Anything under the sun: 2004

Sunday, December 19, 2004

RFID Applications

At the moment, most of the RFID applications or solutions are built for major clients in their SCM (Supply Chain Management) needs. I am a great follower of this technology and look for alternate possibilities of adapting this technology to those areas that are far from retail business or supply chain. This article talks about few of those areas.

One of the ideas is, Smart Building. Ever wondered how much time an Administrative Department for large companies spend in designing the needs of a new office space as part of their expansion needs? It is quite cumbursome and needs lot of time and analysis. What if you have a system capable of displaying an accurate information of current usage patterns in an office space with few mouse clicks? A Smart Building offers this as one of its wide array of features. Having RFID readers in designated areas of your building to track rfid tag movement builds a good data capture system. Process this data to find out accurate details of usage patterns in a building.

Challenges at the moment include cost and the range of antennas. The range is limited currently and not sure about the future developments in this area.

I welcome comments on this idea.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Winning horses - Sensex in India

After so many years, finally Indian stock markets seem to act on fundamentals. Albeit I agree that sentiments till play a role when need arises, atleast the markets learn how to react when there are companies declaring sound results.

There are two recent instances that made me form the above opinion. One, the UPA govt announcing oil price hike that comes as a huge relief to oil companies. The relief is really really huge....its so huge that its expected to save around 10,000 crore rupees for oil companies in the current fiscal year. No wonder HPCL, BPCL, Reliance and Refineries surged ahead.

The second news, banks hiking interest rates. RBI allowing banks to revise their interest rates and ICICI taking the first step to hike housing loan rates. Bankex would have gained atleast 20% in a week. This is a clear sign how secondary market is reacting to the news or facts that really help companies. I am certain there were rumours before the hike in interest rates, but they could not change the picture much than an action from ICICI did.

All said and done, 'its elementary Watson !'. Keep the eyes and ears open for the news and be aware of the surroundings and I feel its easy to be a good investor.

Monday, November 08, 2004

Offshore startups

Most of the IT companies with a sound offshore model had started their operations in two fundamental ways. One, start with a business solution supported by IT for a manufacturing concern in west. Build it well, make it a success, partner with that company, make this solution a successfull one and adapt the solution for other companies with similar requirements. As the cash flows, extract generic knowledge of providing business solutions and expand your network. This process is not as easy as it sounds. The first step is always difficult. It requires huge effort from the IT solution provider to grab the project. Who will trust the IT company that never provided any solution before? Ofcourse, the easier way would be through contacts. If someone already worked at client's place whom the client knows and can trust, then there is a good amount of possibility for the IT company to get a footing. The second way I would say is identify a gap in the industry, try to bridge that gap with the help of a new product. Now, to get this product in right shape, partner with a company that needs this product most. Once the product is stable, start licensing it. License and maintenance revenues will feed the company.

Though the above two models are red ocean strategies (scroll down in my blog to find out about red and blue ocean strategies), it is quite difficult to find the right market to sell.

-- PS: I may be publishing an un-finished post.

Friday, November 05, 2004

Information Technology: Value Creator or Commodity? - Knowledge@Wharton

Thursday, November 04, 2004

Tug of War over Tech Stocks: Are They Heading Up, or Down? - Knowledge@Wharton

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

news @ nature.com�-�Little lady of Flores forces rethink of human evolutionbreaking science news headlines

news @ nature.com�-�Little lady of Flores forces rethink of human evolutionbreaking science news headlines

Hobbits Exist.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Executives Trade Stories on the Challenges of Doing Business in a Global Economy - Knowledge@Wharton

How Human Behavior Drives Investment Activity - Knowledge@Wharton

How to Avoid the Chain of Mistakes that Can Break Your Company - Knowledge@Wharton

Satellite Radio: Wave of the Future or Niche Play? - Knowledge@Wharton

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

MIT OpenCourseWare | Sloan School of Management

MIT OpenCourseWare | Sloan School of Management

- The link to MIT Open Courseware. I will have to check out how to study one here.

The Small Business Blog

The Small Business Blog

- Find some good information in bits and pieces if you are running a small business already.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue Ocean Strategy talks about innovation in business. Blue Oceans are unexplored areas of Business where there is no competetion. We define the bounds, we rule the markets (atleast for a while). Since I read an article in HBR, I have been thinking about it. Just look around you will find a whole lot of businesses which were not even thought of abt three years ago.

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