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Why are we becoming more insensitive
Are we really becoming more insensitive? I usually have my breakfast at office and the TV in the cafeteria is typically tuned into some news channel. On quite a few days I end up watching “100 tez khabar” or something with a similar name on one of the Hindi news channel. The other day it just…
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Are commission based channels low on trust
In US car salesmen are amongst the least trusted professionals. On digging deeper one finds that they share these low rankings with advertising professionals, stockbrokers, insurance salesmen and surprisingly politicans too (Members of Congress, Senators and Governors). Have a look at the Gallup report summary below: While there must be multiple reasons for people to…
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Simplest way to build trust and confidence
Many a times, we face a situation where we feel that our team members do not have trust and confidence in us or each other. Whether its a corporate set-up or the political leadership of a country or a sporting team, trust and confidence are the key ingredients for a motivated spirited performance. And I…
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Basics of Mobile Payments
Understanding the basics of Mobile Payments required me to find answers to these questions. What is a mobile payment What are the formats/models of mobile payment What is the infrastructure required for mobile payment Are mobile payments secure? What are the security measures adopted?
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What the dog saw – Malcolm Gladwell
When my cuz mentioned about this Gladwell book, my first reaction was why the funny title. It seems the title is inspired from Gladwell’s efforts to get inside the other party’s head. He talks about the ‘Dog Whisperer’ the guy with the magical effect on unruly dogs, and wonders how it would be to decode…
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Mobile Payments Security – concerns, issues, threats, models and measures
One of the biggest reason why cash has still reigned supreme for purchases is the percieved safety it brings. It limits the potential damage to the hard currency one is carrying in her wallet. For many late stage adopters of plastic payment systems, secuirty has been a concern. Same is happening right now for Mobile…
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Why Financial Services Cos need Designers and fast !
I just came back from depositing a cheque into a relative’s HDFC Bank account. I know, its a crime that I did not use the Online Money Transfer services, especially since I am a self proclaimed Digital guy working in the Financial Services sector. Anyways, I was filling in the deposit slip with details of…
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Leadership Lessons from Making of India – Book by Ranbir Vohra
It was quite some time back that I read the book – Making of India – by Ranbir Vohra. This was December 2006 and I had a habit of taking notes from any book that I read. Sometimes even movies. So what you read below are my interpretations of the historical narration of India’s journey…
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9 challenges in digitizing the sales force
Very few of us embrace change.Most of us would try our best to avoid any change in the status quo. Especially if it drastically impacts the way we work. Hence any initiative to convert an offline banking/insurance sales channel into a digitally-enabled online one, is sure to face a lot of resistance from the existing…
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The Code Book by Simon Singh
The Code Book – is a short history of mankind’s journey to be able to transmit messages secretly. Its a very well researched compilation of what were the pre-cursors to the modern technology field that we call as encryptology. I found some of the examples really interesting: Amongst the first ways to send coded messages…
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Lack of pride – worse problem than corruption
Aam Admi Party and its parent movement – India Against Corruption – started a fight against corruption- probably the greatest evil which is eroding our country in all possible manner. I have always felt that whether we like the women/men/kids leading this movement or not, whether we like their methods or not, we should stand by…
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Could “Gods” be aliens
I had heard a lot about Chariots of the Gods and finally managed to read it, inspite of the bad print. The whole book is based on one premise – Is there a possibility that the beings we refer to as gods and who have been talked about in various mythologies, be in fact aliens…
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The curious case of single order and multiple delivery consignments @ Flipkart
This just happened to me again in a short span of time. I ordered 4/5 books from Flipkart and the ordered was split into multiple consignments and the two consignments were delivered within one day of each other. Initially I thought this was because the books might have been shipped from different warehouses or even…
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Inflection point in Global mobile sales – Q2 2013
The latest Gartner Mobile sales reports are clearly saying one thing – the 2nd quarter of 2013 has been the inflection point in Global Mobile sales. Feature phone sales were lower than Smart phone sales for the first time ever. This is big, as it is a sure sign of how mobile usage trends would…
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HDFC Life’s Campaign to protect you from the rains
A colleague recounted an amazing experience she had at the Delhi Airport a few days back. She had just flown in and was waiting for her car. There is this small stretch at the Delhi airport that you need to cross from the covered porch of the terminal, to the waiting-car-lanes. While the stretch is…
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Bell Curve and the Appraisal Process
Imagine that a football team needs a manager/coach, someone who can motivate the players and help them deliver much more than they ever imagined they could. Now imagine that a seasoned HR manager somehow lands this job, someone who has been a big fan of bell curves and the other smarts we have grown so…
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M PESA story
What are the things M PESA did right? Clean and focused campaign – “Send Money Home” – focused only on national remittances – something that was done in abundance Transaction fees were the lowest for any mode of money transfer Fees clearly communicated with slabs/displays at agents Differential pricing for customers paying to other customers…
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Mobile Money Facts and Figures
Opportunity Scale 1.8 billion people globally have mobile phones but no bank acocunts (World Bank) Success Stories/Adoption Figures 20% of Kenya’s GDP moves on mPESA (2013) 20 nations in the world where more than 10% of the population has used mobile money in the past year. 15 of those countries are in Africa (Global…