Formal Education?

strait·jack·et also straight·jack·et n.

2. Something that restricts, hinders, or confines: the straitjacket of bureaucratic paperwork.

[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/straitjacket]

The year was 2000, I was participating in high school debate (with my favorite debate partner) speaking against the motion that formal education was not a necessary perquisite to success. I remember arguing quite convincingly that every successful person has had some element of formal education in his life at some point of time or the other, and like it or not this has had a positive impact on the person's life and is a necessary perquisite to success in one's life. I guess I was able to convincingly argue my side of the case because it resonated with my own view of life and formal education. Right upto my graduate course in business administration course, I have believed that any success that has come my way has been largely due to my formal education and my single minded focus in excelling at the same.

I had a family friend visiting today whose daughter is in the twelfth standard, at the cusp of making the crucial decision on the form of formal education to pursue after high school. Couple this with the fact that I have just completed reading the first chapter of "Rich Daddy Poor Daddy" I took some time off to analyze and think of i see in myself today and root cause it to any facet of my formal education.

One aspect that struck me immediately is the emphasis that was laid on and linearity and certainty in the teaching of science. Everything in nature could be explained in a model in which results that were certain in nature were obtained from well defined fomulae. That kind of skewed up my thinking for the rest of my life i guess ... right from high school and through college i believed in the absolute nature of things, about how things would happen with certainty given the model that you superpose on the situation and process at hand, the modeling was always right. I read a lot of scholastic writings that debunked this theory, but the only action I would take is to feel intellectually stimulated with these thoughts and then get back to the safety net of my fixed and linear model that worked well for me.

This linear and certain way of thinking worked well for me until a few years back, i knew the model for a given situation, and i knew the result that would come out as a consequence of my action, because i was trained to believe that the model was always right. The formal system for science education never gave me a chance to appreciate the randomness and non linearity that is the characteristic of everything in life. The real problem lies in the fact that i continue to place this "straitjacket of linearity and certainty" in my thought processes. It has been tough for me to make the transition and freeing my mind from these shackles, from this stifling "straitjacket" . All my life things have fit so perfectly into my view of the world that I never gave a thought to the possibility of things working outside of "my way" which to me was the right way.

I am not discounting the usefulness of a formal education, but what I certainly feel very strongly about the shackles that this has placed on my thought processes. Thinking out of the box does not come as easily as i wish it would come ...

The important thing is that i have been able to identify this drawback, and I am working on it. It is not easy and very often painful! I am reminded of a quote that was oft repeated in the Services Marketing class in college :

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all"

Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

Its time I got out of the straitjacket of "certainty and linearity" once and for all, it is going to be a painful process, but a necessary right of initiation into the other endeavors that beckon me in life.

New Paradigms in the mobile handset market

While recuperating from a viral fever scare, i was quite surprised to read the news that HP had bought out PALM.

A new paradigm seems to be emerging in the wireless handset market...

It used to be the war of brands in the early markets, Nokia Vs. Motorola Vs. Samsung Vs. LG ... People made their choice of a phone on the basis of the brand, need and functionality in that order. This started changing, with innovations in industrial design, i.e. better looking phones, the paradigm shifted to a combination of design and functionality with the brand now sharing priority with these criteria in the decision hierarchy.

With the advent of the software powered smartphone, a new paradigm is emerging - that of the Operating System! With the emphasis more on the software platform and application availability, it looks like every manufacturer worth his/her salt is pushing for a proprietary OS that can be independently controlled, distributed and attract a slew application developers for a sustained competitive advantage in the market.

Of special interest is the story of Apple and Google. Two firms that chose different OS models in line with their strategies to capture a large part of the market share. While Apple went proprietary, they made no mistake on the part of application development. The support shown by Apple to early application developers for the iPhone has paid rich dividends. It did not matter whether the core Operating System was Open-Sourced or not (incidentally these two share the same initials OS ... ;) ... Perhaps this new paradigm can be called the OS2 paradigm, with an Operating System and an Open-Source application development strategy).

Google went one step ahead and Open-Sourced their operating system and application layer completely while making it available for all mobile handset vendors. The Google Android platform had arrived. This seemingly attractive option for vendors came with its own perils. Whilst the code was Open-Sourced, the usage of the code in devices for sale to the customer was controlled by Google. What seemed attractive at first as an Open-Source alternative and possibly the ubiquitous way ahead for smartphone manufacturers may not be the only way ahead.

Smartphone manufacturers are in a certain sense business smart and know that their competitive edge lies in differentiation. If everybody were to offer an Android or a WinMoble phone with nearly the same look and feel of the User Interface and User Experience, where did the differentiation for the manufacturers brand really lie? The risk is the manufacturers brand taking a backseat in the face of the larger brand of the Google touted Android or WinMobile.

What handset manufacturers are probably scared of is to have a single OS (be it Android or be it WinMobile) take precedence over the brand which would mean that the pie (smartphone market) could easily be divided equally.

This is clearly coming out in the strategies that are coming out of all major manufacturers. PALM went ahead and developed WebOS (perhaps the biggest reason why HP bought them out). Samsung has its own smartphone platform dubbed as BADA. RIM has always had its own OS. LG depends on opensource Linux. HTC is talking of setting up its own Operating System.

What is clearly emerging is that handset manufacturers wish to keep the market fragmented from a business perspective. They want to own and control an OS that allows them to differentiate their phones and attract the application developer community. The future business direction of these companies could be driven by the need to maintain competitive advantage in the operating system.

How does this affect hardware vendors for smartphone handset manufacturers?

Handset manufacturers would like to prefer a standardized Operating System on smartphones, since this reduces their costs and also reduces the strain on the development organization to support multiple software platforms on the same hardware. The direction in which the market is moving could prove to be a potential risk if customers start demanding full system support for all available software platforms.

There are three ways to mitigate this risk at the hardware vendors end ...

Option I: The costlier and more complex option of supporting all the available software platforms.

Option II: The more balanced approach of picking and choosing the right software platforms to invest in while totally ignoring the others.
Option III: A mix of internal and external development on the vendors hardware - internally invest in and work on the most promising software platforms and outsource the development of the other software platforms.

There are a number of challenges in coming up with the right decision amongst the available options -

While each of these options have their positives and negatives, is a tabulation of positives and negatives pitted against the corresponding costs the best way ahead for hardware vendors to make their decisions?

What is right from a market strategy point of view? Will the company's view of the market strategy pay off or will the market go completely to the contrary? How can the decision of picking the right Operating System Platform (for options 1 and 2) be made? Are current market pointers sufficient to indicate future trends?

Will a strategic tie-up with the software platform vendor be beneficial in the long run, how painful would the relationship be in case it is unsuccessful, or for that matter even if it is successful!

An interesting thing to note is that while handset manufacturers consider the upstream activity of developing Operating System Software to be a vital part of their competitive advantage, the actual manufacturing of the semiconductor chips required to run these handsets is not seen as a strategic advantage to have in-house. This is most likely due to the higher fixed and operational costs associated with the semiconductor manufacturing business and also the high level of technical expertise that is required to run the business. The real value as perceived by the customer lies in the tangible things that the customer can feel and use as a part of the product which include the user interface and applications exposed to the customer. The underlying hardware is not visible to the customer and is therefore not very high on the list of must haves for handset manufacturers.

What are the emerging trends in the market for handsets?

One of the smarter things done by the handset manufacturers is the development of unique User Interface software that has a strong association with the brand, eg- Nokia's S60, S40, HTC's Sense UI, LG's S6 UI platform etc. With the uppermost layer of software under their control, the differentiation possibilities are almost maximized. The reason why i use the term almost maximized and not maximized is because the maximization of differentiation comes if the lower levels can be standardized to meet all the functional requirements of the upper levels. If something that differentiates the upper level of software is not available in the lower layer of the software, there there is no real differentiation possible. This is possibly the reason why all handset manufacturers would want to have an underlying Operating System of their own.

The main risk that handset manufacturers might face is the lack of interest that may be shown in porting the proprietary system onto specific hardware platforms by the vendors. What if Qualcomm refuses to port Samsung's Bada Software OS platform onto its Snapdragon hardware platform in the belief that the maximum value for Qualcomm is derived from the porting of Android on Snapdragon. The opportunity associated with this risk lies with the hardware vendors, if there is a segment that is not served by a particular vendor there is always scope for competition to come in and port the custom software platform onto their hardware.

Concluding Thoughts

All in all the fragmentation of the hardware and software platform in the mobile handset market may be inevitable.

Whereas Google is seeing a surge in demand for the Android software platform this surge can be sustained only if handset manufacturers continue to see value in having a unified system like Android and avoid excessive investments in their internal Operating Systems and software platforms. Google's success would also depend on their ability to simultaneously entice semiconductor vendors to port Android onto the platform and sell a good value proposition to the handset manufacturers. The adoption of Android applications in the market and the subsequent popularity and indispensable predisposition to the customers of this platform could also prove to be a critical factor in locking in both handset manufacturers and semiconductor vendors to the Android Software Platform.

Google might run the risk of being a "staging" platform used by the handset manufacturers till they have developed a software platform of their own. However the development of a mature application market will ensure that the demand for Android phones will continue to spur handset manufacturers to have an Android offering as a part of their product portfolio.

Experienced Trade-offs !!!

Experience is the biggest asset a manager has on his side. As much as I learn the nuances of "business" and "management" at my MBA course (the PGSEM) at IIMB, nothing will ever be able to take the place and role that time learned experience would play in shaping the characteristics i would like to develop as a good manager (and leader).

I believe that making the right decisions in the face of available trade-offs will always be an art that will be the most visible source of differentiation between managers!

Simply put, trade-offs are choices that need to made between available alternatives in scenarios where the consequences of the choice that is made is not fully known. Decision trees have been used extensively in many of my classes to define evaluation of alternatives at decision points in a business flow. It all looks hunky-dory in a classroom scenario where the consequences at each decision point are well defined and the end result neatly mapped out by the professor on the whiteboard!In the real world, there is absolutely no way of knowing the consequences of each decision! Not only are the consequences not well defined, it is also impossible to really know the full breadth of alternatives that can be taken at a decision point.

As we move deeper into the information world, it is not the owner of the cache information who has the ultimate edge as a manager, rather the one who knows how best to derive results from that huge cache of information that holds to key to future managerial success.

My management education provides me the tools and frameworks that help in gathering the required knowledge and information along with the partial ability to derive some form of results from the information that is gathered. However it has to be experience that will enable me to take the right choice more often.

Given that experience is time bound, i am reminded of the classic dilemma that a fresh graduate faces. Every employer wants to recruit someone with a minimum threshold of experience for exciting roles that involves certain amount of responsibility. A fresh graduate wants an exciting job of responsibility, and is possibly capable of it, but has no way to satisfy the "experience" requirement of the potential employer.

If I were to draw parallels, as a manager, the ability to make the right decision choice (in a world of imperfect information) would rest largely on experience gained while having made a large number of decisions in the past. Failure is but a small price I will have to pay in order to gain the "experiential wisdom" that I require for the long run. I will have to take risky choices knowing that the consequences may or may not be favorable, and not be afraid while facing the consequence.