Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Indian Higher Education- Emerging Trends in E-Learning
Indian Higher Education and Emerging Global
E-Learning Trends
Paper to be presented at International Conference on Management Technology in Education Practices to be held on 29-30th July, 2009
Dr. S.K.Prasad MBA, Ph.D
Director, New Horizon Leadership Institute, Bangalore- 560087 India.
Abstract
This paper deals with the issues and concerns pertaining to higher education in India in the contemporary times. An attempt has been made in the paper to draw comparisons with global scenario with an emphasis on the emerging opportunities because of the demographic dividend that India would be enjoying as a country with a vast majority of young population for the longest period up-to 2050. The paper emphasizes the need for a strategic alignment between higher education and Information Technology so as to make the best use of technologies in education systems particularly teaching learning processes. In the second half the paper highlights several emerging trends in global e-learning and suggests for earlier adaption of the trends to enable a swift and smooth transition from conventional learning systems to modern IT driven education systems which will lead to providing better access, quality education with consistent standards and the same time with enormous cost, time and flexibility related advantages.
Introduction
Higher education consists of two well-defined aspects knowledge and know-how. The knowledge component enables one to understand what one learns in relation to what one already knows and provides the continuity in education while know-how is the ability to translate knowledge into action.
Education thus seen as a combined responsibility of academia, industries, professional associations and society. Higher Education Institutes should focus on teaching the fundamentals of empirical knowledge and tools, industry should focus on educating their employees on specific aspects of working knowledge, tools and application. In the higher education system, engineering education and management education occupies a very significant position. Engineering institutions in India currently account for intake of more than 5,00,000 students in Bachelor’s program, around 30,000 in Master’s program and less than 1000 in PhD program.
The number of institutions has also grown by an order of magnitude in the last two decades, mostly in the private sector. This rapid expansion has raised serious concerns about the quality of engineering education in these institutions. Over the next decade, India will have two significant opportunities in the form of manufacturing and engineering services outsourcing in addition to growing opportunities in business process outsourcing and information technology outsourcing. Currently, most graduates do not possess the skills needed to compete in the global economy, and industries have been facing a consistent skills deficit. The challenge for Higher Education Institutes is to work out a healthy balance between wholeness of knowledge and specialization that caters to current technological demand. The challenge is to create organizations, private with active industry partnership mode with well articulated vision and goals which can respond meaningfully to such challenges.
E- learning is one of the strategic alternatives to provide access to knowledge access to the students in higher education segment. In fact, many developed countries are using E-learning technologies more aggressively to expand their education markets and India will be at a very advantageous position in translating the opportunity to her advantage. This is because of the very fact that abundance of availability of expertise both in IT sector and academics. However, the challenge is to establish a right connect between academics and industry and transform industry as a strategic partner in all IT enabled and embedded higher education initiatives.
External Factors Influencing E-learning:
External factors influencing the inner life of higher education institutions, including the use of ICT, can generally be distinguished into economic, social, cultural and technological factors as well as the changing role of government policies. The Emergence of the knowledge economy, in which economic productivity and growth is increasingly dependent on the development and application of new knowledge, creates a growing demand of a highly educated and flexible work force, leading to a further expansion of higher education and to an increasing need for life-long learning opportunities. The process of globalization which is characterized by increasing global economic interdependence and international competition, leads to the emergence of an international higher education market in which a growing number of traditional and new types of higher education providers compete. The process influences at the same time the role and responsibilities of the state in facilitating such growth in a healthy manner in a liberalized environment which is free from licenses and permits. ICT is both driving and enabling the processes toward a realistic knowledge driven global economy. It allows higher education providers to accommodate the specific needs of students in terms of mode, place and time of study and to cater to different and new target groups and niche markets both within the country and outside the country.
Growing and diversifying demand for higher education:
From a global perspective, the growing demand for higher education can be seen from two major trends: On the one hand the rapidly growing need for the widening of initial access to higher education. Globally the numbers of degree students are estimated to rise from 97 million in 2010 to 159 million by 2025. There is the increasing need for more diversified and flexible types of higher education, including executive education, more women entering into the portals of higher education in India and other countries that are changing from post industrial into knowledge driven economies. In Western countries this trend is often combined with an ageing population, which makes the need for life-long learning more pertinent.
India enjoys a tremendous advantage on this count by emerging as a young country in the world. In the words of Mr. Nandan Nilekeni in his recent book titled Imagining India” India is coming into its dividend as an unusually young country in an unusually ageing market- a young fresh faced nation in a graying world. Contrary to the ageing, shrinking population across the world India’s experience of demographic dividend that will last until 2050. This opens up new opportunities for the country as the challenge of maintaining wealth in ageing societies means developed markets will have to increasingly outsource their manpower requirements. In 2020, which is not very far away, India is projected to have an additional 47 million workforce, almost equal to the total world shortfall. The average Indian will be only 29 years old, compared with average age of 37 years in China and the United States, 45 years in Western Europe and 48 years in Japan. An early sign of the immense potential of our human capital has been the growth of India’s IT/BPO sector and the rise of “transformational outsourcing” by multinationals across the industries. The country has seen its global profile rise rapidly on the strength of its human capital- its entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and management graduates. India has the second largest reservoir of skilled labor in the world. IT produces two million English speaking graduates, 15000 law graduates and about 9000 Ph.Ds every year and existing pool of 2.1 million engineering graduates increases by nearly 300000 every year” .
On the darker side of this picture is the quality of manpower available and educational standards in the higher education. With the mushrooming of technical educational institutions in the country without concern for quality and which are grossly mismanaged it looks as if we are likely to lose the rich dividends arising out of our unique demographic advantage as the youngest nation in the world.
The international scenario of demand for higher education is significant by the fact that the growing and diversifying demand for higher education is not always being sufficiently met by the local players which include the government and private institutions and this is creating market opportunities for foreign players. As the debate on reforms in Indian higher education rags, the Global Education Digest 2009 compiled by UNESCO has thrown up a noteworthy finding: after China, India is the No2 country in the world to send the highest number of students pursuing higher education away from home.
As per the UNESCO Report US is no longer the hot destination for Indian students. Earlier over 71 percent students were based in the US, 8 percent in the UK and 7.6 percent in Australia. But between 1999-2009( the 10 year UNESCO Study period) the absolute number of Indian students has trebled, while the proportion of students going to US is down to 56 percent. More Indian students are going to Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the UK. A question pertaining to why students are moving out of India revealed that some are leaving India for higher studies to broaden cultural and intellectual horizons while others go abroad to avoid the frustrations of under resourced universities and institutions in India. The second reason has to be addressed by the universities and HEIs more seriously.
It is not far from reality that Indian universities plagued with a number of problems in all functional areas like administration, academics, examinations etc. The universities are not in a position to provide right and professional administration, not able to conduct examinations, announce results, unable to control corrupt practices, political domination, contaminated student politics and working under a total non-academic environment. On the academic front ability, availability, accountability, research productivity of faculty members are the major issues which need be addressed failing which it will become difficult to retain the students from leaving country for higher studies and in research pursuits.
From the policy perspective, we in India are experiencing that the expansion of higher education has been accompanied with a decreasing per capita funding , resulting in a call for more cost effective solutions and mixed (public-private) funding arrangements. Deregulation of higher education, enhancement of institutional autonomy and the introduction of more market driven initiatives in aspects like programs to be offered by the HEIs, pricing, promotion and delivery of education products without excess interventions by government or government regulated bodies need a thorough reengineering. These initiatives will enable institutes to be more responsive to new demands, increasing competition and market opportunities. A stronger emphasis on individual benefits of higher education and user(industry) pay approaches encourages a greater role of private participation, particularly industry participation, in higher education. India is in a transition phase from conventional modes of higher education to modern and IT driven education models. IT holds the key of expanding educational markets globally with best quality and in an environment of easy transmission, transparent administration and more over cost effective higher education. The next part of this paper is devoted to dwell upon the emerging trends of higher education which will have a strong bearing on information technologies.
Emerging Global E- Learning Trends
The New Age Students
Adults ages 18–26 are typically the first to adopt new technologies. Many of these early adopters are new age students who bring these technologies onto college campuses. The T-Schools and B-Schools are required to upgrade their e-infrastructure to ensure that the changing student needs are addressed aptly.
Some of the biggest trends include the emergence of Web 2.0 and social net-working phenomena such as blogs and wikis, as well as new online video repository and delivery websites such as YouTube, iTunes. The influx of smart phones, such as the iPhone, and other intelligent devices also enhanced mobile learning (commonly referred to as m-learning), creating new channels for content delivery, video expansion online, and podcasting.
Globalization
The demand for higher education globally has increased and will continue to grow. There are more than 100 million college students worldwide, new campuses are being built, and existing campuses are expanding. Universities are competing internationally for resources, faculty, the best students, and education funding.
Overseas expansion creates opportunities for students and faculty in terms of exchange programs and expanded campus environments. India, China, and the Middle East have quickly become key areas for widespread campus growth. These global learning environments give students an opportunity to expand their portfolios to include experience that is valued in today’s workforce. Higher Education Institutes shall gear up to attract top research talent and build international relationships, establishing a global presence and helping develop local capacity.
Enhancing Technical and Information Literacy
Increasingly, college campuses are taking steps to enhance technical literacy and create a campus culture that encourages faculty to use computers, smart devices, and other innovative tools in their curricula.
Information literacy is another topical area. While many students may be device-savvy, they may not necessarily be information-savvy. Students today, having for the most part grown up with technology, possess more technical abilities with computers and software, yet many have not learned how to use technology for academic purposes. HEIs are required to address this through a variety of methods, such as value added training programs seminars, workshops and instructional services. In addition technical institutes are to create a technology culture through a variety of channels—common areas, support desks, and student employment programs.
Technical and information literacy continues to gain importance on campuses, ensuring that students are viable candidates in the global workplaces. Institutes shall explore methods for providing students with the capabilities required to use information technology (IT) both critically and wisely.
Two other trends occurring at the same time are a wave of faculty retirements and an influx of fresh graduate/ post graduate teachers.. While many of these retirees tend to be less technical and more resistant to using technology the newly recruited teachers and other staff tend to be technically proficient and open to innovation, thereby enabling institutes to enhance their technical and information technology oriented programs.
Branding, Enrollment, and Retention
Institutes realize that the Internet is a viable way to market academic programs to prospective students while enhancing the institute’s brand. Institutes are also establishing online student information and support networks on their websites for newly admitted students allowing them to interact virtually with campus services and the campus community before they start attending the institute.
The presence of institutes on virtual on line communities enhance their brand value. You Tube’s education channels and iTunes U are effective not only for teaching and learning, but also for marketing an institute’s other, less-academic strengths. Videos of sports rallies, seminars, concerts, and other events are posted to these sites, effectively giving prospective students a glimpse of the institute’s various facets.
Institutes can also use technology to help build an attractive brand- that assures prospective students and parents that upon graduation students will be prepared to participate in a technologically advanced global economy. To attract prospective students, some institutes have developed student blogger programs, where an assigned roster of current students blogs about their daily routines. Some institutes also have respective “fan pages” on Face book to enable communications with incoming freshers.
Voice-over-IP call centers and text messaging are two methods can be used not only to attract students, but also to retain them. For example, one institute advertises on Google and routes leads to its central call center as prospective students click on the advertisement. It is also possible to use call centers as a way to leave voicemails for students who have missed a number of classes and to assist those who may have health, work overload, or personal issues. This “personal approach” is effective in keeping students from dropping out of schools. In a fully blossomed stage technology may support in catering to educational needs of children rural areas who are not in a position to go to schools or schools in villages where teachers are not available as technology particularly Information Technology does not require roads to travel to remote villages in India.
Mobility- The walk and talk phenomenon
Students today depend heavily on their mobile phones and PDAs. Students who own a cell phone no longer use land lines to make voice calls. The freedom, convenience, and cost savings that mobile phones provide are invaluable to students, whether they are living away from home or commuting daily to and from school, home, and work.
With the proliferation of mobile phones on campus, colleges everywhere are compelled to capitalize on feature-rich phones that are capable of much more than just voice calls. Adoption of the Black Berry, iPhone, and other smart devices that have Internet access allows students and faculty to perform a wide range of tasks virtually anywhere they have cell phone service. These tasks range from administrative (registration), to academic (downloading class materials), to social (instant messaging), to functional (checking transportation schedules).
Mobile phones are also being used to access computer files from a remote locations. It becomes possible for students who have forgotten to bring an assignment to class can prove to their professor that they have finished the assignment by using their cell phone to access the completed work on their computer at hostel or home. Mobile learning will become popular on college campuses that are exploring using PDAs and smart-phones to deliver courseware, field data, short tutorials etc.
E-Learning Trends
Paper to be presented at International Conference on Management Technology in Education Practices to be held on 29-30th July, 2009
Dr. S.K.Prasad MBA, Ph.D
Director, New Horizon Leadership Institute, Bangalore- 560087 India.
Abstract
This paper deals with the issues and concerns pertaining to higher education in India in the contemporary times. An attempt has been made in the paper to draw comparisons with global scenario with an emphasis on the emerging opportunities because of the demographic dividend that India would be enjoying as a country with a vast majority of young population for the longest period up-to 2050. The paper emphasizes the need for a strategic alignment between higher education and Information Technology so as to make the best use of technologies in education systems particularly teaching learning processes. In the second half the paper highlights several emerging trends in global e-learning and suggests for earlier adaption of the trends to enable a swift and smooth transition from conventional learning systems to modern IT driven education systems which will lead to providing better access, quality education with consistent standards and the same time with enormous cost, time and flexibility related advantages.
Introduction
Higher education consists of two well-defined aspects knowledge and know-how. The knowledge component enables one to understand what one learns in relation to what one already knows and provides the continuity in education while know-how is the ability to translate knowledge into action.
Education thus seen as a combined responsibility of academia, industries, professional associations and society. Higher Education Institutes should focus on teaching the fundamentals of empirical knowledge and tools, industry should focus on educating their employees on specific aspects of working knowledge, tools and application. In the higher education system, engineering education and management education occupies a very significant position. Engineering institutions in India currently account for intake of more than 5,00,000 students in Bachelor’s program, around 30,000 in Master’s program and less than 1000 in PhD program.
The number of institutions has also grown by an order of magnitude in the last two decades, mostly in the private sector. This rapid expansion has raised serious concerns about the quality of engineering education in these institutions. Over the next decade, India will have two significant opportunities in the form of manufacturing and engineering services outsourcing in addition to growing opportunities in business process outsourcing and information technology outsourcing. Currently, most graduates do not possess the skills needed to compete in the global economy, and industries have been facing a consistent skills deficit. The challenge for Higher Education Institutes is to work out a healthy balance between wholeness of knowledge and specialization that caters to current technological demand. The challenge is to create organizations, private with active industry partnership mode with well articulated vision and goals which can respond meaningfully to such challenges.
E- learning is one of the strategic alternatives to provide access to knowledge access to the students in higher education segment. In fact, many developed countries are using E-learning technologies more aggressively to expand their education markets and India will be at a very advantageous position in translating the opportunity to her advantage. This is because of the very fact that abundance of availability of expertise both in IT sector and academics. However, the challenge is to establish a right connect between academics and industry and transform industry as a strategic partner in all IT enabled and embedded higher education initiatives.
External Factors Influencing E-learning:
External factors influencing the inner life of higher education institutions, including the use of ICT, can generally be distinguished into economic, social, cultural and technological factors as well as the changing role of government policies. The Emergence of the knowledge economy, in which economic productivity and growth is increasingly dependent on the development and application of new knowledge, creates a growing demand of a highly educated and flexible work force, leading to a further expansion of higher education and to an increasing need for life-long learning opportunities. The process of globalization which is characterized by increasing global economic interdependence and international competition, leads to the emergence of an international higher education market in which a growing number of traditional and new types of higher education providers compete. The process influences at the same time the role and responsibilities of the state in facilitating such growth in a healthy manner in a liberalized environment which is free from licenses and permits. ICT is both driving and enabling the processes toward a realistic knowledge driven global economy. It allows higher education providers to accommodate the specific needs of students in terms of mode, place and time of study and to cater to different and new target groups and niche markets both within the country and outside the country.
Growing and diversifying demand for higher education:
From a global perspective, the growing demand for higher education can be seen from two major trends: On the one hand the rapidly growing need for the widening of initial access to higher education. Globally the numbers of degree students are estimated to rise from 97 million in 2010 to 159 million by 2025. There is the increasing need for more diversified and flexible types of higher education, including executive education, more women entering into the portals of higher education in India and other countries that are changing from post industrial into knowledge driven economies. In Western countries this trend is often combined with an ageing population, which makes the need for life-long learning more pertinent.
India enjoys a tremendous advantage on this count by emerging as a young country in the world. In the words of Mr. Nandan Nilekeni in his recent book titled Imagining India” India is coming into its dividend as an unusually young country in an unusually ageing market- a young fresh faced nation in a graying world. Contrary to the ageing, shrinking population across the world India’s experience of demographic dividend that will last until 2050. This opens up new opportunities for the country as the challenge of maintaining wealth in ageing societies means developed markets will have to increasingly outsource their manpower requirements. In 2020, which is not very far away, India is projected to have an additional 47 million workforce, almost equal to the total world shortfall. The average Indian will be only 29 years old, compared with average age of 37 years in China and the United States, 45 years in Western Europe and 48 years in Japan. An early sign of the immense potential of our human capital has been the growth of India’s IT/BPO sector and the rise of “transformational outsourcing” by multinationals across the industries. The country has seen its global profile rise rapidly on the strength of its human capital- its entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers and management graduates. India has the second largest reservoir of skilled labor in the world. IT produces two million English speaking graduates, 15000 law graduates and about 9000 Ph.Ds every year and existing pool of 2.1 million engineering graduates increases by nearly 300000 every year” .
On the darker side of this picture is the quality of manpower available and educational standards in the higher education. With the mushrooming of technical educational institutions in the country without concern for quality and which are grossly mismanaged it looks as if we are likely to lose the rich dividends arising out of our unique demographic advantage as the youngest nation in the world.
The international scenario of demand for higher education is significant by the fact that the growing and diversifying demand for higher education is not always being sufficiently met by the local players which include the government and private institutions and this is creating market opportunities for foreign players. As the debate on reforms in Indian higher education rags, the Global Education Digest 2009 compiled by UNESCO has thrown up a noteworthy finding: after China, India is the No2 country in the world to send the highest number of students pursuing higher education away from home.
As per the UNESCO Report US is no longer the hot destination for Indian students. Earlier over 71 percent students were based in the US, 8 percent in the UK and 7.6 percent in Australia. But between 1999-2009( the 10 year UNESCO Study period) the absolute number of Indian students has trebled, while the proportion of students going to US is down to 56 percent. More Indian students are going to Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the UK. A question pertaining to why students are moving out of India revealed that some are leaving India for higher studies to broaden cultural and intellectual horizons while others go abroad to avoid the frustrations of under resourced universities and institutions in India. The second reason has to be addressed by the universities and HEIs more seriously.
It is not far from reality that Indian universities plagued with a number of problems in all functional areas like administration, academics, examinations etc. The universities are not in a position to provide right and professional administration, not able to conduct examinations, announce results, unable to control corrupt practices, political domination, contaminated student politics and working under a total non-academic environment. On the academic front ability, availability, accountability, research productivity of faculty members are the major issues which need be addressed failing which it will become difficult to retain the students from leaving country for higher studies and in research pursuits.
From the policy perspective, we in India are experiencing that the expansion of higher education has been accompanied with a decreasing per capita funding , resulting in a call for more cost effective solutions and mixed (public-private) funding arrangements. Deregulation of higher education, enhancement of institutional autonomy and the introduction of more market driven initiatives in aspects like programs to be offered by the HEIs, pricing, promotion and delivery of education products without excess interventions by government or government regulated bodies need a thorough reengineering. These initiatives will enable institutes to be more responsive to new demands, increasing competition and market opportunities. A stronger emphasis on individual benefits of higher education and user(industry) pay approaches encourages a greater role of private participation, particularly industry participation, in higher education. India is in a transition phase from conventional modes of higher education to modern and IT driven education models. IT holds the key of expanding educational markets globally with best quality and in an environment of easy transmission, transparent administration and more over cost effective higher education. The next part of this paper is devoted to dwell upon the emerging trends of higher education which will have a strong bearing on information technologies.
Emerging Global E- Learning Trends
The New Age Students
Adults ages 18–26 are typically the first to adopt new technologies. Many of these early adopters are new age students who bring these technologies onto college campuses. The T-Schools and B-Schools are required to upgrade their e-infrastructure to ensure that the changing student needs are addressed aptly.
Some of the biggest trends include the emergence of Web 2.0 and social net-working phenomena such as blogs and wikis, as well as new online video repository and delivery websites such as YouTube, iTunes. The influx of smart phones, such as the iPhone, and other intelligent devices also enhanced mobile learning (commonly referred to as m-learning), creating new channels for content delivery, video expansion online, and podcasting.
Globalization
The demand for higher education globally has increased and will continue to grow. There are more than 100 million college students worldwide, new campuses are being built, and existing campuses are expanding. Universities are competing internationally for resources, faculty, the best students, and education funding.
Overseas expansion creates opportunities for students and faculty in terms of exchange programs and expanded campus environments. India, China, and the Middle East have quickly become key areas for widespread campus growth. These global learning environments give students an opportunity to expand their portfolios to include experience that is valued in today’s workforce. Higher Education Institutes shall gear up to attract top research talent and build international relationships, establishing a global presence and helping develop local capacity.
Enhancing Technical and Information Literacy
Increasingly, college campuses are taking steps to enhance technical literacy and create a campus culture that encourages faculty to use computers, smart devices, and other innovative tools in their curricula.
Information literacy is another topical area. While many students may be device-savvy, they may not necessarily be information-savvy. Students today, having for the most part grown up with technology, possess more technical abilities with computers and software, yet many have not learned how to use technology for academic purposes. HEIs are required to address this through a variety of methods, such as value added training programs seminars, workshops and instructional services. In addition technical institutes are to create a technology culture through a variety of channels—common areas, support desks, and student employment programs.
Technical and information literacy continues to gain importance on campuses, ensuring that students are viable candidates in the global workplaces. Institutes shall explore methods for providing students with the capabilities required to use information technology (IT) both critically and wisely.
Two other trends occurring at the same time are a wave of faculty retirements and an influx of fresh graduate/ post graduate teachers.. While many of these retirees tend to be less technical and more resistant to using technology the newly recruited teachers and other staff tend to be technically proficient and open to innovation, thereby enabling institutes to enhance their technical and information technology oriented programs.
Branding, Enrollment, and Retention
Institutes realize that the Internet is a viable way to market academic programs to prospective students while enhancing the institute’s brand. Institutes are also establishing online student information and support networks on their websites for newly admitted students allowing them to interact virtually with campus services and the campus community before they start attending the institute.
The presence of institutes on virtual on line communities enhance their brand value. You Tube’s education channels and iTunes U are effective not only for teaching and learning, but also for marketing an institute’s other, less-academic strengths. Videos of sports rallies, seminars, concerts, and other events are posted to these sites, effectively giving prospective students a glimpse of the institute’s various facets.
Institutes can also use technology to help build an attractive brand- that assures prospective students and parents that upon graduation students will be prepared to participate in a technologically advanced global economy. To attract prospective students, some institutes have developed student blogger programs, where an assigned roster of current students blogs about their daily routines. Some institutes also have respective “fan pages” on Face book to enable communications with incoming freshers.
Voice-over-IP call centers and text messaging are two methods can be used not only to attract students, but also to retain them. For example, one institute advertises on Google and routes leads to its central call center as prospective students click on the advertisement. It is also possible to use call centers as a way to leave voicemails for students who have missed a number of classes and to assist those who may have health, work overload, or personal issues. This “personal approach” is effective in keeping students from dropping out of schools. In a fully blossomed stage technology may support in catering to educational needs of children rural areas who are not in a position to go to schools or schools in villages where teachers are not available as technology particularly Information Technology does not require roads to travel to remote villages in India.
Mobility- The walk and talk phenomenon
Students today depend heavily on their mobile phones and PDAs. Students who own a cell phone no longer use land lines to make voice calls. The freedom, convenience, and cost savings that mobile phones provide are invaluable to students, whether they are living away from home or commuting daily to and from school, home, and work.
With the proliferation of mobile phones on campus, colleges everywhere are compelled to capitalize on feature-rich phones that are capable of much more than just voice calls. Adoption of the Black Berry, iPhone, and other smart devices that have Internet access allows students and faculty to perform a wide range of tasks virtually anywhere they have cell phone service. These tasks range from administrative (registration), to academic (downloading class materials), to social (instant messaging), to functional (checking transportation schedules).
Mobile phones are also being used to access computer files from a remote locations. It becomes possible for students who have forgotten to bring an assignment to class can prove to their professor that they have finished the assignment by using their cell phone to access the completed work on their computer at hostel or home. Mobile learning will become popular on college campuses that are exploring using PDAs and smart-phones to deliver courseware, field data, short tutorials etc.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Resourse Sharing among Libraries
RESOURCE SHARING AMONG LIBRARIES: ROLE OF CONSORTIA
J.V.J.S.RAMA DEVI
LIBRARIAN
Y.D. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BANGALORE-560062
ABTRACT
The paper deals with the need and importance of Resource Sharing Network. The objective of this paper is to explore the possibilities of developing resource sharing strategies highlighting the merits and demerits of library consortia.
1. INFORMATION RESOURCE
The concept of information resource is often not defined properly. The documents held by a library provide information sought by users and hence called information sources and more precisely documentary information sources. But such documents are also referred to as information resources. That is, the terms ‘information sources’ and ‘information resources’ are used interchangeably. But it is to be noted that an information source only provides information, but a resource is one, which like capital or labor, gives rise to something new. As a library generates all its services on the basis of the information sources available with it, such sources are called information resources. Libraries have so long been procuring information resources in traditional printed format. But today these resources are available in various other formats, such as audio-visual, digital, etc. However, resources in electronic format i.e. e-resources have become more popular these days, because of their distinct advantages.
2. RESOURCE SHARING
Keeping the above in view, if we now try to define resource sharing, it will not merely mean mutual sharing of information sources available in different libraries, it will mean utilizing the information sources of one library for generating services by another library.
3. CONCEPT & SIGNIFICANCE OF RESOURCE SHARING
Generally, the concept of Library Co-operation emerged for rendering better services to user’s community through borrowing & lending of documents in formal manner. Library Resources is the term that applies to personnel, material, functions or activities available in a library for satisfying the human needs & demands to acquire their desired knowledge. Library co-operation is a very old concept and a form of resource sharing. The new object of resource sharing has changed the old concept due to multi-dimensional growth of published documents through R&D activities in recent past, cost of the information, advancement of newly invented technologies for information processing and dissemination, etc. Resource sharing entails apportioning, allocating, distributing or contributing something on a voluntary basis for mutual benefits among a group of libraries with a view to achieving best utilization of resources by the ultimate users at a wider level. For better utilization of resources, participating libraries should come together and co-operate in two broad areas: (a) developing the collection on shared basis; and (b) improving services for exploiting such collection. The conventional library is seriously affected by some barriers of information communication, such as indifference of the lending library, conservative attitude, distance, language, cost, time, etc. for inter-library loan. And there are also several constraints to resource sharing in the print environment as it existed till recently: (a) open access to shared resource is not possible; (b) service depends upon library performance; (c) access to shared resource at a cost; (d) access to shared resource by price hike and devaluation in rupee value; (e) availability of library financial resources not possible; and (f) authenticity of collected information resources on Internet. The development in information science and technology (i.e. computer technology and telecommunication technology) is the only panacea to overcome all the barriers of resource sharing program.
4. INTRODUCTION
Due to the exponential growth and the increasing cost of information resources, it is difficult for a library to acquire all the documents, which are required by the user of a Library. A library Collection could be classified into two groups – one satisfy the core interests of the institution to which the library belongs, and other serving peripheral interest.
Faced with financial crunch, while a library could restrict acquisition of materials in the peripheral areas, it tries its best not shed anything from its core acquisition list. Therefore in a collective development situation, it is logical for a library to look up the other institutions for meeting its peripheral interest. Even in this situation a library can drop an item from the core item to the same ensured by another library in the neighborhood. To achieve aforesaid objectives various library and information center networks were emerged. A number of resource sharing networks has been observed at local, regional, national and international levels. Normally three levels of Library networks are seen in India include Metropolitan Library network (MAN), Country wide Network like INFLIBNET (For University libraries) and sectoral networks like BTISNET, ENVIS, and FOSTIS etc. These Networks are working according to their objectives of providing information resources to its member libraries rationalizing acquisition and utilization of information resources providing current awareness services helping to automate their member libraries.
Information is considered as a vital resource for communication/ dissemination of knowledge of one individual to another from the very early stage of human civilization to till today and thereby has become an inevitable element of all human activities and developments. The rapid progress of information technology through R & D activities all over the world now tries to satisfy the information need of the human being in diverse manner. The explosion of information, in multidimensional form and voluminous development has urged the libraries to adopt new philosophies and technologies for collection development and reduce the costs of information. Today, most of the librarians are faced with economic problems, especially in developing countries to collect all the new generated information and to satisfy the high degree of aspiration for knowledge of the users. The main task of a librarian is to adjust the input resources with the desired output by adopting various alternatives for taking effective decisions and extending the services smoothly. As the information demand of the user to a greater extent is beyond the control of the capacity of librarians much of the exercise rests on the input resources.
5. LIBRARY CONSORTIUM
It is equally true, as well as applicable, for all types of libraries / information centers not to hold the full stock of information resources or to procure all information which may be in demand by its clientele. Even not a single library/information centre can meet the thrust of knowledge of all the readers from its stock of information up to the fullest extent. To solve this problem library co-operation started long ago, such as, library networks, ILL, document delivery, library consortium etc. which are internationally accepted, but at present the more accepted system of resource sharing is library consortia that has come into existence with a wide coverage. This concept is considered to be a metamorphosis brought by the fast changing information environment for supporting better library services through joint actions.
According to Oxford English Dictionary ‘Consortium’ means temporary cooperation of a number of powers, companies etc. for a common purpose. It is an association of similar type of organization / institution who are engaged for producing and servicing the common things / for providing services for a specific purpose of its users. Library consortium is a ‘community’ (a cooperative) of two or more information agencies which have formally agreed to co-ordinate cooperate or consolidate certain function to achieve mutual objectives. It is an association of a group of library to achieve mutually the joint benefits. Consortia may be formed on a local, regional, national, or international basis; on a functional or format basis or on a subject basis.
6. TYPES OF CONSORTIA
Library consortia function in different ways. During the last three decades, libraries have developed a variety of organizational models. At one end of the spectrum are the loosely affiliated buying clubs where libraries come together primarily to share a discounted rate on electronic journals and databases, while on the other end are consortia that are tightly integrated organizations sharing a variety of resources which require a long term commitment and collaborative decision making at all levels. Theoretically, consortia may be of following types depending on their characteristics.
From the point of view of type of libraries forming the consortium there can be two types of consortia:
Consortia of multi-type libraries: In this type of consortium participating libraries are of different types, such as public, academic and special.
Consortia of same type of libraries: The members of such a consortium are of same type, such as consortium of public libraries, consortium of academic libraries, etc. CSIR E-Journals Consortium is such a consortium.
From the point of view of geographical region of coverage, the consortia may be of following types:
Local level consortia: This consists of libraries situated in a particular city, town of district, e.g. BOSLA (Bombay Science Librarians’ Association), which was possibly the first library consortium of the country.
State level consortia: In such a consortium libraries of one particular state participate. There is perhaps no such consortium in the country at present.
National level consortia: Libraries belonging to a country are its members. INDEST is a national level consortium, but covering only libraries of scientific and technical institutions.
Regional level consortia: In such a consortium libraries of a particular region participate.
International level consortia: In this consortium libraries belonging to different countries participate. This may be formed either by individual libraries, such as OCLC, or by bringing different national consortia under one umbrella. Such federation of consortia is known as Meta Consortia, such as International Coalition of Library Consortia, which comprises of nearly 150 library consortia from around the world.
From the point of view of subject or area of coverage there can be two types of consortia:
Single discipline oriented consortia: In such a consortium organizations dealing with same or similar disciplines join hand, such as FORSA (Forum for Resource Sharing in Astronomy and Astrophysics).
Multi-discipline oriented consortia: Such a consortium deals with resources in multiple disciplines. UGC sponsored INFONET is such a consortium, which deals with multiple subjects.
Again from the organizational point of view, there can be two types of consortia:
Loosely knit federation: In such a consortium there is no central body of dedicated staff to look after the consortium activities. Some libraries join hand for some immediate gain for a particular purpose. It is often not of permanent nature.
Tightly knit organization: Such a consortium is of permanent type, having a central body with membership of participating libraries for guiding the activities of the consortium and also some dedicated staff for performing the consortium activities.
Further, from the point of view of basis of formation there are two types of consortia:
Non-sponsored consortia: Such a consortium is formed voluntarily by participating libraries by sharing the expenses. FORSA again is such a consortium.
Sponsored consortia: This type of consortium is sponsored by a central organization and the major expenses are borne by it. Here sometimes the sponsoring body itself carries out the major activities of the consortium. UGC-INFONET is such a consortium.
Obviously, the above categories are not mutually exclusive. Most of the existing consortia naturally fall in more than one category.
7. THE SALIENT FEATURES FOR LIBRARY CONSORTIUM ARE:
(a) To eliminate the different problems faced by the libraries to provide various services to the users,
(b) To meet the thrust of information of the vast people due to rapid growth of population all over the world,
(c) To cope up with the newly generated knowledge published in different forms, such as, printed and non-printed documents, electronic media on various disciplines, multi-disciplinary and new generated subject areas,
(d) To collect all the documents published at the national and international
level, because of the library financial crunch; and
(d) To overcome to language barriers i.e. primary documents are being
published by the developed countries like USA, UK, France, Japan etc.
and among them the non-English speaking countries produce majority of
scientific literatures in their mother languages.
8. FUNCTIONS OF A LIBRARY CONSORTIUM
Every library differs from one another according to its collection, information needs of users, working method, sources of finance, processing of information, etc. The various steps of jobs/functions can be adopted by a consortium for functioning standing on a common platform, which are:
(a) Agreement for establishment of a consortium:
A concrete agreement needed to be established for the participating libraries in consortia to achieve a common goal. The member library follows the common mission of a consortium as a whole. However, every library will be able to work in such a manner that they are mutually exclusive
(b) Administration of library consortium:
A statutory body is very much essential to run the total functions of a consortium smoothly. This has to be formed taking Chief Librarian / Chief Information Manager from every library / Information Centre and one of them will act as a Chief Coordinator on rotation basis. Each library will inform about their collection, databases, user service, training of human resource for handling new equipment, etc. to the Chief Coordinator through hierarchical management level.
(c) Financial Control:
Libraries form a consortium for providing better service to the users due to financial crisis. The crucial activities of the members of management committee are to take action on the following financial points like:
· Whether a consortium fund be created to subscribe the core journals in different subjects in multiple copies at a discount rate;
· How to manage the fund of a consortium and how much money is to be collected from each library as a contribution
· Whether the participating libraries to whom the responsibility to negotiate with some publishes are vested by the managing committee, will send remittance to the publishers for multiple copies from its own fund and adjust fund subsequently among the participating libraries;
· What method of accounting standard is to be maintained to avoid any pilferage?
(d) Joint work
As per guideline of a consortium, every individual library will prepare a list of titles for resource sharing among participating libraries looking into the user demand. They may also initiate to contact with different publishers for negotiation. All the participating libraries under library consortia have to work jointly just like a joint venture in a business to make the consortia a total success. Each library will subscribe the core journals and prepare the union list of titles to be covered under resource sharing program and the member libraries may also send full content page service of all issues of the title to another library.
9. MERITS OF LIBRARY CONSORTIA
Every activity poses some merits and demerits. Here are a few merits related to library consortium:
* It enables a comprehensive collection.
· It helps in avoidance of duplication of core collection
· It will reduce the cost of collection development among the member libraries of
the consortium.
· Users' demand is considered for collection development.
· It ensures easy access to resource sharing on Internet by creating databases among
the libraries
10. DEMERITS OF LIBRARY CONSORTIA
· The coordinating unit of consortia may charge excessive contribution fees
· There are chances of manipulation of funds
· Lack of competition may lead to bureaucracy in a consortium.
11. CONCLUSION
The major responsibilities of libraries include collection development, preservation, and retrieval of information for providing better user services. With the introduction of computer and communication technologies in libraries, these responsibilities have become more complex. In a developing country like India, different steps are being taken to disseminate information more or less in all subject areas, especially in science and technology. The objectives of any library consortium will be achieved if there is a willingness to join together and to believe that more could be achieved through the efforts of the whole rather than at the individual level. "The success and survival of libraries will much depend on how much and to what extent the libraries cooperate with each other in future"- Allen Kent. Thus, cooperation is an essential facet of modern library management in most developed countries of the world, but in India it is still in a formative stage. The resource sharing networking has emerged as important alternatives due to tremendous explosion of information, financial constraints, information in different forms etc.,. In conclusion of the above discussion, for better consortium, integrating intellectual access are all the distinct steps moving towards the 21st century libraries. Indian librarians should seriously rethink and reinitiate consortium movement like western countries for maximum utilization of resources at a reduced cost, time and space.
REFERENCES
1. JAYPRAKASH (A) and KOTESHWAR RAO (M). Consortia based resource sharing among libraries and information centers in digital era. National Conference on Information Management in Digital Libraries, Kharagpur, 2006. Proceedings.
2. MURTHY (T A V). Resource sharing and consortia for India. Information management in e-libraries. National Conference on Information Management in E-libraries, Kharagpur, 2002. Proceedings. p. 14-15.
3. NARASIMHAN (G N). Resource sharing focus on history ILL and document delivery, cooperative collection development – assumptions, problems, solutions. National Conference on Information Management in E-libraries, Kharagpur, 2002. Proceedings. p. 556-564.
4. The Concise Oxford dictionary of current English. 1966. Oxford, Clarendon Press. p.260
J.V.J.S.RAMA DEVI
LIBRARIAN
Y.D. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
BANGALORE-560062
ABTRACT
The paper deals with the need and importance of Resource Sharing Network. The objective of this paper is to explore the possibilities of developing resource sharing strategies highlighting the merits and demerits of library consortia.
1. INFORMATION RESOURCE
The concept of information resource is often not defined properly. The documents held by a library provide information sought by users and hence called information sources and more precisely documentary information sources. But such documents are also referred to as information resources. That is, the terms ‘information sources’ and ‘information resources’ are used interchangeably. But it is to be noted that an information source only provides information, but a resource is one, which like capital or labor, gives rise to something new. As a library generates all its services on the basis of the information sources available with it, such sources are called information resources. Libraries have so long been procuring information resources in traditional printed format. But today these resources are available in various other formats, such as audio-visual, digital, etc. However, resources in electronic format i.e. e-resources have become more popular these days, because of their distinct advantages.
2. RESOURCE SHARING
Keeping the above in view, if we now try to define resource sharing, it will not merely mean mutual sharing of information sources available in different libraries, it will mean utilizing the information sources of one library for generating services by another library.
3. CONCEPT & SIGNIFICANCE OF RESOURCE SHARING
Generally, the concept of Library Co-operation emerged for rendering better services to user’s community through borrowing & lending of documents in formal manner. Library Resources is the term that applies to personnel, material, functions or activities available in a library for satisfying the human needs & demands to acquire their desired knowledge. Library co-operation is a very old concept and a form of resource sharing. The new object of resource sharing has changed the old concept due to multi-dimensional growth of published documents through R&D activities in recent past, cost of the information, advancement of newly invented technologies for information processing and dissemination, etc. Resource sharing entails apportioning, allocating, distributing or contributing something on a voluntary basis for mutual benefits among a group of libraries with a view to achieving best utilization of resources by the ultimate users at a wider level. For better utilization of resources, participating libraries should come together and co-operate in two broad areas: (a) developing the collection on shared basis; and (b) improving services for exploiting such collection. The conventional library is seriously affected by some barriers of information communication, such as indifference of the lending library, conservative attitude, distance, language, cost, time, etc. for inter-library loan. And there are also several constraints to resource sharing in the print environment as it existed till recently: (a) open access to shared resource is not possible; (b) service depends upon library performance; (c) access to shared resource at a cost; (d) access to shared resource by price hike and devaluation in rupee value; (e) availability of library financial resources not possible; and (f) authenticity of collected information resources on Internet. The development in information science and technology (i.e. computer technology and telecommunication technology) is the only panacea to overcome all the barriers of resource sharing program.
4. INTRODUCTION
Due to the exponential growth and the increasing cost of information resources, it is difficult for a library to acquire all the documents, which are required by the user of a Library. A library Collection could be classified into two groups – one satisfy the core interests of the institution to which the library belongs, and other serving peripheral interest.
Faced with financial crunch, while a library could restrict acquisition of materials in the peripheral areas, it tries its best not shed anything from its core acquisition list. Therefore in a collective development situation, it is logical for a library to look up the other institutions for meeting its peripheral interest. Even in this situation a library can drop an item from the core item to the same ensured by another library in the neighborhood. To achieve aforesaid objectives various library and information center networks were emerged. A number of resource sharing networks has been observed at local, regional, national and international levels. Normally three levels of Library networks are seen in India include Metropolitan Library network (MAN), Country wide Network like INFLIBNET (For University libraries) and sectoral networks like BTISNET, ENVIS, and FOSTIS etc. These Networks are working according to their objectives of providing information resources to its member libraries rationalizing acquisition and utilization of information resources providing current awareness services helping to automate their member libraries.
Information is considered as a vital resource for communication/ dissemination of knowledge of one individual to another from the very early stage of human civilization to till today and thereby has become an inevitable element of all human activities and developments. The rapid progress of information technology through R & D activities all over the world now tries to satisfy the information need of the human being in diverse manner. The explosion of information, in multidimensional form and voluminous development has urged the libraries to adopt new philosophies and technologies for collection development and reduce the costs of information. Today, most of the librarians are faced with economic problems, especially in developing countries to collect all the new generated information and to satisfy the high degree of aspiration for knowledge of the users. The main task of a librarian is to adjust the input resources with the desired output by adopting various alternatives for taking effective decisions and extending the services smoothly. As the information demand of the user to a greater extent is beyond the control of the capacity of librarians much of the exercise rests on the input resources.
5. LIBRARY CONSORTIUM
It is equally true, as well as applicable, for all types of libraries / information centers not to hold the full stock of information resources or to procure all information which may be in demand by its clientele. Even not a single library/information centre can meet the thrust of knowledge of all the readers from its stock of information up to the fullest extent. To solve this problem library co-operation started long ago, such as, library networks, ILL, document delivery, library consortium etc. which are internationally accepted, but at present the more accepted system of resource sharing is library consortia that has come into existence with a wide coverage. This concept is considered to be a metamorphosis brought by the fast changing information environment for supporting better library services through joint actions.
According to Oxford English Dictionary ‘Consortium’ means temporary cooperation of a number of powers, companies etc. for a common purpose. It is an association of similar type of organization / institution who are engaged for producing and servicing the common things / for providing services for a specific purpose of its users. Library consortium is a ‘community’ (a cooperative) of two or more information agencies which have formally agreed to co-ordinate cooperate or consolidate certain function to achieve mutual objectives. It is an association of a group of library to achieve mutually the joint benefits. Consortia may be formed on a local, regional, national, or international basis; on a functional or format basis or on a subject basis.
6. TYPES OF CONSORTIA
Library consortia function in different ways. During the last three decades, libraries have developed a variety of organizational models. At one end of the spectrum are the loosely affiliated buying clubs where libraries come together primarily to share a discounted rate on electronic journals and databases, while on the other end are consortia that are tightly integrated organizations sharing a variety of resources which require a long term commitment and collaborative decision making at all levels. Theoretically, consortia may be of following types depending on their characteristics.
From the point of view of type of libraries forming the consortium there can be two types of consortia:
Consortia of multi-type libraries: In this type of consortium participating libraries are of different types, such as public, academic and special.
Consortia of same type of libraries: The members of such a consortium are of same type, such as consortium of public libraries, consortium of academic libraries, etc. CSIR E-Journals Consortium is such a consortium.
From the point of view of geographical region of coverage, the consortia may be of following types:
Local level consortia: This consists of libraries situated in a particular city, town of district, e.g. BOSLA (Bombay Science Librarians’ Association), which was possibly the first library consortium of the country.
State level consortia: In such a consortium libraries of one particular state participate. There is perhaps no such consortium in the country at present.
National level consortia: Libraries belonging to a country are its members. INDEST is a national level consortium, but covering only libraries of scientific and technical institutions.
Regional level consortia: In such a consortium libraries of a particular region participate.
International level consortia: In this consortium libraries belonging to different countries participate. This may be formed either by individual libraries, such as OCLC, or by bringing different national consortia under one umbrella. Such federation of consortia is known as Meta Consortia, such as International Coalition of Library Consortia, which comprises of nearly 150 library consortia from around the world.
From the point of view of subject or area of coverage there can be two types of consortia:
Single discipline oriented consortia: In such a consortium organizations dealing with same or similar disciplines join hand, such as FORSA (Forum for Resource Sharing in Astronomy and Astrophysics).
Multi-discipline oriented consortia: Such a consortium deals with resources in multiple disciplines. UGC sponsored INFONET is such a consortium, which deals with multiple subjects.
Again from the organizational point of view, there can be two types of consortia:
Loosely knit federation: In such a consortium there is no central body of dedicated staff to look after the consortium activities. Some libraries join hand for some immediate gain for a particular purpose. It is often not of permanent nature.
Tightly knit organization: Such a consortium is of permanent type, having a central body with membership of participating libraries for guiding the activities of the consortium and also some dedicated staff for performing the consortium activities.
Further, from the point of view of basis of formation there are two types of consortia:
Non-sponsored consortia: Such a consortium is formed voluntarily by participating libraries by sharing the expenses. FORSA again is such a consortium.
Sponsored consortia: This type of consortium is sponsored by a central organization and the major expenses are borne by it. Here sometimes the sponsoring body itself carries out the major activities of the consortium. UGC-INFONET is such a consortium.
Obviously, the above categories are not mutually exclusive. Most of the existing consortia naturally fall in more than one category.
7. THE SALIENT FEATURES FOR LIBRARY CONSORTIUM ARE:
(a) To eliminate the different problems faced by the libraries to provide various services to the users,
(b) To meet the thrust of information of the vast people due to rapid growth of population all over the world,
(c) To cope up with the newly generated knowledge published in different forms, such as, printed and non-printed documents, electronic media on various disciplines, multi-disciplinary and new generated subject areas,
(d) To collect all the documents published at the national and international
level, because of the library financial crunch; and
(d) To overcome to language barriers i.e. primary documents are being
published by the developed countries like USA, UK, France, Japan etc.
and among them the non-English speaking countries produce majority of
scientific literatures in their mother languages.
8. FUNCTIONS OF A LIBRARY CONSORTIUM
Every library differs from one another according to its collection, information needs of users, working method, sources of finance, processing of information, etc. The various steps of jobs/functions can be adopted by a consortium for functioning standing on a common platform, which are:
(a) Agreement for establishment of a consortium:
A concrete agreement needed to be established for the participating libraries in consortia to achieve a common goal. The member library follows the common mission of a consortium as a whole. However, every library will be able to work in such a manner that they are mutually exclusive
(b) Administration of library consortium:
A statutory body is very much essential to run the total functions of a consortium smoothly. This has to be formed taking Chief Librarian / Chief Information Manager from every library / Information Centre and one of them will act as a Chief Coordinator on rotation basis. Each library will inform about their collection, databases, user service, training of human resource for handling new equipment, etc. to the Chief Coordinator through hierarchical management level.
(c) Financial Control:
Libraries form a consortium for providing better service to the users due to financial crisis. The crucial activities of the members of management committee are to take action on the following financial points like:
· Whether a consortium fund be created to subscribe the core journals in different subjects in multiple copies at a discount rate;
· How to manage the fund of a consortium and how much money is to be collected from each library as a contribution
· Whether the participating libraries to whom the responsibility to negotiate with some publishes are vested by the managing committee, will send remittance to the publishers for multiple copies from its own fund and adjust fund subsequently among the participating libraries;
· What method of accounting standard is to be maintained to avoid any pilferage?
(d) Joint work
As per guideline of a consortium, every individual library will prepare a list of titles for resource sharing among participating libraries looking into the user demand. They may also initiate to contact with different publishers for negotiation. All the participating libraries under library consortia have to work jointly just like a joint venture in a business to make the consortia a total success. Each library will subscribe the core journals and prepare the union list of titles to be covered under resource sharing program and the member libraries may also send full content page service of all issues of the title to another library.
9. MERITS OF LIBRARY CONSORTIA
Every activity poses some merits and demerits. Here are a few merits related to library consortium:
* It enables a comprehensive collection.
· It helps in avoidance of duplication of core collection
· It will reduce the cost of collection development among the member libraries of
the consortium.
· Users' demand is considered for collection development.
· It ensures easy access to resource sharing on Internet by creating databases among
the libraries
10. DEMERITS OF LIBRARY CONSORTIA
· The coordinating unit of consortia may charge excessive contribution fees
· There are chances of manipulation of funds
· Lack of competition may lead to bureaucracy in a consortium.
11. CONCLUSION
The major responsibilities of libraries include collection development, preservation, and retrieval of information for providing better user services. With the introduction of computer and communication technologies in libraries, these responsibilities have become more complex. In a developing country like India, different steps are being taken to disseminate information more or less in all subject areas, especially in science and technology. The objectives of any library consortium will be achieved if there is a willingness to join together and to believe that more could be achieved through the efforts of the whole rather than at the individual level. "The success and survival of libraries will much depend on how much and to what extent the libraries cooperate with each other in future"- Allen Kent. Thus, cooperation is an essential facet of modern library management in most developed countries of the world, but in India it is still in a formative stage. The resource sharing networking has emerged as important alternatives due to tremendous explosion of information, financial constraints, information in different forms etc.,. In conclusion of the above discussion, for better consortium, integrating intellectual access are all the distinct steps moving towards the 21st century libraries. Indian librarians should seriously rethink and reinitiate consortium movement like western countries for maximum utilization of resources at a reduced cost, time and space.
REFERENCES
1. JAYPRAKASH (A) and KOTESHWAR RAO (M). Consortia based resource sharing among libraries and information centers in digital era. National Conference on Information Management in Digital Libraries, Kharagpur, 2006. Proceedings.
2. MURTHY (T A V). Resource sharing and consortia for India. Information management in e-libraries. National Conference on Information Management in E-libraries, Kharagpur, 2002. Proceedings. p. 14-15.
3. NARASIMHAN (G N). Resource sharing focus on history ILL and document delivery, cooperative collection development – assumptions, problems, solutions. National Conference on Information Management in E-libraries, Kharagpur, 2002. Proceedings. p. 556-564.
4. The Concise Oxford dictionary of current English. 1966. Oxford, Clarendon Press. p.260
Monday, October 27, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
What is subprime crisis?
What is subprime crisis? How it caused financial mayhem?
The current upheaval in the global financial markets has caused more mayhem in a fortnight than the world has seen in its entire economic history. Although there are many reasons responsible for bringing the world to the doorstep of financial doom, the main cause of this financial disaster is said to be the sub-prime loan.'
So what is this sub-prime loan? And why has it caused global panic? If it is related to the American housing sector, why should it affect Indian and other markets?
A sub-prime loan
Sub-prime mortgage loans (or housing loans or junk loans) are very risky. But since profits are high where the risk is high, a lot of lenders get into this business to try and make a quick buck.
Sub-prime loans are dicey as they are given to people with unstable incomes or low creditworthiness. These individuals are not financially sound enough to be given a loan when judged under the strict standards that should normally be followed by a bank or lending institution.
However, there's more to it. Let us simplify this issue to understand better how sub-prime loans work and how they brought the world down to its knees. It all begins with an American wanting to live the famed American dream. So he seeks a housing loan to give shape to his dream home. But there is a slight problem. He doesn't have good credit rating. This means that he is unable to clear all the stringent conditions that a bank imposes on an individual before it sanctions a loan.
Since his credit is not good enough, no bank will give him a home loan as there is a fear that the chances of a default by him are high. Banks don't like customers who default on their payments.
But lo!, before the American dream can fade away, there enters a second American -- usually a robust financial institution -- who has good credit rating and is willing to take on some amount of risk. Given his good credit rating, the bank is willing to give the second American a loan. The bank gives the loan at a certain rate of interest.
The second American then divides this loan into a lot of small portions and gives them out as home loans to lots of other Americans -- like the first American -- who do not have a great credit rating and to whom the bank would not have given a home loan in the first place.
The second American gives out these loans at a rate of interest that is much higher rate than the rate at which he borrowed money from the bank. This higher rate is referred to as the sub-prime rate and this home loan market is referred to as the sub-prime home loan market.
Also by giving out a home loan to lots of individuals, the second American is trying to hedge his bets. He feels that even if a few of his borrowers default, his overall position would not be affected much, and he will end up making a neat profit. Now if this home loan market is sub-prime, what is prime? The prime home loan market refers to individuals who have good credit ratings and to whom the banks lend directly.
Now let's get back to the sub-prime market. The institution giving out loans in the sub-prime market does not stop here. It does not wait for the principal and the interest on the sub-prime home loans to be repaid, so that it can repay its loan to the bank (the prime lender), which has given it the loan.
So what does the institution do?
It goes ahead and ? securitises' these loans. Securitisation means converting these home loans into financial securities, which promise to pay a certain rate of interest. These financial securities are then sold to big institutional investors. Many investment banks (or institutions like the ?second American' in our story) sold complicated securities that were backed by debt which was very risky. And how are these investors repaid? The interest and the principal that is repaid by the sub-prime borrowers through equated monthly installments (EMIs) is passed onto these institutional investors.
The institution giving out the sub-prime loans takes the money that it gets by selling the financial securities and passes it on to the bank he had taken the loan from, thereby repaying the loan. And everybody lives happily ever after. Or so it would have seemed.
The sub-prime home loans were given out as floating rate home loans. A floating rate home loan as the name suggests is not fixed. As interest rates go up, the interest rate on floating rate home loans also go up. As interest rates to be paid on floating rate home loans go up, the EMIs that need to be paid to service these loans go up as well.
With US interest rising, the EMIs too increased. Higher EMIs hit the sub-prime borrowers hard. A lot of them in the first place had unstable incomes and poor credit rating. They, thus, defaulted. Once more and more sub-prime borrowers started defaulting, payments to the institutional investors who had bought the financial securities stopped, leading to huge losses.
The problem primarily began with the United States keeping its interest rates very low for a very long time, thus encouraging Americans to go in for housing loans, or mortgages. Lower interest rates led to buyers wanting to take on bigger loans, and thus bigger and better homes.
But life was fine. With the American economy doing well at that time and housing prices soaring on the back of huge demand for real estate and bigger and better homes, financial institutions saw a mouthwatering opportunity in the mortgage market.
In their zeal to make a quick buck, these institutions relaxed the strict regulatory procedures before extending housing loans to people with unstable jobs and weak credit standing.
Few controls were put in place to handle the situation in case the housing ?bubble' burst. And when the US economy began to slow down, the house of cards began to fall.
The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble.
A slowing US economy, high interest rates, unrealistic real estate prices, high inflation and rising oil tags together led to a fall in stock markets, growth stagnation, job losses, lack of consumer spending, a virtual halt to new jobs, and foreclosures and defaults.
Sub-prime homeowners began to default as they could no longer afford to pay their EMIs. A deluge of such defaults inundated these institutions and banks, wiping out their net worth. Their mortgage-backed securities were almost worthless as real estate prices crashed. The moment it was found out that these institutions had failed to manage the risk, panic spread. Investors realised that they could hardly put any value on the securities that these institutions were selling. This caused many a Wall Street pillar to crumble.
As defaults kept rising, these institutions could not service their loans that they had taken from banks. So they turned to other financial firms to help them out, but after a while these firms too stopped extending credit realizing that the collateral backing this credit would soon lose value in the falling real estate market. Now burdened with tons of debt and no money to pay it back, the back of these financial entities broke, leading to the current meltdown. The problem worsened because institutions giving out sub-prime home loans could easily securitise it. Once an institution securitises a loan, it does not remain on the books of the institution. Hence that institution does not take the risk of the loan going bad. The risk is passed onto the investors who buy the financial securities issued for securitising the home loan. Another advantage of securitisation, which has now become a disadvantage, is that money keeps coming in.
Once an institution securitises the first lot of home loans and repays the bank it has borrowed from, it can borrow again to give out loans. The bank having been repaid and made its money does not have any inhibitions in lending out money again.
Given the fact that institutions giving out the loan did not take the risk, their incentive was in just giving out the loan. Whether the individual taking the home loan had the capacity to repay the loan or not, wasn't their problem. Thus proper due diligence to give out the home loan was not done and loans were extended to individuals who are more likely to default. Other than this, greater the amount of loan that the institution gave out, greater was the amount it could securitise and, hence, greater the amount of money it could earn. After borrowers started defaulting, it came to light that institutions giving out loans in the sub-prime market had been inflating the incomes of borrowers, so that they could give out greater amount of home loans.
By giving out greater amounts of home loan, they were able to securitise more, issue more financial securities and earn more money. Quite a vicious cycle.... And so the story continued, till the day borrowers stop repaying. Investors who bought the financial securities could be serviced.
Well, that still does not explain, why stock markets in India, fell? Here's why. . .
Institutional investors who had invested in securitised paper from the sub-prime home loan market in the US, saw their investments turning into losses. Most big investors have a certain fixed proportion of their total investments invested in various parts of the world. So
Once investments in the US turned bad, more money had to be invested in the US, to maintain that fixed proportion.
In order to invest more money in the US, money had to come in from somewhere. To make up their losses in the sub-prime market in the United States, they went out to sell their investments in emerging markets like India where their investments have been doing well.
So these big institutional investors, to make good of their losses in the sub-prime market, began to sell their investments in India and other markets around the world. Since the amount of selling in the market is much higher than the amount of buying, the Sensex began to tumble.
The flight of capital from the Indian markets also led to a fall in the value of the rupee against the US dollar.
Any other reason, apart from sub-prime crisis?
Of course! Sub-prime crisis alone could not have caused such mayhem, although it is to blame for the beginning of the end.
This crisis is spreading from sub-prime to prime mortgages, home equity loans, to commercial real estate, to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans), to leveraged loans that financed reckless debt-laden leveraged buy outs, to municipal bonds, to industrial and commercial loans, to corporate bonds, to the derivative markets whose risk are indeterminate, etc. It has been a total systemic failure that has its roots in the US real estate and the sub-prime loan market. Some analysts say that the worst might not be over. . .
The current upheaval in the global financial markets has caused more mayhem in a fortnight than the world has seen in its entire economic history. Although there are many reasons responsible for bringing the world to the doorstep of financial doom, the main cause of this financial disaster is said to be the sub-prime loan.'
So what is this sub-prime loan? And why has it caused global panic? If it is related to the American housing sector, why should it affect Indian and other markets?
A sub-prime loan
Sub-prime mortgage loans (or housing loans or junk loans) are very risky. But since profits are high where the risk is high, a lot of lenders get into this business to try and make a quick buck.
Sub-prime loans are dicey as they are given to people with unstable incomes or low creditworthiness. These individuals are not financially sound enough to be given a loan when judged under the strict standards that should normally be followed by a bank or lending institution.
However, there's more to it. Let us simplify this issue to understand better how sub-prime loans work and how they brought the world down to its knees. It all begins with an American wanting to live the famed American dream. So he seeks a housing loan to give shape to his dream home. But there is a slight problem. He doesn't have good credit rating. This means that he is unable to clear all the stringent conditions that a bank imposes on an individual before it sanctions a loan.
Since his credit is not good enough, no bank will give him a home loan as there is a fear that the chances of a default by him are high. Banks don't like customers who default on their payments.
But lo!, before the American dream can fade away, there enters a second American -- usually a robust financial institution -- who has good credit rating and is willing to take on some amount of risk. Given his good credit rating, the bank is willing to give the second American a loan. The bank gives the loan at a certain rate of interest.
The second American then divides this loan into a lot of small portions and gives them out as home loans to lots of other Americans -- like the first American -- who do not have a great credit rating and to whom the bank would not have given a home loan in the first place.
The second American gives out these loans at a rate of interest that is much higher rate than the rate at which he borrowed money from the bank. This higher rate is referred to as the sub-prime rate and this home loan market is referred to as the sub-prime home loan market.
Also by giving out a home loan to lots of individuals, the second American is trying to hedge his bets. He feels that even if a few of his borrowers default, his overall position would not be affected much, and he will end up making a neat profit. Now if this home loan market is sub-prime, what is prime? The prime home loan market refers to individuals who have good credit ratings and to whom the banks lend directly.
Now let's get back to the sub-prime market. The institution giving out loans in the sub-prime market does not stop here. It does not wait for the principal and the interest on the sub-prime home loans to be repaid, so that it can repay its loan to the bank (the prime lender), which has given it the loan.
So what does the institution do?
It goes ahead and ? securitises' these loans. Securitisation means converting these home loans into financial securities, which promise to pay a certain rate of interest. These financial securities are then sold to big institutional investors. Many investment banks (or institutions like the ?second American' in our story) sold complicated securities that were backed by debt which was very risky. And how are these investors repaid? The interest and the principal that is repaid by the sub-prime borrowers through equated monthly installments (EMIs) is passed onto these institutional investors.
The institution giving out the sub-prime loans takes the money that it gets by selling the financial securities and passes it on to the bank he had taken the loan from, thereby repaying the loan. And everybody lives happily ever after. Or so it would have seemed.
The sub-prime home loans were given out as floating rate home loans. A floating rate home loan as the name suggests is not fixed. As interest rates go up, the interest rate on floating rate home loans also go up. As interest rates to be paid on floating rate home loans go up, the EMIs that need to be paid to service these loans go up as well.
With US interest rising, the EMIs too increased. Higher EMIs hit the sub-prime borrowers hard. A lot of them in the first place had unstable incomes and poor credit rating. They, thus, defaulted. Once more and more sub-prime borrowers started defaulting, payments to the institutional investors who had bought the financial securities stopped, leading to huge losses.
The problem primarily began with the United States keeping its interest rates very low for a very long time, thus encouraging Americans to go in for housing loans, or mortgages. Lower interest rates led to buyers wanting to take on bigger loans, and thus bigger and better homes.
But life was fine. With the American economy doing well at that time and housing prices soaring on the back of huge demand for real estate and bigger and better homes, financial institutions saw a mouthwatering opportunity in the mortgage market.
In their zeal to make a quick buck, these institutions relaxed the strict regulatory procedures before extending housing loans to people with unstable jobs and weak credit standing.
Few controls were put in place to handle the situation in case the housing ?bubble' burst. And when the US economy began to slow down, the house of cards began to fall.
The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble.
A slowing US economy, high interest rates, unrealistic real estate prices, high inflation and rising oil tags together led to a fall in stock markets, growth stagnation, job losses, lack of consumer spending, a virtual halt to new jobs, and foreclosures and defaults.
Sub-prime homeowners began to default as they could no longer afford to pay their EMIs. A deluge of such defaults inundated these institutions and banks, wiping out their net worth. Their mortgage-backed securities were almost worthless as real estate prices crashed. The moment it was found out that these institutions had failed to manage the risk, panic spread. Investors realised that they could hardly put any value on the securities that these institutions were selling. This caused many a Wall Street pillar to crumble.
As defaults kept rising, these institutions could not service their loans that they had taken from banks. So they turned to other financial firms to help them out, but after a while these firms too stopped extending credit realizing that the collateral backing this credit would soon lose value in the falling real estate market. Now burdened with tons of debt and no money to pay it back, the back of these financial entities broke, leading to the current meltdown. The problem worsened because institutions giving out sub-prime home loans could easily securitise it. Once an institution securitises a loan, it does not remain on the books of the institution. Hence that institution does not take the risk of the loan going bad. The risk is passed onto the investors who buy the financial securities issued for securitising the home loan. Another advantage of securitisation, which has now become a disadvantage, is that money keeps coming in.
Once an institution securitises the first lot of home loans and repays the bank it has borrowed from, it can borrow again to give out loans. The bank having been repaid and made its money does not have any inhibitions in lending out money again.
Given the fact that institutions giving out the loan did not take the risk, their incentive was in just giving out the loan. Whether the individual taking the home loan had the capacity to repay the loan or not, wasn't their problem. Thus proper due diligence to give out the home loan was not done and loans were extended to individuals who are more likely to default. Other than this, greater the amount of loan that the institution gave out, greater was the amount it could securitise and, hence, greater the amount of money it could earn. After borrowers started defaulting, it came to light that institutions giving out loans in the sub-prime market had been inflating the incomes of borrowers, so that they could give out greater amount of home loans.
By giving out greater amounts of home loan, they were able to securitise more, issue more financial securities and earn more money. Quite a vicious cycle.... And so the story continued, till the day borrowers stop repaying. Investors who bought the financial securities could be serviced.
Well, that still does not explain, why stock markets in India, fell? Here's why. . .
Institutional investors who had invested in securitised paper from the sub-prime home loan market in the US, saw their investments turning into losses. Most big investors have a certain fixed proportion of their total investments invested in various parts of the world. So
Once investments in the US turned bad, more money had to be invested in the US, to maintain that fixed proportion.
In order to invest more money in the US, money had to come in from somewhere. To make up their losses in the sub-prime market in the United States, they went out to sell their investments in emerging markets like India where their investments have been doing well.
So these big institutional investors, to make good of their losses in the sub-prime market, began to sell their investments in India and other markets around the world. Since the amount of selling in the market is much higher than the amount of buying, the Sensex began to tumble.
The flight of capital from the Indian markets also led to a fall in the value of the rupee against the US dollar.
Any other reason, apart from sub-prime crisis?
Of course! Sub-prime crisis alone could not have caused such mayhem, although it is to blame for the beginning of the end.
This crisis is spreading from sub-prime to prime mortgages, home equity loans, to commercial real estate, to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans), to leveraged loans that financed reckless debt-laden leveraged buy outs, to municipal bonds, to industrial and commercial loans, to corporate bonds, to the derivative markets whose risk are indeterminate, etc. It has been a total systemic failure that has its roots in the US real estate and the sub-prime loan market. Some analysts say that the worst might not be over. . .
Thursday, September 18, 2008
America's Largest Bankruptcies
1.Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc; $639 billion
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, is without a doubt, the largest bankruptcy ever: the size is estimated between $613 billion and $639 billion! What began life as a general store set up by three German immigrant brothers to the United States, over the years turned into one of US's largest investment banks. The amazing story of Lehman Brothers' story started in 1844, when 23-year-old Henry Lehman, son of a cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from Rimpar, Bavaria. He settled down in Montgomery, Alabama, and opened a dry-goods store -- H Lehman. Later, when his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, joined him the company changed its name to Lehman Brothers.
The global financial-services firm, which did business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking declared itself bankrupt on September 15, 2008.
Why it collapsed?
The fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, and one of Wall Street's biggest dealers in fixed-interest trading, was heavily invested in securities linked to the US sub-prime mortgage market. As the crisis in financial markets gathered momentum, it saw its share price collapse from $82 to less than $4.
It was the exaggerated but misplaced confidence of Wall Street's longest serving chief executive officer, Richard Fuld of Lehman, that finally led to Lehman's demise. Over 14 years, Richard Fuld, 62, turned a money-losing bond trading shop into a full-service investment bank. An international squash player, Fuld could not master the final stroke as he failed to keep the 158-year-old banking major alive.
2. Worldcom Inc; $103.91 billion
Founded in 1983 as LDDS Communications, Worldcom became America's second-largest long-distance company and the largest handler of Internet data. It is also the US's second largst bankruptcy ever at $103.91 billion!
WorldCom growth was fueled primarily through acquisitions during the 1990s and reached its apex with the acquisition of MCI in 1998.
On November 10, 1997, WorldCom and MCI Communications announced their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom, making it the then largest merger in the US. On September 15, 1998 the new company, MCI WorldCom, opened for business. Later, in 2000, MCI WorldCom renamed itself 'WorldCom'.
WorldCom, plagued by the rapid erosion of its profits and an accounting scandal that created billions in illusory earnings, filed for bankruptcy on July 21, 2002.
Why it collapsed?
· The company was found guilty of underreporting 'line costs' (interconnection expenses with other telecommunication companies) by capitalising these costs on the balance sheet rather than properly expensing them, and
· Inflating revenues with bogus accounting entries from 'corporate unallocated revenue accounts'.
Wall Street referred to him as the 'telecom cowboy'. Worldcom CEO Bernard Ebbers became very wealthy from the rising price of his holdings in the company's stock.
By 2000, WorldCom's stock declined and Ebbers came under increasing pressure from banks to cover margin calls on his WorldCom stock that was used to finance his other businesses (timber and yachting, among others).
Ebbers persuaded WorldCom's board of directors to provide him corporate loans and guarantees in excess of $400 million to cover his margin calls.
Ebbers was finally ousted as CEO in April 2002 and replaced by John Sidgmore, former CEO of UUNet Technologies, Inc.
Beginning in 1999 and continuing through May 2002, the company (under the direction of Scott Sullivan (CFO), David Myers (Controller) and Buford 'Buddy' Yates (Director of General Accounting) used fraudulent accounting methods to mask its declining earnings by painting a false picture of financial growth and profitability to prop up the price of WorldCom's stock.
On March 15, 2005 Bernard Ebbers was found guilty and convicted of fraud, conspiracy and filing false documents with regulators - all related to the $11 billion accounting scandal at the telecommunications company he founded. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The others, including , Sullivan were also found guilty of fraud and were served sentences.
3. Enron Corp; $63.39 billion
Fortune named it 'America's Most Innovative Company' for six consecutive years. It was on the Fortune's '100 Best Companies to Work for in America' list in 2000. It was hailed by many, including labor and the workforce, as an overall great company, praised for its large long-term pensions, benefits for its workers and extremely effective management until its exposure in corporate fraud.
Enron Corporation, the Houston based energy giant was originally involved in transmitting and distributing electricity and gas throughout the United States. It remains US's third largest bankruptcy till date: $63.39 billion.
The company developed, built, and operated power plants and pipelines. It owned a large network of natural gas pipelines which stretched ocean to ocean and border to border.
Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.
Why it collapsed?
It was discovered that many of Enron's recorded assets and profits were inflated, or even wholly fraudulent and nonexistent.
Debts and losses were put into entities formed 'offshore' that were not included in the firm's financial statements, and other sophisticated and arcane financial transactions between Enron and related companies were used to take unprofitable entities off the company's books
Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of the Board of Enron and chief executive officer and Jeffrey Skilling, former chief executive officer and chief operating officer, went on trial for their part in the Enron scandal in January 2006.
The 53-count, 65-page indictment covers a broad range of financial crimes, including bank fraud, making false statements to banks and auditors, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and insider trading.
Lay was convicted on all six counts and Skilling on 19 of 28 counts on May 25, 2006.
On July 5, 2006, Lay died at age 64 while vacationing in Aspen, Colorado, after suffering a heart attack on July 4.
Skilling was convicted and sentenced to 24 years, 4 months in a federal prison on October 23, 2006.
4. Conseco Inc; $61.39 billion
From a small company set up in 1979, Conseco became one of the largest US home lenders and personal insurers by the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it collapsed under the weight of debts caused by it ambitious expansion and mounting bad loans. At $61.39 billion, Conseco filed for what is US's 4th largest bankruptcy petition.
The Carmel, Indiana-based company has struggled since piling up massive debts in a 1990s acquisition binge under flamboyant founder and chief executive Stephen Hilbert, capped by a disastrous purchase in 1998 of loan firm Green Tree Financial.
That deal exposed Conseco to a mountain of bad loans -- largely on mobile homes and manufactured housing -- which worsened as the economy turned sour.
Conseco piled on even more debt and made problems for itself in the late 1990s by aggressively accounting for gains from securitizing its loans. It later abandoned that practice under pressure from investors, which led to a restatement of several years' profits. That shook Wall Street's confidence in the company, and eventually led to Hilbert quitting in 2000.
The bankruptcy was filed to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 18, 2002.
5. Texaco Inc; $35.89 billion
Founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas by Joseph S Cullinan, Thomas J Donoghue, Walter Benona Sharp and Arnold Schlaet upon discovery of oil at Spindletop, Texaco began its journey as the Texas Fuel Company.
For many years, Texaco was the only company selling gasoline in all the 50 states of America.
Its logo features a white star in a red circle (a reference to the lone star of Texas).
On November 19, 1985 Pennzoil, another oil company, won a $10.53 billion verdict from Texaco. over the later's controversial acquisition of Getty Oil. It was the largest civil verdict in US history.
To obtain the billions required to pay the verdict, Texaco sold 50 per cent of its interests in marketing east of the Mississippi and Texas and its three Gulf Coast refineries to Saudi Aramco.
Texaco also withdrew from marketing gasoline in the Chicago area by selling its service stations and distribution facilities to Mobil in an exchange agreement.
On April 12, 1987, Texaco filed for bankruptcy, but continued to function under protection of US bankruptcy laws.
Texaco was an independent company until it merged into Chevron Corporation in 2001. The curreent CEO is David J O'Reilly.
6. Financial Corp of America; $33.86 billion
Not enough material is available about the reasons that led to its collapse. It filed for bankruptcy on September 9, 1988.
7. Refco Inc; $33.33 billion; Oct. 17, 2005,
Founded in 1969 as Ray E Friedman and Co, Refco was a New York-based financial services company, primarily known as a broker of commodities and futures contracts.
Prior to its collapse, the firm had over $4 billion in approximately 200,000 customer accounts, and it was the largest broker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The firm's balance sheet at the time of the collapse showed about $75 billion in assets and a roughly equal amount in liabilities. Refco entered crisis on October 10, 2005 when it announced that its chief executive officer and chairman, Phillip R Bennett had hidden $430 million in bad debts from the company's auditors and investors, and had agreed to take a leave of absence.
Apparently, Bennett had been buying bad debts from Refco in order to prevent the company from needing to write them off, and was paying for the bad loans with money borrowed by Refco itself. Between 2002 and 2005, he arranged at the end of every quarter for a Refco subsidiary to lend money to a hedge fund called Liberty Corner Capital Strategy, which then lent the money to Refco Group Holdings.
Bennett's company then paid the money back to Refco, leaving Liberty as the apparent borrower when financial statements were prepared. On October 20, Liberty announced plans to sue Refco.
on October 12 Bennett was arrested and charged with one count of securities fraud for using US mail, interstate commerce, and securities exchanges to lie to investors.
Refco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 17, 2005.
On July 3, 2008,Bennett was sentenced to 16 years in Federal prison.
8. Global Crossing Ltd; $30.19 billion
Founded by Gary Winnick and three business associates in 1997 through Pacific Capital Group, Winnick's personal venture group, Global Crossing Limited is a telecommunications company that provides computer networking services worldwide.
The company is legally domiciled in Bermuda, although its administrative headquarters are in New Jersey. Global Crossing's rapid rise and fall attracted tremendous attention and it was quickly revealed that the company, particularly its executives, lavishly spent money on "themselves and their digs."
Four of Global Crossing's CEOs received at least $23 million in personal loans from the company, some of which were forgiven entirely even when bankruptcy was becoming a greater possibility. These same CEOs also received over $13.5 million in after-tax signing bonuses along with lucrative stock options. Between 1998 and 2001, Winnick sold approximately $420 million in Global Crossing stock.
Even as the company's financial situation went from questionable to grim, work continued on Winnick's Bel Air mansion, valued at $92 million and considered the most expensive home purchased in Los Angeles.
The company, inevitably, filed for bankruptcy on January 28, 2002.
In 2004, Global Crossing settled a class action lawsuit over the losses the employees incurred from their pensions and 401Ks. Investors and former employees received $325 million in settlement. Winnick contributed $30 million to the settlement.
Since emerging from bankruptcy, the company has attempted to re-focus its business.
9. Pacific Gas and Electric Co; $29.77 billion
Pacific Gas and Electric incorporated on October 10, 1905, was a consolidation of more than two dozen power and water concerns around the State of California.
PG&E began delivering natural gas to San Francisco and northern California in 1930 through the longest pipeline in the world, connecting the Texas gas fields to northern California.
With the introduction of natural gas, the company began retiring its polluting gas manufacturing facilities, though it kept some plants on standby.
With little generating capacity of its own, and unable to sell electricity to consumers for more than it could buy it on the open market, PG&E was forced to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 6, 2001.
The State of California bailed out the utility, the cost of which worsened an already bad state budget situation.
PG&E emerged from bankruptcy in April 2004, after distributing $10.2 billion to hundreds of creditors. Today it provides natural gas and electricity to most of Northern California. Its 4.8 million electricity customers are expected to pay an average $1,300 to $1,700 each in above-market prices through 2012.
PG&E was one of the most profitable companies on the Fortune 500 list for 2005 with $4.5 billion in profits out of $11 billion in revenue
10. UAL Corp; $25.2 billion
United Airlines Corporation UAL Corporation is an airline holding company, incorporated in Delaware with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The CEO of UAL Corporation since September 2002 is Glenn Tilton.
The promise of continued success in the new millennium quickly evaporated as the 'perfect storm' began to develop in 2000.
An economic downturn of global proportions, protracted labour negotiations, a proposed merger with US Airways and the tragedy of September 11, 2001, hit United hard.
For the year 2001, the company suffered a record loss of $2.1 billion. By mid-2002, United was asking employees to make wage concessions and asking the US government for a loan to help the company back to financial stability.
By early December, the company had reached agreements with most of its unions for wage reductions, but its loan application was rejected on December 4.
On December 9, 2002, UAL Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company quickly received debtor-in-possession financing to allow it to continue 'business as usual' while it reorganized its debt, capital and cost structures. It came out of bankruptcy on February 1, 2006.
11. Delta Air Lines Inc; $21.8 billion
Based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta operates an expansive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
In 2004, in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, Delta announced a restructuring of the company that included job cuts, and an aggressive expansion of Atlanta operations by some 100 new flights. This was known to all Delta employees as 'Operation Clockwork'.
Further, by mid-2004 the airline announced it would be closing its fourth busiest hub (Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport). In a huge concessionary move, the pilots at Delta agreed to across-the-board 32.5 per cent reductions in hourly pay rates in order to help the company stave off a bankruptcy filing.
On September 14, 2005, Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in its 76-year history. The company cited high labour costs and record-breaking jet fuel prices as factors in its filing.
At the time of the filing, Delta had $20.5 billion in debt, $10 billion of which accumulated since January 2001.
On April 30, 2007, Delta Air Lines emerged from bankruptcy protection as an independent carrier.
12. Adelphia Communications; $21.5 billion
John Rigas founded Adelphia with a $300 license in 1952, in the town of Coudersport, Pennsylvania. Named after the Greek word 'brothers', Adelphia was the fifth largest cable company in the United States before it filed for bankruptcy on June 25, 2002. The headquarters for the company was moved to Greenwood Village, Colorado shortly after bankruptcy was filed.
Rigas took the company public in 1986 and built it by acquiring other systems in the 1990s.
Majority of Adelphia's revenue-generating assets were officially acquired by Time Warner Cable and Comcast on July 31, 2006. As a result of this acquisition, Adelphia no longer exists as a cable provider.
The founders of Adelphia were charged with securities violations. Five officers were indicted and two (John Rigas and Timothy Rigas) were found guilty.
Federal prosecutors proved that the Rigases used complicated cash-management systems to spread money around to various family-owned entities and as a cover for stealing $100 million for themselves.
John and Timothy Rigas started their prison sentence at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex near Raleigh, North Carolina on August 13, 2007. John received 15 years and Timothy received 20 years.
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, is without a doubt, the largest bankruptcy ever: the size is estimated between $613 billion and $639 billion! What began life as a general store set up by three German immigrant brothers to the United States, over the years turned into one of US's largest investment banks. The amazing story of Lehman Brothers' story started in 1844, when 23-year-old Henry Lehman, son of a cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from Rimpar, Bavaria. He settled down in Montgomery, Alabama, and opened a dry-goods store -- H Lehman. Later, when his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, joined him the company changed its name to Lehman Brothers.
The global financial-services firm, which did business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking declared itself bankrupt on September 15, 2008.
Why it collapsed?
The fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, and one of Wall Street's biggest dealers in fixed-interest trading, was heavily invested in securities linked to the US sub-prime mortgage market. As the crisis in financial markets gathered momentum, it saw its share price collapse from $82 to less than $4.
It was the exaggerated but misplaced confidence of Wall Street's longest serving chief executive officer, Richard Fuld of Lehman, that finally led to Lehman's demise. Over 14 years, Richard Fuld, 62, turned a money-losing bond trading shop into a full-service investment bank. An international squash player, Fuld could not master the final stroke as he failed to keep the 158-year-old banking major alive.
2. Worldcom Inc; $103.91 billion
Founded in 1983 as LDDS Communications, Worldcom became America's second-largest long-distance company and the largest handler of Internet data. It is also the US's second largst bankruptcy ever at $103.91 billion!
WorldCom growth was fueled primarily through acquisitions during the 1990s and reached its apex with the acquisition of MCI in 1998.
On November 10, 1997, WorldCom and MCI Communications announced their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom, making it the then largest merger in the US. On September 15, 1998 the new company, MCI WorldCom, opened for business. Later, in 2000, MCI WorldCom renamed itself 'WorldCom'.
WorldCom, plagued by the rapid erosion of its profits and an accounting scandal that created billions in illusory earnings, filed for bankruptcy on July 21, 2002.
Why it collapsed?
· The company was found guilty of underreporting 'line costs' (interconnection expenses with other telecommunication companies) by capitalising these costs on the balance sheet rather than properly expensing them, and
· Inflating revenues with bogus accounting entries from 'corporate unallocated revenue accounts'.
Wall Street referred to him as the 'telecom cowboy'. Worldcom CEO Bernard Ebbers became very wealthy from the rising price of his holdings in the company's stock.
By 2000, WorldCom's stock declined and Ebbers came under increasing pressure from banks to cover margin calls on his WorldCom stock that was used to finance his other businesses (timber and yachting, among others).
Ebbers persuaded WorldCom's board of directors to provide him corporate loans and guarantees in excess of $400 million to cover his margin calls.
Ebbers was finally ousted as CEO in April 2002 and replaced by John Sidgmore, former CEO of UUNet Technologies, Inc.
Beginning in 1999 and continuing through May 2002, the company (under the direction of Scott Sullivan (CFO), David Myers (Controller) and Buford 'Buddy' Yates (Director of General Accounting) used fraudulent accounting methods to mask its declining earnings by painting a false picture of financial growth and profitability to prop up the price of WorldCom's stock.
On March 15, 2005 Bernard Ebbers was found guilty and convicted of fraud, conspiracy and filing false documents with regulators - all related to the $11 billion accounting scandal at the telecommunications company he founded. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The others, including , Sullivan were also found guilty of fraud and were served sentences.
3. Enron Corp; $63.39 billion
Fortune named it 'America's Most Innovative Company' for six consecutive years. It was on the Fortune's '100 Best Companies to Work for in America' list in 2000. It was hailed by many, including labor and the workforce, as an overall great company, praised for its large long-term pensions, benefits for its workers and extremely effective management until its exposure in corporate fraud.
Enron Corporation, the Houston based energy giant was originally involved in transmitting and distributing electricity and gas throughout the United States. It remains US's third largest bankruptcy till date: $63.39 billion.
The company developed, built, and operated power plants and pipelines. It owned a large network of natural gas pipelines which stretched ocean to ocean and border to border.
Enron filed for bankruptcy on December 2, 2001.
Why it collapsed?
It was discovered that many of Enron's recorded assets and profits were inflated, or even wholly fraudulent and nonexistent.
Debts and losses were put into entities formed 'offshore' that were not included in the firm's financial statements, and other sophisticated and arcane financial transactions between Enron and related companies were used to take unprofitable entities off the company's books
Kenneth Lay, the former chairman of the Board of Enron and chief executive officer and Jeffrey Skilling, former chief executive officer and chief operating officer, went on trial for their part in the Enron scandal in January 2006.
The 53-count, 65-page indictment covers a broad range of financial crimes, including bank fraud, making false statements to banks and auditors, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and insider trading.
Lay was convicted on all six counts and Skilling on 19 of 28 counts on May 25, 2006.
On July 5, 2006, Lay died at age 64 while vacationing in Aspen, Colorado, after suffering a heart attack on July 4.
Skilling was convicted and sentenced to 24 years, 4 months in a federal prison on October 23, 2006.
4. Conseco Inc; $61.39 billion
From a small company set up in 1979, Conseco became one of the largest US home lenders and personal insurers by the late 1990s. Unfortunately, it collapsed under the weight of debts caused by it ambitious expansion and mounting bad loans. At $61.39 billion, Conseco filed for what is US's 4th largest bankruptcy petition.
The Carmel, Indiana-based company has struggled since piling up massive debts in a 1990s acquisition binge under flamboyant founder and chief executive Stephen Hilbert, capped by a disastrous purchase in 1998 of loan firm Green Tree Financial.
That deal exposed Conseco to a mountain of bad loans -- largely on mobile homes and manufactured housing -- which worsened as the economy turned sour.
Conseco piled on even more debt and made problems for itself in the late 1990s by aggressively accounting for gains from securitizing its loans. It later abandoned that practice under pressure from investors, which led to a restatement of several years' profits. That shook Wall Street's confidence in the company, and eventually led to Hilbert quitting in 2000.
The bankruptcy was filed to the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois on December 18, 2002.
5. Texaco Inc; $35.89 billion
Founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas by Joseph S Cullinan, Thomas J Donoghue, Walter Benona Sharp and Arnold Schlaet upon discovery of oil at Spindletop, Texaco began its journey as the Texas Fuel Company.
For many years, Texaco was the only company selling gasoline in all the 50 states of America.
Its logo features a white star in a red circle (a reference to the lone star of Texas).
On November 19, 1985 Pennzoil, another oil company, won a $10.53 billion verdict from Texaco. over the later's controversial acquisition of Getty Oil. It was the largest civil verdict in US history.
To obtain the billions required to pay the verdict, Texaco sold 50 per cent of its interests in marketing east of the Mississippi and Texas and its three Gulf Coast refineries to Saudi Aramco.
Texaco also withdrew from marketing gasoline in the Chicago area by selling its service stations and distribution facilities to Mobil in an exchange agreement.
On April 12, 1987, Texaco filed for bankruptcy, but continued to function under protection of US bankruptcy laws.
Texaco was an independent company until it merged into Chevron Corporation in 2001. The curreent CEO is David J O'Reilly.
6. Financial Corp of America; $33.86 billion
Not enough material is available about the reasons that led to its collapse. It filed for bankruptcy on September 9, 1988.
7. Refco Inc; $33.33 billion; Oct. 17, 2005,
Founded in 1969 as Ray E Friedman and Co, Refco was a New York-based financial services company, primarily known as a broker of commodities and futures contracts.
Prior to its collapse, the firm had over $4 billion in approximately 200,000 customer accounts, and it was the largest broker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
The firm's balance sheet at the time of the collapse showed about $75 billion in assets and a roughly equal amount in liabilities. Refco entered crisis on October 10, 2005 when it announced that its chief executive officer and chairman, Phillip R Bennett had hidden $430 million in bad debts from the company's auditors and investors, and had agreed to take a leave of absence.
Apparently, Bennett had been buying bad debts from Refco in order to prevent the company from needing to write them off, and was paying for the bad loans with money borrowed by Refco itself. Between 2002 and 2005, he arranged at the end of every quarter for a Refco subsidiary to lend money to a hedge fund called Liberty Corner Capital Strategy, which then lent the money to Refco Group Holdings.
Bennett's company then paid the money back to Refco, leaving Liberty as the apparent borrower when financial statements were prepared. On October 20, Liberty announced plans to sue Refco.
on October 12 Bennett was arrested and charged with one count of securities fraud for using US mail, interstate commerce, and securities exchanges to lie to investors.
Refco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 17, 2005.
On July 3, 2008,Bennett was sentenced to 16 years in Federal prison.
8. Global Crossing Ltd; $30.19 billion
Founded by Gary Winnick and three business associates in 1997 through Pacific Capital Group, Winnick's personal venture group, Global Crossing Limited is a telecommunications company that provides computer networking services worldwide.
The company is legally domiciled in Bermuda, although its administrative headquarters are in New Jersey. Global Crossing's rapid rise and fall attracted tremendous attention and it was quickly revealed that the company, particularly its executives, lavishly spent money on "themselves and their digs."
Four of Global Crossing's CEOs received at least $23 million in personal loans from the company, some of which were forgiven entirely even when bankruptcy was becoming a greater possibility. These same CEOs also received over $13.5 million in after-tax signing bonuses along with lucrative stock options. Between 1998 and 2001, Winnick sold approximately $420 million in Global Crossing stock.
Even as the company's financial situation went from questionable to grim, work continued on Winnick's Bel Air mansion, valued at $92 million and considered the most expensive home purchased in Los Angeles.
The company, inevitably, filed for bankruptcy on January 28, 2002.
In 2004, Global Crossing settled a class action lawsuit over the losses the employees incurred from their pensions and 401Ks. Investors and former employees received $325 million in settlement. Winnick contributed $30 million to the settlement.
Since emerging from bankruptcy, the company has attempted to re-focus its business.
9. Pacific Gas and Electric Co; $29.77 billion
Pacific Gas and Electric incorporated on October 10, 1905, was a consolidation of more than two dozen power and water concerns around the State of California.
PG&E began delivering natural gas to San Francisco and northern California in 1930 through the longest pipeline in the world, connecting the Texas gas fields to northern California.
With the introduction of natural gas, the company began retiring its polluting gas manufacturing facilities, though it kept some plants on standby.
With little generating capacity of its own, and unable to sell electricity to consumers for more than it could buy it on the open market, PG&E was forced to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 6, 2001.
The State of California bailed out the utility, the cost of which worsened an already bad state budget situation.
PG&E emerged from bankruptcy in April 2004, after distributing $10.2 billion to hundreds of creditors. Today it provides natural gas and electricity to most of Northern California. Its 4.8 million electricity customers are expected to pay an average $1,300 to $1,700 each in above-market prices through 2012.
PG&E was one of the most profitable companies on the Fortune 500 list for 2005 with $4.5 billion in profits out of $11 billion in revenue
10. UAL Corp; $25.2 billion
United Airlines Corporation UAL Corporation is an airline holding company, incorporated in Delaware with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. The CEO of UAL Corporation since September 2002 is Glenn Tilton.
The promise of continued success in the new millennium quickly evaporated as the 'perfect storm' began to develop in 2000.
An economic downturn of global proportions, protracted labour negotiations, a proposed merger with US Airways and the tragedy of September 11, 2001, hit United hard.
For the year 2001, the company suffered a record loss of $2.1 billion. By mid-2002, United was asking employees to make wage concessions and asking the US government for a loan to help the company back to financial stability.
By early December, the company had reached agreements with most of its unions for wage reductions, but its loan application was rejected on December 4.
On December 9, 2002, UAL Corp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company quickly received debtor-in-possession financing to allow it to continue 'business as usual' while it reorganized its debt, capital and cost structures. It came out of bankruptcy on February 1, 2006.
11. Delta Air Lines Inc; $21.8 billion
Based and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta operates an expansive domestic and international network, spanning North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean.
In 2004, in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, Delta announced a restructuring of the company that included job cuts, and an aggressive expansion of Atlanta operations by some 100 new flights. This was known to all Delta employees as 'Operation Clockwork'.
Further, by mid-2004 the airline announced it would be closing its fourth busiest hub (Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport). In a huge concessionary move, the pilots at Delta agreed to across-the-board 32.5 per cent reductions in hourly pay rates in order to help the company stave off a bankruptcy filing.
On September 14, 2005, Delta filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the first time in its 76-year history. The company cited high labour costs and record-breaking jet fuel prices as factors in its filing.
At the time of the filing, Delta had $20.5 billion in debt, $10 billion of which accumulated since January 2001.
On April 30, 2007, Delta Air Lines emerged from bankruptcy protection as an independent carrier.
12. Adelphia Communications; $21.5 billion
John Rigas founded Adelphia with a $300 license in 1952, in the town of Coudersport, Pennsylvania. Named after the Greek word 'brothers', Adelphia was the fifth largest cable company in the United States before it filed for bankruptcy on June 25, 2002. The headquarters for the company was moved to Greenwood Village, Colorado shortly after bankruptcy was filed.
Rigas took the company public in 1986 and built it by acquiring other systems in the 1990s.
Majority of Adelphia's revenue-generating assets were officially acquired by Time Warner Cable and Comcast on July 31, 2006. As a result of this acquisition, Adelphia no longer exists as a cable provider.
The founders of Adelphia were charged with securities violations. Five officers were indicted and two (John Rigas and Timothy Rigas) were found guilty.
Federal prosecutors proved that the Rigases used complicated cash-management systems to spread money around to various family-owned entities and as a cover for stealing $100 million for themselves.
John and Timothy Rigas started their prison sentence at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex near Raleigh, North Carolina on August 13, 2007. John received 15 years and Timothy received 20 years.
9 Great Management Lessons from Dhirubhai Ambani
9 Great Management Lessons from Dhirubhai Ambani
Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the Reliance Industries, was no ordinary leader. He was a man who gave management a whole new "ism".
There is a new "ism" that I've been meaning to add to the vast world of words for quite a while now. Because, without exaggeration, it's a word for which no synonym can do full justice: "Dhirubhaism".
Inspired by the truly phenomenal Dhirubhai H Ambani, it denotes a characteristic, tendency or syndrome as demonstrated by its inspirer. Dhirubhai, on his part, had he been around, would have laughed heartily and declared, "Small men like me don't inspire big words!"
There you have it - now that is a classic Dhirubhaism, the tendency to disregard one's own invaluable contribution to society as significant.
I'm sure everyone who knew Dhirubhai well will have his or her own little anecdote that illustrates his unique personality. He was a person whose heart and head both worked at peak efficiency levels, all the time. And that resulted in a truly unique and remarkable work philosophy, which is what I would like to define as Dhirubhaism.
Dhirubhaism No 1: Roll up your sleeves and help.
You and your team share the same DNA.
Reliance, during Vimal's heady days had organized a fashion show at the Convention Hall, at Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi.
As usual, every seat in the hall was taken, and there were an equal number of impatient guests outside, waiting to be seated. I was of course completely besieged, trying to handle the ensuing confusion, chaos and protests, when to my amazement and relief, I saw Dhirubhai at the door trying to pacify the guests.
Dhirubhai at that time was already a name to reckon with and a VIP himself, but that did not stop him from rolling up his sleeves and diving in to rescue a situation that had gone out of control. Most bosses in his place would have driven up in their swank cars at the last moment and given the manager a piece of their minds. Not Dhirubhai.
When things went wrong, he was the first person to sense that the circumstances would have been beyond his team's control, rather than it being a slip on their part, as he trusted their capabilities implicitly. His first instinct was always to join his men in putting out the fire and not crucifying them for it. Sounds too good a boss to be true, doesn't he? But then, that was Dhirubhai.
Dhirubhaism No 2: Be a safety net for your team.
There used to be a time when our agency Mudra was the target of some extremely vicious propaganda by our peers, when on an almost daily basis my business ethics were put on trial. I, on my part, putting on a brave front, never raised this subject during any of my meetings with Dhirubhai.
But one day, during a particularly nasty spell, he gently asked me if I needed any help in combating it. That did it. That was all the help that I needed. Overwhelmed by his concern and compassion, I told him I could cope, but the knowledge that he knew and cared for what I was going through, and that he was there for me if I ever needed him, worked wonders for my confidence.
I went back a much taller man fully armed to face whatever came my way. By letting us know that he was always aware of the trials we underwent and that he was by our side through it all, he gave us the courage we never knew we had.
Dhirubhaism No 3: The silent benefactor.
This was another of his remarkable traits. When he helped someone, he never ever breathed a word about it to anyone else. There have been none among us who haven't known his kindness, yet he never went around broadcasting it.
He never used charity as a platform to gain publicity. Sometimes, he would even go to the extent of not letting the recipient know who the donor was. Such was the extent of his generosity. "Expect the unexpected" just might have been coined for him.
Dhirubhaism No 4: Dream big, but dream with your eyes open.
His phenomenal achievement showed India that limitations were only in the mind. And that nothing was truly unattainable for those who dreamed big.
Whenever I tried to point out to him that a task seemed too big to be accomplished, he would reply: " No is no answer!" Not only did he dream big, he taught all of us to do so too. His one-line brief to me when we began Mudra was: "Make Vimal's advertising the benchmark for fashion advertising in the country."
At that time, we were just a tiny, fledgling agency, tucked away in Ahmedabad, struggling to put a team in place. When we presented the seemingly insurmountable to him, his favourite response was always: "It's difficult but not impossible!" And he was right. We did go on to achieve the impossible.
Both in its size and scope Vimal's fashion shows were unprecedented in the country. Grand showroom openings, stunning experiments in print and poster work all combined to give the brand a truly benchmark image. But way back in 1980, no one would have believed it could have ever been possible. Except Dhirubhai.
But though he dreamed big, he was able to clearly distinguish between perception and reality and his favourite phrase "dream with your eyes open" underlined this.
He never let preset norms govern his vision, yet he worked night and day familiarizing himself with every little nitty-gritty that constituted his dreams constantly sifting the wheat from the chaff. This is how, as he put it, even though he dreamed, none of his dreams turned into nightmares. And this is what gave him the courage to move from one orbit to the next despite tremendous odds.
Dhirubhai was indeed a man of many parts, as is evident. I am sure there are many people who display some of the traits mentioned above, in their working styles as well, but Dhirubhai was one of those rare people who demonstrated all of them, all the time.
. Dhirubhaism: Leave the professional alone!
Much as people would like to believe, most owners (even managers and clients), though eager to hire the best professionals in the field, do so and then use them as extensions of their own personality. Every time I come across this, which is much too often, I am reminded of how Dhirubhai's management techniques used to be (and still remain) so refreshingly different.
For instance, way back in the late 1970s when we decided to open an agency of our own, he asked me to name it. I carried a short list of three names, two Westernised and one Indian. It was a very different world back then. Everything Anglicised was considered "upmarket."
There were hardly any agencies with Indian names barring my own ex-agency Shilpi and a few others like Ulka and Sistas. He looked at the list and asked me what my choice was. I said "Mudra": it was the only name that suited my personality. And the spirit of the agency that I was to head.
I was very Indian and an Anglicised name on my visiting card would seem pretentious and contrived. No further questions were asked. No suggestions offered, just a plain and simple "Go ahead and do it." That was just the beginning.
He continued to give me total freedom -- no supervision, no policing -- in all my decisions thereafter. In fact, the only direction that he gave me, just once, was this: "Produce your best."
His utter trust in me was what pushed me to never, ever let him down. I guess the simplest strategies are often the hardest to adopt. That was the secret of the Dhirubhai legend. It was not out of a book. It was a skillful blend of head and heart.
6. Dhirubhaism: Change your orbit, constantly!
To understand this statement, let me explain Dhirubhai's "orbit theory."
He would often explain that we are all born into an orbit. It is up to us to progress to the next. We could choose to live and die in the orbit that we are born in. But that would be a criminal waste of potential. When we push ourselves into the next orbit, we benefit not only ourselves but everyone connected with us.
Take India's push for development. There was once a time our country's growth rate was just 4 per cent, sarcastically referred to as the "Hindu growth rate." Look at us today, galloping along at a healthy 7-8 per cent.
This is no miracle. It is the product of a handful of determined orbit changers like Dhirubhai, all of whose efforts have benefited a larger sphere in their respective fields.
In a small way, I too have experienced the thrill of changing orbits with Mudra. In the 1980s, we leapt from the orbit of a small Ahmedabad ad agency to become the country's third largest ad agency -- in just under a decade.
However, when you change orbits, you will create friction. The good news is that your enemies from your previous orbit will never be able to reach you in your new one. By the time resentment builds up in your new orbit, you should move to the next level. And so on.
Changing orbits is the key to our progress as a nation.
7. The arm-around-the-shoulder leader
I have never seen any other empire builder nor the CEO of any big organisation do this (why, I never adopted this myself!).
It was Dhirubhai's very own signature style. Whenever I went to meet him and if on that day, all the time that he could spare me was a short walk up to his car, he would instantly put his arm around me and proceed to discuss the issues at hand as we walked.
With that one simple gesture, he managed to achieve many things. I was put at ease instantaneously. I was made to feel like an equal who was loved and important enough to be considered close to him. And I would walk away from that meeting feeling so good about myself and the work I was doing!
This tendency that he had, to draw people towards him, manifested itself in countless ways. This was just one of them. He would never, ever exude an air of aloofness and exclusivity. He was always inviting people into sharing their thoughts and ideas, rather than shutting them out.
On hindsight I think, it must have required phenomenal generosity of spirit to be that inclusive. Yes, this was one of the things that was uniquely Dhirubhai -- that warm arm around my shoulder that did much more than words in letting me know that I belonged, that I had his trust, and that I had him on my side!
8. The Dhirubhai theory of Supply creating Demand
He was not an MBA. Nor an economist. But yet he took traditional market theory and stood it on its head. And succeeded.
Yes, at a time when everyone in India would build capacities only after a careful study of market expectations, he went full steam ahead and created giants of manufacturing plants with unbelievable capacites. (Initial cap of Reliance Patalganga was 10,000 tonnes of PFY way back in 1980, while the market in India for it was approx. 6000 tonnes).
No doubt his instinct was backed by years and years of reading, studying market trends, careful listening and his own honed capacity to forecast, but yet despite all this preparation, it required undeniable guts to pioneer such a revolutionary move.
The consequence was that the market blossomed to absorb supply, the consumer benefited with prices crashing down, the players increased and our economic landscape changed for the better. The Patalganga plant was in no time humming at maximum capacity and as a result of the plant's economies of scale, Dhirubhai's conversion cost of the yarn in 1994 came down to 18 cents per pound, as compared to Western Europe's 34 cents, North America's 29 cents and the Far East's 23 cents and Reliance was exporting the yarn back to the US!
A more recent example was that of Mukesh Ambani taking this vision forward with Reliance Infocomm (which is now handled by Anil Ambani). In India's mobile telephony timeline there will always be a very clear 'before Infocomm and after Infocomm' segmentation. The numbers say it all. In Jan 2003, the mobile subscriber base was 13 million, about 16 months later, shortly after the launch, it had reached 30 million.
In March 2006, it has touched 90 million ! Yes, this was yet another unusual skill of Dhirubhai's -- his uncanny knack of knowing exactly how the market is going to behave.
9. Money is not a product by itself, it is a by-product, so don't chase it
This was a belief by which Dhirubhai lived all his life. For instance when he briefed me about setting up Mudra, his instruction was clear: 'Produce the best textile advertising in the country,' he said.
He did not breathe a word about profits, nor about becoming the richest ad agency in the country. Great advertising was the goal that he set for me. A by-product is something that you don't set out to produce. It is the spin off when you create something larger.
When you turn logs into lumber, sawdust is your by-product and a pretty lucrative one it can be too! It is a very simple analogy but extremely effective in driving the point home. Work toward a goal beyond your bank balance.
Success in attaining that goal will eventually ring in the cash. For instance, if you work towards creating a name for yourself and earning a good reputation, then money is a logical outcome.
People will pay for your product or service if it is good. But if you get your priorities slightly mixed up, not only will the money you make remain just a quick buck it would in all likelihood blacklist you for good. Sounds too simplistic for belief? Well, look around you and you will know exactly how true it is.
Image: Dhirubhai passed away on July 6, 2002.
Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the Reliance Industries, was no ordinary leader. He was a man who gave management a whole new "ism".
There is a new "ism" that I've been meaning to add to the vast world of words for quite a while now. Because, without exaggeration, it's a word for which no synonym can do full justice: "Dhirubhaism".
Inspired by the truly phenomenal Dhirubhai H Ambani, it denotes a characteristic, tendency or syndrome as demonstrated by its inspirer. Dhirubhai, on his part, had he been around, would have laughed heartily and declared, "Small men like me don't inspire big words!"
There you have it - now that is a classic Dhirubhaism, the tendency to disregard one's own invaluable contribution to society as significant.
I'm sure everyone who knew Dhirubhai well will have his or her own little anecdote that illustrates his unique personality. He was a person whose heart and head both worked at peak efficiency levels, all the time. And that resulted in a truly unique and remarkable work philosophy, which is what I would like to define as Dhirubhaism.
Dhirubhaism No 1: Roll up your sleeves and help.
You and your team share the same DNA.
Reliance, during Vimal's heady days had organized a fashion show at the Convention Hall, at Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi.
As usual, every seat in the hall was taken, and there were an equal number of impatient guests outside, waiting to be seated. I was of course completely besieged, trying to handle the ensuing confusion, chaos and protests, when to my amazement and relief, I saw Dhirubhai at the door trying to pacify the guests.
Dhirubhai at that time was already a name to reckon with and a VIP himself, but that did not stop him from rolling up his sleeves and diving in to rescue a situation that had gone out of control. Most bosses in his place would have driven up in their swank cars at the last moment and given the manager a piece of their minds. Not Dhirubhai.
When things went wrong, he was the first person to sense that the circumstances would have been beyond his team's control, rather than it being a slip on their part, as he trusted their capabilities implicitly. His first instinct was always to join his men in putting out the fire and not crucifying them for it. Sounds too good a boss to be true, doesn't he? But then, that was Dhirubhai.
Dhirubhaism No 2: Be a safety net for your team.
There used to be a time when our agency Mudra was the target of some extremely vicious propaganda by our peers, when on an almost daily basis my business ethics were put on trial. I, on my part, putting on a brave front, never raised this subject during any of my meetings with Dhirubhai.
But one day, during a particularly nasty spell, he gently asked me if I needed any help in combating it. That did it. That was all the help that I needed. Overwhelmed by his concern and compassion, I told him I could cope, but the knowledge that he knew and cared for what I was going through, and that he was there for me if I ever needed him, worked wonders for my confidence.
I went back a much taller man fully armed to face whatever came my way. By letting us know that he was always aware of the trials we underwent and that he was by our side through it all, he gave us the courage we never knew we had.
Dhirubhaism No 3: The silent benefactor.
This was another of his remarkable traits. When he helped someone, he never ever breathed a word about it to anyone else. There have been none among us who haven't known his kindness, yet he never went around broadcasting it.
He never used charity as a platform to gain publicity. Sometimes, he would even go to the extent of not letting the recipient know who the donor was. Such was the extent of his generosity. "Expect the unexpected" just might have been coined for him.
Dhirubhaism No 4: Dream big, but dream with your eyes open.
His phenomenal achievement showed India that limitations were only in the mind. And that nothing was truly unattainable for those who dreamed big.
Whenever I tried to point out to him that a task seemed too big to be accomplished, he would reply: " No is no answer!" Not only did he dream big, he taught all of us to do so too. His one-line brief to me when we began Mudra was: "Make Vimal's advertising the benchmark for fashion advertising in the country."
At that time, we were just a tiny, fledgling agency, tucked away in Ahmedabad, struggling to put a team in place. When we presented the seemingly insurmountable to him, his favourite response was always: "It's difficult but not impossible!" And he was right. We did go on to achieve the impossible.
Both in its size and scope Vimal's fashion shows were unprecedented in the country. Grand showroom openings, stunning experiments in print and poster work all combined to give the brand a truly benchmark image. But way back in 1980, no one would have believed it could have ever been possible. Except Dhirubhai.
But though he dreamed big, he was able to clearly distinguish between perception and reality and his favourite phrase "dream with your eyes open" underlined this.
He never let preset norms govern his vision, yet he worked night and day familiarizing himself with every little nitty-gritty that constituted his dreams constantly sifting the wheat from the chaff. This is how, as he put it, even though he dreamed, none of his dreams turned into nightmares. And this is what gave him the courage to move from one orbit to the next despite tremendous odds.
Dhirubhai was indeed a man of many parts, as is evident. I am sure there are many people who display some of the traits mentioned above, in their working styles as well, but Dhirubhai was one of those rare people who demonstrated all of them, all the time.
. Dhirubhaism: Leave the professional alone!
Much as people would like to believe, most owners (even managers and clients), though eager to hire the best professionals in the field, do so and then use them as extensions of their own personality. Every time I come across this, which is much too often, I am reminded of how Dhirubhai's management techniques used to be (and still remain) so refreshingly different.
For instance, way back in the late 1970s when we decided to open an agency of our own, he asked me to name it. I carried a short list of three names, two Westernised and one Indian. It was a very different world back then. Everything Anglicised was considered "upmarket."
There were hardly any agencies with Indian names barring my own ex-agency Shilpi and a few others like Ulka and Sistas. He looked at the list and asked me what my choice was. I said "Mudra": it was the only name that suited my personality. And the spirit of the agency that I was to head.
I was very Indian and an Anglicised name on my visiting card would seem pretentious and contrived. No further questions were asked. No suggestions offered, just a plain and simple "Go ahead and do it." That was just the beginning.
He continued to give me total freedom -- no supervision, no policing -- in all my decisions thereafter. In fact, the only direction that he gave me, just once, was this: "Produce your best."
His utter trust in me was what pushed me to never, ever let him down. I guess the simplest strategies are often the hardest to adopt. That was the secret of the Dhirubhai legend. It was not out of a book. It was a skillful blend of head and heart.
6. Dhirubhaism: Change your orbit, constantly!
To understand this statement, let me explain Dhirubhai's "orbit theory."
He would often explain that we are all born into an orbit. It is up to us to progress to the next. We could choose to live and die in the orbit that we are born in. But that would be a criminal waste of potential. When we push ourselves into the next orbit, we benefit not only ourselves but everyone connected with us.
Take India's push for development. There was once a time our country's growth rate was just 4 per cent, sarcastically referred to as the "Hindu growth rate." Look at us today, galloping along at a healthy 7-8 per cent.
This is no miracle. It is the product of a handful of determined orbit changers like Dhirubhai, all of whose efforts have benefited a larger sphere in their respective fields.
In a small way, I too have experienced the thrill of changing orbits with Mudra. In the 1980s, we leapt from the orbit of a small Ahmedabad ad agency to become the country's third largest ad agency -- in just under a decade.
However, when you change orbits, you will create friction. The good news is that your enemies from your previous orbit will never be able to reach you in your new one. By the time resentment builds up in your new orbit, you should move to the next level. And so on.
Changing orbits is the key to our progress as a nation.
7. The arm-around-the-shoulder leader
I have never seen any other empire builder nor the CEO of any big organisation do this (why, I never adopted this myself!).
It was Dhirubhai's very own signature style. Whenever I went to meet him and if on that day, all the time that he could spare me was a short walk up to his car, he would instantly put his arm around me and proceed to discuss the issues at hand as we walked.
With that one simple gesture, he managed to achieve many things. I was put at ease instantaneously. I was made to feel like an equal who was loved and important enough to be considered close to him. And I would walk away from that meeting feeling so good about myself and the work I was doing!
This tendency that he had, to draw people towards him, manifested itself in countless ways. This was just one of them. He would never, ever exude an air of aloofness and exclusivity. He was always inviting people into sharing their thoughts and ideas, rather than shutting them out.
On hindsight I think, it must have required phenomenal generosity of spirit to be that inclusive. Yes, this was one of the things that was uniquely Dhirubhai -- that warm arm around my shoulder that did much more than words in letting me know that I belonged, that I had his trust, and that I had him on my side!
8. The Dhirubhai theory of Supply creating Demand
He was not an MBA. Nor an economist. But yet he took traditional market theory and stood it on its head. And succeeded.
Yes, at a time when everyone in India would build capacities only after a careful study of market expectations, he went full steam ahead and created giants of manufacturing plants with unbelievable capacites. (Initial cap of Reliance Patalganga was 10,000 tonnes of PFY way back in 1980, while the market in India for it was approx. 6000 tonnes).
No doubt his instinct was backed by years and years of reading, studying market trends, careful listening and his own honed capacity to forecast, but yet despite all this preparation, it required undeniable guts to pioneer such a revolutionary move.
The consequence was that the market blossomed to absorb supply, the consumer benefited with prices crashing down, the players increased and our economic landscape changed for the better. The Patalganga plant was in no time humming at maximum capacity and as a result of the plant's economies of scale, Dhirubhai's conversion cost of the yarn in 1994 came down to 18 cents per pound, as compared to Western Europe's 34 cents, North America's 29 cents and the Far East's 23 cents and Reliance was exporting the yarn back to the US!
A more recent example was that of Mukesh Ambani taking this vision forward with Reliance Infocomm (which is now handled by Anil Ambani). In India's mobile telephony timeline there will always be a very clear 'before Infocomm and after Infocomm' segmentation. The numbers say it all. In Jan 2003, the mobile subscriber base was 13 million, about 16 months later, shortly after the launch, it had reached 30 million.
In March 2006, it has touched 90 million ! Yes, this was yet another unusual skill of Dhirubhai's -- his uncanny knack of knowing exactly how the market is going to behave.
9. Money is not a product by itself, it is a by-product, so don't chase it
This was a belief by which Dhirubhai lived all his life. For instance when he briefed me about setting up Mudra, his instruction was clear: 'Produce the best textile advertising in the country,' he said.
He did not breathe a word about profits, nor about becoming the richest ad agency in the country. Great advertising was the goal that he set for me. A by-product is something that you don't set out to produce. It is the spin off when you create something larger.
When you turn logs into lumber, sawdust is your by-product and a pretty lucrative one it can be too! It is a very simple analogy but extremely effective in driving the point home. Work toward a goal beyond your bank balance.
Success in attaining that goal will eventually ring in the cash. For instance, if you work towards creating a name for yourself and earning a good reputation, then money is a logical outcome.
People will pay for your product or service if it is good. But if you get your priorities slightly mixed up, not only will the money you make remain just a quick buck it would in all likelihood blacklist you for good. Sounds too simplistic for belief? Well, look around you and you will know exactly how true it is.
Image: Dhirubhai passed away on July 6, 2002.
LEHMAN FALLS, MERRILL SOLD AIG TOTTERING WHAT NEXT?
Lehman falls, Merrill sold, AIG tottering. What next?
A chronological review of developments in the last two days
Dr. S.K.PRASAD
A series of events in United States, including Bank of America agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch for $44 billion and Lehman Brothers' move to file a bankruptcy protection, has shaken up the global financial markets. About 10 major banks, comprising Citigroup and Credit Suisse Group, reached an agreement to create a $70 billion borrowing facility committing their own money, which could be used to tide over the financial crisis.
Lehman Brothers thought of bankruptcy after it failed to find a buyer and financial media reports said that AIG could survive for only a few days without infusion of the capital. The giants of financial markets have been shaken up by losses of hundreds of billions of dollars in bad mortgages in the housing markets.
Lehman Brothers began considering bankruptcy after Barclays and Bank of America, the top suitors, walked away apparently following Federal authorities declining to provide financial backup to them, declaring bankruptcy would allow Lehman's subsidiaries to continue to function as the company itself is wound down.
"The stunning series of events culminated a weekend of frantic around-the-clock negotiations, as Wall Street bankers huddled in meetings at the behest of Bush administration officials to try to avoid a downward spiral in the markets stemming from a crisis of confidence," the New York Times said.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc; $639 billion
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, is without a doubt, the largest bankruptcy ever: the size is estimated between $613 billion and $639 billion! What began life as a general store set up by three German immigrant brothers to the United States, over the years turned into one of US's largest investment banks. The amazing story of Lehman Brothers' story started in 1844, when 23-year-old Henry Lehman, son of a cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from Rimpar, Bavaria. He settled down in Montgomery, Alabama, and opened a dry-goods store -- H Lehman. Later, when his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, joined him the company changed its name to Lehman Brothers.
The global financial-services firm, which did business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking declared itself bankrupt on September 15, 2008.
Why it collapsed?
The fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, and one of Wall Street's biggest dealers in fixed-interest trading, was heavily invested in securities linked to the US sub-prime mortgage market. As the crisis in financial markets gathered momentum, it saw its share price collapse from $82 to less than $4.
It was the exaggerated but misplaced confidence of Wall Street's longest serving chief executive officer, Richard Fuld of Lehman, that finally led to Lehman's demise. Over 14 years, Richard Fuld, 62, turned a money-losing bond trading shop into a full-service investment bank. An international squash player, Fuld could not master the final stroke as he failed to keep the 158-year-old banking major alive.
Fuld never changed. He remained the obstinate Lehman loyalist whose pride stood in the way of the firm. If he had sold out earlier, Lehman could have survived. Fuld earned a BA from the University of Colorado and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. He started at Lehman in 1969.
Lehman Bros, which till June 2008 had not reported a quarterly loss even once, had earlier survived many an economic crises, like railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in the 1990s. Thus the collapse of the giant investment bank came as a major shock for the entire world markets that plunged after Lehman filed a Chapter 11 petition with US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The $613 billion (some estimates put the size at $639 billion) bankruptcy thus throws up the question: why did the Wall Street giant go bust? Why did Lehman Brothers go bankrupt?
The giant investment bank succumbed to the sub-prime mortgage crisis that has rocked the United States and the global economy. Lehman was strangled by a massive credit crisis and fast plummeting real estate prices. The gargantuan $60 billion loss in bad real estate loans forced the bank to file for bankruptcy.
However, the fall of the 158-year-year institution that started cotton trade in US before the American Civil War and financed the railroad that built a nation, got hit by a large dose of bad luck, pride, arrogance and greed. Primarily, the pride of its chief executive office Richard Fuld.
Here's why. . .
Lehman's collapse was also triggered by the refusal of other banks to do business with it because of its complex and, at times, opaque ways of trading. Housing loans made by the bank to people with little support made these loans very risky, and when interest rates rose, these borrowers could no more repay Lehman. This led to huge losses, the extent of which is not yet clear. Thus other banks stopped trading with Lehman. This led to it losing almost all business and triggered its fall. The final straw for Lehman was the fact that both Barclays Plc of the United Kingdom and Bank of America Corp pulled out of takeover talks. BofA bought out Merrill Lynch for $50 billion.
However, Barclays has now said that it is in discussions with Lehman Brothers about buying certain assets of the stricken US investment bank. "Barclays confirms that it is discussing with Lehman Brothers the possible acquisition of certain Lehman Brothers assets on terms that would be attractive to Barclay's shareholders," Britain's third largest bank said in a statement.
When other banks do not want to buy Lehman, why is Barclays interested?
Barclays wanted to buy Lehman out at a discount, so to speak. But when Lehman CEO Fuld decided that his bank was worth much more than what Barclays had apparently offered, Barclays stepped back. Now that Lehman has filed for bankruptcy, its assets are available fairly cheap. However, the biggest problem is to take on Lehman's enormous liabilities.
How far is the CEO of the company responsible for Lehman's fall?
Wall Street analysts believe that it was the 'hubris' of Richard Fuld, the 62-year-old CEO of Lehman, who did not take the telltale signs of impending doom very seriously. Fuld, nicknamed The Gorilla for his foul temper, intimidating presence and tough talk, rejected many bids to save Lehman because he thought that the sinking giant was much bigger than Wall Street was giving it credit for, and wanted to get more price for the sale of the company. Analysts say if the bank was sold just a week before it went kaput, it could have been saved the ignominy of a bankruptcy, but Fuld was far too adamant to see reason. Result: the end of a 158-year-old financial giant.
Could the United States government helped, like it helped Bear Stearns in May this year, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier this month?
The US government could have helped, but US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that it would not use up any more taxpayer dollars to bail out Lehman Brothers as it would lead to investment banks getting away with their gambling ways. Paulson had bailed out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bear Stearns, saying that if the government had not done so, the US housing loan market would have collapsed leading to gigantic losses for hundreds of banks all over the globe that have invested in US property. Paulson, however, believes that a brokerage major like Lehman, which does not have a direct connection with ordinary people who have taken on home loans, need not be bailed out as it would not cause any systemic damage to the US
Will everyone in Lehman lose their jobs?
The bankruptcy administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, feels that as Lehman's operations were essentially centralized at New York, the folding up of the investment banker in the US will have a telling impact on all its operations globally. Over 5,000 employees in the UK have already lost their jobs, while about 20,000 in the US might as well forget going back to their work stations. About 2,500 Lehman employees in India too face the axe.
Will the whole bank be liquidated?
Unlikely, at least for now. The US Chapter 11 that deals with bankruptcy says that PwC, the administrators, can go about taking its time to find good offers and buyers for Lehman's 'least affected businesses.' The entire exercise can take months before all of Lehman's assets are sold, given the complexities linked to the bankruptcy.
What about the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch deal?
Merrill Lynch's buy out by Bank of America is also a shocking development. ML, saw the writing on the wall once it guessed that Lehman was going bust, and decided to sell out before it actually has to file a bankruptcy petition..
What about the insurance giant AIG?
The world's largest insurer, American International Group, has been downgraded by credit rating agencies and is racing against time to find a multi billion dollar infusion to stay afloat. US Federal Reserve officials and two leading banks, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, were negotiating to put together $75 billion package to save the insurance giant to stave off crisis.
AIG has sought $40 billion in bridge loan to stave off the crisis. But the Fed rebuffed the request. AIG's ills came to fore, when three leading credit rating agencies - Standard and Poor's Moody's and Fitch - lowered the company's credit scores.
Who could be the next to fall?
Some Wall Street analysts, reports The Guardian, name Washington Mutual as the next financial major to 'find itself in serious trouble.' However, the even bigger worry is whether the world's largest securities firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, would be able to survive this brutal financial crisis. But many say that these two gaints will not melt down as they have 'done a better job of spreading their bets across world markets and are also more diversified, less leveraged and have managed such risks much better.'
What do Indian markets fear?
The fall of two global financial behemoths -- Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch -- is expected to dent India Inc's ability to raise resources via the equity route. Experts feel that such events significantly increase the risk perception, which in turn will put all future investments by institutional investors such as pension or endowment funds, on the back burner.
While the public issue market has already dried up, the private equity funds are also becoming conservative in terms of pricing. This is resulting in either inordinate delays in concluding deals or transactions being called off. There are many instances of private equity fund managers refusing to go ahead with deals after signing the term sheet. Sources said that a leading fund conducted due diligence on two companies in the last fortnight but did not close either deal primarily because of the developments in the US, their home country. The crisis faced by Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers is expected to have a cascading effect on PE firms too.
Will it hit the Indian growth story?
The ongoing financial sector crisis in the United States and its repercussions on developed markets worldwide will result in lower capital inflows into emerging markets like India, economists and government officials said today. At the same time, they called for the government to make it easier for Indian companies to borrow overseas by easing the restrictions that have been imposed in the past to reduce excessive liquidity in the system and control inflation. This will, in turn, lead to a slowing in investment growth in the months ahead. As lending gets tighter and investment flows dry, corporate India will find it more difficult to raise both equity and debt.
Technology firms are shivering
Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing may well prove to be the last straw for Indian IT firms, which were expecting the second half of FY09 to be better. As a result of the US financial market crisis, analysts do not expect Indian IT firms to sign any significant contracts in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space in the months to come. While IT firms do not disclose client-specific details, it's estimated that Lehman Brothers has outsourced deals amounting to anywhere between Rs 550 crore and Rs 700 crore (annually) to numerous IT firms, including majors like Tata Consultancy Services, Satyam Computer Services and Wipro. Lehman Brothers, say sources, works with 14 services providers in India - Wipro and TCS being the largest. It also has investments in a few IT firms. It's not clear if these holdings will be liquidated to raise funds. Moreover, the sources add that Lehman Brothers' unit in India has issued termination letters to a majority of its 2,500 employees
What kind of investment does Lehman have in India?
Lehman does not have direct large holding in the Indian stock markets. These holdings are estimated at around $200 million, including Participatory Notes. This figure is not enough to cripple the Indian stock markets. But Lehman has exposure to the Indian stock market through special purpose vehicles. This exposure to real estate stocks is said to be of about $1.5 billion, enough to shake up the markets.
A chronological review of developments in the last two days
Dr. S.K.PRASAD
A series of events in United States, including Bank of America agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch for $44 billion and Lehman Brothers' move to file a bankruptcy protection, has shaken up the global financial markets. About 10 major banks, comprising Citigroup and Credit Suisse Group, reached an agreement to create a $70 billion borrowing facility committing their own money, which could be used to tide over the financial crisis.
Lehman Brothers thought of bankruptcy after it failed to find a buyer and financial media reports said that AIG could survive for only a few days without infusion of the capital. The giants of financial markets have been shaken up by losses of hundreds of billions of dollars in bad mortgages in the housing markets.
Lehman Brothers began considering bankruptcy after Barclays and Bank of America, the top suitors, walked away apparently following Federal authorities declining to provide financial backup to them, declaring bankruptcy would allow Lehman's subsidiaries to continue to function as the company itself is wound down.
"The stunning series of events culminated a weekend of frantic around-the-clock negotiations, as Wall Street bankers huddled in meetings at the behest of Bush administration officials to try to avoid a downward spiral in the markets stemming from a crisis of confidence," the New York Times said.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc; $639 billion
The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, is without a doubt, the largest bankruptcy ever: the size is estimated between $613 billion and $639 billion! What began life as a general store set up by three German immigrant brothers to the United States, over the years turned into one of US's largest investment banks. The amazing story of Lehman Brothers' story started in 1844, when 23-year-old Henry Lehman, son of a cattle merchant, emigrated to the United States from Rimpar, Bavaria. He settled down in Montgomery, Alabama, and opened a dry-goods store -- H Lehman. Later, when his brothers, Emanuel and Mayer, joined him the company changed its name to Lehman Brothers.
The global financial-services firm, which did business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales, research and trading, investment management, private equity, and private banking declared itself bankrupt on September 15, 2008.
Why it collapsed?
The fourth-largest investment bank in the United States, and one of Wall Street's biggest dealers in fixed-interest trading, was heavily invested in securities linked to the US sub-prime mortgage market. As the crisis in financial markets gathered momentum, it saw its share price collapse from $82 to less than $4.
It was the exaggerated but misplaced confidence of Wall Street's longest serving chief executive officer, Richard Fuld of Lehman, that finally led to Lehman's demise. Over 14 years, Richard Fuld, 62, turned a money-losing bond trading shop into a full-service investment bank. An international squash player, Fuld could not master the final stroke as he failed to keep the 158-year-old banking major alive.
Fuld never changed. He remained the obstinate Lehman loyalist whose pride stood in the way of the firm. If he had sold out earlier, Lehman could have survived. Fuld earned a BA from the University of Colorado and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. He started at Lehman in 1969.
Lehman Bros, which till June 2008 had not reported a quarterly loss even once, had earlier survived many an economic crises, like railroad bankruptcies of the 1800s, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in the 1990s. Thus the collapse of the giant investment bank came as a major shock for the entire world markets that plunged after Lehman filed a Chapter 11 petition with US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The $613 billion (some estimates put the size at $639 billion) bankruptcy thus throws up the question: why did the Wall Street giant go bust? Why did Lehman Brothers go bankrupt?
The giant investment bank succumbed to the sub-prime mortgage crisis that has rocked the United States and the global economy. Lehman was strangled by a massive credit crisis and fast plummeting real estate prices. The gargantuan $60 billion loss in bad real estate loans forced the bank to file for bankruptcy.
However, the fall of the 158-year-year institution that started cotton trade in US before the American Civil War and financed the railroad that built a nation, got hit by a large dose of bad luck, pride, arrogance and greed. Primarily, the pride of its chief executive office Richard Fuld.
Here's why. . .
Lehman's collapse was also triggered by the refusal of other banks to do business with it because of its complex and, at times, opaque ways of trading. Housing loans made by the bank to people with little support made these loans very risky, and when interest rates rose, these borrowers could no more repay Lehman. This led to huge losses, the extent of which is not yet clear. Thus other banks stopped trading with Lehman. This led to it losing almost all business and triggered its fall. The final straw for Lehman was the fact that both Barclays Plc of the United Kingdom and Bank of America Corp pulled out of takeover talks. BofA bought out Merrill Lynch for $50 billion.
However, Barclays has now said that it is in discussions with Lehman Brothers about buying certain assets of the stricken US investment bank. "Barclays confirms that it is discussing with Lehman Brothers the possible acquisition of certain Lehman Brothers assets on terms that would be attractive to Barclay's shareholders," Britain's third largest bank said in a statement.
When other banks do not want to buy Lehman, why is Barclays interested?
Barclays wanted to buy Lehman out at a discount, so to speak. But when Lehman CEO Fuld decided that his bank was worth much more than what Barclays had apparently offered, Barclays stepped back. Now that Lehman has filed for bankruptcy, its assets are available fairly cheap. However, the biggest problem is to take on Lehman's enormous liabilities.
How far is the CEO of the company responsible for Lehman's fall?
Wall Street analysts believe that it was the 'hubris' of Richard Fuld, the 62-year-old CEO of Lehman, who did not take the telltale signs of impending doom very seriously. Fuld, nicknamed The Gorilla for his foul temper, intimidating presence and tough talk, rejected many bids to save Lehman because he thought that the sinking giant was much bigger than Wall Street was giving it credit for, and wanted to get more price for the sale of the company. Analysts say if the bank was sold just a week before it went kaput, it could have been saved the ignominy of a bankruptcy, but Fuld was far too adamant to see reason. Result: the end of a 158-year-old financial giant.
Could the United States government helped, like it helped Bear Stearns in May this year, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earlier this month?
The US government could have helped, but US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that it would not use up any more taxpayer dollars to bail out Lehman Brothers as it would lead to investment banks getting away with their gambling ways. Paulson had bailed out Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Bear Stearns, saying that if the government had not done so, the US housing loan market would have collapsed leading to gigantic losses for hundreds of banks all over the globe that have invested in US property. Paulson, however, believes that a brokerage major like Lehman, which does not have a direct connection with ordinary people who have taken on home loans, need not be bailed out as it would not cause any systemic damage to the US
Will everyone in Lehman lose their jobs?
The bankruptcy administrators, PricewaterhouseCoopers, feels that as Lehman's operations were essentially centralized at New York, the folding up of the investment banker in the US will have a telling impact on all its operations globally. Over 5,000 employees in the UK have already lost their jobs, while about 20,000 in the US might as well forget going back to their work stations. About 2,500 Lehman employees in India too face the axe.
Will the whole bank be liquidated?
Unlikely, at least for now. The US Chapter 11 that deals with bankruptcy says that PwC, the administrators, can go about taking its time to find good offers and buyers for Lehman's 'least affected businesses.' The entire exercise can take months before all of Lehman's assets are sold, given the complexities linked to the bankruptcy.
What about the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch deal?
Merrill Lynch's buy out by Bank of America is also a shocking development. ML, saw the writing on the wall once it guessed that Lehman was going bust, and decided to sell out before it actually has to file a bankruptcy petition..
What about the insurance giant AIG?
The world's largest insurer, American International Group, has been downgraded by credit rating agencies and is racing against time to find a multi billion dollar infusion to stay afloat. US Federal Reserve officials and two leading banks, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, were negotiating to put together $75 billion package to save the insurance giant to stave off crisis.
AIG has sought $40 billion in bridge loan to stave off the crisis. But the Fed rebuffed the request. AIG's ills came to fore, when three leading credit rating agencies - Standard and Poor's Moody's and Fitch - lowered the company's credit scores.
Who could be the next to fall?
Some Wall Street analysts, reports The Guardian, name Washington Mutual as the next financial major to 'find itself in serious trouble.' However, the even bigger worry is whether the world's largest securities firms, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, would be able to survive this brutal financial crisis. But many say that these two gaints will not melt down as they have 'done a better job of spreading their bets across world markets and are also more diversified, less leveraged and have managed such risks much better.'
What do Indian markets fear?
The fall of two global financial behemoths -- Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch -- is expected to dent India Inc's ability to raise resources via the equity route. Experts feel that such events significantly increase the risk perception, which in turn will put all future investments by institutional investors such as pension or endowment funds, on the back burner.
While the public issue market has already dried up, the private equity funds are also becoming conservative in terms of pricing. This is resulting in either inordinate delays in concluding deals or transactions being called off. There are many instances of private equity fund managers refusing to go ahead with deals after signing the term sheet. Sources said that a leading fund conducted due diligence on two companies in the last fortnight but did not close either deal primarily because of the developments in the US, their home country. The crisis faced by Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers is expected to have a cascading effect on PE firms too.
Will it hit the Indian growth story?
The ongoing financial sector crisis in the United States and its repercussions on developed markets worldwide will result in lower capital inflows into emerging markets like India, economists and government officials said today. At the same time, they called for the government to make it easier for Indian companies to borrow overseas by easing the restrictions that have been imposed in the past to reduce excessive liquidity in the system and control inflation. This will, in turn, lead to a slowing in investment growth in the months ahead. As lending gets tighter and investment flows dry, corporate India will find it more difficult to raise both equity and debt.
Technology firms are shivering
Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing may well prove to be the last straw for Indian IT firms, which were expecting the second half of FY09 to be better. As a result of the US financial market crisis, analysts do not expect Indian IT firms to sign any significant contracts in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space in the months to come. While IT firms do not disclose client-specific details, it's estimated that Lehman Brothers has outsourced deals amounting to anywhere between Rs 550 crore and Rs 700 crore (annually) to numerous IT firms, including majors like Tata Consultancy Services, Satyam Computer Services and Wipro. Lehman Brothers, say sources, works with 14 services providers in India - Wipro and TCS being the largest. It also has investments in a few IT firms. It's not clear if these holdings will be liquidated to raise funds. Moreover, the sources add that Lehman Brothers' unit in India has issued termination letters to a majority of its 2,500 employees
What kind of investment does Lehman have in India?
Lehman does not have direct large holding in the Indian stock markets. These holdings are estimated at around $200 million, including Participatory Notes. This figure is not enough to cripple the Indian stock markets. But Lehman has exposure to the Indian stock market through special purpose vehicles. This exposure to real estate stocks is said to be of about $1.5 billion, enough to shake up the markets.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Co-Orporative Farming for Accelerated Rural Development and Prosperity
Co-orporative farming is organizing agricultural activities in Cooperative form but these village level cooperatives are run under corporate style with utmost professionalism with the support of trained unemployed graduates.
Co-orporative is new word coined to denote the combination of cooperative and corporation and to convey that cooperatives are run like corporates.
The state’s economic growth and prosperity is highly depends on the growth and prosperity of agricultural activities. The agricultural activities are highly unorganized and are subjected to terrible exploitation by all supporting systems and organizations. Corruption, nepotism, red-tapism, inefficient and in-sensitive response by bureaucratic mechanism are blocking the agricultural and development.
It is high time to develop organizations, systems and practices to insulate the developmental initiative from corruption by running them under corporate forms with as SMART corporations.( Simple, Moral, Accountable, Reliable and Transparent).
Government land is a precious resource and should not be distributed indiscriminately. Instead, the land be leased for a specific period with a specific productive targets. It is also necessary to ensure the provision of enablers of achieving such targets through professionally run and corruption free and de-bureaucratic mechanisms.
The agricultural productivity will certainly increase and contribute to another green revolution.
It is suggested to corporatize Agriculture and Farm Management practices and run in cooperative form starting from village Panchayat level.
All available the government land will be provided to cooperative societies formed at village level in which all landless persons will become members. The land will be provided to the cooperative for 30 years lease.
All the eligible and employable members in the family will become members. Children would be enrolled in the schools adopted by the village cooperatives.
All village cooperatives will function under a professionally managed corporations with specific Mission areas like Irrigation, Agri-Power, Seeds, Fertilizers, insurance, mechanization, water harvesting, Rural Health & family welfare, literacy, marketing of agricultural products:
These corporations will function without political and bureaucratic interventions as autonomous cooperatives and corporations.
All these entities are Mission driven and all stake holders will be accountable for achieving the performance targets set by the corporations.
Each Village Cooperative will have membership of 50- 250 members and will be supported by one manager for a trained graduate in rural development and cooperative management.
Human Resource :
The cooperative society will be run on corporate principles by professionally trained BBM or MBA graduates. The state universities will be directed to design courses covering all relevant topics : Management of Cooperatives, Agricultural management- crops to be grown, effective use of fertilizers, water, power, mechanization:
We can provide employment to thousands of young graduates to work for these cooperatives.
Continuous Review and Monitoring: Quarterly, half yearly and annual audits of performance will take place to monitor the results of efforts and take corrective actions.
ISO certified: All these cooperatives will be ISO certified entities; We will also include ISO certification Auditor course into MBA Program in which the Manager will be able to audit the cooperative( other one in which he is not employed and support in internal audit processes.
The scope of the Project:
Indentify the total land available in the state which is cultivable
List the crops to be grown
List the availability of water resources
Which crops are suitable for identified areas
Assess demand for such products
Match the land with right crop:
Assess the sources of power available
Indentify mechanization requirements
Transport and storage facilities
Identify necessary IT Infrastructure for networking all cooperatives
Integrate the existing organizations and bring them under the mission areas
Indentify the available centre and state government schemes
Identify the potential beneficiaries
Ensure that they are properly trained
It is high time to develop organizations, systems and practices to insulate the developmental initiative from corruption by running them under corporate forms with as SMART corporations.( Simple, Moral, Accountable, Reliable and Transparent).
Government land is a precious resource and should not be distributed indiscriminately. Instead, the land be leased for a specific period with a specific productive targets. It is also necessary to ensure the provision of enablers of achieving such targets through professionally run and corruption free and de-bureaucratic mechanisms.
The agricultural productivity will certainly increase and contribute to another green revolution.
It is suggested to corporatize Agriculture and Farm Management practices and run in cooperative form starting from village Panchayat level.
All available the government land will be provided to cooperative societies formed at village level in which all landless persons will become members. The land will be provided to the cooperative for 30 years lease.
All the eligible and employable members in the family will become members. Children would be enrolled in the schools adopted by the village cooperatives.
All village cooperatives will function under a professionally managed corporations with specific Mission areas like Irrigation, Agri-Power, Seeds, Fertilizers, insurance, mechanization, water harvesting, Rural Health & family welfare, literacy, marketing of agricultural products:
These corporations will function without political and bureaucratic interventions as autonomous cooperatives and corporations.
All these entities are Mission driven and all stake holders will be accountable for achieving the performance targets set by the corporations.
Each Village Cooperative will have membership of 50- 250 members and will be supported by one manager for a trained graduate in rural development and cooperative management.
Human Resource :
The cooperative society will be run on corporate principles by professionally trained BBM or MBA graduates. The state universities will be directed to design courses covering all relevant topics : Management of Cooperatives, Agricultural management- crops to be grown, effective use of fertilizers, water, power, mechanization:
We can provide employment to thousands of young graduates to work for these cooperatives.
Continuous Review and Monitoring: Quarterly, half yearly and annual audits of performance will take place to monitor the results of efforts and take corrective actions.
ISO certified: All these cooperatives will be ISO certified entities; We will also include ISO certification Auditor course into MBA Program in which the Manager will be able to audit the cooperative( other one in which he is not employed and support in internal audit processes.
The scope of the Project:
Indentify the total land available in the state which is cultivable
List the crops to be grown
List the availability of water resources
Which crops are suitable for identified areas
Assess demand for such products
Match the land with right crop:
Assess the sources of power available
Indentify mechanization requirements
Transport and storage facilities
Identify necessary IT Infrastructure for networking all cooperatives
Integrate the existing organizations and bring them under the mission areas
Indentify the available centre and state government schemes
Identify the potential beneficiaries
Ensure that they are properly trained
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