Disruptive Innovation in Animation!!

According to Prof.Clayton Christensen, Disruption works best when the incumbent company ignores you as a competitor and doesnt feel threatened by your presence. Also, Disruption works out well for the "Not good enough" market and once the market becomes "good enough", it becomes a sustaining innovation.

Lets take the case of Animation & special effects in India and Lets take the example of Crest Animation Studios, who pioneered the animation industry in India.Initially, it started off by doing local commercials,with a small team of around 10people.Then it slowly expanded its wings and started getting work from abroad.They used this as a platform to test their capabilities as they moved upstream to get work 3D animated TV series which will be a high volume work.

For the US companies, Crest was not a competition and it was disrupting the low-end of the industry.The high cost structure and the longer production times are the two "not good enough" factors that was disturbing the TV producers.Crest disrupted that market and outsourced its services to provide high quality, low cost work.As a result of getting outsourced work, crest is all set to expand.The growing company invites new values through its new partnerships, new workforce,new clients and new technology.Also, their cost structure increases because of their need to attract the best talent in the industry.This means nothing to PIXAR but means a lot to Indian companies.

What does it mean to a small special FX Company like Oyster in Chennai? They do the low end disruption to Crest by reducing the prices and giving package offers which works well for producers who cannot fford Crest and who doesnt need Hollywood quality.Slowly, these companies produce quality equal to crest and at a much lower cost.This forces Crest to naturally exit this business(they shut down their India Business) because it doesnt support its cost structure and move upstream.

So Crest pushes a company like Mainframe Entertainment to move upstream whereas a company like Oyster pushes Crest to move upstream.

What does it mean to move upstream?

Mainframe Entertainment - Co-production for TV series, DVD/ Film Production

Crest - Animated Feature Film, High Quality/High Cost work, Co-Production

Oyster - Animated TV series, Game sub contracting

A freelancer - Hire more people, Create a company, pitch in for ads,films etc

These are immediate thoughts.I am writing a detailed article and would like that to be published in a popular business magazine soon.

Coca Cola!

I am currently reading Prof.Vijay Govindarajan's "The quest for global dominance".He has written a beautiful chapter on cultivating a global mindset.I loved this mindset of coke from its 1995 annual report.

What is our most underdeveloped market?

Human Body.People can do without most things for an entire day.But everyday, 5.7 million people consume roughly 64 ounces of fluid to survive and we currently account for less than 2 ounces.

Now I know where that power to succeed comes for Coke.

Clayton Christenson & CK Prahalad!

I was fortunate enough to read an author like Clayton Christenson.





I was reading the Innovator's solution today and I was amazed at the clarity of his thinking. He breaks everything into pieces and raises questions at levels that is not easy to even imagine.





This is how he suggests going about a new emerging trend in business.

1.Understand the Phenomenon

2.Categorize it - The key

3. Try to find why the phenomenon occurs - the causal mechanism and the circumstances in which it occurs.

He also says that predictability happens only when the causal mechanisms are clearly identified under certain circumstances and whether the results work favourably or unfavourably when the circumstances change.

So it is very important to define the causal mechanisms and also the changes that will happen if the circumstances change.He was citing the example of aeroplanes and how their flying has become predictable.

Words of Wisdom in every line and every word.One of the best business authors and I am looking forward to reading many more books of him. He is ranked No.25 in the World's most influential thinkers list.

I was fortunate to read some of the books of CK Prahalad.He is the World's most influential Thinker(#1 in the list). CK Prahalad is the abbreviation of Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad.Yes ..he is from our very own Coimbatore,Tamil Nadu.

His books "The Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid", "Competing for the Future" and "Future of Competition" are all mind blowing works. He sees things from a completely different perspective. He argues that Innovation happens only for a small percentage of the global population in the developed world and there is an unexploited fortune sitting in the developing and udner developed countries. He cites projects like HLL's Shakti and ITC's e-choupal as the ones that are really innovative and it is indeed a wonderful arugument.

Read these books from these great thnkers.You will really feel that they are talking to you...

Unlearning - Breaking down my Conditioning!!

From childhood, I have always been a good dancer. I remember the childhood days when I used to dance with my friend suppu in our neighbours houses.But somehow, I always felt uncomfortable dancing infront of others. I was caught in a image battle so early in childhood and I was presenting different sides to different people.

I thought as a child( dont know whether my society made me think that way) that talking about films , expressing yourself in public are all "bad" qualities and will not be approved by others. My parents were not strict but somehow they didnt like films and things like that.

It was only during my Japan trip in 1998 for the world youth programme that I discovered the dancer and singer who was hidden behind an "image" makeup. The applause that I got after my "Humma Humma" and my dance performance really gave me the hunger to perform on stage. I Love being on stage..I love the attention..I love the fact that there are so many people watching me...

But I have suppressed it all for all these years and even after that, during my work also, I never couldnt overcome my conditioning. But once I came to Japan, I wanted to break free from the conditioning and I am taking conscious efforts not to fall into the image trap again. I dance at every opportunity, even create opportunities for dancing, sing all the time, tried alcohol and started enjoying wine, tasted sake with a raw fish in it and to top it all, tried Dog Fry offered by my lovely Vietnamese friends...I love the way I have transformed but there is still a long way to go..

Unlearning really helps but learning to unlearn is the challenge!!

Japan - The Holy land!!

For someone who lives outisde Japan, Japan is an ultra modern and high tech country where people are like machines. I too felt that way. But How do I feel after living here for 1 full year?

This is how I feel about Japan.

School of fishes, Colony of ants, Group of birds lead a miraculous trajectory without communicating to each other. It is possible among human beings to achieve this super exalted state if each one of us give our very best to life.Each one of us depend on the whole world for everything and the whole world is basically existing because of each one of us. It is important that we deliver our best and at the same time, help the world around us to deliver the best.This is the theory behind Japan's Miracle. Japanese lives and businesses are built on this theory.People talk about holy lands of the past and are proud of their history.Japan is a holy land created by its recent generation and our coming generations will talk about its legacy.They created it not for the legacy but for their own better lives.

Ofcourse, the human element is missing if you are an outsider but once you become part of the community, then you will realize that how much they care for each other and the community.

One of the important reasons for their success is their ability to achieve a sense of stability in an extremely fast changing environment.The terrain is unfriendly, the natural resources are scanty, there is heavy snow fall, there are earthquakes...They have conquered it all through team work and commitment...They apply the same in changing business environment and they are dominating the world.

Come to Japan with a shopping cart and go back with Honesty, Discipline, Team Work, Independence, Abundance, Measured Talking, Hard work, Integrity, Ethics and many more...

Books - Why didnt they become friends to me earlier?

Books are something which I thought are for "time pass". The only book , outside text books, that I have tried before 2004 was "My experiments with Truth".I didnt complete it. Other than that, I was a stranger to books. Books , as I saw was "Novels". In India, reading novels is seen as an upper middle class activity and a symbol of class. Somehow, I never liked novels. I tried to read but never could really get a grasp of it.

When I was in Crest Animation, Mumbai, I developed friendship with Suresh Lakshman.Suresh is a tamil brahmin and a native of Bombay. He always carried a book wherever he goes and we started identifying things that are common to us, especially in the subject of motivation/self help. He gave books to me to read and the first book I tried was "Your Erroneous zones". It took lot of time but I found this book and the subject very interesting.The next book I got was "The Alchemist".It blew my mind and I started taking the spirituality path.

I then read Pulling your own strrings, The Monk who sold his Ferrari, Who Moved my cheese, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and then oneday got to read Lee Iacocca's Autobiography.Suprisingly, my reading speed has increased tremendously and I am developing really good insights.

For 28 years, I have not experienced something like this and this is indeed great. No book is universal.Tastes differ and so it is important that we start to read books on the subjects that we like. After some time, the mind naturally tries to explore new territories and that is when we can start reading books that we didnt like before.

After reading Wayne Dyer (My Guru), Osho, Swami Vivekananda, J.Krishnamurti, Napolean Hill, Deepak Shopra, Robin Sharma , Lee Iacocca, Akio Morita and many others, Now I am venturing into business books which help in developing valubale business insights that are going to help me post-MBA. I read books by Peter Drucker, CK Prahalad, Ram Charan, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman, Vijay Mahajan and so on..

I am reading one book every week.Sometimes, I forget reading text books and focus more on "extra curricular reading". Also, I read lot of articles in NY times, Blogs and many many sites.

Learning is always a pleasure. I thank all these authors for coming into my life, all those friends who lead me to these books and for guiding me into this holy world of books. I wish I can create a library on my own and help students utilize it.

My top 5 books

Spirituality/ Self Help/Motivation

1. You will see it when you believe it by Wayne Dyer
2. The Sacred Self by Wayne Dyer
3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
4. Synchrodestiny by Deepak Chopra
5. Krishna by Osho

Business

1. 86% Solution by Vijay Mahajan/Banga
2. Seeing What's next by Clayton Christenson
3. The Innovators solution by Clayton Christenson
4. Execution by Ram Charan
5. Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid by CK Prahalad

Buy Books and Build Insights!!

My First Japanese Presentation - May 18, 2007

I was nervous that I am going to talk in Japanese infront of native Japanese audience. I was confused whether I have to memorize or whether I can just try to talk naturally after memorizing it or just try to speak without preparation.

After trying my hand at the 3rd option, I realized that my brain is not thinking in Japanese and it needed lot of conditioning.Just memorizing and presenting doesnt create any impact.The only advanatge in my side is that I am a Basic Japanese student and there is not much expectations for me. But I always get excited when I go on stage and I love being on stage.

I decided to practice as much as possible and give my best shot. I took the help of a Japanese professor and I went to the stage after memorizing it. He was my audience and I just spoke what I had memorized but with body sync. He said it is working out well and started correcting my pronounciation and stress/pause. I practiced 14 times and I felt very confident.

I went to the stage, felt very comfortable and once I started getting the attention(Which i always liked), I started doing much better than during the practice session. Their expectation was less but I delivered more and there was huge appreciation.

Practice indeed makes it perfect!!