In my 20 odd years of work experience, I have always been a knowledge worker of some kind. I have worked in both open and closed offices. In my first job, I used to sit in an open office, where several engineers and draughtsmen used to sit in a large hall. That was at a time, when every desk did not have a PC. It was good fun watching the movements of people, chatting and joking while working, overhearing telephone conversations etc.   

In my second job, it was an open office again, but there was some level of privacy because of the cubicle design. One could sit in front of the PC and do one’s work. It was also easy to stand up and chat with a colleague in the neighbouring cubicle. For a short discussion, it was easy to walk over to an associate’s cubicle or sit around a meeting table. Sometimes, activities or phone conversations in other parts of the office could be quite distracting.

In my current job, I have a closed office. My office is quite away from some of the other colleagues with whom I need to interact on work. Whereas, I quite enjoy the privacy of working all alone, I also miss the social interaction and harmless fun, I had got used to in my earlier offices. Many times when I need to communicate with my colleagues, I am too lazy to walk over to their offices.

After reading this interesting extract from “Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers.” By Thomas Davenport, I realize why the office design matters so much and why I felt so. Thomas Davenport  says

Knowledge workers prefer closed offices, but seem to communicate better in open ones. Of course there is great variation among open and closed office types, but the most extensive research in the area suggests that while most knowledge workers prefer closed offices because they are better able to concentrate, they communicate informally and build trust and social capital more easily in more open office environments (even high-walled cubicles, they say, restrict interpersonal communications). They note: "Our research, done with employees in job functions ranging from software development to marketing and business development, indicates that the more open the 'open' plan office environment, the more conducive it is to overall work effectiveness, when communication and interaction are critical elements of the work process."

Knowledge workers concentrate. The opposite side of the collaboration coin is the need to concentrate at work. This requires a quiet setting with relatively few distractions. Such an environment is particularly important for knowledge creation activities—thinking, writing, programming, designing, and so forth. This takes up a widely varying proportion of knowledge workers' time—some studies have found, for example, that programmers spend only 20 to 30 percent of their time doing solo programming, but others have found workers devoting up to 64 percent in "quiet work."Whatever the fraction of time, it's important for the production of final knowledge work outputs. Many organizations that have moved to more open offices trumpet the benefits of increased collaboration, but they discount the penalties incurred on the concentration side

Knowledge workers communicate with people who are close by. Tom Allen, the dean of researchers on the work behaviors of scientists and engineers, found more than two decades ago that technical workers (a proxy for knowledge workers) whose desks are more than thirty meters apart have a frequency of communications that is roughly zero. Some might argue that e-mail and instant messaging have changed the relationship between physical proximity and communication. However, I'd argue that you rarely e-mail or IM intensely with someone you don't know.

Personally speaking, I like the open-plan offices with low-walled cubicles. What about you ?

We have heard about 'casting couch' in Hollywood and Bollywood. The latest Madhur Bhandarkar film "Fashion" showed how models "sleep around" to further their careers.The film industry, fashion industry, even to an extent advertising industry, has several beautiful women.Definition of talent and competence is highly subjective in these industries, so one accepts these tools as plausible. Banking and Finance is normally considered a very staid profession, made up of nerds, who get their kicks from charts and numbers rather than curves and legs.

In a startling article in Businessweek, titled "Sex, lies and sub-prime mortgages", the seamier side of the mortgage business in USA during the sub-prime bubble is exposed.  It talks about how "minimally trained and minimally dressed" women became mortgage wholesalers and flourished during that boom period.  Here is an excerpt from the article. 

One of them was Sharmen Lane, a high school dropout who, like many other young women during the boom, found her way into an obscure banking job with the clunky title "mortgage wholesaler." Her experience—and the experiences of other wholesalers like her—offers a glimpse into the recklessness and indulgence that drove the industry to ruin.

The rise of mortgage wholesalers from grunts to rainmakers is one of the more curious developments of the housing bubble. Wholesalers work for banks and other lenders. The wholesaler's job is to buy loan applications from independent mortgage brokers so that lenders can turn them into loans. Wholesalers are paid on commission: the more loans they generate, the more money they make. During the housing boom, lenders typically approved the loans and then packaged them into securities. That path—from mortgage brokers to wholesalers to lenders to securities—turned out to be a road to disaster.

But as the housing bubble inflated, wholesalers—though hidden from public view—became high-earning superstars. Lane, a manicurist before joining now-defunct subprime lender New Century Mortgage in 1997, says she brought home $1 million in 2002 and $1.2 million in 2003.

Eventually the deal-making turned frenetic. Multiple wholesalers began inundating mortgage brokers with offers for the same applications. Some brokers chose to exercise their power by asking for something extra in exchange for their business: sex.

Dozens of former brokers and wholesalers say the trading of sexual favors was so common that it came to be expected. Lane recalls one visit to a mortgage brokerage near San Jose (Calif.) in which the manager lewdly propositioned her in his office. She says she declined the advance, and he didn't sell her any applications. But other female wholesalers didn't have the same qualms about crossing the line. "Women who had sex for loans were known very quickly," says Lane, who left New Century before it failed in 2007 and now works as a $200-an-hour life coach and motivational speaker in New York. "I didn't want to be a mortgage slut."

Instead of doing credit appraisal, lenders were busy appraising other assets. No wonder, they got themselves into such a holy mess.

Citi is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Citi may claim it never sleeps, but there are real dangers of it going into an eternal sleep. Before, this legendary nearly two centuries old bank, goes bankrupt or gets bought or is sold off in pieces, here are some trivia about the bank.

1.Citibank had one of its earliest International branches in an Indian city. It has been operating in India since 1902. Name the city and by what name was it known earlier..

Ans : Calcutta. Citibank started as City Bank of  New York. From 1962, itt was known as First National City Bank.

2.The full name of Citibank in India is Citibank. N.A. What does N.A stand for ?

Ans : National Association ( as per wikipedia). Some say North America, also, because Citibank is not incorporated in India, but in USA.

3.Started by Frank McNamara, Ralph Schneider and Casey Tailor , it was the first independent credit card company in the world. In 1950, the first of these cards were given out to 200 associates of McNamara, mostly salespeople who often needed to dine with clients.Citibank was the exclusive franchisee of this well-known brand from 1981 to April 2008. In April 2008, Citibank sold this business to Discover.

Ans : Diners Club

4.Citibank was found guilty by the Joint Parliamentary Committee for being one of the perpetrators in the 1991-92 stockmarket scam, popularly known as the Harshad Mehta scandal. Approximately, how much fine was Citibank asked to pay for this offence ?

Ans : Rs 50.5 crore

5.In 1998, Citibank merged with Travellers’ Group to form CitiGroup. From Travellers’ group, Citibank got its CEO, who remained the top boss of Citi from 2003 to 2006. He has been called  “King of Capital”, by his biographer. Name this Citibank CEO.

Ans : Sanford I.Weill or Sandy Weill

6.Connect Citibank to HP in India .

Ans : Jaitirth Rao, alias Jerry Rao. Jerry Rao is credited with building the Citibank’s retail business in India. After leaving Citi he started Mphasis, an IT Services company. Mphasis merged with BFL to form Mphasis BFL. Mphasis BFL got acquired by EDS. EDS in turn has now been acquired by HP.

7. Connect Citibank to Oracle in India

Ans : CITIL. Citibank set-up an IT company called Citibank Information technology India Ltd (CITIL). CITIL was renamed as I-Flex and it went public. I-Flex was acquired by Oracle and recently renamed as Oracle Financial Software Ltd.

8. Citibank in India was always seen as the banker of the elite. In 1997-98 , it launched a new service targeted at the middle class with a low mimimum balance of Rs 1000 in Bangalore. This had other add-on services like utility bill payments, automatic creation of fixed deposits etc. This was considered a major innovation and Citibank took this product to many countries. Name this service.

Ans : Suvidha.

9. Name an Indian private sector bank which has a strong Citibank connection. Media has often speculated that when RBI regulations, loosen, this bank would be taken over by Citibank.

Ans : HDFC Bank. Citibank has about 11 % stake in HDFC Ltd. HDFC in turn is the promoter of HDFC Bank and has 26% stake in HDFC Bank Ltd. Aditya Puri, the CEO of HDFC Bank is an Ex-Citibanker.

10. In the 1950s and 1960s, Citibank had a member of the Rockefeller family at the top. But now the ownership of Citi is highly fragmented. Who is the largest individual shareholder of  Citigroup ?

Ans : Prince Al-waleed bin Talal, belonging to the Royal family of Saudi Arabia. He owns less than 5 % in Citi and has promised to increase his stake.

I have just returned from a short trip from Ahmedabad. Whenever I have the luxury of sitting on the rear seat on long drives, I read every hoarding, straining through the window glass.This is a habit since childhood days when I used to look for cinema posters and information about new releases. I also used to find great amusement in finding spelling errors and grammatical mistakes in the hand-painted posters.

The billboard as a medium of advertising has changed considerably over the years. Gone are the hand-painted posters, painted by Husain wannabes. We have gigantic hoardings with vinyl printed sheets, now. They are very well-lit, making them visible from long distances even in nights. Besides, the hoardings, we have variety of other media like bus shelters, kiosks on lamp poles, kiosks at various public places, LCD panels at malls, buses, elevators etc. This entire medium which used to be known as outdoor advertising has an esoteric name now, OOH media. OOH stands for 'Out of Home." There are several players from the organised sector in OOH media now.

On my way to the Hyderabad airport, I saw huge hoardings, standing on steel pillars, most of them empty. Just mentioning the name of the OOH agency. At the Hyderabad airport, I saw several beautifully back-lit kiosks urging the travelling businessman or executive "Imagine your  brand here.", giving the e-mail id of the OOH agency at the bottom. Several kiosks have beautiful photographs of Indian monuments, saying "Discover India" , giving the e-mail id of the OOH agency at the bottom.At the Ahmedabad airport near the luggage conveyors, I saw a huge kiosk displaying photograph of a worried traveller using all means to stuff more clothes into his luggage, the catchline says "Want space, contact-----". As I was moving out of the airport, I saw several empty hoardings, just mentioning "BIG Street and a Contact No." BIG in BIG Street is written similar to the BIG in BIG Cinemas and BIG TV. It appears that ADAG Group has also entered OOH media.

Only a few months ago, all these billboards would be full of advertisements from real estate, Insurance, Public issues, telecom companies etc. I guess, the first clear signs of slowdown affecting the advertising business.

The just concluded Beijing Olympics in August was as much a showcase for China’s sporting abilities, as much as its emergence as an industrial superpower. No one would have missed the steel structures used in the main Olympics stadium, Bird’s Nest. The Bird’s Nest may not have used more than a few thousand tons of steel, but with the closing ceremony of the Olympics, the light seems to have gone out in the steel industry.

The coincidence of the dip in steel demand and Olympics is not just a happenstance. China is by far the biggest producer of steel in the world. In the run-up to the Olympics, it was also a big consumer of steel. It took up huge infrastructure projects, whose completion coincided with the Beijing Olympics. One estimate puts China’s expenditure for Olympics at US $ 42 billion.

The sharp dip in demand for steel is reflected by various indicators. The price for steel has witnessed a sharp correction. Although, there is no official exchange for steel like LME for other metals, several newspaper reports indicate the price of steel has fallen by as much as 30-35% from Rs 45,000 per tonne to Rs 30-35,000 per tonne, since August. The Baltic Dry Index (a global indicator for shipping freight, for iron ore and other dry goods) has crashed by 90 % in the last 10 months. The crash in BDI has been attributed to the sharp fall in iron-ore imports by Chinese mills.

Steelguru.com reports that for the first time since 1981, there has been a decline in steel production in China. Over 85 blast furnaces have been closed down due to the demand slump. The iron ore mines in Goa and Bellary region of Karnataka, who made bumper profits exporting iron ore to China, are facing tough times now. NMDC, the public sector Iron Ore major, is largely unaffected by the demand slump, because it hardly exports iron ore in the spot trade to China.   

Economic Times reports that over 35 sponge iron units in the Chhattisgarh region have stopped production, in recent months, because of the slump in demand and unremunerative prices.

The steel majors in India. SAIL and Tata Steel reported good quarterly results for the quarter ending September’08. But their outlook is quite gloomy. SAIL has already announced its intention of going slow on its expansion plans by two years. Tata Steel has not made any formal announcement of deferring any of its expansion plans or greenfield projects. But if one extrapolates, the thinking in Tata group, as expressed by the Group Chairman Ratan Tata to put all acquisitions and capital expenditure on hold, one can interpret that Tata Steel would also be going slow on its expansions.

Global majors like Arcelor Mittal and Corus have reported 20-25% lower production targets, going forward. Arcelor Mittal has already indicated that its India plans will be on hold, until the industry outlook improves.

The bleak outlook for the steel industry is reflected in the sharp drop in the stock prices of all steel companies. Tata Steel stock is trading at Rs 165, a far cry from its 52 week high of over Rs 850. The SAIL stock is touching new lows everyday and it is currently trading at Rs 65. The ET Metal index has underperformed the broad-based index considerably in the last six months. The Price-earnings multiple is 3.1 for ET Metal Index , against 11 for the broad-based ET 100.

My own take on the steel industry is that this slump may continue for a few months, as long as the global housing and automobile slowdown continue. But the sharp drop in global trade and prices was more attributable to the credit crisis, which will get solved soon.

This is a good time to acquire stocks of steel companies like Tata Steel and SAIL in small packets. I prefer SAIL over Tata Steel, because it has no overhang of debt.

In India, we have seen only inflation. The rate of inflation, goes up or comes down. But prices of all things going down, all at the same time, has been just a dream. Prices going up was accepted as a fact of life, as much as the Sun rising in the East.

In the first half of 2008, the inflation rose steadily on the back of high crude oil and food prices. It touched double-digit inflation and rose to nearly 13%, before slowly declining. The government and RBI have been taking all the steps necessary for bringing down inflation through various fiscal and monetary steps, all the while blaming global factors for the high inflation. Even the most optimistic economic analysts, did not expect the inflation to come down to single digits before the end of 2008.   Omkar Goswami, in a column as recent as 19 September in Businessworld said

Inflation is unlikely to be in single digits by the close of 2008-09. That’s what the data suggests. He qualified it by saying that “ My take is that unless there is a spectacular fall in prices in the coming months, we won’t see 8 per cent point-to-point inflation by end-March 2009. It is more likely to be around 10-10.5 per cent — falling, but still in double digits. The moral of this story: Be hopeful, by all means. But don’t ignore the data.”

In 2 months he has been proved wrong. This week’s inflation figure is already single digit 8.98 %. It is a single digit figure, inspite of the fact that the administered prices of petrol, diesel have not been reduced. The fact is, there has been a spectacular fall in prices of commodities worldwide, particularly, metals.

If you set out to tame inflation and you achieve it sooner than expected, you should be rejoicing. Yet, the government and RBI are not. Instead, they are worried about the fact  there is a danger of Indian economy swinging towards deflation, much like the rest of the world.

What is deflation ? The Glossary of Economics Terms defines deflation as occurring "when prices are declining over time. This is the opposite of inflation; when the inflation rate (by some measure) is negative, the economy is in a deflationary period."

Deflation can occur because of a combination of four factors:

• The supply of money goes down.
• The supply of other goods goes up.
• Demand for money goes up.
• Demand for other goods goes down.

The liquidity squeeze in the economy has caused money supply to go down. In October, many goods supply have gone up and demand has fallen considerably. Automobiles, steel, cement, housing all have had considerable demand slowdown and inventory build-up in the last couple of months. Thus indicating early signs of deflation.

Deflation is bad because  "in deflation [there's] a declining spiral. Businesses make less profits so they cut back [on] employment. People feel less like spending money. Businesses then don't make any profits and everything works itself into a declining spiral." Deflation also has a psychological element as it "becomes rooted in peoples' psychologies and becomes self-perpetuating. Consumers are discouraged from buying expensive items like automobiles or homes because they know those things will be cheaper in the future, “ says Colin Asher, an analyst with Nomura Securities. This kind of a deflation, happened during the Great depression in 1929-1933.

The managers of Indian economy understand this. The RBI has already taken several steps to ease money supply. The FM is urging all the PSU banks to lend more money to spur demand. The central government employees have been given wage arrears based on the sixth pay commission scales. It is possible, the government may announce some fiscal stimulus package, like the Chinese government.

If the above measures click, then it is possible that like 2007, India will have low inflation and reasonably good GDP growth. This is desirable for the stock markets. It is also possible, that due to the increased money supply inflation goes up, but the growth does not happen, leading to stagflation. There is also a remote possibility that none of these measures work and the overwhelming impact of the global factors lead to a deflationary period in the Indian economy.

When the US sub-prime crisis came to fore, the Indian Finance Minister (FM)  and the other spokespersons of the Govt said, India may not be able to do 9.0 % like 2007-08 but surely 8.5-8.0 % was certainly achievable. In Jan-Mar 2008, Indian GDP actually grew 8.8% p.a. 

Then the crude prices started surging and inflation touched double digit. Suddenly, inflation became top priority and the mandarins of the finance ministry started talking more about inflation than about GDP. Whenever the FM was pinned down to quote an estimate, he would still say India would achieve 8 % growth.

In September 2008, when the US sub-prime crisis, became a full-blown global credit crunch, leading to a huge stockmarket correction, the FM insisted we are on track to achieve 8 % GDP growth.

October was among the worst months, when the stress of the crisis was beginning to show severely not only in the stockmarkets but also in the fore-head of the FM and even PM. FM appeared on several occasions on TV to reassure that Indian banking system was safe and Indian economy was doing fine.

Of late, the tune of the government is beginning to change. The FM is still parroting the 8.0% GDP tune, but the PM has already admitted that Indian economy  will also be impacted by the global crisis. PM has admitted yesterday that India may achieve only 7.5-7.0 % GDP growth rate this year.

The FM is yet to openly admit that not only the stockmarket, the real economy is also facing the impact of the global crisis. He still seems to believe that India has a divine right to grow by 8.0%p.a , come what may. He and his statistics department, may be able to show 8.0% through some jugglery, but people are not going to believe them. IMF has already downgraded the estimate for GDP growth in India for 2008 to 7.8% and 2009 to just 6.3%, reports Mint.

It is time, our FM, accepted the truth and acted on the ground, rather than just giving false assurances through the media.

The credit crunch and the economic slowdown have begun hitting the Commercial Vehicles manufacturers. Ashok Leyland (ALL) has announced high inventories and demand slowdown as the reason for going for a 3-day working of their plants for the next two months. ALL has had a precipitous drop in sales from 6,186 vehicles. in September 2008 to 3,397 vehicles in October, 2008. 

The market leader Tata Motors has also announced similar measures. Tata Motors has announced a plant-shutdown of its Pune and Jamshedpur plants for five days and three days repectively in November. Tata Motors have reported that

The company’s sales of commercial vehicles in October 2008 in the domestic market were 19,154 nos., a decline of 29% compared to 27,103 vehicles sold in October last year. M&HCV sales stood at 7,321 nos., a decline of 48% over October 2007, while LCV sales were 11,833 nos., a decline of 10% over October 2007.

It is pretty evident that the outlook for the immediate future is not bright. Even the Prime Minister is conducting several rounds of meetings with the industry officials to understand and formulate strategies for the economy.

Here are a few suggestions for the Government as well as the CV manufacturers for their consideration.

The slowdown can be utilised to revive and improve the public transport in the towns and cities. In the last economic boom from 2003 onwards, the  public transport has suffered at the cost of private transport, namely cars and two-wheelers.

In the last five years, many cities have expanded geographically, even 30 kilometres from the city centres. These new colonies and residential areas are hardly served by the public transport system.

In several cities, city buses are old and inadequate. These bus services are run inefficiently, leaving the citizens to either resort to private transport options or sub-optimal public transport options. The need for buses is being met partially by shuttle auto-rickshaws and the new Tata Magic ( a variant of Tata Ace).

The Government on its part can liberalise the city bus services to allow private operators. (Bus services in Hyderabad is the monopoly of the state-run APSRTC. Bengaluru and Chennai, also have only state-run buses operating in the city.) In its new policy, the Government can opt for a public-private partnership model. The governments can provide land for the depots, bus-stops and using the roads. The private companies own and operate the bus-fleet. Government can have a revenue-sharing arrangement with the private operators. Each city may have more than one private-operator to generate competition. At the same time, it should not be treated like an employment generation scheme where each operator just operates one-or-two buses, thus losing out on economies of scale. Government can also make funding for buses as priority sector lending, thereby making credit easily available for public transport.

India's social infrastructure leaves much to be desired. Indian towns and cities need ambulances, mobile dispensaries and fire engines. Now is the opportune time for designing schemes to acquire these vehicles. Government of India can even approach multi-lateral funding agencies for funding these schemes.

The marketing arms of Tata Motors and ALL need to come up with innovative offerings for the cities and towns to acquire these vehicles. The managements of the industry have to work with the Government agencies to make the necessary policy changes and formulation of schemes. 

The above changes are long-term and they are not going to solve the problems of idle plant capacities for the next two months. However, there are no indications that the slowdown is for the next two months only.

This is a good opportunity for Indian government and industry to solve some long-term problems of our towns and cities and thereby also help the revival of the economy.    

According to a new book "Talent is overrated" by Geoffrey Colvin, the role of talent in an individual's success in any field, music, sports or business is much lesser than previously imagined. In an interesting anecdote, he mentions that in a batch of fresh MBAs at Proctor and Gamble, USA, two new recruits, one a Harvard MBA and the other an MBA from Dartmouth looked unambitious and least likely to aim for the top job. But both went on to become CEOs of Fortune 10 companies, Microsoft and GE. The individuals being described are Steve Ballmer and Jeffrey Immelt., who became CEOs of Micorsoft and GE before they turned 50.

Geoffrey Colvin, attributes the success to enormous amount of hard work over many years. But not just plain hardwork of the " practice makes a man perfect" kind. Prof Ericsson from Florida State University, who has researched extensively on this subject says ;

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call "deliberate practice." It's activity that's explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one's level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

For example: Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don't get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day - that's deliberate practice.

Consistency is crucial. As Ericsson notes, "Elite performers in many diverse domains have been found to practice, on the average, roughly the same amount every day, including weekends."

Evidence crosses a remarkable range of fields. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.

The role of a parent or a coach in designing a deliberate practice routine cannot be overestimated. Tiger Woods' father coached him on golf since he was 18 months old. Vishwanathan Anand had his mother. Sachin Tendulkar , his brother first and then Ramakant Achrekar.

This need not be limited to sports or music alone. It can be applied to business too.

Many elements of business, in fact, are directly practicable. Presenting, negotiating, delivering evaluations, deciphering financial statements - you can practice them all.

Still, they aren't the essence of great managerial performance. That requires making judgments and decisions with imperfect information in an uncertain environment, interacting with people, seeking information - can you practice those things too? You can.

The first is going at any task with a new goal: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it.

Report writing involves finding information, analyzing it and presenting it - each an improvable skill. Chairing a board meeting requires understanding the company's strategy in the deepest way, forming a coherent view of coming market changes and setting a tone for the discussion. Anything that anyone does at work, from the most basic task to the most exalted, is an improvable skill.

Through the whole process, one of your goals is to build what the researchers call "mental models of your business" - pictures of how the elements fit together and influence one another. The more you work on it, the larger your mental models will become and the better your performance will grow.

Andy Grove could keep a model of a whole world-changing technology industry in his head and adapt Intel, as needed. Bill Gates, Microsoft's  founder, had the same knack: He could see at the dawn of the PC that his goal of a computer on every desk was realistic and would create an unimaginably large market. John D. Rockefeller, too, saw ahead when the world-changing new industry was oil. Napoleon was perhaps the greatest ever. He could not only hold all the elements of a vast battle in his mind but, more important, could also respond quickly when they shifted in unexpected ways.

That's a lot to focus on for the benefits of deliberate practice - and worthless without one more requirement: Do it regularly, not sporadically.

Sachin Tendulkar and Anil Kumble have both achieved great success. Sachin was identified as a prodigy, but Anil Kumble, was even mocked, as a spinner who could not spin. Tracing his long journey with Tendulkar, Kumble said, “When Sachin started his career everyone said he will break all batting records, and when I started my career everyone said I will not play two Test matches. Sachin has had to spend the rest of his life proving people right and my entire career was spent on proving people wrong.”

So everyone can achieve greatness by "deliberate practice". But what makes very few people do it. The authors of one study conclude, "We still do not know which factors encourage individuals to engage in deliberate practice."

The story of Dr A.Velumani, the Founder and Managing Director of Thyrocare Technologies Ltd, is heartwarming and inspiring. Born in a landless farmer’s family in Appanickenpatti Pudur, an obscure village near Coimbatore, Velumani was a brilliant student. He became the first graduate from his village. He went on to acquire a PhD in Thyroid Chemistry. He joined as a Scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. He served BARC for fourteen years, when he decided to do something on his own.

Velumani decided to pursue his dream, which got formed while he was a Ph.D student at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai. He used to see people camping on the road outside the hospital at Parel. These were relatives of cancer patients who did not have accommodation. He desperately wanted to mitigate the sufferings of the patients and their relatives. Realising that he was not a doctor, he decided to offer medical diagnostics, something that he could do, as a service to patients without profiting at their expense.

The outcome of this decision was Thyrocare, which he set up in Mumbai in 1996. Thyrocare is today the world’s largest thyroid testing laboratory. It has a single world-class centralized laboratory in Thane which can handle 500,000 tests a day. The company specialises in immunodiagnostics, testing blood samples for thyroid disorders. Thyrocare decided to focus on preventive healthcare. In his own words, Dr Velumani explains the rationale

 At any given point of time, 10 per cent of India’s population is in need of some medical care. Out of these, only one per cent are acutely sick people. The rest nine per cent are not even aware that they have some problem. The 40,000 diagnostic laboratories in our country are all fighting for that one per cent. Few are focusing on the nine per cent, which need preventive healthcare.

We are targeting this very nine per cent. We are planning to include some common tests like heamatology, serology and microbiology. They are important in providing preventive care support. Some high-end tests are also planned.

Thyrocare realized that if they had to provide high-quality diagnostics at a low cost, they needed scale. The company pursues a unique franchisee model to collect samples from across the country. It has over 550 franchisees in last count. All the franchisee needs is a small office, a PC with an Internet connection.

For the centralized testing facility to work efficiently, it worked extensively on its logistics system. The company can provide reports to 90% of the locations in India, within 24 hours. Transporting specimens or reports are very costly considering courier and air-cargo costs. But at Thyrocare, the cost of collecting a specimen at Adyar, Chennai, at 4 p.m. to reach Santa Cruz, Mumbai, at 11 p.m. by air-cargo would be as little as 30 paise only.

Thyrocare uses technology extensively. It was the first in the country to introduce barcoded serum vials. The results of lab tests are transmitted through e-mail, available at all franchisees ensuring the cost of report delivery as truly low.

Thyrocare’s logistics system is so well-respected in the industry, that Reliance Life Sciences has tied up with the company to get samples for DNA tests at their labs using Thyrocare’s logistics.

Thyrocare uses its partnership with pharmaceutical companies for marketing. In an innovative collaboration, Thyrocare offers Cadila, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s, Glaxo etc tests from Thyrocare at 50% discount. These companies give them as complimentary coupons to doctors. The doctor in turn gives it to his patients, which helps in expanding the business for all.

Thyrocare has kept its promise of providing tests at an affordable cost. Dr Velumani says “In the 12 years since I started Thyrocare, the cost of everything — rentals, fuel and reagents — had skyrocketed; yet my customers are not paying a single paisa more than they did twelve years ago,”.“Initially, my competitors called me ‘crazy’ for the rates I charged. They waited for me to go bankrupt, but in vain.”

Thyrocare is a closely held company. It achieved a turnover of Rs 80 crore in 2007. Dr Velumani has huge ambitions for Thyrocare which is clearly reflected in his twin dreams

·         Thyrocare should serve 50% of the world's population for 50% of their diagnostic needs at 50% of the cost.

·         Thyrocare should be the biggest client for the top 20 diagnostic manufacturing companies in the world.

Wishing Dr Velumani all the luck. May Dr Velumani’s story inspire several Indians to offer unique solutions to benefit mankind.