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Altitude Vs Attitude !!!

A little boy went into a drug store, reached for a soda carton and ask him for a Phone Call.

Shop-owner replied Sweety this is no a STD, but you can do one call. The store-owner observed and listened to the conversation.

The boy asked, "Lady, Can you give me the job of cutting your lawn?

The woman replied, "I already have someone to cut my lawn."

Lady, I will cut your lawn for half the price of the person who cuts your lawn now." replied boy

The woman responded that she was very satisfied with the person who was presently cutting her lawn

The little boy found more perseverance and offered, "Lady, I'll even sweep your curb and your sidewalk, so on Sunday you will have the prettiest lawn in all of North-Palm beach, Florida."

Again the woman answered in the negative. With a smile on his face, the little boy replaced the receiver.

The store-owner, who was listening to all this, walked over to the boy and said," Son... I like your attitude;

I like that positive spirit and would like to offer you a job."

The little boy replied, "No thanks, I was just checking my performance with the job I already have.

I am the one who is working for that lady, I was talking to!"

“Your ALTITUDE is decided by your ATTITUDE”

                                                                                                                           Reference: Google

 

The Modern 'Ramayan'

Engineer Vs Manager !!!

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. 

She reduced altitude and spotted a man below.
She descended a bit more and shouted, 'Excuse me sir, can you help me? 
I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but 
I don't know where I am.'

The man below replied, 'You're in a hot air balloon hovering
approximately 30 feet above the ground.
You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and 
between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.'

'You must be an engineer,' said the lady balloonist.
'I am', replied the man. 'How did you know?'

'Well, answered the balloonist, 'everything you told me is
technically correct, but I've no idea what
to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. 
Frankly, you've not been much help to 
me at all. If anything you've delayed my trip even more.' 
The man below responded, 'You must be in management.' 
'I am,' replied the lady balloonist, 'but, how did you know?' 
'Well,' said the man, 'You don't know where you are, or where you're going.
You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air within. 
You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and
you expect people beneath you, to solve your problems.'

                                                                                                                          Reference: Google

iPod or Washing Powder Be iMovative

Steve Jobs himself said it: it’s smart to take an existing idea and enhance it beautifully. Apple did it. So have some of the most successful brands worldwide. The same story can even apply to selling washing powders. ET on Sundayanalyses brands, companies and countries that have imitated their way to innovation
:: Kamya Jaiswal 

Each time he came on the stage, he promised the world something “new”, “magical” or “awesome”. Each time he delivered: the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iTunes and the iPad, products we craved to touch, own and experience, until he told us it was time for something ‘newer’. Yet, nothing that Steve Jobs (and therefore Apple) unveiled was a first. IBM gave the world the computer, Sanyo a portable MP3 player, BlackBerry invented the smartphone and Microsoft came up with the tablet. That was before Jobs prefixed them all with an ‘i’.

    Apple has almost always imitated its way to the top. Starting from the days of Macintosh, when it adopted Xerox’s graphical user interface as its own. Jobs never denied the charge. In fact, he revelled in it: “It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things in to what you are doing. Picasso had a saying...good artists copy, great artists steal...we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” 

    Whether Picasso said it in the same vein is debatable. But Jobs’ interpretation makes great business sense: for some fleeting moments in August, Apple’s gadgets were worth more than Exxon’s oil. Last checked, the company was valued at $350 billion.

    But how can an imitator best an innovator? At home and in school, we have been taught to abhor copying. Be original — all the generations living today have been told. How can something wrong give better results than the good?

    Ask companies like American Express, Walmart and McDonald’s. Diners Card was the one which came up with credit cards but threw away the firstmover advantage to American Express. McDonald’s copied White Castle and Walmart followed Korvette. We don’t remember the innovators because they didn’t turn their ideas into successes. The imitators did. How?

The Follower’s Advantage

In business, imitation gains potency from amoral quarters. “It is a lot less risky. An imitator knows that his product or service has worked in the market before. He is also equipped with the analysis of how the market received the innovation,” says Rakesh Basant, professor of industrial policy at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

    Hindsight was leveraged effectively by Hindustan Lever as it took on the craze of Nirma in the 1980s, and came up with Wheel, its own ultra-cheap washing powder. Imitation is really a short cut. Instead of doing the hard work and spending money for years on research and development, just take what others create — and, if you are smart, improve on what exists. So, obviously, illegal rip-off artists don’t figure here. But some really big economies do.

    The story of Japan, Korea and China: their companies exploited cheap labour to reassemble and remake products at a fraction of European and US prices. Samsung tore apart microwaves imported from Japan and the US. Hyundai showed down giants like Ford and Mitsubishi by using their expertise shared through alliances. In China, copying can range from specific products to entire stores, including that of, well, Apple.

Betting on Low Costs

The story is the same in this part of the world. Spencer’s Retail brought the department store to India. But Big Bazaar made it big. Zee Networks thought up the Indian Cricket League (ICL) on the lines of European football clubs. However, the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) stole the thunder. Karsanbhai Patel saw the opportunity in low-cost detergents. But Wheel bulldozed Nirma to capture 21% of the current market pie (about 12,000 crore).

    Indian imitators also have a choke hold on the domestic market due to price advantage. Pharmaceutical companies Ranbaxy, Cadilla and Cipla, chiefly in the business of generics, have forced global giants like Glaxo, Pfizer and Merck to slash prices to stay in the reckoning. Some foreign companies have given up the fight. This is why Lipitor, the world’s largest-selling drug, is not available in India. Tens of desi versions come at a fraction of Lipitor’s price. Viagra, the iconic blue pill, had the same fate. Mankind Pharma’s Manforce, sold at a much lower price, has captured half the market.

    These companies have also leveraged competitive pricing overseas. For instance, Cipla’s HIV cocktail, much in demand in African countries, comes at almost one-twentieth the cost of its innovator peers.

Innovate on What You Borrow

   It is ironic that even though innovation is worshipped today, the environment is most conducive to imitation. Technology has brought people extremely close. They share ideas, information and even have similar sets of needs. So there is ample scope for multiple companies to make it big by copying one another. But how long can imitators ride on low prices and faster turnaround time? Indefinitely, thinks Oded Shenkar, author of Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge. “The rationale behind imitation is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The company may not build on it further. It can thrive by simply importing the innovation into a new market,” he says.

    Other experts believe cookiecutter imitators have a short shelf life. They must add value to the innovation for surviving in the long run. Raveendra Chittoor, professor of competitive strategy at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, cites Biocon and Glenmark as examples. “These companies are evolving into innovators because it is essential for growth. There is no evidence of this transition now. But that is because new molecules are in different stages of development.” A quick check on the world’s smartest imitators corroborates Chittoor’s view. Apple added an internal hard drive and a classy build to outdo the original MP3 player. Google integrated Microsoft Office functions and unlimited space into Gmail to distinguish it from others. Similarly, all successful imitations have an element of innovation built into them. Be it Big Bazaar expanding Spencer’s Retail’s product portfolio. Or Wheel adding new variants to the low-end detergent. Academics have a new term for such innovation+imitation: imovation.

    Shenkar goes a step ahead. He doesn’t believe in transition, but co-existence. “Innovation and imitation are not contradictory. They can, and must exist simultaneously. In fact, innovation becomes more focused when a company knows what it can get from imitating others. This increases efficiency of resources,” he says.

Still a Dirty Word

If imitation is so successful, why don’t its followers come out of the closet? Is it a secret strategy restricted to executive suites? “No, it is a dirty word. The stigma attached to the concept blots it out of conversations. Avid imitators won’t admit to it and B-schools won’t teach it,” explains Shenkar.

    That’s understandable. We aren’t willing to credit imitators with any success either. But if you lay any worth by philosophers, it is surprising how most of them weren’t shy of giving imitation due credit. Be it Charles Darwin when he explained evolution or Aristotle when he included it in the list of ingredients that make a great story.

    And if history is not convincing, then turn again to Steve Jobs. A man who demonstrated that intelligent imitation combined with innovation can be the world’s most successful formula for churning out regular successes. He also made it clear that it takes someone special to get it right. This is why Jobs confidently challenged all the world’s counterfeiters at the launch of iPad 2: “What about 2011? Is it going to be the year of the copycats?”

    So, here’s the irony the greatest imovator the world has left us with: Steve Jobs’ act may prove to be the most difficult to imitate.

Apple added an internal hard drive and classy build to outdo the original MP3 player 

“Innovation and imitation are not contradictory. They can, and must, coexist...This increases efficiency” Oded Shenkar Fisher School of Business, Ohio University