Cricket - Bidding Vs Betting

According to web dictionary, meaning of bidding is an offer (often competitive) of setting a price one is willing to pay for something. A price offer is called a bid. The term may be used in context of auctions, stock exchange, card games, or real estate.

Meaning of betting - is the activity of predicting results and placing a wager on the outcome.

Last few days, Indian news is all about betting and spot fixing.

To me, bidding or auctioning and betting has a very thin line of difference and both are not right in cricket, as human is the subject of bidding or betting.

 In first place, sport or hobby start as passion and once a person starts playing for school, college, university, state or in a highest level to home country one would get patriotic about it. One cannot say the same after being auctioned for money… I meant, auctioned. Are the entities which win auction of player’s philanthropic or nonprofit organization? I think not. Like any business entity they might look at the return on investment or maximize resource utilization :-).

Interestingly, there is so much hype and cry for betting. But, unfortunately one did not see such opposition on player bidding for huge amount. Is it because bidding is legal, while betting is illegal?. Also, read an article in a news paper about FICCI is seeking to make betting legal.

To me, as I said, auctioning or betting should not be allowed when human is the subject of bidding or betting. Once, auctioning or betting happens it could get extended into spot fixing or any other forms of fixing.

Let team sport like cricket be made to remain as gentleman game, played with passion and patriotism and not reduced to action film played as per predefined scripts.

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Body + Mind treatment = Medical Tourism.

IT back office, outsourcing including medical transcription has re-defined the outlook of India in the last 10 years or so. In today’s world one may not find top fortune company which does not have back office operation or processing in India. The other emerging field in India is medical tourism.

According to reports, it’s reported that 150,000 medical tourists came to India in 2005, based on feedback from the organization's member hospitals. The number grew to 200,000 by 2008. A separate study by ASSOCHAM reported that the year 2011 saw 850,000 medical tourists in India and projected that by 2015 this number would rise to 3,200,000.

As medical treatment costs in the developed country can be many folds when compared to India, this make prospect of international travel for medical care increasingly appealing. International health care accreditation and affiliations, medical support technology equipments and high speed internet communication make treatment effective through a collaborative approach could be a per-requisite for medical tourism. Clearly India has distinct advance here, as there are hospitals with facilities as comparable to any developed country.

Medical tourism is mostly sought for treating a critical health condition and hence it’s not just about medicine alone which can successfully treat a person. To be in good health trust, environment, and positive mind plays a critical role in recovery. India have a distinct advantage here as well, all year through sunny weather, visit to nature scenic places like Kodai, Ooty, Munnar in south, Kulu, Manali, Darjeeling in north would be so soothing to mind. On top of this, India is said to be one amongst the oldest civilization in history. Hence for those who are interested to understand life and evolution of mankind, there are supporting literature and distinct historic places of importance. All this can be so relaxing to mind.

As the journey called ‘life’ progresses, the machine called ‘body’ starts getting old it requires medical attention at times. The medicine and technology can bringing in necessary correction to keeps this body functioning. However, there is a mind game which is critical not only in recovery, but also understanding life and getting on with it. This is where India can play critical role, particularly for those who want to get deep into self realization.

To me, medical tourism is a function trust, usage of advanced medical technology to diagnose and treat health problem in a cost effective way, proper pre and post care – this is where there need to be collaborative effort between hospitals of different countries and hospitality partner who need to play a vital role to ensure that mind is at peace due to medical condition and its associated treatment.

Medical tourism is still in its infant stage and has long way to go. Clearly, India would have a distinct advantage on many fronts.

* This article is a part of Indiblogger's Modern health care touch lives contest in association with Apollo hospital. Apollo hospital do offer international patient services *

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Petrol price reduction - May 2013

In May 2012, the petrol price was about INR 77.00 Per litre and Diesel was about INR 44.00 per litre at Chennai , a whopping difference  of about INR 30. In fact, I heard petrol car manufacturing was almost stopped due to slump in demand around same time and many were focused on buying diesel car, in spite of paying higher upfront cost of more than INR 1,00,000, even though their car usage was low.

Last year May 2012, had made some basic calculation comparing year 2008 price peak barrel price of oil, exchange rate against market petrol price and posted about the about the increased price of petrol. My observation was based on the  chart below in May 2012 (i.e INR 77 /litre) is higher or overpriced by about  INR 13 then.

A year later now, there is not much change in situation, barrel price is around USD 100 and USD exchange rate is almost same. However, the petrol price at Chennai is now dropped to INR 65 and diesel per litre is in range of INR 50, with a difference of only INR 15. This should bring some cheer to petrol car users and it could well mean, my earlier calculation on petrol (overpriced) right???!!! :-)

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Water finds it way and so do the currency

It’s a known fact, that water finds it way when there is a gradient difference between two points.
One can still store the water in dam, but for any productive work like generation of electricity or towards use in agriculture or even for industrial development one needs to release water from dam.

In a globalized economy, the currency is like water and particularly when there is a marked exchange rate difference between currencies. Almost all the developed economies have very strong currencies and these currencies had become very strong in last 2 or 3 decades. Hence, like water, strong currencies are finding its way into weaker currency country for productive work, particularly when the weaker currency country has a reasonable political stability and infrastructure. The weaker currency countries, termed as developing country naturally has a higher GDP compared to developed country.

The only difference is that water cannot be manufactured, while currency can always be printed legally by Government or a government debt ceiling increased towards retaining strong currency. Though there can be short term correction to foster economic development of developed country, in long run, the strong currency would act like water in a globalized economy.

Like water flooding low lying areas, when it finds the way. The global currency, once it find its way into weaker currency country can flood it, which lead to higher rate of inflation in the weaker or developing country.

On a lighter side, none is stronger than nature.

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Virtuality to reality : Evolving business.

Some time back, had written a blog post on telecommute and cloud computing Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3. The associated links provides detailing on telecommute and cloud computing, it’s also critical, one need to have proper support system to make telecommute and cloud computing successful.

We might well be moving away from human physical presence model of business at Office to a virtual business model, where business associate could be spread across the world. The reason, I called them as business associate is that, these folks would be experts in field and come together to accomplish a specific work after which they could move out. This could well mean in high technology oriented organization, could move more from employee based to a business partner based model in future.

In manufacturing there is concept called 'Lean' process of manufacturing, which is basically increasing productivity and reducing waste, well... we could evolve into a 'Lean' business model, where every resource need to be engaged only if essential.

Business, in prevailing global market - has to watch out competition, optimum price, low cost prototype development and production so as to sustain and grow. Moving people across globe from time to time will not only involve cost but also time and effort to adapt to geography. Business these days have to be ahead of competition, this can be possible only when all business associates have work collaboratively and stay connected.

For an entrepreneur to plan and execute, he should keep himself abreast with work carried out by virtual teams from anywhere across the globe. No longer has team to be physically present at same place to carry out work, they may be at different places and be much more productive through use of latest innovative tools and techniques.

If we ask our self , a question as why we need to present in office, the answer could be meeting, effective communication, collaboratively passing work from one to other dept till it becomes a tangible product, more importantly there need to appropriate control and change of plan as desired.

Can this be accomplished with team spread across at different place of globe and even have expert team member working from home?. This is where usage of high speed internet and effective office or project automation tools could plays its part.

Evolution of internet has brought in products like video conferencing, document holder, planning and execution of work, workflow based automation and assignment of work at appropriate time, business intelligent status reporting. It started with different discrete products doing these work and at time, once physical presence is required at certain location to utilize it.

However, Office product such as office365 makes it possible to accomplish this from your laptop or mobile computing device.

Early 90's usage of internet revolution the way of communication through emails, 2000's was about outsource model of collaborative work done - however interactive communication in form of video and audio, work flow planning and execution was remaining evasive and I believe usage of cloud computing and necessary application software towards bring control in collaboration could start next revolution in IT industry.

A dream company could have product or service conceptualized in America, designed in Germany, prototyped in China or Hong Kong and finally processed or manufactured in India, such approach is made possible through office365 application software. By using these products, one can truly claim their products to be “Made in Universe".

The future of the technology industry lies in transforming traditional outsourcing into higher-value services that solve business problems with technology innovations.

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Hinduism - Part 2.

Why does Hinduism have so many gods?. This is the one of the question normally asked. I have heard many answers, but, I thought of giving my own answer. 'Hinduism' is one amongst the oldest living religion date back to millions of years. As per Hindu mythology there are four yugas' namely Satyayuga (golden age),Tretha yuga(silver age), Dwapura Yuga(bronze age) and currently we are in Kaliyuga(Iron age).

Many of the god's incarnation in form of human happened over these yugas. As a matter of fact, god maha Vishnu has so far had 9 incarnation (out of 10) in his total of 10 Desaavatharam.

Hence, as Hinduism dates back to millions of years, each time their was incarnation of god into human and fought over the evil. This could have given new name for god. Further, all Hindu mythology god has associated biography behind it.

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Agile project methodology , PMBOK - PMP... Why & Where?

These days, one find’s more and more discussion and comparison in social forum between

• The water fall model with that of agile project methodology (iterative).
• Agile project certification /Scrum with that of PMP.

The another common question, one would find is about, which one of the project management methodology is better?.

To me, Project management has to cover all aspects and processes of project from project initiation to close, including all the commercials and if needed, one has to take care of legal aspect. Once, we get into the legal aspect or towards conflict resolution, the proof could be the documented agreement for any third party arbitration, PMBOK fairly covers these aspect to a greater extend.

Project execution method can vary it can a water fall model or iterative model. The approach towards iterative model of project execution is well defined in ‘Agile’ project methodology. To me, choosing a particular project execution methodology whether its water fall or iterative (Agile) depends on many factors.

Some of the critical ones being,
• Industry.
• Product.
• Size and complexity of the project.
• Customer or project Owner.

Industry: PMBOK is not industry specific and can suit all industry. Agile methodology is mostly applicable to IT industry and it could extend to some other industries as well, particularly in design of prototype. Also, sometimes, the solution or the product release to market might be time bound, which would call for quick turnaround time in development, hence ‘agile’ methodology can be opted.

Product: In my viewpoint, ‘Agile’ type of project management methodology suits IT products development. For example, software packaged solution or electronic product which uses micro controller or Embedded application. These products have shelf life. One has to keep up with competition and product release has to happen at right point of time, one cannot release a product version ahead OR late. Releasing a product ahead or late can be a potential risk in absorption of product by market and hence the success of product and thereby to the project itself. In such products life (months or even years depending on product), there need to be release of product versions from time to time and improvement or enhancement happen throughout the potential life of the product. This being the case, naturally Agile methodology would be a clear winner.

Size and Complexity of the project: If size of the project effort is small and if there is scope clarity, then a water fall model on Fixed price basis can be a better option as it would involve cost saving. In any case, even in small sized projects, improvements do happen post production. However, a complex project like ERP with greater degree of effort would require some form of iteration, not only for user to adopt and understand ERP functionality and wherever there are gap in the proposed business functionality, some form of customization OR integration requirement and hence agile type iterative approach would be useful. As a matter of fact, there are iteration in ERP implementation which are known as CRPs (common room pilot) but only difference may be that it might not precisely match Agile methodology like – product backlogs, sprint run, burn down charts etc.

Customer OR product owner: In an agile type of project, customer’s testing team should available to test the product output repeatedly and hence their effort is also critical. In a vendor – customer relationship, its normal in IT project environment, customer testing team (which likely to be business process team members) may not have time bandwidth to perform repeated testing. However within a company, if R and D team is coming out with iterative product output and with product owner controlling testing and producing teams the agile methodology will better suit. The fact is that scoping, commercials or even if any conflict happens - it can be resolved by the product owners.

Each project can be unique, bound by constraints and the challenges could be situational time to time, adopting a particular project management methodology alone might not bring success to a project. However, methodology would be effective tool towards success of project, if acknowledged, adopted and supported by key stakeholders. The above points could play a critical role in choosing a particular project methodology.

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