“Watching Microsoft in the company of Google and Facebook is a bit like watching your dad trying to be cool.” - Economist on Microsoft’s online initiatives, 26 June 2008

Right from the way information is captured to the extremely pleasing and visually-rich user interface, the extensive usage of Web 2.0 technologies is clearly visible. These two sites represent an important element in information research - such information has been internally managed and was very difficult to come by.

Cogmap calls itself the “Wikipedia of organization charts”. It allows everyone to freely view, edit, and maintain corporate structures online. With an extremely interesting application, the underlying focus is to combine the concept of wiki with organization charts. The information provided cannot be blindly relied on,  as user-generated content is still open to wrong information, et al. But if you are looking for a hierachical overview, this is your site.

The second site is They Rule - a site that “allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004″. The company collected the data from open sources, such as corporate websites and SEC filings in early 2004. I have listed this site for the visual representation and the underlying ideology of identifying the corporate tie-ups of individuals across various organizations. This has the potential to become a powerful tool, if development continues and the data can be updated.

You can download the wallpaper by clicking on the thumbnail.

The message on the website reads: “In this event we invite you, IITB alumni — IITB students — IITB Faculty (current and retired) — IITB staff (current and retired); to submit ideas that you believe will change the world in next 50 years. In essence, these ideas could be the prime movers for the world in the next 50 years.”

The contest will be judged by thought leaders and ideators from across the globe: Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India Dr. R. Chidambaram, Former Head of Nanoscience at Cambridge University and Scientific Advisor to Government of UK Prof. Mark Welland, Chief Mentor of Infosys Mr. N. R. Narayana Murthy, Director Forbes Marshall India Naushad Forbes, and Chairman Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. Ajay Piramal, American biologist Dr. Craig Venter, Co-Founder of Intellectual Ventures and former CTO of Microsoft Nathan Myhrvold, among others. The panel will be chaired by former president, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

The last date for entries is October 30, 2008. Check out the 10 Ideas website.

Bye bye hot humid weather! … Welcome monsoons and the new of challenges that it often brings :-)!

Over the last four years in my job as a business analyst, I have been amazed to see how much emphasis companies place on managing their internal information. With the advent of Web 2.0, corporate blogging and company wikis have dominated the enterprise information framework discussions. I have often wondered how much resources companies deploy to understand their external environment - the key factor for their very survival in the business ecosystem.

This post is not to discount the efficacy of corporate blogging or employee knowledge sharing - these tools in fact drive innovation and besides other benefits, have also become the hotbed for some of the best new business ideas for an organization. My thoughts are, however, directed towards how a company looks at its external environment vis-a-vis the proactive approach it takes in managing internal information.

Most companies spend a fraction of their time and effort in analyzing the external environment - and this is in light of the fact that nearly every strategic surprise is based on an event that takes place outside the company. Failure to track, analyze and interpret external market developments has often proved detrimental for market leaders. The absence of an early warning system inevitably results in competitive surprises that could go to the extent of wiping out a company’s business model completely. If the external environment is so critical, why do companies invest so little time and effort on this activity?

As Indian companies gear up to take on their global peers, competitive intelligence is going to become the key driver for formulating business strategy. The need for an early warning system that can quickly anticipate market shifts is much higher than ever before. Senior management across companies needs to start devoting a significant portion of their time in studying the changing competitive landscape and take risk control measures continually - a laid-back and passive approach is now passe.

I was having an interesting discussion on growth versus survival strategy with one of my colleagues, a few days back. We were trying to define why companies formulate different strategies, viz. growth, technology, operations, et al. My colleague was all out for growth, and believes that every strategy element is linked to growth in some way or the other. I was trying to pick his brains and debate that every strategy has an inherent backward linkage to the basic need for survival for any organization. A growth strategy too is part of a long term survival strategy - targeted at driving innovation and bringing out new products, increasing market share, entering new geographies, et al - but with a tacit focus on ensuring that the market position is not significantly affected by any unforeseen events. All efforts in terms of strategy formulation, risk control, war mapping, et al would prove to be futile in the longer run - if the same efforts are not supported by a real-time continuous competitive intelligence framework. This is the need of the hour in the current “flat” world.

“Strategy is about what your company wants to do with the world. Intelligence is about what the world wants to do with your company” - Joseph H.A.M. Rodenberg

The bottom line is: Do you have an effective early warning system in place?

The notice posted on the site reads - “A special program for web publishers, including bloggers, webmasters, and anyone who writes for the Internet. You get complimentary access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica online and, if you like, an easy way to give your readers background of the topics you write about with links to complete Britannica articles”.

If you are a blogger and you have been writing for a significant period of time, click on the link below and get your free access. Britannica takes some time to revert back, as they manually check all blogs to verify and evaluate the acceptability criteria, but if you are eligible, you will get a reply. I got mine in three days.

Britannica Webshare

A key takeaway, however, has been the way private equity firms significantly increase the value of their investments, thereby fueling growth. Harvard Business Review lists a number of factors that contribute to the high returns:

• growth incentives for portfolio managers, as well as the operations teams of portfolio businesses
• extremely determined focus on cash flow and margins
• use of debt for financing and getting tax advantages

As Indian companies start looking at global acquisitions, private equity arms of large Indian conglomerates are starting to show on the horizon. How well does the PE story pan out for these Indian firms will be an interesting study. Over the last one year, cross-border deals and incoming PE funding has seen good growth. In the current tide of events, how well can international and local PE firms flex their muscles remains to be seen. Watch this space.

How the downturn in the US economy affects India is also being debated. Financial experts and economists believe that with liquidity drying up in troubled international Markets, Indian banks are turning to the domestic markets to raise funds for their corporate clients. International banks operating in India have also started to look at ramping up their domestic activities, rather than raise funds at cheaper interest rates from international markets. These are the best of times … These are the worst of times!