"CEOs can't wait to read Sunny Bindra's articles every week."

“Air carriers may be flying through rough weathers, but their top executives have got handsome pay hikes, including the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of crisis-ridden Kingfisher Airlines, who has emerged as the second-highest paid among all his peers at the Vijay Mallya-led UB Group. Among the country’s three listed airlines also, Kingfisher CEO Sanjay Agarwal’s […]

“Whether it was a looming deadline, an understaffed development team, or missing information, Apple–despite being a company that has historically exceled at delighting its end users–wasn’t able to deliver on its customer requirements with Apple Maps. And this particular case illustrates the outcomes that can result when companies choose to embark on strategies that are […]

“While delivering my washing to our local dry cleaner this morning, I realised the reason why I always go back to that specific dry cleaner: it is a result of an intimate relationship that has developed between me and the owners over a period of time. The owners know me by name and the name […]

“With total liabilities of more than $2 billion (Rs.11,100 crore), Kingfisher is operating on a skeleton schedule, with its flying fleet cut to one-fourth, half its pilots gone and the lowest market share of any airline in India. Earlier this month, the airline reported its net loss had widened to Rs.650.78 crore for the quarter […]

The BBC World Service has left Bush House. So what? The British broadcaster announced last month that it was leaving its venerable studios at Bush House, to move to the more modern premises across London that house the rest of its news operations. What could be wrong with that? Nothing. And everything. What is this […]

“The example set by Kenya’s banks when it comes to not only reaching the unbanked, but also making a profit from them, is something that the rest of the world should look to emulate. Banks in large swathes of Africa, Asia and Latin America have undergone huge expansion in the past decade. Many now rank […]

I don’t get it. I just don’t. It should be blindingly obvious to every owner of every business that it runs primarily on just one thing: the goodwill of its customers. If customers obtain value from you, they keep buying. If they keep buying, you keep making a profit. If you keep making a profit, […]

Looking at my mobile phone bill the other day, I noticed that the part of the bill generated by making calls has been falling steadily, while the data component has been rising. That reminded me: just over two years ago, I wrote on this page that the future of your business lay in the palm […]

“When news emerged in May that Facebook had hired an executive search firm to look for a woman to add to its board of directors, I had hoped that with the appointment would come a great deal of diversity of thought and experience and an independent voice. Facebook has now announced that it has chosen its […]

“RIM’s woebegone story is the stuff of science-fiction epic. A technology juggernaut that emerged from a sleepy Canadian backwater, RIM came to dominate the smartphone industry in a few years. Its BlackBerry managed to become an indispensable tool of the global elite in Davos and Washington D.C. as well as a status symbol to tweens […]

Tesco is the United Kingdom’s most dominant retailer. For a couple of decades now, the supermarket chain has been all-powerful, accounting for one in eight pounds that Britons spend in shops and commanding 30% market share, in addition to being the nation’s largest private employer. And Tesco is not merely a grocer these days; it […]

“The fatal fact about nepotism is that the really good people won’t go to work for you in the first place or will quit or quit trying for your job when they spot your uncle, brother, nephew, wife, mistress or son on the payroll… …If there’s even a bare possibility that you’re prejudiced, the smell […]

“…Sony, which once defined Japan’s technological prowess, wowed the world with the Walkman and the Trinitron TV and shocked Hollywood with bold acquisitions like Columbia Pictures, is now in the fight of its life. In fact, it is in a fight for its life – a development that exemplifies the stunning decline of Japan’s industrialized […]

Whatever happened to “First-Time Quality?” It seems to have become an irrelevance in Kenya today. The idea is simple enough. If you get something right the first time, you don’t have to incur the cost of inspections, revisits, rework or repeat jobs. If you pay acute attention and maintain a high standard when you do […]

I was sitting by my favourite ocean (there is only one) the other day (I was on a break, remember) and I noticed some ominous-looking dark clouds over the ocean. I asked a passing waiter whether he thought it might rain. He looked at the sky, and said with gratifying certainty: “No chance. Those clouds […]

“TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its […]

The Encyclopedia Britannica has ended print publication after 244 years. I must admit I fell silent after hearing this piece of news earlier in the week. Anyone who admires books and has encountered the venerable encyclopedia in a home or library cannot fail to feel some sadness. The weathered leather covers, the musty pages, the […]

“One of the odd questions I keep being asked about the iPad is “Where do you plug in USB stuff?” It’s a sister phrase to the weird criticism oft thrust at Apple’s device, “Ah, it’s too limiting for me: I can’t plug in USB sticks.” This is weird because other makers, notably Apple’s biggest competitor, […]

In business, relationship management is all the rage these days. There seem to be no salespersons any more, just relationship managers (RMs). It sounds warm and fuzzy and touchy-feely, as though you, the customer, have someone in the organization specially focused on you. Most of the time, it’s an elaborate hoax. What’s the difference between […]

“Soon after Citigroup let go of 100 employees across India last month, many functional heads received an unusual brief. They were asked to scout for jobs for those who had been terminated. Counsellors were also roped in to soften the blow and professional services firms were hired to make the career transition of the terminated […]

People everywhere love freebies. If it’s “free,” we want it. And we want lots of it. Here’s the thing, though: nothing is really free. Resources are limited. To provide or make anything on this planet consumes resources. So if something seems free, it’s up to you to work out who’s bearing the cost. Some simple […]

A few weeks ago I predicted that 2012 would be the year of the “Twitter Big Stick” in Kenya: a time when both politicians and large organizations feel the force of feedback from social media. I pointed out that the reason for this is that the little people – customers, users, voters – now have […]

“I long ago realised that to understand a business I would learn much more by talking to people involved in day-to-day operations than the chief executive. They represented “what is really going on here?”” JOHN KAY, Financial Times (January 3, 2011) The excerpt shown, from Professor John Kay’s regular FT column, caught my eye. I […]

We are becoming a country of queues. Wherever you look, and wherever you go, people are standing in queues. Increasingly long queues. What is a queue? A place where a long-suffering user or customer gets increasingly annoyed with your organization and your brand. Given how widespread this problem is, it always amazes me how little […]

“Japanese police, prosecutors and securities agencies in Japan, the United States and Britain are investigating Olympus after the firm admitted this month that it hid losses on securities investments for decades, disguising some as acquisition payments and fees. The scandal at the once-proud firm has rekindled concerns about lax corporate governance in Japan and revived […]

Once upon a time, businesses could get away with being bad to customers. They could neglect them and abuse them and not face any real consequences. What could a customer do in that world, anyway? Throw a fit on the company premises? Only a few employees, and possibly a handful of other customers, would observe […]

When I was a very young boy in Nairobi, watching wrestling on TV was all the rage. Every week, whole families would sit down and be regaled by the antics of the likes of Big Daddy, Johnny Saint and Giant Haystacks. Not to mention evil incarnate, Kendo Nagasaki (those of a certain age will remember […]

“The rise of tablets and smartphones also reflects a big shift in the world of technology itself. For years many of the most exciting advances in personal computing have come from the armed forces, large research centres or big businesses that focused mainly on corporate customers. Sometimes these breakthroughs found their way to consumers after […]