Omar Wani
This is not a BejanDaruwala piece to predict how the new-year will turn out for you if you are an architect, chartered accountant, brand firm or a business strategist trying to earn a living in Kashmir.
For the readers of Cornerstone, my witness this week is the hero from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead who defines the purpose of creating as the unique combination of site, material and purpose, where one particular substance is used for a specific reason, and for nothing else.
The witness, Howard Roark, believes in his vision, carries it forward and sees it through to the end- if he wishes to keep what he has built- he lets it be, if he decides others don’t deserve to see it – he destroys it.
While this may foray our reader into a thought of endless metaphors – let us keep it crisp. The Roarks in Kashmir are few and far between. The impressive intellectual capital found here is much spoken about. The output in terms of creativity, innovation, design, value to firm or a house built with materials other than concrete and metal is negligible.
The number of people wanting to consult through specialised services has increased. The urge for returning middle management executives to ‘come and set up something at home’ and the young management graduates from the state’s Universities to ‘bring knowledge to local marketers’ is a noble thought.
On the supply side, appetite is what niche firms are struggling with. A photographer still struggles to find a corporate client to sell his photos for a good price. A brand firm fails to understand why well budgeted contracts often get picked up by companies in Mumbai and Delhi and not from their Regal Chowk office.
On the demand side, the failure is because traders or business houses fail to see the ‘value’ in a website, a logo, a new package with a cleaner font, or deviation from ‘common building practices’ to something healthy and effective.
One obvious reason to explain this common aversion to new ideas is cost. Healthy is often expensive. New is often less manufactured. Creative is something that the pallet takes a while to accept – hence for consultancy services meaning to make a buck beyond writing project reports for SIDCO, it is a game of four factors – Reason, Specify-ability, Tangibility, and Unity.
Reasoning is about thinking through how adversity can turn into an opportunity. Consulting in a conflict area will require an edge on the skill set of your own people to deliver, for instance, an entire township in Srinagar’s peripheral Bemina within the stipulated timelines and costs. A consultant’s role should be to engage with the project to ensure the adverse factors are well considered before making time or money commitments. This is also about the substance we speak about – the raw material and the ‘finding appropriate use for the appropriate material’.
In many cases consultancies are run by friends, or relatives – keeping it all in the family. For companies to succeed in this business, it is essential that the first and foremost question is answered – ‘what pays the bills, and how?’ Specifying a basic economic model drawn around the most mundane common idea that helps pay bills of your office while you go and compete with Einstein in your mind helps; it keeps the heater running and lets the friendship evolve.
The enthusiasm of new comers often fades in the third month once borrowed money runs out on basic costs and laptops and cigarettes.
The demand side of this area consists of ‘a specific plan’ based on detailed reasoning that should be delivered to the prospective clients. Consultancies are often in a hurry to deliver offers and fail to specify the detail of work they can and cannot deliver. Come time to sign the dotted line, one doesn’t want to cut a sorry figure on the 3 of 10 important items that one intends to sell.
Tangibility is about measure: the indication of investment, return and the time taken to put the entire service delivery together is important. ‘Anything that cannot be measured, cannot be delivered’ is the simple mantra. If there are changes to be made in any of the numbers – go to the client and get a buy-in. Don’t leave anything to surprise.
Unity- the most critical element of the RSTU approach – how does your service or product or design fit into the existing set up of the client and meet the reasoned, specified, tangible outcome seamlessly? Consultants tend to do a lot of work in isolation. That exclusive space in their own office gives their juices a creative flow. But once imported into a live, often problematic, breathing business, this by-pass surgery stands as much a chance to kill the works as it does to propel it to a new desired level.
Often this creativity forays onto a less travelled route: devising solutions out of the BCG matrix. As service providers, don’t stick to one-size-fits-all models ‘just because Drucker said so’.
The new age Kashmir Consultancies need a touch of the Golden age Roark – make your own models, decide your own terms and write your plans. Think through them and ensure you understand the life of the man who you’re selling to. Remember, he is not interested in the car you drive, he just wants to know if hops on, he can scope to go far.
