Get me a TVS Apache

I was up late last night working on putting together a presentation for SDM-IMD students. I was asked to talk with a combined class of students in "Strategic Selling to Large Accounts" and "Negotiations." Although the content I chose was influence and persuasion research (using the Poland presentation as my base), I realized that just giving a presentation is not easy. It still took a lot of preparation as I decided what to say, how to cover it, what examples to give, etc.

In the morning, we met with a set of reporters from leading newspapers in India - the Times of India, Hindustan Times, the Tribune, etc. The class got to ask them a lot of questions on the state of the press in India and a lot more. It seemed like an engaging and interactive experience. One of the reporters wanted to talk with me in a little more detail and we agreed to meet tomorrow morning at 9 AM. After the session with the press, we had an outstanding presentation with a faculty member who covered the development of HR practices in India. In fact, this is almost the ideal type of presentation that fit the needs of this group. It briefly covered the history of HR practices in India and focused on the differences between India and the rest of the world. It was interesting and enlightening. Unfortunately, I had to leave a little earlier because of my presentation. I delivered my presentation to a group of students from two SDM-IMD classes. I think it went okay. The room was very warm (shades of the POland presentation) and I lost a couple of people who were dozing, but there were excellent questions. I was particularly impressed with the thoughtful questions on the design and interpretations of the experiments I discussed. One girl offered some great alternative explanations for the results and I wished I had a lot more time to discuss additional research that would counter those alternative explanations.

After a quick lunch, we headed to TVS Motors. It was a relatively long drive out of town and we first sat through several presentations about the company. The first two presentations were great. The first provided an overview of TVS Motors and its position within the TVS Group of companies. The second one focused on the Mysore plant and its production lines and processes. These were both relevant and interesting. It went downhill from there. The last two were long and detailed presentations on implementations of TQM (Total Quality Management) and TPM (Total Product Management) at the plant. The presentation went into a great deal of detail and the shower of acronyms and statistics left most of us feeling flooded. Again, the extremely warm room didn't help and these presentations went on for almost two hours. As usual, things got interesting when we hit the factory floor. As usual, the site visit beautifully coincided with the presentation made by the faculty member in the morning.

There is probably no better living example of Friedman's triple convergence that emerge from the world "flatteners." Here were are in relatively rural India and we entered this manufacturing campus that was a world into itself. The tenets of Japanese manufacturing philosophies and Indian business environments lead to the production of an indigenously designed motorcycle that is produced in a world class facility and exported to numerous countries around the world. The growth and success of the company also leads to them developing and opening a manufacturing plan in Indonesia. It almost seems like an example straight out of the book. We could talk of the supply chaining, insourcing, offshoring, and outsourcing. Even the regular mobile phone calls to the executives in the room highlight the "steroids" that Friedman talks about.

The plant was spotlessly clean and filled with messages emphasizing quality and safety. I found a large "stall" on the shop floor that was labeled "Safety Gallery." It is basically a gallery with numerous safety practices as well the the horrible consequences of unsafe practices (gruesome pictures of injuries). Apparently, if people are observed making unsafe actions, they are asked to go through this gallery (in a central location on the floor) and then sign a log book that forces them to write down exactly what they have learned and sign it. To me, this highlights that in the new India, such concepts such as quality, service, and safety are not just given lip service like they would have been in the past, but is taken seriously.

The TVS Apache motorcycles were also extremely attractive and I wouldn't mind having one of those.