Rajesh Tripathi

Article as published in the Human Capital, May 2017 issue

Article published in the Times of India

I came across an article which runs like this: “ Many businesspeople aspire to be as rational, data-driven and deliberate as possible in every action. Nonetheless, everyone has habits, biases, behaviors and thought patterns that have become second nature. These instincts are, of course, grounded in experience. If something has worked for you in the past, you are likely to keep doing it.” Is it something new? I will say No. We see it happening around daily but most of the times we can’t do much. Reason – ABILENE PARADOX. So, I feel it is not the Team which can make a Leader fail but his own habits, biases, behaviors and thought patterns. Perhaps, ‘Thoughtfulness’ is the only medicine to this disease. Business People who once get success following a path need to look for a different path to remain successful. Biases - the most common shackles need to be broken- not easy, but must to take care of organization’s health & life. Proven now, experience does not provide any g...

Segmentation has been an integral part of modern day management. Every company does some study to segment its customers. It is being used first to know and then satisfy needs of various sets of customers. Under segmentation, demographic differentiation, psychographic differentiation and behavioral differentiation are the focus of product developments and offerings to customers. Many marketing and business experts perhaps have used this methodology to segment and satisfy needs, but I see a change happening in this field. Look at the entire lengthy, time-consuming & continuous process of segmentation, so as to know demographic, psychographic and behavioral dimensions of customers. Whereas the entire underlying reason is to meet the need so as to earn more money from customers. Today, customers’ needs, wants and demands are getting blurred. Reason, customers themselves are not clear what they really need. Old theories describe needs as means to live. But today meaning of Living...

Businesses have undergone tremendous change due to information revolution. Pricing, which was in the hands of producers has shifted into the hands of customers. Today, marking up profit by simply jacking up prices is no longer possible. Transparency, customer awareness and easy modes to compare have changed the whole mechanism of pricing. In older days, margins were decided whimsically by different decision makers leading to various pricing techniques. I feel that pricing techniques were all depended upon who were deciding them. Cost-Plus Pricing was a long-time favorite to Finance Managers. Likewise, Customer – Driven technique was a favorite of Sales Professionals and Market-Share Pricing Technique was liked by Marketing Managers. Let’s look at, Cost Plus Pricing Technique. It was decided keeping in view primarily Unit Cost. The notion was that if ‘fixed’ cost is allocated to each unit and a margin is added to it that will give a price for a product; without realizing the f...

This article is published in the Business Manager magazine, Dec-2016 issue.

My views as captured in the attached article published in the Times of India editions 23-Nov-2016

My response as part of a case study as published in the Human Capital, July-2016 issue

Nature and nurture influence human beings. I heard this first time in my school when my teacher asked me to speak on it in a debate. I did not understand about these two words at all at that point in time, but could speak well whatever was told me. Got public applause, too. Destiny was not leaving me behind not to understand it. In my Genetics class in college later, I was theoretically and practically taught the importance of - nature and nurture. As said, incidents repeat themselves in one’s life, when same was asked by my professor of Psychology in one of the classes. The incident ran for me for more than 3 hours wherein I was supposed to tell me “Who am I”. I said and said and said repeatedly without know about what all realisation is, unconvincingly but un-tirelessly, who I was. Finally, I could not succeed in convincing my professor. I failed. Failed miserably. But the lesson that was taught  to me directly by my professor and what I learnt indirectly  left me perp...

My article on GAMIFICATION: NEED OF THE DAY was published on HR Plug website. You can access article on the link below. http://hrplug.com/blog/gamification-in-hr/

Couple of years ago when I entered corporate world with some ‘pieces of papers’ - called degrees, I was quite fascinated by stories about it. In general, open culture, respect for knowledge & hard work etc but in particular, decisions making process wherein ‘everyone’ was included in deliberations and discussion in a team before taking a decision. This hallucination continued for some time, as being junior it was “Master’s Voice’ only screaming in your ears with some instructions to do only and being pulled up on one pretext or other. Fact to me remained was that there was no point of my being part of any deliberations and consensual decisions, as I was a junior. I could solace in the rationality that being junior I may not be knowing much about ‘business’ perhaps that could be one reason of my not being part of deliberations. In my fantasy, I used to think that all team members do partake actively & openly in decision making process and more commonly at senior level, unt...

My point of view on the subject as published in the HindustanTimes, 7-June-2016

Generally, when someone uses the phrase ‘Father knows best’ style of Management, it does imply that the style being protruded by an organisation to the outside word indicates about how decisions are being taken in that particular company. The phrase, perhaps has its origin in a belief that the founders of organisations, generally know ‘everything’ and therefore issue orders and people who work for them, do follow these orders without any question. No doubt (?), this style of management may work well for smaller organisations, having handful of  employees working for them; but does not suit larger ones. It becomes the root cause of failure for larger organisations in long run and in short run, a reason of inefficiency. Reason being, you look at the style and you get the impression that there is a ‘person’ who has founded the organisation, knows ‘everything’ to instruct and direct. But in reality it does not happen like this. You will find same person talking to various experts...

Brands, in general, contour functional ‘superiority over each other. This functional superiority has short life cycle as everyone is trying for incremental changes in their products and therefore in brand displays. As a matter of fact, shorter life cycle gives rise to tremendous pressure to succeed and complete every stage of life cycle- birth, growth, decline and death. Eventually, even before the stage of birth is complete, people start giving booster doses for growth. Booster doses do not give time to a product or brand thereon, to stand on its feet and therefore, collapses due to not able to give economic benefits leading to withdrawal of support in the form of budget for advertising further. We here can make inferences that is it the failure of brand to establish itself in the market or wrong strategy and conceptual interpretations that lead to death of a brand. Iconic branding is the panacea for it. Iconic branding is based on cultural expression which are out worldly depic...

While deliberating on Brand creation strategy & process, a group of people innocuously asked the question, is Brand creation an art or science and more importantly, Iconic Brand creation? Still a student of Brand Creation and Marketing, it was not easy for me to deal with it by crass talking & giving an upbeat answer but a moment to think and ponder upon. My interest in other subjects however, could give me some insight. Systematic adoption of changes is what science teaches us, art on the other hand recognises that change need to be soothing. Brand Creation is a science, deeply immersed in artistic expression of facts about society. Let’s look at what goes in brand creation.  Brands are primarily created based on certain features of a product with rhetoric communication so that there is an influence on the purchasing decision of the customers. These are very sequential in nature. However, success coming out of these sequential activities do lose their intended re...

By definition, a brand is a timeless, abstract entity; thereby anything which is short lived, time based cannot be recognised as a brand in real sense. Brand Identity, however specifies a product markers, having reputation, benefit or value attached to it and this brand identity helps marketers to achieve short term success for their organisations. This at the same time, helps managers to control and coordinate easily the abstractions attached to a brand. It means cognitively one can conceive abstractions and manage it within the boundary of an organisation and even outside. This branding having Cognition at its base characterises Cognition Branding Model. Cognition Branding Model has its birth somewhere in 1950s, the era which is known for emphasising Unique Selling Proposition - USP - i.e. each product must communicate to its potential consumers a simple but distinctive benefits. The idea of USP got a shot in arm in 1970s when “Positioning” became the dear word across corporate...

About brands, a question generally been asked – is brand a means to convey a message to consumers about a product or it is a route to reaching customers via depicting socio-eco-cultural state of the society? May both be true to some, but it is the second more to me . Thoughtful scrutiny of brands clearly shows that Iconic brands have their origin in a state of the society. As Brand strategists say, Markers of a brand – Name, Logo and Design do not only depict product features but the then socio-eco-cultural transition, a society may be undergoing. To support it, look back in 1970s when the US was under economic and political meltdown along with increasing independence of women, beer manufacturer - Budweiser made use of it in its all advertisements. Budweiser, interestingly targeted acute tension between the revived American ideals of manhood and the economic realities that made these ideals nearly unattainable for many men. In India, 1970s and 80s, saw movies portraying anger thr...

Not able to understand one’s business nature and appropriate strategy is what I see a major reason of companies not able to get a place for themselves in the market.  Companies float between various approaches of strategy without realising what actually they need for success. The situation becomes more cumbersome for a conglomerate, comprised of various businesses, having need of specific strategy approaches for each business. Of late, you pick up any article on business strategy or talk to Business Heads, you will find mostly talking about how to ensure SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE  ADVANTAGE  for their respective business, without understanding that it may not be possible for them to achieve it as their individual businesses are in different phases of evolution & market placement. Nature of a business and phase they are in, differentiates the need of having a specific approach to succeed, eventually. Through this blog, I would like to stress upon the need ...

My interview, published in Recruite, Times Job in its Half Yearly Publication , Feb-2016

I have read innumerable articles on strategy and companies following a ‘definite’ strategy which has made these company ‘run their businesses successfully’ for a long period of time. No, doubt systematic analysis of environments around, marketing capabilities may be some of the factors which have made these companies tuck into the business world. But, simultaneously a question raises its head,  are these factors only really responsible for success, various organisations, if not all, tasting today? Let’s together, peep into the business world. On close look at various businesses and their success stories based on ‘certain strategy’ being followed by them, reveals that truth is far from the fact. It seems that most of the time, it is due to a product simply as there is no other comparable product in the market that makes a company run its business ‘successfully’ to a point and not because of having an appropriate strategy. Regarding strategy, most of the people do not even know...