Bharti Walmart Tie-up - Great Day for Indian Retail Industry

Bharti and Walmart announced a joint venture in Retail today. This is just amazing news for a retail enthusiast like me.
Walmart would manage the Supply chain while Bharti would manage the front end of the new stores. The stores would be in the Walmart format. Bharti has expertise in executing huge and large scale operations and it would be a good partner for Walmart.

What does this really mean for India and Indians?

1. World class stores with good customer service
2. Everyday Low Prices (hopefully)
3. Quality assortment of merchandise ( Not that Walmart has the best quality in US but they must be good for current Indian retail standards)
4. More jobs
5. More related jobs across the supply chain --- Really an understatement. Imagine all the producers and their suppliers and so on.

Having worked on the IT systems of major US retailers for over 7 years I fancy working in one of these companies and imagine the countless possibilities & challenges one might encounter when working in such a 'start up'.

Riding in on 2 booms

Sobha Developers IPO opened last week and got the expected response from investors. The price was between 560 and 640. At the higher end of the band, the stock would trade at 40x its earnings. I feel this is expensive but given the way markets are nobody bothers to question..

Looking at Sobha promoters themselves, they have really cashed in on 2 booms.
1) They rode on the real estate boom and have cashed in on that and made tonnes of money. They priced their properties at exorbitant rates and made the most of it. They knew that the IT guys would pay anything for flat in Bangalore.

2) Now they are all set to cash in on the stock market boom with their overpriced IPO. They know that investors (still hysterical about the Indian economy) would oversubscribe to the issue and make it a big hit.

Ohhh..Did I sound like a dirty socialist for a second?

A case of mistaken identity

I was in production support some time back and we were supporting Payroll in a large retail company.
I get this email one morning
Email from Archibald: I found a serious issue in a payroll function that I need to talk with you. Can we please talk about it tomorrow ?
Reply from Me: Sure Archibald. What is your number?
Next email from Archibald: 23437716
Reply from Me: Is that 208 (Boise) or 602 (Phoenix) or 801 (Salt Lake City)?
Archibald: Thats 080 - Bangalore
Me (Thinking...): Ahhhh...offshore....shucks. Name sounded like a client fellow
Reply from Me: Archibald, can we talk about it next week? Guess it can wait.

What is neutral accent?

We have all heard people in our ITES and BPO industry talk about having a neutral English accent. I always thought the way NDTV anchors speak is what all of us call this "neutral" accent.

But recently a thought has been running in my mind. Neutral accent, according to me is really farcical. English is supposed to be spoken the way British folks speak. American accent, Australian accent, Scottish accent are all accepted but Britain is really where modern English was really born.
When it comes to India, the way Mallus speak English is totally different from the way Bengalis speak. North Indian accent is different from any other regional accent.
So what is neutral accent really? Its also an Indian accent, without accent modifiers coming in from the above regional accents.

But in my opinion, if someone wants to speak English with a neutral accent, he should be speaking the way Hugh Grant or Tony Blair speak and not like Pranoy Roy or Vikram Chandra.

Married and now its 2 1/2 months..

I am back from blogging hibernation. Obviously evident from my previous post, my Marriage was the reason for me neglecting this space.

Now I am back and hope to blog regularly from now on.