Have you found your Niche?

“Charles, you care for nothing but shooting dogs and rats; you will be a disgrace to not only yourself but to your family too.” This was a father’s prophecy about his son. The father wanted his son to be a doctor like him. Charles entered Edinburgh University for medicine at his father’s behest, found it unattractive, later joined Cambridge, and earned an undistinguished bachelor’s degree in theology. He had no firm idea what to do. Charles was an aimless youth at 22. He wanted to do something different. He loved flora and fauna but did not know whether that love could be transformed into a livelihood.

Captain Fitzroy on his ship HMS Beagle was looking out for a naturalist. Charles asked for his father’s permission. His father refused but with a caveat, “If you can find any man of common sense who advises you to go on the discovery, I shall give my consent.” Neither the father, nor the captain were ready to grant permission to Charles.

When Charles approached Captain Fitzroy, the physiognomist in Captain Fitzroy said, “I doubt anyone having a nose like yours can possess sufficient energy and determination for the long voyage.”

His uncle drove thirty miles to convince Charles’ father to grant him permission to undertake the assignment on HMS Beagle as a naturalist.

The Beagle Voyage which included the circumnavigation of globe would be the making of the 22 year-old Darwin. Five years of physical hardship of mental rigour imprisoned within the ship’s walls, offset by the wide-open opportunities in the Brazilian jungles and the Andes Mountains, were to Darwin an eye opener in finding his muse. It took him 22 years to publish his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection in The Origin of Species.

  1. The conventional way of selecting a profession for self or for others is primarily decided by the demand for that profession, coupled with tangibles like salary and perks. No wonder Medicine, Engineering and MBAs among others make the cut.
  2. A niche-driven approach on the other hand is decided more by finding gaps in the market and differentiating oneself from the crowd to address that gap (as discovered by Charles Darwin). Niche is defined as a comfortable or suitable position in life or employment. Alternatively, it also means a shallow recess especially in a wall to display something of value – a statue or other ornament. (please refer the image)

Is it necessary to be a school or college topper or those in the top percentile rankings to find one’s niche? Quite often the converse is true as ‘brilliant’ students have the best choices in selecting the conventional options in career and institution.

What can happen when one selects a career in a conventional way but is at the bottom of a pyramid in a specific career stream? Getting a job may look easy but one may be competing with a very large number of aspirants. For example: Rakesh had scored 100/100 in Sanskrit in SSLC. Having felt he had a flair for Sanskrit he decided to pursue his college education in that direction. He completed his BA in Sanskrit from Ruia College in Mumbai.

At this juncture he had two choices in further studies – to continue his studies in Sanskrit or look out for a qualification which is marketable in the job market. He decided to pursue a MBA in Finance instead. After spending around Rs. 8 lakhs in fees itself what can be the likely scenario when he passes out two years later?

For a person who wishes to do a M. Tech in Structural Engineering, a minimum qualification of B.E Civil is necessary. Likewise for a M.S. in surgery, a basic qualification of MBBS is mandatory. So, when a person pursues a MBA in Finance with Sanskrit as graduation the basic competency level expected of the student is that of Class 12th, as a MBA is agnostic to one’s field of graduation.

Conventional wisdom says that one has a wide range of job opportunities after doing a MBA. The opportunities are large but so is the competition. Annually about 360,000 students graduate from 4000 B-Schools of which 61% are unemployable due to skill gaps and low work experience.

Keeping those depressing numbers aside, can Rakesh compete with students from Premier Institutes or those with Engineering and Commerce backgrounds? It is not impossible, but it is a Herculean task.

What would happen if he were to pursue Sanskrit for his PG? In the absence of clear data let us assume that the number of students opting for Sanskrit may be 1% of MBA students that is around 3600. For Rakesh it would have been much easier to be in the 95th percentile after his MA and in the 99th percentile with a Ph.D. A lot of research happens in Sanskrit in US and German universities. By differentiating himself and finding a niche, Rakesh could have had a sense of purpose too.

From a financial perspective too, the cost of pursuing a MA in Sanskrit would have been at less than 10% the cost of a MBA. In case of a Ph.D. he could have explored UGC fellowships or opportunities in US or German universities where considerable research in Sanskrit is possible.

An example of a niche-based career is below: My friend Christopher Jayakaran passed PUC, third class in 1962. With hardly any worthwhile career options, his father’s friend suggested him to take up a course in Geology. He completed his M.Sc in Geology at Presidency College in Madras by topping in the University. He worked for an NGO called ‘Action for Food Production’ for 7 years and for more than 25 years in different countries in Africa which include Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone etc. He is an eminent Hydrogeologist and a Paleontologist. His Tamil book In Search of Ancestors which is on evolution of man based on fossil evidence has run into six editions.

Why are people in general wary of pursuing niche fields?

  1. Obsession for Security: Education is normally pursued in order to get a job. The market demand is thought of. In the post-covid world there is no security either in a job or in one’s qualifications per se.
  2. Managerial Aspirations: Indians in general prefer to have a managerial title early in their career sacrificing expertise in a specific domain.

How to find your niche?

Around 30 years back I came across an excellent concept in finding ones niche, based on cybernetic principles which was on identifying one’s core competency and focusing on a specific niche where the strength can be leveraged to maximum extent.

Werner Brandes was a German MBA Graduate who was working in a consulting firm but did not have career growth in spite of working hard in that organization for more than 10 years. He was unable to get good offers elsewhere. He was a mediocre student throughout his academic life and passed out from a tier-3 B-school.

The conventional wisdom of competing with others was not giving any results (like the example of Rakesh discussed above). His work profile was mapped for 15 different competencies. Werner was below average in all save one, which was on Industry Setup in rural areas. When Werner was pointed out that this was his niche. He asked, “How can I get a job with such a small niche?” He was advised to start his own consulting in this field and as he was in the top 5% of this ultra-specialized area of business consulting, slowly he was perceived as an expert in this field. Business started growing. Being a sunrise sector wherever the data was not available, his customers helped him in providing the necessary details.

Fascinated by this counterintuitive concept, I launched a program called Strategy for Quantum Growth. After 4-5 programs I had to withdraw as most of the participants did not want a long-term strategy but a new job which paid them 3-5K more.

One crucial difference between the conventional and the niche-based strategy is the type of growth. In case of the former it is logarithmic growth – where it is easier to get a good well-paying job immediately after graduation but after a few years the growth may taper off. In case of niche areas there is a considerable struggle initially but after a few years when the market perceives you as specialist, the growth becomes truly phenomenal. You are considered as a pioneer and get a first-mover advantage.

Christopher, Werner Brandes or Charles Darwin were not brilliant in their school days in the conventional sense but were able to find their niche. Have you found yours?

Two roads diverged in a wood and I… I took the road less travelled. – Robert Frost.

Rajan Parulekar – Director, Hospitality Paradigm

Posted in General | Leave a reply

Climate Friendly Tourism

There are a few guidelines for both the hotel industry and tourists to pivot towards, that would make tourism more resilient as well as climate friendlier. Encouraging destinations that are closer to the traveler, making stays longer and keeping profits local, are some ways to move away from the focus on volume and energy-intense products:

 

  • Increase the length of stay or the length of days in packages sold.
  • Focus on closer markets, long-haul travelers are the ones contributing to vast emissions of greenhouse gases.
  • Rethink the food that you serve, organic and regional can benefit farmers nearby.
  • Move towards a high-value model, where individuals spend more.
  • Think about what you buy: a lot of the profit is made by foreign-owned, global platforms such as AirBnB and booking.com.
  • Rethink carbon-intense travel, for example cruise holidays.

Posted in General | Leave a reply

Improving Negotiating Leverage – BATNA

“Rajeev, we have been given a mandate by our management. Due to the Covid-19 crisis leading to a steep fall in customer demand, you are expected to reduce the price of your cutting tools by 50%,” said Mr. Padmanabhan, (the purchase manager of Shockproof, a shock absorber manufacturing company from Delhi) adding a veiled threat, “else we have no choice but to switch over to the competition.” Rajeev is a technocrat running ‘Techno Enterprises,’ a MSME manufacturing cutting tools enterprise with a turnover of around Rs. 10 crores. When asked about the customer details, he shared his understanding that ‘Shockproof’ is a major supplier of shock absorbers with a turnover of ₹ 1000 crores catering mainly for the two wheeler industry.

One of the questions often asked in our training and consulting assignments is ‘how does one deal with such arm-twisting tactics, especially when the customer is too big compared to the supplier?’

One important concept in Negotiation theory is BATNA, which stands for the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement, a term coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury of the Harvard Program on Negotiation. BATNA is an important tool while preparing for negotiation. Both parties have their BATNA independent of each other. The party having a stronger BATNA has a stronger negotiating leverage. In case the parties are not able to conclude the negotiation, the best option each one has can be called as their BATNA. In the above example, if the negotiations fail, the BATNA for the customer and vendor can be improved as follows:

Customer: Look for other vendors who can give a similar product at the desired price.

Vendor: Develop alternate customers who can provide the requisite amount of volumes at the desired price.

It is not as simple as it looks above. Does the customer have a vendor who can provide deliveries just in time to meet his production targets? Alternatively, does the vendor have alternate customers where his current inventory can be offloaded? Now you will appreciate that BATNA is not only decided by the number of options but also the feasibility and attractiveness of those options.

Whose BATNA is stronger? The conventional answer favours that of the buyer who is much bigger in size. Some points to ponder:

  1. Identify your BATNA: The tool required for cutting/drilling is made with precision which requires tungsten carbide or diamond as the raw material. It also requires a great deal of R&D to develop a tool for a specific application. The vendor has been supplying the tools for the last 15 years. With considerable technical expertise, the production department found the tool useful. The rejection rate was less than 1% and the cost-per-component was low.
  2. Identify the weakness in the other party’s BATNA: The seller knows that the buyer has the option of other vendor but also has the critical information that the rejection rate of the competition’s tool is close to 50%. Also, the shop floor people do not appreciate the tools supplied by the competition.
  3. Spot the customer’s bluff: Even though the Indian two-wheeler volumes fell by 15% in FY 20, the impact on Shockproof was much lesser at around 8.4%. The customer was able to absorb the shock (pun not intended) as it focussed more on improving the content per vehicle. As per a newspaper report, Shockproof had notched up a top-line of ₹ 5000 crores and its EBIDTA rose by 4% to Rs. 800 crores. (Remember the excuse of the Covid -19 crisis the purchase manager articulated earlier?)
  4. Do Proper Homework: Rajeev shared that the customer’s turnover was ₹ 1000 crores, whereas in reality it was 5 times. This can be perceived two ways: conventionally it may produce a feeling of helplessness. Alternatively the helplessness could be transformed into strength as in the end result of a David vs. Goliath fight. The vendor could feel that a supply of ₹ 1 Crore of material is insignificant from the customer’s perspective and there need not be any need for the customer to be so aggressive in reducing the price. Can David stand his ground?
  5. Improve your BATNA: Let us take a different example where both the customer and the vendor are equally strong. For its Power PC, Apple had developed its microprocessor in collaboration with Motorola and IBM. In 2005, Steve Jobs took a call to switch over to Intel, which apart from being a market leader in microprocessors was offering a cutting edge technology in computing. Developing microprocessors needs a huge investment and also technical expertise. Intel had both and was the only vendor for such a high-technology product. With a single vendor, the vulnerability was high for Apple. Three years later, Apple bought over a 150-employee start-up in chip design called PA semi. Most of the team members had worked earlier at Intel, including Johny Srouji who now reports directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. In 2020 Apple announced that it will use its in-house microprocessors for the new range of Macs. ( International Herald Tribune, Don Clark and Jack Nicas – After 15 years Apple prepares to break up with Intel DH – June 23, 2020)
  6. Risk Mitigation: Apple was giving a business worth $3.4 Billion of microprocessors for Macs to Intel every year according to C.J. Muse an Evercore analyst. For Intel it was like losing a major account which was powering around 20 million Macs shipped by Apple annually. The impact of such a Key Account leaving Intel can be minimized when the figure is perceived not in absolute numbers but by the percentile share. Apple was contributing to 5% of Intel’s annual business and the total no of PCs sold annually are 260 million. While understanding one’s BATNA, apart from the actual value an account produces, the share of the total business also needs to be considered. It is better not to keep too many eggs in too few baskets. An important tool in risk mitigation is the sales funnel which can help in improving your BATNA.
  7. Guard against Pitfalls while analyzing one’s BATNA: There are two mistakes people make while going in for negotiations. Either they are too optimistic or too pessimistic.

Being too Optimistic: There is a tendency to aggregate all the options and assume it to be The BATNA. Consider for example, Rajesh, an unemployed engineer in Bangalore who has applied for a job in IT and feels that he deserves a salary of Rs. 10 lakhs as he has the following options:

  • Has applied for similar jobs in Mumbai and Delhi.
  • Has plans of a start-up in 3-D printing.
  • Is exploring further studies in the US by answering GRE and TOEFL.
  • Is pursuing MBA by giving CAT.
  • Joining the family’s 2-decade old fabrication business which is running well.

It is risky to assume the sum total of all these options as the best alternative because at any moment Rajesh can select only the best one. Contrast this with Gautam who already has a job with a ₹8 lakhs CTC. You will appreciate that Gautam has a better BATNA than Rajesh as a bird in hand is worth two in the bush!

Being excessively Pessimistic: The other mistake in negotiation is being too pessimistic when one is too committed to reaching an agreement without any preparation. There is an assumption that agreeing to all of the customers’ demands will make him happy, giving rise to a long-term business and relationship.

In the cutting tool example, the vendor though small in size vis-à-vis the customer, had a better product quality, a low rejection rate, a lower component cost and a shorter delivery period vis-à-vis the competition, which meant him having a better BATNA than the customer. Does it mean that he should rest on his laurels? Competition will be always trying to catch up with him, which necessitates him having to improve his BATNA all the time so as to keep the competition at bay.

Thus, negotiating strength, rather than being decided by the absolute size of a party or the size of the deal (as in the case of Apple vs. Intel) or the number of back-up options, is decided by your BATNA.

Whether you are a buyer or a seller, starting a new venture or looking out for a new job opportunity, please spend time in identifying and developing your BATNA.

Remember, in life, you do not get what you deserve, but what you negotiate and that is decided by your BATNA, the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement!

Rajan Parulekar – Director, Hospitality Paradigm

 

Posted in Sales | Leave a reply

Is your hotel following safety standards?

With people beginning to travel albeit warily, hotels needs to seriously look at whether they are following their safety standards widely marketed by them.

Trust in a brand is based on the brand history, the leaders within the brand and the competence exhibited by the brand.

Breaking this trust could be significantly dangerous and have negative implications for the brand.

‘Inside Edition’, an American TV newsmagazine distributed by CBS TV conducted a sting on a few hotels in New York recently to see how diligent they were being about cleaning during the coronavirus pandemic, and these are the stunning findings.

Using invisible spray and gel on sheets, towels and surfaces, the team checked into the same room under different names on different days to see if they had been cleaned or replaced. All three hotels that the Inside Edition team visited failed to clean and replace everything.

https://youtu.be/ltBrCJC5BNI

Makes you think, does it not? Hoteliers cannot be complacent and their leaders will need to initiate these checks and counterchecks to ensure that they are not left embarrassed as these hotels in the link were.

 

Posted in General | Leave a reply

RFP 2021

Buyers will need to address a few issues specifically related to Covid-19 in negotiations this year, including:

  • Cleanliness standards. All buyers should confirm cleanliness standards as part of the negotiation process. The enforcement of social distancing and cleanliness standards in guest rooms, meeting rooms and other common areas is paramount, and measures will need to be addressed in contracting.
  • Amenities. The need and availability of hotel amenities will be different. For example, what will free breakfast entail? Will “grab and go” replace the buffet? It may not make sense to negotiate in breakfast or even the shuttle service if buyers are not confident that the appropriate social distances measures are in place or if travelers will not be comfortable using the services.
  • Room availability and upgrades. The fact that many hotels will be operating at lower inventory levels, with many operating at 50 percent capacity, make room type negotiations more challenging for some buyers. The likelihood of securing room types beyond standard will decrease, and it will be incumbent on buyers to sharpen their pencils in to obtain upgrades for their travelers.
  • Cancellation policies. While hotels currently are offering flexibility with bookings to spur demand, they might adjust their cancellation policies down the road, given the planning and costs hotels need to apply to spacing out incoming and outgoing guests and having guests placed in every other room and other measures to manage guest flow. With inventory constraints and social distancing measures, cancelations will be more costly for hotels and they will likely need to apply more stringent penalties which could result in increased costs for buyers in the form of fees. Cancellations and penalties are a negotiable item in the RFP process, and buyers should be prepared to address them.

Posted in General | Leave a reply