Sunday, December 07, 2008

Delhi international arts fest

The Delhi International Arts Festival is on, this month of December in NCR, and they seem to be putting up some brilliant performances. As part of the series, they had a Bharatnatyam (by Geeta Chandran & Co) and a Kathak performance (by Prerna Shrimali) at the Epicenter here in Gurgaon - both were great.

This is the first time time I've seen light used to such effect in a Bharatnatyam performance. The most innovative bit was one titled 'seasons', based on Kalidasa's Ritusamhara and set to music by Tchaikovsky! - was seriously brilliant. This was my first look at a full Kathak performance as well and I came away quite impressed.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Strategy through hard times

The quarterly has a nice article on strategy during hard economic times as these - Strategy in a 'structural break', authored by Richard Rumelt:

"A structural break is the very best time to be a strategist, for at the moment of change old sources of competitive advantage weaken and new sources appear. Afterward, upstarts can leap ahead of seemingly entrenched players..."

"So during structural breaks in hard times, cutting costs isn’t enough. Things have to be done differently, and on two levels: reducing the complexity of corporate structures and transforming business models. At the corporate level, the first commandment is to simplify and simplify again. Since companies must become more modular and diverse, eliminate coordinating committees, review boards, and other mechanisms connecting businesses, products, or geographies...."

"Then start reforming individual businesses....In general terms, the first task is to understand how a business has survived, competed, and made money in the past. Don’t settle for PowerPoint bar charts and graphs. If the business is too complex to comprehend, break it into comprehensible parts. Once you gain this critical understanding, you can start the work of reshaping. There is no magic formula. Reforming a business always takes insight and imagination."