[RAJIV NARANG WITH INDRAJIT GUPTA a INGE 7, ndatan Loerie eum eon bad been debating x foray in sotne ad ieumnees lesluoabigvolumelayininds, to theres TaLne doe i ni none pay fea whose tine hat core just tet no one qute knew ho to aac aid "Sincesofteswere made onthe spot theme Gfcontamination,eays tu Mehta, meetin rece eet Globally, Unileverhad seen MeDonsid selling softies. twas a simple i (ustan Levers ice-cream division, in| 2000, MTA, Based instant foods frm, launched softy cones at Revove oie Rwasa big success Within no time, MTR rampedupcon {iaBe to 80 outlets. Once again the softy idea was broachea ig Hever House, butsulfered the same fate We werent quitecae ‘how the problem could be solved," airs Mere Buta regional sales managerin the Cherinal branch didnit ive up-He convinced the commercial manager in thehead or *eeto sanction a small budget for an experiment. Using al sucaaneoreeveveconour AEDORGANISATIONAL RENEWAL ee ~ softy vending machitie which was available in-house, he and | Hinchigentin manager ted olb-ecd oa eee ee el theyhad a bigbeaetroughn hemacine eighty wel Dresden pce a etumper protease | just had tobe plugged into the machine, the mix woul: touched by human hands. The team got in touch with aman- factuterin Sf Lanka who agreed to supply the softy ice-cream ‘vending machines ors 3lakh each, halfthe usual pice of Rs 6 lakh charged by other manufscturers, With that, break-even ‘volumes fell dramatically from 600 cones e day to just 250, ‘Next they tested the concept onthe street, moving the ma- chines from place to place. ney eventually hit pay dct at Chen- nai’s Fthiraj College. On day one, 1200 ‘cones were sold. Only then di the team Invite Mehta to come fora dekt. “Iwas amazed with what I sew! remembers ‘Mehta. In the space ofa few months, the project was ramped up to five cites, To- day, Lever expects almost 20% of ts ice- ‘team sales to come from softies. Whats ‘more, since pre-packaged softies do not entail high cold chain costs, the eontri- Dutioa from thes softiesisalmostona par with most of HLLS higher-priced brands, Spotting the innovation, Unilever hs now extended the idea t0 Pakistan and indonesia as well Just how often do such ideas bubble up from below in your organisation? Nine times outof 16, the answeris kets = to ber rarely or almost never. instead, your fim s probably telling you to ‘ightership and wring out every last drop ‘HLLs 1H. Meche tire consumer sector, Not many would have bet that a milk ‘cheese and butter maker would think of moving into selling, pizzas. Notonly did Amul think oft, it discovered a smart way of seeing the dea through. The result: last year, i sold close to 335,000-40,000 pizzas aday, almost three times more than its biggest coimpetitorin the organised sector, By next year, that ‘numbers expected to ratchet up to 1 lakh pizzasa day. 1 Heard about the Skybus? For the uninitiated, itis a cross be- ‘tween a train and a bus, and runs suspended from rails, much like a cable carin the Sviss Alps. Last year, it caught the imag nation ofimostevery urban commuterand town planne: who heard about it There was no digging involved, noland tobe te claimed and whats more, itcost no more than a fourth of the Delhii Metro Rall project. Too good te be ‘rue? Well ithas taken a motley group of cengincersat Konkan Railway anditsCEO, B Rajaram, seven long years, often work: ing after office hours, to push the idea ‘through government red tape and abi resouroe crunch, Now estimates sugr Konkan could potentially land ot worth Rs 30,000 crore in the next 7.2 years, making it the most profitable rali- ‘way fer ix Edi 1B By the end of 1999, ITC's International Business Division (IBD) had reached the fend of its road. Its Rs. 500-odd-cro: ‘numover made no big difference co IT topline — and the wafer-thin margls i the agsi-commodities business were equelly unattractive. To survive, TED could follow the accepted industrymeds! of controlling the entire value clin plete with its own ports, ships, wate houses, eal. But ITC was neither inter: feavngs om your business When he sovingeaud ehiigrhamenin nrc hips ae down this obsession wth oP- thinkin i ithave theca ows todo eon a gob eth i Rustctes cold scale. So, ITC's chairman Y.C. Deveshwar ‘rational eficleney fs no surprise, But ‘whatabout stetchingfor quantum growth? For thepastcouple ‘ofyears, most Indian organisations have vitally ahendoned ‘their quest for rapid growth — setting for steady improve- rents in bottomline, As the chairman of one of Indiat largest and most respected firms recently sid: Ive stopped thinking bout helong-term. Lt fst keep the short-term intact.” Call ita collective paranols. Suddenly, markets are satus | tated Consumersare el The uttoo mucicorapeton. | Dorit you get There simply isnt any headroom for growth. -Hogwash. you buy thar argument, youmight aswell dose | ‘thismagazine now. Or eso, you couldlookat the folowing: The Gujrat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation, the | smakers of Amul dairy products, created asizaling new pizza | eh apallofglounshadenveloped the en- | ‘busineselast yer f challenged S. Sivakumar, the heed of BD, to find an alternative ‘business model using the digital technologies that had come into vogue. By2000, Sivakumar and his team had picked up the ‘gauntlet and completely redefined the business model. nan industry, where information is a closely-guarded secret, ! pputall the major decision tools in thehands of tsexportclie’ toconfigure their ownneeds. And backed it up by scalingane\., clegant e-enabled sourcing strategy across farms in Madhya Pradesh, Kamataka and Andhra Pradesh. By 2005, [BD expects tototich a tumover of Rs 2,000 crore. (Also see ‘The Roots Of Success’ on page 20) What's common to these three examples? Simple. These players arent waiting fora magic wand — anid market ‘up charging. Instead, they are making growth happen, Does quantum growth elude your company? Are you ready for a break — willing to stick your neck with the past? Are you out for an idea? Get ready for the magic. Create it. Think different swcaancorniawecovony MED yusnessvomnesenuaryaneORGANISATIONAL RENEWAL How, did you say? Well, that’s quite a story. OF CEOs willing, ‘to puttheir reputation on the line, Ofyoung, eager-beaver em ployees pushing through radical ideas, But the real lesson is. how these organisations have made quantum growth an inte: par of isl DNA. Much ofitwas also possble because ese firms were able to remove a series of blocks that pre- ‘Vented them from exploringnew ideas. » Sohasyour organisation created these self-imposed blocks ‘which wil stifle business concept innovation? Checkitout for yourself. DO YOU BUREAUCRATISE THE PROCESS OF ‘GENERATING INSIGHTS? Ever wondered how ideas are mined in your organisation? ‘Suppose you wanted to checkifa need gap existed among cur- rent owners of small cars. How would you go about if Instine- tively, youd probably call in a market research agenicy to work outa structured questionnaire or arrange a focus group. That's ‘what business schools dell into you. ‘Does this process generate new insights? Rarely: When was the last time you heard ofa firm claiming they had unearthed a brilliant business proposition through formal marketresearch? ‘Wearent sayingzesearch is humbug. But there’ areal dangerin introducing the Henry Ford model into your ideas factory. ‘Most managers tendo delegete the tsk of insights to inter- ‘mediaries — without sufficiently involving themselves in the TTCSS. Sivakumar tookup his chairman challenge. He took BD into another growth trajectory | exercise. The result ends up more asa data gathering exr- cise Even fnew data does come along the chances afitbeing accepted ate slim. Afteral the penon interpreting conduct to use his old lens —a metal image ofthe consumer andthe context which smiles away fom realty Butthaes not the way the Ahmedabad-based Paras Phar raceaticals does it Its chefrman Darshan Patel actualy spends two days every week at chemist outet, observing how usiomers buy. Whats moze, Paras has evolved a culture of egalitarianism: anyone in the organisation from the peon the chaliman— can suggest new product ideas based on the ‘vn unique insights. Many of Pare’ products — lke Krack crear or evea lich Guard — were eteated from suggestions made by employees, instead of relying on research to throw up Jnsights, Paras develops hypotheses based on actual observa tion, and chen puts them through research to either validate them orretnethecoancept further Forinstance, one employee noticed that women, particu- Jay those in rural Gujarat, suffered from eracked heels in win. ter But after launch usage of Krack ald not pick up. Thats wen qualitative research came in, Paras found that women had very high tolerance levels Krack vould be used only in ex treme cases when the cracks began tobeed.Itihenswitehed io a preventive pitch in ts communication, lering women to lsethe cream every ime the cracks became vse ‘Now, isnt a if senior managers in moxt major Indian finns dont do tei share of market ists Bute, asan exec- tive told us “The chances of uly engaging witha ura cus- tomerdiminishesityou light from anAC cat" The rel source citi problems fa erp Mow eects atacd vit: ox of operating in two worlds Mostof them wor hard fob thomeeltes outs tne cused gaane of te fe ‘world tothe comfortable eavirons ofthe fast word: Sut most, of heircustomers tl livin the third word. Can managers a fordto divorce themselves fom this environment? Breaking outofhislist mindset sn simple beeauae involves tear ing down some ofurdeepes cultural brie Thats winere entrepreneurs ke CavinKares CEO, CX. Ran- ganathan, difer — they donot delegate insight Ranganathan does not estat to dress like common man to discuss hor es changing, By d:essing simply, the afuence does not comin between me and the common man, be says tn face. Ranganathan sso passionate about the vale ofbecoming one with the consumers world thathe insists that not only hi on. tire top management earn, but all brand managers have thei ‘own private consumer panele-Depending onthe category they are developing, the concept is being thou through tthe Same time with this privete panel ‘Inthe end, the person who has the passion to createa new {dea must also have the passlon to diecover something new: And he can do tha enlyif he engages withthe context dirty Besides, ths also help to negnte another tendency. sel-pro- jection, invariably even when market esearch reals are pro- dlaced, managers inevitably tend to use their own lens 10 process it For example, when the team atthe southern etl ‘hain Subhiksha began exploring possible etal formats the conventionalwisdomin theretal industry pointed tad the same formule: lenge, air-conditioned spaces which allowed shoppers to interact with the merchandise and promise afel- g0od shopping experience. Subbiksha challenged thatbytals- ngacritical question: "Are we aba team, projecting our apita- 5, ions onto the customer Aro wo, therefore bullding a strategy I wiles ater han te cusometTherevrere thee ey benefits that wide swatho of customers wanted: value: 3 formoney,prosimityand speed of ansaction. vactamorrenewacovonr MEDB susowssvoncsreseuae ae‘The Rs 200-crore Subhikshals operations haveevolveda unique dentity:tisaninterest- ing blend ofthe neighbourhood kirana store and the modem supermarket. is model iseas- Aly scaleable: today it has 65-odd 1300 5q ft stores in Chennai (FoodWorld hasjust20). This ensues proximity. Also, operating costs area sixth of FoodWorld's. The lower costs and great-erscalehelp ito price its ware about 10% ‘cheaper than the neighbourhood kirana, Its ‘winning strategy isnt mited inthe five-starliv- ing anditdoes bringin customers. ‘So what do you really want: a white ele phant ora successful suategy? Thinkabouti Do your managers exhibit the glass house! syndrome — of delegatingthejot ofinsightto market research agencies? Do they end up projecting their own espirstions onto thecon- sumer! What have you donete joltthemeutof theireitist mindsert@ IE UVa aes CavinKare’s C.K Ranganathan broke the rules so that he could be one with his customers. They responded DG YOU HAVE SETTLERS AT THE TOP? Invariably any breakthrough idea faces strong resistance. Ies flit help to the team ifthe senior managers, expectally O himsel, rent totaly involved in the process. Very of- EOs prefer to preside over a strategy session instead of ‘rolling up their sleeves and jumping in with the troops. Why? Many senior managers operste witha sete mindst varelyeager to upset thelr om comfort zdnes Having come up the hard ee, chey are reluctant to push themselves and com tntpublelyto quantum growth targets ih large diversified Indian corporation we know of. the management conmultie vied outa novelapprosch. Instead of restricting its anntal off-site stratepe planning session to its ‘maragement committee member, stdecidedt cal n a grou of young, high-performing managers to sculpt he strate A commmistee member explained the logic thus: “Most of these young managers do not gt time to think. So this isa good op- portunity toler chem thitkand come up with ideas The team ‘was told, "You guys think end come up with ideas. The men= ‘agement committe will deede which ones willwork” So how did the sessions got When the eam presented its Ideas, dhe management committee found that none of the {dees were good enough. Either they were too risky or simply too impractical. Since the management committee had not | the process of idea generation themselves, they | ne to {rere notable to connect with the power of the possiblities. Ta theend, che CEO concluded that nothing new had emerge! ‘This isn't an isolated event. Across many corporations, ‘eas whlch bubbleup ftom below continue tobe evaluated in the same remorseless marine, Most management coramitee ‘members seldom realise that itistareasiertertelseandcom- Imentontheflaws instead of ying tofigureoutalthenuances ‘ofa acl dea Is itany surprise thatall ht such corporations ae able to generate are products or services that ave shade bette than the existing nest it requires a CEO with a challenger mindset to champion radical ideas -AITC, Siakumarhadto sllhiscomplexe-choupal model tothe board, As the head of one ofthe smallest dlvitons ofthe company, IBD’ Sivakumar knew he had an uphill task, He kno that is detaled report would, as partof the process, be reduced to a one-page executive summary. He knew capturing allthe complexities of the e-choupal business concept in done ‘page summary was woll-nighs impossible. Besides, his ws one Ofte many presentatious of the day. The chances ofthe com. mittee members paying special attention to his radical pro- posal and backing itwith good money wereslim. That's when Sivakumar decided to take matters into his own hands, Ate party the night before the planning meetin hebutton-holed some ofthe corsivittee suemnbers and bri them individually onhis choupal plan. “Toornered ¥CD (chale- man ¥.C, Deveshwar) too, and ested him ifhe had read the full textrather than the one-page summary” says Sivakumar. De- veshwar had not. Sivakumar kept insisting that he read the fll text before the presentation unti the chairman finally gave in. Theparty gotover at midnight. By2.00am, thechairman was soinvolved in the new IBD strategy that he called the head of T toread the fulltext. "Thereisafantasticpossibiityhere. Doyou know about if” he asked the T head. The next day, Deveshiwer changed the order of the presentation, brought IBD up fr ‘and continued with for the rest ofthe day. IBD may well be an exception. Most CEOs are reluctant to take such personal risks. Least fal, heads of public sector un- ddertakings. But not Bharat Petrolaums CEO U. Sundararajan. ‘When BPCL began its big transformation exercise to prepere {or deregulation, it chose a cross-section of young high- per formers ta participate ina three-week off-site workshop. Real- {sing that as CEO he would havea more comprehensive view of the business, Sundararajan tookleave from work, handing over the reins to his deputy and immersed himselfin the process, Or take ICICI. When CEO K:V, Kamath took charge, he fig lured that ICICTs core business of project financing would dry ‘upsooner or later Tis bet was to focus on retall banking Insi¢- ers were sceptical. But Kamath rammed through thefdea."On such strategic issues, you have to stick your eck out,” hesays- Nevertheless, the tendency to slide back is very strong, Sometimes, the courageous decision isto simply remove the ‘escape buttons — or cushions that allow managers to renege on their promises. At Murugappa Group's Cholamandalam [n- vyestment and Finance Company, this aversion for risk was pre- ‘venting managers from alming high. BN. Vasudevan, business head, Vehicle finance division, set himself and his team the macumcorruesewecovony MEER yustiesowontasrennvar ze| i EO Tre Baristas Ravi Deol cutback on service so that his customers could chill out undisturbed. The coffee flowed challenging task ofbreakingoutofthis risk-averse mindset, ie volved the concept ofa dream meeting, where he and his Eranch managers ole uy to beak way om the past and Stop using the ast year asa eferencs point for chang te {ure Branch mmegers were tld to forget about tel current budgets and instead visual ther dream budge, The proces encouraged managers to explode the market potential by ingup monster hudgets two to tes times the sizeof thelrcumert budgets. “2reryone wes apprehensive tat these guys would actually uso thi an opportunity to make easy tar Es. But we were all surprised when the branches acially dreamed much bigger targets,” says Vasudevan. r Butwiat was te guarantee tat the eam would not even- swallybackrackon these targets? ‘Vasudevan decided to take abi personal riskby burning hisbridges. Hemade «public commitment by ealiig press conference. Nex he and his team sent outpressreleses, wore button spelling out the target and plastered gungsno posters Allover the office. "There nothing wore taan fosing once cred. So we make a publiscorsmitment.Irensutts thet ‘weil do everything ep our redband hence, meet Our goals" saya Vasudevan, “The new approach reversed te ‘whole budge setting proces We id not haveto push them anymore fey badetiegetend once ny wen ae, mn pushing us for resources" he say, The result: ioe 1s outta branches ecloedsrcdne dove tie ‘monster tergets and Chola continues to grow theta in ¢ ‘arka thats altendybeginningtoslow down, ‘Think aboutit: ‘Are your business leaders willing to stick thelr necks outand ‘make public commitments on quantum growth targets¥ Are they willing to shed their existing portfollo and take on the challenge of anew quantum growth project? Are ‘growth gen- crating experiments’ ablgpart of their key result areast © ‘ARE YOU REDUCING STRATEGIC PLANNING TO MERELY NUMBER CRUNCHING? Ssuatege planning sabout sizing the future Buryoureun- likely to create the future if all you do is listen to the same vvolces, examine the same data and do projec- {ons from last years numbers, That's what ‘many strategie planning sessions tend to turn into, Of course, @ great deal of time is spenton negotiating targets. Can we grow by 3% more over last year? Are we likely to increase our eur- rent marketshare by 3%? But not enough time is spent on checking If the market has really aged. The same old mental models tend to dominate the srategising process. ‘Thats where injecting greater diversity into the strategy process helps It promotes newer ‘ways of thinking about business opportunities ‘= and also promotes dissenting viewpoints, For instance, last year a well-known firm fig lured that its strategic planning process needed tobe substantially altered so that it could sup- porta new quantum growth initiative. Iethen Interviewed a group of ex-employees who had ‘moved to other leading organisations. They were asked: “What were some of the growth limiting paradigms when you worked in the company?” Having already left the frm, these ‘managers had no qualms about giving unbi- ased feedback. These candid sessions were held in the pres- ence ofthe entire top managementteam, “Ieacted asabigiolt.” saysan executive who satin the session, ‘The interaction provided a key insight that helped shift the ‘rmis entire resource allocation paradigm. In the past, ithad ‘ended to allocate funds for existing businesses before turning toanynewopportunity. Asa results best managers would in- variably be running existing businesses. The growth projects, ‘would sufferin the process. Ciearly this outside-in process trig- gered off a deeper set of conversations about the future that, ‘would not have been possible otherwise. Howmuch time does your organisation spendin thestrate- ‘gic planning process on discussing furure possibilities? Ifthe “answer i ‘very litde, the reasons aren't too difficult o guess. A fundamental rethink often involves questioning assumptions which many CEOs are loathe to do. Afterall, itis so much ‘easier to either discuss tangible items like budgets and targets rather than leading discussions on abstract underlying con- ‘cepts. But unless that pattern is broken, the chances of diseov- ering newer frontiers soften ruled out. ‘hats nay where De Rey's Laberstoses DRL) sores Here, the marketing team led by vice-president (formulations ‘marketing) Arvind Vasudeva spends three days every quarter at an off-site location, discussing new concepts that can lead 10 differentiation and growth. One of the issues that emerged rom such a meet was that DRL medical representatives, ke all ‘mod reps, did not get quality ime with doctors. So, getting doc- torsto try out newer formulations was proving ta be dificult, ‘The company saw that as an important challenge: how do ‘we increase quality time with dociors® How do we differentiate raelves from other pharma companies After some bran. storming, they hit upon the idea of sclentific advisors. lot of doctors are way behind new thinkingiin their field, Scientific ‘advisors would brief doctors on a range of issues lke new mol- ‘ecules and new treatments. I: worked. Doctors were not only ‘open to the idea of prescribing newer molecules, they were willing to meet DRE med reps because ofthe gooduell gener- ated by the team of scientific advisors (referred (o within the {Ormas the’S'team).What'smore, thomedzeps aze able to rack, the prescription habits of doctors more easily. So, whenever, they noticed that a doctor had begun prescribing a new mole-cule, the med reps moved in forthe Kil, Think aboutit: . Have you brought in new volees and fresh inputs into your strategy planning process? just how aften does your top tea ‘meetio discuss radical business possibilities Are yourbright- est managers heading your quantum growth challenges or are they simply.maintaining existing business? @ DO IDEAS GET DILUTED AS THEY TRAVEL DOWN THE, ‘COMPANY CHAIN FROM CONCEPT TO REALISATION? Invariably the biggest struggle isnf-gettng the Bigidea. The real battle begins once the radical ides fs iaunched. There wilt never be a dearth of people who give you perfectly logical ra~ sops why itcantt be done. In most cases, innovation teams un ‘out of steam by the time they have successfully combated the intemal resistance, Even ifthe idea does make it through, it gets diluted and often reduced to apale shadow ofits original self, ‘Sounds familiar? Now meet Mohit Arora, who is TCs point ‘man in the state of Madhya Pradesh for is complex e-choupal project. We ran into him on afield tip through thesmall vil- Jages in MP Through the entizeday, we shot sharp questions on TBD’s e-choupal model at this 30-year-old rural marketing graduate from Hyderabad —and each time, we got incisive an swersin return. By the end ofthe day, we were convinced Arora knew justas much about the business as his CEO many rungs above. And ‘was just as passlonate about making it work. Arora told us his workday started off t six in the morning —and would suetch 1119.00 pm. seven days a week And his mobile phone never stopped ringing tll way past midnight 2s he answered calls ‘rom farmers from all over MP. j tis rare to come across individuals ike Arora. Most of the janioc snaniagers we run into are capable in ther jobs, but lack ‘Aroras birds oye perspective strategy-Andheisnot an lsolated individuc! within IBD efter There are several ot- ‘ers as committed and clued-inas Arora. ‘But such buy-in and commitment doesn't happen easily. IBD didn't communicateits strategy top down-Instead,itchose a different tack: co-evolution. Sivakumar himself facilitated a ‘swo-day session with all his managers leading ‘up to the contours of the radical new idea and then leftitopen to experimentation and tal in ‘the field. Sivakumar says: "Wenever thought of Itas a project because then it freezes action. Co-evolution makes for better mindset as it ‘means continuous learning and developrient ofthe original concept.” ‘The trouble is CEOs often tend to see em- ployees lower down the execution chain as do- ers notthinkers. As result, every time the em- ployee runs into a roadblock, guess what his hext step Js? He calls his manager, who is soon doing precious lite other than firefighting — fonthings hehas hardly any icon. Now co-evolution isnt just asmart way to beat the perennial snaris within the organisa- ton. When Amul launched its pizzas, itant pated resistance in the last mile — from its large ice-cream dealer network Amul would merely supply the pizza base ith acheese top- ping. The dealer could elther sell just the base to customers, or he could add the toppings, ‘bake the pizzas and sell the finished product. BPCLSU. Sundararajan lefthis comer office to brainstorm with his, boysona killer market strategy They delivered CET aaa ‘So, much of the product concept hinged on whether the deal- cers with thal ‘shopkeeper mindset would be willing to act with a‘chefand service’ mindset. Legitimate worries which, if left untackled, could easily bum Amul’ pizza project. Sowhat did Amul do? it developed a team of pizza consultants, drawn from catering college trainees, The pizza consultant would spend four days training ‘the vendor how to makea pizza. Once the dealer was adept at ‘turing outa tasty pizza, he would then be far more attuned to help acustomer makea bette pizza forhimselt ‘Now justhow many organisations would think through to ‘such aminute level of detail in fact, very often, thinking about ‘the last mile isthe biggest casualty. In most cases, managers tend taspend 9595 oftheir time on conceptualising the strategy and harly 5% of the time on implementing it. Most don‘t look ‘upon it as creative challenge, but as an execution task roni- cally, that’s also where the consumer begins to get a glimpse into the concept for the very first time. ‘When Barista, the chain of espresso bars, fst began scop- Ing the market, it realised that it wasn't the coffee that con. suriers were willing to pay for (statistics revealed that an ave ‘age North Indian hardly had more than one cup of coffee i ‘year Instead, itfound that consumers didn't have place they ‘ould hang atound comfortably in, The strategy hinged on ‘whether customers coud be themselves, and do whatever they ‘wanted —read a book, write aletter or simply chill out. More importantly, the consumer needed to know that it was okay they didn't order. The Barista management believed tat ifit coll just engage with te customers, the coffee would dove ‘But executing i on the ground had its share of challenges For one, most consumers typically fole awkward sitting in 2 restaurant without having ordered anything. Invertably, the ‘waiter would come around to ask f they wanted to place ar or der That’ where the Barista team camae up with anew thought: redefine the service model which was built around the sub: servient mindset. So the eam at the parlour werent ‘clarified waiters’ but ‘Brew Masters” —professionalsin the art of mak- coffee. They would no longer maintain an unequal relation- ship with customers — instead they would address them by their first name. This wasniteasy because most catering college students were always taught to address customers as ‘Si!CEO Tee ‘Therefore, te orientation programme at Barista specifically focussed on enabling the team to understand the arutudes and behaviours in traditional restaurants which act as barriers in letting the customer be herself. Part ofthat involved sending trainee Baristas as customers not just to other restaurants but also to the Baristasin that city ‘Nex time you are in a five-star hotel, remember to sneak {nto one of the perennial productlaunch conferences atthe Danquet halls The chances are that much oft wil be about generating hype seksi shows accompariedby Pubting ‘ausie— but less to do with intllinga sense of ownership. Its ‘more about communicating rather than co-creating. "Nowonder the resultin most cases isso appalling: 50-60%