Can Arsenal bounce back ?

This was not the classic attacking and free flowing football but definetely the most intense game of the season so far. Highflying Arsenal came up against floundering Manchester United at Old Trafford and the build up to the game was mind blowing.

The theatre of dreams have been a jinxed place for the Gunners with the recent 8-2 drubbing being the most humiliating result for Arsene Wenger during his illustrious career. This time it was different as the Gunners were on top of the table and had just beaten Liverpool and a strong Dortmund side. The gunners boast the best midfield of the league with Ozil, Cazorla, Arteta, Ramsey and Wilshere and must have hoped that much of the game would be played in the way they wanted i.e crisp and fast football.

The red devils started with a high pressing game and the gunners were pressurized into making small errors in passing and positioning which were absent in their previous games and it showed the nervousness of the Arsenal players. Ozil and Ramsey were poor beyond any words and were playing well below their normal levels, Cazorla tried hard to get into the game but could not as well. The red devils had one clear strategy and were executing it well, block Arsenal from playing in their style, Rooney was their most industrious player and he was the one who created the goal. The first half was a tactical battle between Moyes and Wenger and the former Everton man was winning but the second half was different. Arsenal started playing well and enjoyed 65% of the possession but without many clearcut chances. The introduction of Gnabry provided some width and pace and all Arsenal fans must have wondered what would have been if Walcott and Podolski played.

By all means this was a competitive match and the decider came from a set piece and Arsenal fans must not put their heads down. After a long time we have a team which can battle and win matches, but it would be wonderful if Arsene signed a more accomplished striker, Giroud is playing well but just not at the level of rooney or Van persie. Ozil must start making more effort when things are not going his way, he just disappeared from the game on many occasions and was marked by Rooney though towards the second half he started making runs and finding space.

After the break hopefully we will have Walcott to speed up the play and bring some width and keep playing good football.

Arsenal's resurgence

Its funny that on the opening day of the premier league the whole world was out to get Wenger's head and after 3 months and 10 league games normalcy has been restored with "Arsene Knows". Considering the final third of last season and this season until now, the Aston Villa game looks like a clear aberration, Wenger's men have lost 1 in 20 games played in the corresponding period. Arsenal fans were getting impatient and have been without a trophy for 8 long years and the media comments passed by the club's management that any top player could be signed now. These factors culminated in the unanimous call for Wenger's ouster and few would have doubted that it was the right thing to do.

In came Mathieu Flamini and a certain Madridista Mesut Ozil (yeah u heard it right) and the whole dynamic changed, Ozil assisted with almost his first touch for the club and Flamini was bossing the midfield area like no one since another popular french man Patrick Vieira. Suddenly Arsenal were on the back of 5 straight wins and a dominating win over Rafa's Napoli, when Man utd and city were stumbling. As it stands Arsenal are top of the table 5 points clear off Chelsea.

It is easy to forget that unlike City, Utd and chelsea who are all in transition due to new management and arrival of new players, Arsenal had the sagacious Wenger in control and at the back of a stupendous run towards the end of the previous season. This was also the first season in a long time that Arsenal did not sell their best players which was a huge step in itself, look at Spurs who have splashed 100 Mn and are yet to forge a winning combination. Arsenal's young team have such cohesiveness which is hard to match and this has contributed significantly to Arsenal's stellar showing this season. Barring Ozil and Flamini the rest of the bunch have been playing together for quite some time now.

Flamini and Arteta make a fine pairing while Cazorla, Ramsey, Ozil, Rosicky give them creative impetus and my word Giroud has improved leaps and bounds, his holding capacity and build up play has exceeded all expectations. As the top teams slowly settle and gel, we would know whether Arsenal's rise is a fluke or are they genuine title contenders.  Ozil has raised the level of game play to another level while Ramsey has been simply superb. I hope Arsene Wenger is proved right by Arsenal winning the league and building another set of invincibles as I expect City, united and chelsea to come out all guns blazing soon.

Incentives are double edged

Recently I had the dubious distinction of almost stopping Hyundai (car maker) assembly line. The reason was a critical part which is made in my factory turned out to be defective and in the process of tracing it whole lots of material had to be stopped.

During the process I was involved in a conversation with a line supervisor at the customer plant. They have an interesting scheme whereby the internal production team are treated like suppliers I.e the parts are invoiced from each line as if it were a supplier. This mechanism was introduced to create incentives for production management whereby every player in the game has the motivation to maximize production. In this scenario everyone wins the company gets max production and the employees get maximum benefit. This is a profit sharing agreement which has raised out of weakness on part of the company wherein it could not handle the huge workforce. So far so good, it looks beautiful but there is a huge downside to this system.

This initiative failed to bring in the controls required to maintain product quality. To begin with the accounting of rejection parts in itself turned faulty which led to loss of control in the quality aspect. In today's manufacturing world when quality has become a mandatory expectation this initiative would be disastrous and eventually lead to loss of market share. The reason why proper controls were not established is because it acted as a perk to people who wanted to take on this job. The top management of the company wanted to loosen the quality fencing in order to attract people to take up the job and one can be sure of what the consequences of that action would be. 

Pressing need

Some plain vanilla academics, please: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blogs/blog-indirabalaji/some-plain-vanilla-academics-please/article5233440.ece

Promise of india

The year 2006 , the Indian juggernaut was unstoppable riding a wave of optimism and promise. We had just completed one more year growing at 9% yoy, the fastest rate at which the country had grown. IT was the new posterboy of the India shining story but the other sectors were not to be left behind, manufacturing was growing at 15-20% yoy generating a lot of wealth and employment. The usual punching bag factor of the country "population" suddenly started to look like a boon with ever other country poised to get older by 2030. The government was well placed to bring in market,education and labour reforms to back up the stellar performance of the economy.

Fast forward to 2013, the whole scenario is gloomy with the economy growing at 3.5%. What went wrong, where did we miss the bus ? Was this a temporary blip or was the engine humming to a standstill. The government riding on the wave of growth and optimism failed to act on key levers to bring in investment, namely retail. It messed up big time on the infrastructure front with traffic jams the order of the day in all major cities. It did not touch the labour laws for want of electoral vision and filled the economy with welfare schemes. Ease of doing business has gone down the wrong path with major Indian companies investing abroad due to the red tapism.

India needs a comprehensive manufacturing and industry policy, labour laws have to be eased, infrastructure to be made world-class. Finally a lot of the welfare schemes need to be dropped to address the CAD issue.

Rediscovering India

Over the past 3 years after I came back from the United States I have travelled across India on several business trips, from Delhi in the north to Coimbatore in the South. Each town having its own flavour made me ponder whether I understood what is India? Why do we oppose ourselves ever so staunchly and also unite feverishly when the need arises. The question has become even stronger after witnessing the furore over the Telengana issue. Interesting to note that we had only 18 states in 1971 and have 28 today, so the concept of new state formation is not that new but to understand what motivates people to demand a new state is an interesting study by itself.

Being a part of a sourcing group in an automotive industry my travels were fixated at the epicentres of the recent Indian growth centres of Delhi NCR-Mumbai (Pune)-Southern triumvirate of Chennai, Bangalore and Coimbatore. Even for a person who grew up in Chennai, it was like getting subjected to a rapid facelift of these urban centres with Neon lights, Ad Hoardings, Multi storied Malls, Sky rocketing glass buildings. The promised growth had finally come and was staring at everyone’s faces challenging them every moment to stretch their boundaries culturally. On the other hand as I travelled to other cities like Indore, Nasik, and Kolhapur which were also industrial centres the experience was quite different. These cities were lagging in the areas of infra and service in comparison to the darlings of India’s growth story. Their economies were not experiencing the sudden burst of growth and rather were going steady. One common factor which was clear and obvious was the fact that though the 3 regions I mentioned were Industrial powerhouses they also housed a significant industry called IT/ITES, housing the world’s elite enterprises making it a very popular destination for investment and human capital.

So does that mean the IT industry is the only reason behind the growth of these regions or did the IT industry find these regions as the most conducive for Business? It is a classic egg and chicken story, which came first. One thing most people forget is that these regions were important in the British scheme of things so they had comparatively better roads, education system and probably even governance. These regions had their edge over other regions in terms of these essential services in order to capitalize the Globalization bandwagon. Nevertheless one must not and cannot discount the entrepreneurial spirit of the men who brought about this progress.

Progress is very essential in the overall scheme of things and especially when your neighbour becomes wealthier, the old adage ”envy your neighbour” will hold good for a long time to come. Coming back to the Statehood issue of Telengana, I fear that if the growth is not inclusive in the years to come we are likely to see more Telenganas. One might be tempted to think that I am prescribing Communism here but I am not going to. The way to go is improve governance, social systems and create opportunities. The problem here with this issue is we have long been a society which has chastised inequality and hierarchy and hold that tradition close to our hearts. We have definitely made progress but there’s a heavy legacy burden on the young shoulders of this country.

LET’S HOPE WE LIVE UP TO THE PROMISE

expansionists versus restrictionists

Most people would be aware of the Copenhagen Summit which concluded last week and the hype that surrounded it. So why is it difficult for world's leaders to come to an effective agreement to face this critical issue staring at us. Leaving apart a minority who feel that "climate change" is a no-issue, most of the countries accept and understand that there is a task at hand which needs to be dealt with and also that we are running out of time to bring in the cuts required to smother the effect.

As I write this blog, it is almost certain that the summit will end in leaders re-iterating the known facts about global warming rather than agreeing upon a concrete plan and timetable.The problem begins with the differences over the binding cuts that needs to be taken by the developed and the developing countries and the issue of technology and fund transfer required over a phased out period to help the developing countries in adapting to the change. Historical responsibility is the stance taken by the BASIC countries and much of the developing world while the developed world refuses to commit to binding cuts.

If the issue is well known and acknowledged, what prevents the Leaders from chalking out a plan?. Firstly every country's vested interest in a highly biased and tilted world creates a situation where you can't have winners all around the table. There will have to be some who have to give more than what they can get, ultimately the problem is universal and not limited to a single country. Secondly when Leaders like Obama and Kevin Rudd face immense pressure back home and a lack of acknowldgment in their homelands leave alone transfer of tech and funds, it becomes virtually impossible to chalk out an agreement. These leaders promise a lot but fail to deliver due to the reasons cited. Adding to the mix is the bunch of people who have their faith in the fundamentals of growth suggesting that growth irons out all problems and disparities and climate change/global warming is nothing more than a hoax.

Though I understand the practical problems each country faces today in making a deal it is also important to realize that we are running out of time. In an effort to optimize the losses of today we appear to be taking a big gamble on tomorrow and the United Nations has once again been pushed to a mere spectator.