Innovation 101 – Cost vs. Quality. Deuce. November 2, 2011
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, Globalisation, Smartsourcing, Thought leadership.Tags: Business model, cost vs. quality, Globalization, India, Joel Delman, Next Practices, out of box thinking, outsourcing, partnerships, smartsourcing, Western Thought
3 comments
To me it doesn’t matter whether India will be able to maintain its cost advantage. What does is sustainable and long-term value as a combination of cost and quality. In my view we are seeing the end of the traditional benefits of outsourcing. In whichever way customers were disguising their need to leverage lower costs, the only reason for outsourcing was cost arbitrage. We have seen that gap closing especially in the case of Indian talent. Squeezing benefit from outsourcing purely on a cost basis is clearly the last remnants of Industrial age thinking, which besides all other untenable factors, seems to think of human beings as alternatives to machines. I suggest for this reason alone, that we delete ‘outsourcing’ from business lexicon. 
Joel Delman, Los Angeles design director for Product Development Technologies(PDT) points out
Having already gained the lion’s share of manufacturing work, countries like China and India are now focusing on building their capabilities in the innovation and design phases of product development. While some may dismiss the seriousness of this trend, we’d be naive to believe that the United States has a monopoly on a creative workforce.
(read Cost vs. Quality: The Dangers of Outsourcing Design Overseas) (more…)
7 years on and still a startup February 13, 2009
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, Companies of the future, Culture, Entrepreneurship, Heart Capital©, Thought leadership.Tags: Business model, Culture, Culture of India, customer focus, Entrepreneurship, Ideafarms, Innovation, Next Practices, startup culture, Thought leadership, trust
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This post is based on a true story. The story of Ideafarms. We started among equally uncertain settings in the wake of the dotcom bust and 9/11. We had no funds. We had no product ideas. We didn’t know who we would sell to. All we had was passion and deep down conviction that we would make things work for us. Today we’re almost 7 years old and alive and kicking. Ready to take on the current gloom with renewed energy. We’re back to our start-up ways.
The most important thing then was - and I say this with the benefit of hindsight – that we had no past to weigh us down; nothing of a reputation either individually or collectively that needed to be protected. Both of which we have today. So we’ve decided to shrug the baggage off our shoulders. (more…)
Innovation 101 – Death of the VC January 24, 2009
Posted by Sunil Malhotra in Business, Companies of the future, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Innovation 101, Sustainable Innovation, Wisdom of the leaders.Tags: Business model, Entrepreneurship 2.0, Future of Business, global meltdown, Ideafarms, Innovation 101, Thingamy, Thought leadership, VCs, Venture capital
2 comments
Thingamy’s Sigurd Rinde’s great post here. From the post – Goodbye VCs, it’s been a pleasure
Betting on markets is not business building, it’s not innovation, it’s financial crap shooting.
Many of the reasons I did not choose to have Ideafarms funded by Vulture Capitalists are so lucidly captured in his post.
1. On exit strategies
And my favourite – Andy Grove and the “payday” mentioned above:What really infuriates him is the concept of the “exit strategy.” “Intel never had an exit strategy,” Grove says. “These days, people cobble something together. No capital. No technology. They measure eyeballs and sell advertising. Then they get rid of it. You can’t build an empire out of this kind of concoction. You don’t even try.”
Did Microsoft, Google, Intel, Dell and Amazon spend time on “exit strategies”? Doubt it.
Exit strategy is something to pooh pooh at. Makes a money lender holding your home to ransom look like a saint! The VC community cannot even imagine the damage they have done to genuine entrepreneurship. Some of it will not be undone for generations.
2. On the role of the VC and the ‘passenger’ investor
I love Sig’s allusion to the investor being the passenger. How irritating to have a passenger sit in the back seat while you’re driving, giving you instructions about when to step on the gas when he has never even learnt to drive.
I’m not against delivering the best possible value to the venture investors, quite on the contrary, but there should not be any doubt that the best shareholder values delivered over time have consistently been delivered by those who can create a great value for their customers while keeping a good margin.And the customer is the start-up, the VC is the vehicle and the investor is the passenger. The passengers are always much better off if the driver keeps his eyes peeled on the road.
I join Sig in wishing VCs farewell and hope they will never return. RIP
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Sunil Malhotra
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