teams- Is the data in place?, Will we be ready in time? etc. In some companies even getting a scanned copy of MOA may be a challenge. Tasks are allocated and work begins by finding all lease agreements, ROC registrations, minutes books etc. The team has to be aligned and given a valid reason for them to work towards the target especially given the sensitivity of the matter. Final milestone is only a mirage at this stage.

Teams get on with the work. There is always group that is motivated towards the task, then there is a section that is building all kinds of possibilities on whether the due diligence is for infusion of funds or sell-out by promoters, still others who doubt if they will continue to have a job. Some are totally cut-off from the demands and live in an alien world where time and priority has no meaning.

Quite surprising in the whole scheme of things is the way the PE has approached the Company. PE ensures 100% confirmation from Company on all aspects of the deal, irrespective of whether the decision to reach the due diligence stage is based on a comprehensive review of company/sector or a pure hunch. The final decision- to invest or not- (to the knowledge of very few) rests with the investment committee of the fund. At times the feedback from the committee is- Sector is not where we will invest, Company does not meet our criteria, Just No for no reason significant enough. And the decision of the investment committee is based on a brief note from one of their team members who lacks even remotest idea of what capability/potential the company has.

I doubt the IRRs expected by the funds across.. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal and should not be linked to author's association with any organization.

Where are the old guys?

Despite being employed with a manufacturing company for last 6 months, I am yet to meet an employee of age greater than 50 yrs whether in my or other companies that I visited. 

My office is located at Udyog Vihar, Gurgaon and I pass through the BPO/Service companies' office cluster at Cyber Greens. Assuming my eyes have not got biased to only look at young, I rarely saw employees who would be in her fifties. 

Of course we may have department heads/CEOs/CFOs etc. in their fifties but how many of us have seen a floor manager or a manager aged fifty. Not all get to grow up the corporate ladder with age. Working age has surely come down but old also seems to have vanished from our corporate environs. Two possibilities may emerge in future:

a) Excluding those who grow to take role of a CEO etc., others aged fifty plus may have opted for an early retirement. They may be doing some part-time job or experimenting their entrepreneurial skills.

b) Or may have joined some other sectors like chemicals, textile, steel manufacturing etc. that are usually located outside the city limits or metros.

I leave this to be probed further by research companies but surely a warning signs for all of us in their mid-thirties- Either grow or perish.

INVESTMENT WORLD : Is it better to rent a house or buy one?

Finally in addition to my calculator (rent vs buy), the article in Business line (July 3 2011 edition) talks in detail about the trade-off between rent vs buy. Given the fact that most of us are very poor savers, real estate investment may be an option but tenure of loan is for sure dependent on current savings and future expected growth in income.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-investmentworld/article2154096.ece

Interested can download the calculator from here: Buying vs rent calculator

Continue to live the dilemma but better take the decision fast.

PE investments into food/snacks segment

Finally, our favorite snacks/namkeens get their due. As layman we all knew that its a profitable business once it takes off.

I read about 2 such deals:

Prakash Snacks has been selling its snacks under brand Prakash Namkeens for long. I knew about them in Indore. Akash Namkeen, run by the other brother of Prakash is equally profitable and popular. Indore a fantastic city in MP is known for its snack food. Only Indoreans how tough it was for Mc Donalds and Dominos to convince them to try their products. Sharafa bazzaar is a fantastic place for rich during day when they can buy the jewellery of their choice but in night the place is a perfect place for snacks and enjoyed equally both by rich and poor. 

Sagar Ratna also gets investment for expansion. 

For details please read:

a) http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-02-10/india-business/28540828_1_due-diligence-buyouts-bjn-group

b) http://www.fnbnews.com/article/detnews.asp?articleid=30114&sectionid=1

Food/snacks business in India is a cash rich business with no upfront capex spends. 

I appreciate business sense of PEs like Sequoia Capital and SAIF partners who considered investing this industry. 

Should be expect an announcement for a snacks business from Ratlam anytime?

Corruption, Inflation & Monsoon worries

Corruption

I am not very supportive of Lokpal bill. Its need questions the viability of our constitution. Do we not have systems within current set-up that check this? All the credit to unearth the corruption cases- Bofors, Hawala, Fake stamp paper, 2G, Common wealth etc. should go to only to our democratic set-up where judiciary and investigating agencies are independent enough to act.

I do not discredit what Anna has done for India but threatening to re-start fast is an overkill and too immature a reaction. Why does he not exercise rationality and diplomacy in fighting for the draft of Lokpal bill with government? Fasting and mass movement methods help create awareness but decisions should be taken post a thorough and comprehensive analysis of all factors in play. 

Is corruption such a worry when we have millions following our rich Babas who preach how to be better humans? Is there no corruption in US or  in China or in any other developing country? Its better if we spend our energies on narrowing gap between rich and poor. In my view poor in our country should have access to good healthcare facilities, education and programs to make agriculture in this country a profitable/viable profession. 

While we claim to have build on a very efficient and cost-effective distribution channel we all know where is all the money made- the intermediaries who trade at no risk of their own. This situation at times prompt me to support FDI in (multi-brand) retail. Farmers through Gram Panchayats can always fix the price at which they sell to big retail chains and hence not threat of repeat of what Wallmart has done to US. We are not as capitalist as US.

Inflation

In current state of affairs extra effort on part of RBI to target inflation is wrong. We all understand why inflation impacts growth but I feel extra efforts on inflation targeting is making GDP growth short-lived- just a few quarters spread over a span of 2-3 years. Lets risk a little with high inflation. If we have to growth at 9-10% year-on-year containing inflation below 8-9% may be a challenge in the current set-up (atleast for a period of 5 years). Government should ensure through its social schemes that poor is least impacted, rest market forces will make higher inflation a 'zero-sum game'- no single agent in economy makes disproportionate gains.

Monsoon

We are lucky that monsoon this year is expected to be normal and on time.