Farm Laws

Agriculture with its combined sector is the largest source of income in India. Agriculture is an intricate issue that raises important questions not just for India but for all economies struggling to strike a balance between the market and the state. 

The three controversial laws have been drawing flak since the beginning which led to protests and agitations. The major representation of farmers had been demanding its' repealing as they perceive them to be pro-corporations and to be very anti-farmers. Meanwhile, the electricity (amendment) bill, 2020, have also been opposed by the farmers' community as they term it to be nothing but a bait set by the government so that big corporation will have more profit.

While there have been lot of debate, criticisms, discussions, clarifications, explanations, political tug-of-war, and coherence around the laws, the experts are of the opinion that it is not a union subject but a state subject and it is up to those to decide what will be best suited for their farmers’ income. Both state and union have the power to control the production, distribution, and products of the industry including agriculture. 

Agriculture plays an important role in our country to become “atma-nirbhar” and for that to happen it is important to strengthen the agrarian sector. The laws are facing criticism due to the loopholes around MSP, APMC, indirect tax/revenue management, as those loopholes can bring nothing but "corporate-nirbhar" India but if we can reform them in a way that those loopholes will repeal then these laws can bring a good change in the society.

Freelance Portfolio Professional

A portfolio professional is the new generation of entrepreneur;  someone who mixes and matches several jobs or sources of income. potential clients, problems or opportunities, drawbacks and advantage of the opportunities available, value proposition with your product or service, and very importantly points or reasons for frustration.

Think about who you will be selling your services/products to and who they are. Are there multiple groups or types of individuals? Who would you love to have as your potential clients? What characteristics define them? You want to have an intimate understanding of your clients and their problems or opportunities. What are they thinking about now? What possibility would be exciting to them? 

You want to have an intimate understanding of your clients and their problems or opportunities. What are they thinking about now? What possibility would be exciting to them? Do they value speed, quality, price or customer service? What values do your clients hold for themselves, e.g. efficiency, career, professionalism, an appreciation of great design? On the other hand, what would rub them up the wrong way? What frustrates them? How do they find and buy support?

Smart Farming

Smart Farming is a farming management concept using modern technology to increase the quantity and quality of agricultural produce. The farmers in this century have access to modern-day technologies like GPS, soil monitoring, and IoT technologies. On similar principle, using Smart Farming techniques, farmers can better monitor the needs of the livestock and manage their nutrition.

An information and technology-based farm management system identifies, analyses and manages variability in fields by conducting crop production practices at the right place and time and in the right way, for optimum profitability, sustainability and protection of the land resource, but in India, one major problem is that more half of operational holdings in the country have size less than 1 Ha (hectare), except Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Gujarat where more than 20% of the agricultural lands have an operational holding size of more than 4 Ha.

The recent innovation technologies based on sustainable agriculture and healthy food production consists of profitability and increasing production, economic efficiency and the reduction of side effects on the environment.

Researches suggest educational and economic challenges are most important in the application of these practices. The variables that contribute to educational challenges, lack of local experts, funds, knowledgeable research and extension personnel have more of an impact compared to others.

Renew Life Renew Vision

Something what the whole mankind is in consensus, is the fact that renewable resources are the need of the hour. As a counter thought, with the expectations with non-renewable resources, the thoughtless cohesion of the consequences can be dangerous for the environment. That is why it is paramount to understand how adoption of a renewable resource, say solar energy will pan out.

One of the most significant benefits in the consumption of solar energy or for that matter, most renewable resources, lies in that fact that it cuts down overall costs considerably, while also saving the environment from multiple levels of pollution (like pollution in air, water, noise, etc.). It also benefits the economic and ecological conditions.

Solar energy, unlike traditional resources of electricity, is affordable as well as environment-friendly. Solar energy can bring down the cost of getting electric power by as much as one-fourth of today's burden in another half-a-decade. By judicious policy making, meticulous planning, and optimal consumption, the cost can also be reduced by almost 60%.

With the use of solar energy, you will be self-sufficient. With solar energy, you can use electrical energy as you want. You do not have to depend upon commercial or government setups to provide you with electricity.

Unlocking Value in Retail: Omni-Channel

Retail has undergone a sea-change over the last half-a-decade, than what it has witnessed or progressed in half-a-century. The pace at which the innovations and changes have tread, especially during the pandemic, the retail segment has adapted to changes in consumption, consumer behaviour, channel integrations, and accelerated customer expectations around speed and convenience. In fact, the race to shorten click-to-customer cycle time is arguably the single greatest influence on the shape of future omni-channel supply chains. Needless to say, the bar continues to rise for retail and direct-to-consumer brands.

The challenges of accelerated delivery entails speed, freebies, delivery benefits, supply chain operations, inventory management, complex SKU control, demand forecasting, and governing execution.

A one-size-fits-all approach does not address complex issues like these, especially in today's time. Despite the many challenges of providing ever-faster omni-channel order fulfillment, there are primarily a few key characteristics that define fast and efficient fulfillment models --

a) segmented approach in shaping the delivery-speed promise

b) selective yet judicious network expansion

c) refined inventory analytics, automation and/or robotics

d) mitigated last-mile connectivity by balancing platform services and regional carriers

What or Who is a Product Manager?

For as long as I have been a product manager the role, the term, the definition of a ‘product manager’ has been the subject of much deliberation and debate. Is it a part or whole of new product development, business justification, planning, verification, forecasting, pricing, product launch, and marketing at all stages of the product life-cycle. While at the basic level, it is paramount for a role to have definition to avoid chaos and bring clarity to the KRAs. At the same time, it is also hazy to comprehend the logical flow of the expertise and where or how you fit in the scheme of affairs in the organisation.

What I encountered and inferred from my recent interactions with aspiring product managers, mid-level successful PMs and the likes, the role is difficult to write a formal ‘specification’ for and it has been bastardised as organisations have introduced the role type/title without fully understanding it. It’s a role that’s been confused by recruiters who have been tasked with hiring for a diverse range of jobs that have been forcibly preceded or appended with the word ‘product’. It’s even been re-branded many times over within the product community — terms such as ‘product owner’ now carry disdainful undertones or ‘customer evangelist’ add superfluous vagueness.

If I quote Marty Cagan from his speech - "What has not changed is my overarching belief that behind every great product, there is someone, usually someone behind the scenes, working tirelessly, that is playing this critical role. They usually have the title ‘product manager’ but they might be a startup co-founder or the CEO, or they might be in another role on the team and stepped up because they saw the need. The title is not important; the work they do is."

Even, in the remotest manner, if you ever are in need to articulate and encapsulate the responsibilities, skills, and character traits of an individual or team, maybe just for the sake of it, what I feel can be captured with is LIT-2 MVP

L: Leader, Lover (of the product/solution)

I: Integrative, Influencer

T: Thinker, Team Player

M: Maker (Innovate a Solution)

V: Visionary

P: Pragmatic

How different are Sales & Business Development

Put in simple textbook terms, Business Development is the process of finding the match between a product (or solution) and a segment in the market. Sales is the process of systematically generating revenue with the product (solution) in the chosen market segment in the race for market leadership. 

Unlike many other parallel discussions and definitions, I beg to differ that they are part of a chronological format of BD (generate leads), followed by sales (convert leads). Business Development is much more personalized, complementary service vis-a-vis sales.

Personally, I take an extra lens to differentiate and understand better. Business development, being personalized, customized versioning of your product/solution can be attributed to B2B/Corporate "Sales".

In fact, one of the most counter-intuitive truths of marketing is that B2B is often far more personal than B2C. Selling to a business really means selling to the director of a part of the business, the CEO, other CXOs or a small business owner. 

For high value B2B sales (to the tune of ~10,000 to a few millions, depending on the industry), the conversion cycle is relatively long and may include a large amount of interpersonal contact between the individual/team and the point of contact person at a particular company or the client.

This often comes as a surprise to new entrepreneurs, who often have more experience as a consumer than as a corporate buyer or seller.

B2C marketing and sales might feel personal, but it isn’t, because B2C communication is by nature a wide net, the marketing being more about archetypes and personas. Marketing might feel personal to the consumer, but really they are just in a big bucket with others similar to them. In this case, effective marketing is not about getting to know the individual well but rather gaining an awareness of clusters of people — how to group and sort people so they can be targeted en masse.

So, while B2B Sales (Business Development) include a decision making process that characteristically needs more than one individual signing off, B2C Sales is concerned about selling of products or solutions to one individual consumer, as a part of group of similar individuals