Sunday, August 07, 2011

Recession 2011-Survival in turbulent market

Sometimes market behaves in weird manner.  When market is weird, people have the tendency to be weird also.  S&P has taken a decision to cut the global ratings of US' sovereign rating by a notch to 'AA plus' from 'AAA'. This is something that has no preferences. This may have the adverse result on Indian market as well. United States and Europe econmy has the direct impact on the developing and underdeveloped economies. We have seen this happening in 2007-2008 meltdowns.  

In 2007-2008, most of the organizations acted strange. They didn’t believe on the positive side of the recession. Even some idiots had used the meltdown as opportunity to enforce their personal agenda by so called slimming. Very few people see the positive side of such developments. Nobody was enough experienced to handle such situations. Fear does not have any logic and so-called top people worked differently that time. Market taught lessons to organizations and especially so called strategists. We can even say it was market corrections. Companies had to run the restructuring exercises.

Now again we have in same situation. US may have either direct (fear factor) impact or indirect impact (exports and services) on us. At the other side, Indian situation is also not promising due to changing PLR rates and inflation. Currently we do not have much to act on this, but we can think some positive outcomes on organization and personal level. I had written an article based on one survey in 2008. (Please refer http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2008/12/economic-meltdown-hr-role.html). The actions and measures were based on the reaction of the market that time and still valid today. However now we are experienced now to understand the dynamics of market.

Some positive actions on such events can be as under:-

1)   Do more with less. (We learn this in colleges but eventually forgot: Maximum results in minimum resources); 
2)   Improve productivity and going beyond one limitations;
3)   Limit expenses which are not adding any value, e.g. really do we need to travel by business class? Or instead of travelling, teleconference will be the solution;
4)   Strategic recruitment only,
5)   No fear please. Align employees towards organizational goals. Review your performance management system if required. Identify nonperformers and have a plan for them;
6)   We have the tendency to hire costly consultants during good times. You must be paying huge charges to recruitment consultants, training consultants or any other consultants. Just sit back, relax and just think how much value they added. Are you underestimating the talent of your own staff? Why not develop the skills of internal talent? Project assignments work better on this.
7)   So called downsizing has adverse impact. Manage it properly. Your critical capital is Human Resources. You can not treat them inhumanly. I have seen where organizations recruited without any logic and then sacked them. Their only mistake was to join such unprofessional organizations. However professional organizations manage their talent well. Are you looking for short-term results or sustainability?    

On Personal front:-

1)   Review your earning and expenses.  Focus on long term results.
2)   This may have a good time to invest in mutual fund and share market.
3)   Stretch yourself. You have huge potential. Learn more skills. Ask more responsibilities.
4)   You should be in value added job (Please refer http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-you-in-value-added-job.html)

This is not a time to be fearful about the future, but is the right time to create the future.  Same as the King created in the following story.

In a kingdom, a new KING is picked up by the ministers. He is picked for one year only. After one year, he is dumped on an island, which has a forest with wild animals. If, you were a citizen of the kingdom and if, you were picked up by the ministers, would you accept the offer? Somebody did! And what was the thought behind it?

In the first week, he visited the island and inspected it. He decided to use his authority as a King. He ordered that the trees and wild animals be removed completely. He ordered to build a beautiful house with a garden and birds in it. He transferred his personal wealth to it. This whole exercise took around nine months. The last three months he enjoyed the life as a King.

At the end of the year, he was ready for the ISLAND. He was happy.  His future was safe as he created it.

Market is the island. Your happiness is totally depend upon the opportunities you had in the past. Any way, a time has not gone yet.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Vinod,

A great blog and infact the best of you.I love those positives .....It was crisp and and as expected with these market situations arising and will arise day by day....Brilliant one,a big bow!!!!

Happy friendship day as well..

Thanks for the share.


Regards,
Subramanian. G

Ram said...

Congratulations for your 100th post. Keep it up buddy

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