Hi Friends,

Even as I launch this today ( my 80th Birthday ), I realize that there is yet so much to say and do. There is just no time to look back, no time to wonder,"Will anyone read these pages?"

With regards,
Hemen Parekh
27 June 2013

Now as I approach my 90th birthday ( 27 June 2023 ) , I invite you to visit my Digital Avatar ( www.hemenparekh.ai ) – and continue chatting with me , even when I am no more here physically

Tuesday, 20 April 2021

LESS IS MORE - JASON JENNINGS


 

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When I read any book, I scribble my comments / notes in the margins


These reflect my views / opinions about what the author is saying – including my disagreement

Often, my comments are in the nature of telling myself :

Hey ! We should try out this idea in our own business ( Head-hunting / Online Recruitment )

Following are my comments re :

                                            LESS IS MORE - JASON JENNINGS                                                                                                          
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Page no. xvi

·         I did the same calculations, while presenting group –wise manpower budgets to L&T mgmt.in 1978

Page no. 4

·         In last 6 months, thru my dozens of notes, I have redefined, our SINGLE/SIMPLE, objective “Being the largest recruitment web service in world” (08-08-03).

Page no. 6

·         This could happen to our, about to be launched “image Builder” as well! Someone can surely “improve” upon it.

Page no. 7

·         It`s “competitive Advantage” disappeared, as soon as its “patent-protection” was gone, many inefficient Indian manufacturers are finding it tough to compete, as soon as nigh import duties come down.

·         This why I keep repeating “Automate every single process that can be auto mated” make Human use of Human Beings.

·         Profit per sales $

Page no. 8

·         A lot of money in 1982! For automating a business process.

·         This is akin to our telling monster/Naukri etc. “you have lots of resumes in your databases. Convert these to image Builders store these in our common database & then earn Rs.5 (our share=50%) every time a corporate subscriber downloads it! The ware house became an “Aggregator”

Page no. 9

·         Our own pitch to corporates is “why pay Rs.2 lakh up front down payment to Monster/Naukri/jobs Ahead etc.

·         When you can download as many resumes as you want for Rs.10/= each?

·         And I hope, we will make more money than they do!

·         We talk of offering same technology to small cost, at a fraction of the costs incurred by big companies on legacy software.

Page no. 10

·         This has started happening in India during last 2/3 years (08-08-03).

Page no. 11

·         Read “marketing Myopia” by Theodor Levitt (1962) we (Recruit Guru) too, will not be just another job board. We are going to be in “people profiling” business.

·         These were comments by levity

Page no. 15

·         In Recruit Guru, we are trying to bring affordable, well-designed, “recruitment solutions, to a large mass of medium-size companies. Neither FORTUNE 500, nor Business India-500, but they are welcome.

·         For a parallel, read my notes, “The Nature of our Business.”

Page no. 16

·         Small/medium firms neither need, nor can afford a SAP|BAN|EDWARDS|PEOPLESOFT, legacy software to manage 25 recruitments per year & a work force of 300! Recruit Guru is meant for them.

Page no. 17

·         Recruit guru will be an “elegant but affordable” solution for thousands of companies.

Page no. 18

·         In would like to replace all plain email resumes (in India-to start with) with the “Image Builder” (-the new currency of recruitment) –a layered adjective?

Page no. 19

·         Neither Recruit Guru, nor “Global Recruiter” was born from a single “defining moment” in my life. These were developing all the time since 1990 –or may be when I wrote that lost poem on “recruitment “in 1977/78 as DGM!

Page no. 25

·         1960-2003-43 years!

·         Holck Larsen`s bust graces the reception at L&T house for over 15 years now. HHL passed away on 27-7-2003 at the age of 96. Last I met him was around Dec.2002,

Page no. 26

·         Sounds Quite like HHL.

Page no. 29

·         I had some difficulty selling the “productivity culture” to union leaders after 1982 union Agreement which I negotiated & signed as GM (powai), but my difficulties came more from managers! Read my circulars communicating for productivity” (1980-87) but by end of culture did change thanks to Project “WARM”

Page no.30

·         This was the biggest problem faced in L&T powai, between 1979-87 but L&T culture was not to fire anyone ever! And I was only a GM-not the CEO! Now 15 years later A.M. Naik (current CEO) is changing that culture.

Page no. 32

·         Recruit Guru`s immediate focus will be “Recruitment web services.” Later on, we will expand it to cover other HR processes, but all of these will remain “WEB-SERVICES”!

·         Recruitment HR –people –profiles web services

·         We must keep on adding ever newer “people-profiles, which would allow HR & other line- managers (in companies around the world) to zero-in into “just-the right “candidates, real fast & accurately (After function profiles, next to be developed are

·         salary profiles

·         Designation profiles

·         (10-08-03).

Page no. 33

·         Theodore Levitt – if you do not make you self-obsolete,

·         (Marketing myopia)   someone else will!

·         My insistence on a Web-SERVICE is somewhat similar.

·         Arjun succeeded because he could only see the “EYE” of the bird not the bird!

Page no. 34

·         Recruit Guru is only the first step. Next is “Global Recruiter” (read my note with same title) & finally the “Kal chakra.”

Page no. 39

·         (“Lack of transparency” kills productivity drive)

·         Completely transparent in what CEO thinks and does!

Page no. 40

·         And who are “consistent in their treatment of people. Gandhi an philosophy revisited.

Page no. 42

·         During productivity drive at powai (1979-87), I tried to share L&T`s financials, in shop- committees/unit-committees & powai level Apex committee. Even put-up slide projectors in workers canteens.

·         This is the real “blind”

Page no. 44

·         We must succeed in getting (adult) executives to frequently log into Recruit Guru & play ‘games “with function profiles/ salary –profiles /Designation-profiles/many more to be added.

·         We must “addict” them to check-out their “score” (market value) daily.

·         In 2002 for 2/3 months, I could get Asutosh to prepare & upload graphs on intranet re: each consultant’s Annual target vs. come. Achieving (net collection) Also for entire 3p. Next was to automatically compute “Incentive Earned” by each consultant (and by each support staff) & post it graphically for everyone to see/feel proud about (10-08-03).

Page no. 47

·         I believe my Granular “communicating for productivity “had an important impact on changing the work-culture of 7500 employees of powai between 1979-87 Also view video cassette of meeting with union leaders in Lonavala (1985?)

·         Available on our Intranet? At one time these were on 3p jobs.com

Page no. 49

·         Way back in each 1960`s I had organized a full-day seminar with suppliers of L&T switchgear & called it “partners in progress” Gunnar Hansen in angulated it here we exhibited all bought out components with “Qty. Read” tags on each& a draw. We held “what we expect from you” sessions.

·         We too had “vendor Development Team” within our purchase-dept.

Page no. 50

·         We did quite a bit of vendor financing in switchgear factory at L&T.

Page no. 51

·         Recruit Guru is all about “self-service” without having to invest lakhs of rupees in legacy software, which brings out a new version every 6 months!

Page no. 61

·         66% variable pay!

Page no. 63

·         Cost

·         Quality

·         Delivery

·         With this attitude going down the link Ryan air would soon close down!

·         So much so that o` Leary recently insulted a customer who had won a prize reward.

·         She sued Ryan air& won! (29-08-03).

Page no. 64

·         You can get rid of bureaucracy and still be polite.

Page no. 83

·         E.g.: BPR (Business process Re-engineering) is often needed when a process was not engineered properly, to being with.

·         Rather than retrench 300 workers of L&T made (1978/79), I got union to agree that the workers will do lower skilled jobs at powai. (29-08-03).

Page no.84

·         Recruit Guru`s performance –linked –incentive scheme has a 1). Upper limit of manpower cost as a % of Net collection 2). A “cascading” set of “claimants” for incentive.

Page no. 88

·         This is an interesting way of describing “Recruitment.” Based on this concept (extending membership to an exclusive club), we will someday, “differentiate Recruit Guru from other jobsites. (29-08-03).

Page no. 90

·         As far as Recruit Guru`s business are concerned, we must “automate” the processes for c-rating “content” (via: Resume data base & job Adv. data base) AND then 90 on to automate its “manipulation” & its “Delivery” to corporates & jobseekers. If required, we will “buy” content from vendors of database (29-08-03).

Page no. 91

·         We are lucky we are “in India”!

·         We will run recruit Guru`s servers at night to do batch proce3ssing of keywords.

·         “Automating” processes.

Page no. 92

·         But what if a customer (potential) called?

Page no. 107

·         In my yester days note  about delivering job alerts as SMS on cell-phones, the value –proposition is ultimate convenience/total mobile freedom” to jobseekers. No need for a pc/internet connection/email account/login password/a wire- connection a table (to hold pc)/an ISP (to provide service)? And as for “good reason” it is all about getting 50 million resumes, which can be “sold” again & again! (01-09-03).

·         And another Carrot we will offer to candidates is, free “Resume Forwarding” service (Apply online)-someday by clicking on their cell-phones.

Page no. 124

·         This is exactly the reason, why, in Recruit Guru, although. We will count daily orders booed & payment received; we will concentrate on daily transactions serviced (which are true Net collections). Customer Advances are only liabilities. 

·         Birla`s “parta” system. (01-09-03).

·         This is exactly what I got each L&T powai plant manager to do in our monthly APEX productivity meetings in presence of all UNION (labor) Reps. Shop-floor productivity Indices (graphs) were displayed/debated for each mfg. shop. The indices were compiled by shop foremen.

Page no. 126

·         Recruit Guru will be entirely “No. of Transactions Executed per unit of time” driven. Of course, our Tariff (Rs/transactions) will change over time and even be different for different customers, at any given point of time. We will independently measure “volume Growth” (no. of transactions) and the “tariff growth” over a period of time, for

Ø  A given subscriber

Ø  All subscribers put together 

·         We will also measure, how much of the volume Growth comes from “existing” subscribers & how much from “New” subscribers. Every “new” subscriber will be classified as an “existing” subscriber, after 12 months of member ship. (01-09-03). 

Page no. 133

·         Read the poem         “path of the calf” in book “value Engineering” by Larry miles (1960). I had it printed on 4’x6’ paper & pasted in my cabin at L&T powai.

Page no. 136

·         Which worker would want to increase productivity if it would lead to a layoff? We got 3%-4% productivity gain at L&T powai annually (output at constant prices) between 1982-87, primarily because, I promised “No layoff” to UNION & the workers.

Page no. 137

·         This is main theme of my 100+ circulars to 7500 employees of powai (between 1979-1987). Read “communicating for productivity”

Page no. 142

·         We must watch out for this with Recruit Guru, we too, will transform ourselves from an Executive search firm to a Recruitment solutions firm.

Page no. 143

·         We must price Recruit Guru “service” (transaction-tariff) at low-enough prices for small/medium companies to be able to afford it.

·         Guru Mine is alone “mass” Extraction” of resumes to create a structured database.

Page no. 149

·         Today (may be right at this moment), Raju/kartavy are giving a “demo” of Recruit guru to ORACLE I Bangalore & I hope, this is what they will project (04-09-030.

·         Recruit Guru`s main “service” is to increase the productivity of a client`s recruitment process –by making the process “better-cheaper-faster.”

Page no. 150

·         Pride of creation.

Page no. 161

·         In our consulting Group, profits Centre Heads (Pc1+) are rewarded with an annual Incentive pay which is linked to the “Net collection” of their entire team.

·         Peer pressure on new comers to perform.

Page no. 162

·         Also generally true at L&T.

·         I gave such repo. To TRV when PCSR let (matl-Dept)

·         & to TSV when BGA left – (QC Dept.) PSW

·         In early ‘60`s /both did very well. (07-09-03).

Page no. 163

·         Sometime in early ‘80`s, I spent a whole morning taking about this to a group of managers of L&T, at a seminar in Lonavala.

Page no.164

·         Sounds like lavvy Ellison taking about Bill Gate!

Page no.165

·         South west (USA) does it in less! Read book “NUTS” in our library.

Page no. 166

·         I have used this quite in my note to Abhi, “make Luck.”

Page no. 167

·         At a productivity- seminar in Delhi, during 80`s where I was invited for a talk to bigwigs of industry L&T union secretary, S. V. Naik (who, I had insisted will share the Dias with me), shocked the gathering by saying “I am fist a worker of L&T then member of my union.”

Page no. 180

·         What is the Good business reason for doing it?

Page no. 182

·         I have suggested that on recruit Guru.com, we will have a graph showing “Extraction Accuracy Index”

·         Recruit guru is meant to make client`s recruitment process Better/Faster/Cheaper (08-09-03).

·         See my today’s write up “About Recruit guru.

Page no. 183

·         In Recruit Guru, our value proposition is that there is hardly any upfront/lump sum investment to be made on part of a subscriber. Hence payback period could be mere “weeks” –not “years”!

Page no. 190

·         This is why Jeff Taylor - CEO – Monster USA, expects his resume database to go up from current 40 million to more than 100 million by 2oo5 (in just 2years!). It seems USA, is THE MARKET for Recruit Guru compared to USA, Indian market is pygmy!

Page no. 195

·         There are thousands of job boards today & many more thousand may get added in years to come, but as far as Recruitment WEB-SERVICE (pay-per-use) is concerned, we intend to be the biggest in the world! (08-09-03).

·         We are all focused on launching Recruit guru in next 15 days.

·         Our biggest. Threat will come from job boards. In India these will be Monster India/ Naukri/job Ahead/job street etc.

Page no. 196

·         Recruit Guru will place Rs.5 billion companies on “par” with Rs.5 billion companies as far as “Recruitments process” is conceded. Obviously an Rs.5 billion company will always attract better talent because of its huge reputation and fat pay-packets.

Page no.197

·         I feel same way. “Global Recruiter” is going to be my life`s work.

Page no. 200

·         “Human use of Human Beings”

Page no. 204

·         Monster India/Naukri/ job Ahead etc.

·         We must get more corporate subscribers for Recruit guru, within 12 months, than all these put together. (08-09-03).

Page no. 223

·         Narayan Murthy (Infosys) cells himself “Chief Mentor”

§  Bill Gates calls himself “Chief Architect” of Microsoft.

§  Subrato Roy (Sahara) calls himself, “chief worker & MD.”

Page no.229

·         And “thought” precedes “word”

·         Man/vachan/karma.

·         I am reminded of my own efforts to change culture at powai between 1979-1987.

·         Project WARM was my vehicle for change.

Page no.230

·         Gunnar Hansen once told me “workers respect consistency in managerial decisions- even if they hate the decision.”

Page no. 232

·         At powai, I often urged dept. heads not to wait for a “management directive” or a “policy decision from the top, to initiate a good thing. I repeatedly told them to start the “attitude change” revolution from where they happened to be.

Page no. 234

·         Compare this with Hock Larsen. When he ceased to be Executive Director at L&T, he was not entitled to have his car repaired at company garage. At that time I was GM (powai). In one year company had spent Rs.74000/= on maintaining HHL`s car. No one knew of this rule nor cared to find out until internal

·         Audit Dept. pointed out. I could have easily changed all the records all the records but HHL opted to write a personal cheque for Rs.74000/= this happened sometime in early ‘80`s long before “corporate Governance” word was even coined! These are the values which HHL imparted.

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