Enigma Solution

The massive fiscal crisis in Greece and impending crisis in Portugal, and Spain got many people thinking. Their situation is very small as compared to the problems and sad state of management of the government in the developing world. All these are symptoms of dysfunctional and irresponsible governance. Everything with the government is so complex and huge that a brief article will not suffice. It’s not easy to prescribe a simple solution for complex problems that plague society; however here is some food for thought. The other day, there was an article in the newspapers. It seems that the government was in the process of installing biometric devices in all their offices. Primary reason was to ensure that government employees, teachers etc. attend their offices for the duration for which they are paid. This raises the question as to; why should the government deem these steps necessary? It makes for an interesting management case study, hence this article. What are biometric devices? T...

It was 1984 and the third anniversary of us brothers joining of the family owned and managed manufacturing business in Pune, India. I was 26 and responsible for day to day operations of the plant. Excited to be given an opportunity to start working at last, with our enthusiasm and hard work we were able to double output each year. Initially growth came from taking up the slack in the system and then later from some capacity additions. Our efficiencies left much to be desired. Just keeping pace with volume demand was soaking up all our time, we responded with the main tool in our tool box, ‘HARD WORK’, which comes easy to the young, for youth loves expending energy. However there is a limit, to what senseless hard work can achieve. Demand was galloping, and there were no more funds available for capital expansion. We had already borrowed to the hilt. We simply had to become more efficient.Further progress depended on adopting a different approach. But what? Had we not been under pressur...