If these economic jolts of last few weeks are called recession; I am pretty amused by it.
– Pleasantly amused by my all brokers (companies like ICICI Direct, Kotak) sending me mailers explaining different plans and simple logic behind them. None of them cared a quarter back. Last year it was a “take it or leave it” attitude.
– Pleasantly surprised that companies are talking about online, mobile, low cost models, leveraging technology etc etc. A quarter back, everybody was in a land grab mode – open as many outlets as possible, hire as many people as possible
– Pleasantly surprised when I went to my school back at ISB. Students’ expectations seem to be with rest of the world. An year back – everybody was dreaming for a Cr job
I think two main +ive developments have happened:
1.) Businesses are willing to spend time with their customers. There is a thought of “Customer Retention”.
2.) Cost of doing the business – from real estate cost, talent cost etc has come down.
Overall, I think lot of arrogance, which comes with growth have moderated. I understand that a recession also brings lot of pain (I lost my entire savings of last year) but I think it’s necessary to set things right for further growth. Thoughts? Comments?
-Mukul
- Onion Rs65/kg, Petrol Rs65/litre, Beer Rs65! - January 19, 2011
- NEN Program for Women Entrepreneurs - September 3, 2010
- A Billion Dollar Indian Internet Company - August 19, 2010
Recession is a breeding ground for large future monopolies a la (a) Early 80s recessio/1973 oil crisis gave birth to Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. (b) Early 90s recession created the Internet boom (c) Post Dot-com era gave us YouTube, Facebook.
I met my dad yesterday (he runs a small business); on the credit crisis and downturn, he said and I quote, “Ab faltu paisa market se nikal gaya, ab business mein aayega mazaa!” What cynicism I thought, but he had a point.
Indus
I get mixed feelings reading this. So really don’t know which way to comment. At this point I just wish we are not jolted any further.
@Deepak: A Cr job is a job that pays you a crore of rupees a year 😉
Nice post. A fresh way of looking at recessions.
Given a choice between an arrogant, uncaring world and a debilitating crunch that cripples lives, majority would always chase the former.
What use customer service after you’ve long ceased to be one…?
My opinion: This is just the beginning, in fact, not even the beginning in India. Usually recessions start with the politeness, and businesses genuinely appear to care. It makes sense to retain, but as a whole customers tend to spend less, and a quarter or two later, the bottomline isnt growing so the investment in retention goes down.
The next phase is the scary bit: when everyone’s just trying to save their job, and morale is at all time lows – typically businesses start caring only about bottomlines, and they will give up customer service if it means that. (Cust service, in India also, costs disproportionately higher for the cost of the service rendered in most cases)
A visibility of growth and reappearance of money might change things.
We need a recession just to back off from a severely skewed cycle, in most asset/income classes – equity, real estate, high-tech jobs, financials etc.
Btw, what is a “Cr job”?