Trust our Bhutanese consultants!

The famous story about a yak consultant who asked, 'what is that?', on seeing a yak may be an urban legend.

But many external consultants sometimes make this story seem true. 

Go to any Government department - you will find many cookie-cutter reports full of half-baked ideas gathering dust on bookshelves and file racks. Some recommendations await implementation long after the consultant has returned to his country. In the process resources are expended but not much value is added, which is a problem.

I was wondering why Bhutanese consultants are not recruited. There are many qualified individuals capable of delivering results and there are clear benefits in recruiting them:

1. They are familiar with the way things work in Bhutan and it is easier for them to understand the problems/issues at hand.

2. They belong to the society and have their practices established in Bhutan. The quality of work they deliver has implications for them as citizens and business, and thus have incentives and motivations to do a good job.

3. Being locally based, they are cheaper and easily accessible during and after the assignment.

4. You do not have to host them in hotels, provide them a guide to teach Bhutan history and take them for sight-seeing. They will be more focused on the assignment.

They definitely sound a better value for our money. 

But this demands a change in the attitude of those who procure these services. They must realise that 'external'  isn't necessarily 'quality and efficiency'. They should trust the capability of our local consultants and encourage them to engage with the Government.

Make them employable!

BT's story 'Employability is the issue, Stupid!' makes an interesting read.

Anup Singh rightly identifies lack of skills as a problem which the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources (MoLHR) also acknowledges. But this is common knowledge. Some positions in sectors such as power, medicine and energy do require specialised technical skills, but there are positions in divisions like finance, business development and administration

where liberal arts and social sciences graduates can be employed.

A mismatch is inevitable if technical positions are seen as destinations for these graduates. But this is definitely not the case. I am yet to meet a social science graduate who wants to be an engineer with the BPC.

To expect a ready skilled individual from tertiary institutions is as impractical as is uneconomical.

Rather than dwelling on problems, MoLHR should start looking for solutions. For instance, how about encouraging corporations to provide training for new recruits as is done in many other countries? Managers and Directors in corporations should also be made to understand that good employees are developed within and not recruited from the outside.

Essentials of success

Spend a 3 minutes watching this incredible video of a TED lecture to know the essentials of success.. 

Of cars and decisions

For an urban Bhutanese, few things are more important than owning a car. Since the first indications in early August that the Government proposed to impose sales tax of 50% to 100% on vehicles, there has been a frantic surge in car and vehicle bookings. Now evidently all of these were for nothing. 

The whole spectacle benefited only a few auto-dealers while the public were in a drama of panic and hysteria as the people rushed to order vehicles like never before. Meanwhile the Government leisurely took almost six weeks to brand the supposed 'proposal' as a mere speculation. 

If this was a speculation, I would think that this was so even in early August. This incident clearly demonstrates the inability of our policy makers and individuals in positions of authority to make effective decisions. What was the reason? I would not want to speculate on but as a citizen I aspire to see our leaders to make informed decisions and more importantly at the right time.

I am grateful that this was only about cars and not something of a graver nature.

Bhutan Telecom - Lessons in business strategy

I am awed by the instability and trepidation that TashiCell has caused to Bhutan Telecom (BT).  I envisaged that TashiCell would feel intimidated while going into the mobile business but the dynamics that has been playing out in BT recently makes me think otherwise.

What went wrong with BT?

BT had everything, the most significant of which are - 

1. First Mover Advantage - BMobile began in 2003 and 5 years is a sufficient time for any firm to establish itself as a reliable and a dominant brand, especially in the absence of competition, and build resources and capabilities that will help reduce its cost base. This would have created huge barriers to entry for any new competitors. 

2. Market - Whole of Bhutan was solely open to BT for the last five years and had the opportunity to develop a strong and a loyal customer base. 

Obviously BT didn't do both. Either the management were myopic or too confident, but that is irrelevant now.

The recent promotion of 11 employees and the subsequent row within BT reflects that the problems run deep within the organisation. BT, at least 20 years old, doesn't seem to have a culture that the employees identify with. In times of distress, I would expect measured responses by the management and togetherness of the employees. An alarming 97% lodging a complaint with the ACC is not a good news for an organisation already pushed to the wall by a youthful competitor. 

Lucky!!!  - TashiCell needn't do anything.

BT has squandered every opportunity it has been presented with. It would require a strong management team and discipline to quell the storm inside and fight the competition outside.

3 for the Week!!

1. The UEFA Champions League 1st Round - Yes.. it is back. 32 big European clubs begin their journey to Rome. Will the English teams dominate like the last year? or Will some other clubs rise to the challenge? I would relish some upsets in the first few rounds. Anyway Follow the Champions league. You can test your managerial skills by playing Champions League Fantasy Football. You have Euros 100m to buy 15 players and manage them.

2. Will Lehman go down - The financial industry is holding their breath to find out if the investment bank Lehman Brother's will have found a buyer. Barclays pulled out and everybody will be hoping to hear something good about the economy and the industry.

3. Finding the Higgs - I should have done this last week. CERN's LHC is in full motion. Whatever it finds or doesn't find, it will have advanced our understanding of science and the universe. It would be great to keep track of the experiment. If I am not wrong, this is a 20 year experiment.

Have a good week!!

Most Corrupt - The construction industry?

Relative to our economy, the construction industry in Bhutan is huge. Asian Development Bank's Outlook 2006 ascribes 50% of GDP growth in 2005 to this industry. The Construction Development Board lists over 1900 contractors and this industry brings together the donor partners, government departments, engineers, suppliers and the public who ultimately use the infrastructure. Given the amount of resources this industry manages, it is vulnerable to speculation and lots of unverified suppositions.

Take the recent story in Kuensel - Being constructive about corruption. This supports my perception that there has always been a sense of urgency in branding the construction industry as corrupt. This has been ongoing for the past few years and these have adversely affected the motivations of the people working in this sector. It does very little to encourage individuals, Government and private, to innovate and bring forth new ideas.

The task force, evidently composed of distinguished professionals, could have done more than just identifying generic problems which are as much applicable to any other sector as to the construction industry. The report doesn't bring out any new facts that realistically establishes the prevalence of corruption in the construction industry. It would do good if the whole report is made available.

However we cannot deny that it isn't a clean slate. The industry, big as it is, is susceptible to inconsistencies, manipulations and irregularities. But it is so with the others too.

For the Week!

Number 1: TED Ideas Worth Spreading

A friend of mine came over for lunch and she suggested me a wonderful website (click title) where you can see incredibly wonderful videos of lectures delivered by eminent individuals from various fields. Watch these videos and you will be enchanted, educated and inspired.

Number 2: Bhutanese football team does have a chance

Andorra ranked 186 (4 places above Bhutan) could hold England goaless until the 2nd half. I know England went for the kill but it was a difficult one though they did win 2-0. I think our team has a chance and the quality has been improving which is evident from the recently concluded league tournament.

I wait to see how the English team perform against Croatia in Zagreb on Wednesday (watch it). They wouldn't want a repeat of Wembley when they were beaten 3-2 and left out of Euro 2008.

FDI in Bhutan - Benefits

Evaluating the benefits of Foreign Direct Investment in Bhutan has been long due since the policy was developed and adopted in 2002. The proposed endeavour of MoEA (Ministry of Economic Affairs) exhibit a few things that may be useful to everybody:

1. Inability to see through any projects completely : The FDI policy was never marketed or promoted properly (adapted from Kuensel story, see link below) and there has been no or little monitoring of how the policy and the subsequent regulations were implemented.

2. Stakeholder Management : The Ministry of Labour and the Royal Monetary Authority were partners in the implementation of the FDI policy. It is very evident that there was no clear allocation and division of responsibilities between different agencies.

3. Project Evaluation : Why is the consultant only looking at 'employment generation' and 'foreign exchange reserve', leaving all the other important objectives the FDI policy states? I would like to see the consultant come up with a comprehensive study of how much technology and skills transfer, and knowledge up-gradation FDI has engendered. These are true values to be generated through FDI in the long run: to enable our industry take up such ventures in the future. If these are not looked into, I feel this particular study is uncalled for. It is important to use measures that will indicate true value of projects.

However, I hope we will find meaningful indicators through this study.

Related links: The benefits of FDI from Kuensel