Sunday, July 29, 2012

State Bank Of India - A Company analysis


OVERVIEW OF THE BANKING INDUSTRY

Banking in India originated in the last decades of the 18th century. Theoldest bank in existence in India is the State Bank of India, a government-owned bank that traces its origins back to June 1806 and that is the largest commercial bank in world.

Early History

When the American Civil War stopped the supply of cotton to Lancashire from the Confederate States, promoters opened banks to finance trading inIndian cotton. With large exposure to speculative ventures, most of the banks opened in India during that period failed. The depositors lost money and lostinterest in keeping deposits with banks. Subsequently, banking in Indiaremained the exclusive domain of Europeans for next several decades until the beginning of the 20th century.Foreign banks too started to arrive, particularly in Calcutta, in the 1860s. TheComptoire d'Escompte de Paris opened a branch in Calcutta in 1860, and another in Bombay in 1862; branches in Madras and Pondicherry, then a French colony, followed. Calcutta was the most active trading port in India, mainly due to the trade of the British Empire, and so became a banking center.Around the turn of the 20th Century, the Indian economy was passing through are lative period of stability. Around five decades had elapsed since the Indian  Mutiny, and the social, industrial and other infrastructure had improved. Indianshad established small banks, most of which served particular ethnic andreligious communities. The presidency banks dominated banking in India but there were also someexchange banks and a number of Indian joint stock banks. All these banks operated in different segments of the economy. The exchange banks, mostly owned by Europeans, concentrated on financing foreign trade. Indian joint stock  banks were generally under capitalized and lacked the experience and maturityto compete with the presidency and exchange banks. This segmentation let Lord Curzon to observe,
"In respect of banking it seems we are behind the times. Weare like some old fashioned sailing ship, divided by solid wooden bulkheadsinto separate and cumbersome compartments." 
By the 1900s, the market expanded with the establishment of banks such asPunjab National Bank , in 1895 in Lahore andBank of India, in 1906, inMumbai- both of which were founded under private ownership. Punjab National Bank is the first Swadeshi Bank founded by the leaders like Lala Rai.

Nationalization:

By the 1960s, the Indian banking industry has become an important tool tofacilitate the development of theIndian economy. At the same time, it hasemerged as a large employer, and a debate has ensued about the possibility tonationalize the banking industry.Indira Gandhi, the-thenPrime Minister of  Indiaexpressed the intention of theGOIin the annual conference of the AllIndia Congress Meeting in a paper entitled

"Stray thoughts on Bank  Nationalization."

The paper was received with positive enthusiasm. Thereafter,her move was swift and sudden, and the GOI issued an ordinance andnationalizedthe 14 largest commercial banks with effect from the midnight of July 19,1969.Jayaprakash Narayan, a national leader of India, described thestep as a
"masterstroke of political sagacity."
Within two weeks of the issue of the ordinance, theParliamentpassed the Banking Companies (Acquisition andTransfer of Undertaking) Bill, and it received the presidentialapproval on 9August, 1969.A second dose of nationalization of 6 more commercial banks followed in 1980.The stated reason for the nationalization was to give the government morecontrol of credit delivery. With the second dose of nationalization, the GOIcontrolled around 91% of the banking business of India. Later on, in the year 1993, the government merged New Bank of IndiawithPunjab National Bank . Itwas the only merger between nationalized banks and resulted in the reduction of the number of nationalized banks from 20 to 19. After this, until the 1990s, thenationalized banks grew at a pace of around 4%, closer to the average growthrate of the Indian economy.The nationalized banks were credited by some, includingHome minister  P. Chidambaram, to have helped theIndian economywithstand the globalfinancial crisis of 2007-2009.

Liberalization:

In the early 1990s, the then Narsimha Raogovernment embarked on a policy of liberalization, licensing a small number of private banks. These came to beknown as
 New Generation tech-savvy banks
, and included Global Trust Bank (the first of such new generation banks to be set up), which later amalgamatedwith Oriental Bank of Commerce,UTI Bank (now re-named asAxis Bank ),ICICI Bank andHDFC Bank . This move, along with the rapid growth in theeconomy of India, revitalized the banking sector in India, which has seen rapidgrowth with strong contribution from all the three sectors of banks, namely,government banks, private banks and foreign banks.The next stage for the Indian banking has been setup with the proposedrelaxation in the norms for Foreign Direct Investment, where all ForeignInvestors in banks may be given voting rights which could exceed the presentcap of 10%,at present it has gone up to 49% with some restrictions.The new policy shook the Banking sector inIndiacompletely. Bankers, till thistime, were used to the 4-6-4 method (Borrow at 4%;Lend at 6%;Go home at 4)of functioning. The new wave ushered in a modern outlook and tech-savvymethods of working for traditional banks.All this led to the retail boom in India.People not just demanded more from their banks but also received more.Currently (2007), banking in India is generally fairly mature in terms of supply, product range and reach-even though reach in rural India still remains achallenge for the private sector and foreign banks. In terms of quality of assetsand capital adequacy, Indian banks are considered to have clean, strong andtransparent balance sheets relative to other banks in comparable economies inits region. The Reserve Bank of India is an autonomous body, with minimal pressure from the government. The stated policy of the Bank on the IndianRupee is to manage volatility but without any fixed exchange rate-and this hasmostly been true.With the growth in the Indian economy expected to be strong for quite sometime-especially in its services sector-the demand for banking services,especiallyretail banking, mortgages and investment services are expected to bestrong. One may also expect M&As, takeovers, and asset sales.In March 2006, the Reserve Bank of India allowed Warburg Pincus to increaseits stake in Kotak Mahindra Bank (a private sector bank) to 10%. This is thefirst time an investor has been allowed to hold more than 5% in a private sector  bank since the RBI announced norms in 2005 that any stake exceeding 5% inthe private sector banks would need to be vetted by them.In recent years critics have charged that the non-government owned banks aretoo aggresive in their loan recovery efforts in connection with housing, vehicleand personal loans. There are press reports that the banks' loan recovery effortshave driven defaulting borrowers to suicide.


COMPANY PROFILE OF SBI

State Bank of India (SBI) is India's largest commercial bank. SBI has a vastdomestic network of over 9000 branches (approximately 14% of all bank  branches) and commands one-fifth of deposits and loans of all scheduledcommercial banks in India.The State Bank Group includes a network of eight banking subsidiaries andseveral non-banking subsidiaries offering merchant banking services, fund.

Ø  The Eight Banking Subsidiaries.
  1. State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur(SBBJ)
  2. State Bank of Hyderabad(SBH)
  3. State Bank of Mysore(SBM)
  4. State Bank of India(SBI)
  5. State Bank of Indore(SBIR)
  6. State Bank of Patiala(SBP)
  7. State Bank of Travancore(SBT)
  8. State Bank of Saurashtra(SBS)
History

The roots of the State Bank of India lie in the first decade of 19th century, when the Bank of Calcutta, later renamed the Bank of Bengal, was established on 2 June 1806. The Bank of Bengal was one of three Presidency banks, the other two being the Bank of Bombay (incorporated on 15 April 1840) and the Bank of Madras (incorporated on 1 July 1843). All three Presidency banks were incorporated as joint stock companies and were the result of the royal charters. These three banks received the exclusive right to issue paper currency in 1861 with the Paper Currency Act, a right they retained until the formation of the Reserve Bank of India. The Presidency banks amalgamated on 27 January 1921, and the re-organized banking entity took as its name Imperial Bank of India. The Imperial Bank of India remained a joint stock company.
Pursuant to the provisions of the State Bank of India Act of 1955, the Reserve Bank of India, which is India's central bank, acquired a controlling interest in the Imperial Bank of India. On 30 April 1955, the Imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India. The government of India recently acquired the Reserve Bank of India's stake in SBI so as to remove any conflict of interest because the RBI is the country's banking regulatory authority.
In 1959, the government passed the State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, enabling the State Bank of India to take over eight former state-associated banks as its subsidiaries. On 13 September 2008, the State Bank of Saurashtra, one of its associate banks, merged with the State Bank of India.
SBI has acquired local banks in rescues. For instance, in 1985, it acquired the Bank of Cochin in Kerala, which had 120 branches. SBI was the acquirer as its affiliate, the State Bank of Travancore, already had an extensive network in Kerala.

International presence

The Israeli branch of the State Bank of India located in Ramat Gan.
As of 31 December 2009, the bank had 157 overseas offices spread over 32 countries. It has branches of the parent in Colombo, Dhaka, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Tehran, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Male in the Maldives, Muscat, Dubai, New York, Osaka, Sydney, and Tokyo. It has offshore banking units in the Bahamas, Bahrain, and Singapore, and representative offices in Bhutan and Cape Town. It also has an ADB in Boston, USA.
SBI operates several foreign subsidiaries or affiliates. In 1990, it established an offshore bank: State Bank of India (Mauritius).
In 1982, the bank established a subsidiary, State Bank of India (California), which now has ten branches – nine branches in the state of California and one in Washington, D.C. The 10th branch was opened in Fremont, California on 28 March 2011. The other eight branches in California are located in Los Angeles, Artesia, San Jose, Canoga Park, Fresno, San Diego, Tustin and Bakersfield.
The Canadian subsidiary, State Bank of India (Canada) also dates to 1982. It has seven branches, four in the Toronto area and three in British Columbia.
In Nigeria, SBI operates as INMB Bank. This bank began in 1981 as the Indo-Nigerian Merchant Bank and received permission in 2002 to commence retail banking. It now has five branches in Nigeria.
In Nepal, SBI owns 55% of Nepal SBI Bank, which has branches throughout the country. In Moscow, SBI owns 60% of Commercial Bank of India, with Canara Bank owning the rest. In Indonesia, it owns 76% of PT Bank Indo Monex.
The State Bank of India already has a branch in Shanghai and plans to open one in Tianjin.[6]
In Kenya, State Bank of India owns 76% of Giro Commercial Bank, which it acquired for US$8 million in October 2005.[7]..
The State Bank of India (with 74% of the total capital) along with the largest global banking group—BNP Paribas (with 26% of the remaining capital) headquartered in Paris—formed a joint venture which established India's most reputed and trusted life insurance company named SBI Life Insurance company Ltd. in March 2001.
[ ]Associate banks
SBI has five associate banks; all use the same logo of a blue circle and all the associates use the "State Bank of" name, followed by the regional headquarters' name:
1.       State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur
2.       State Bank of Hyderabad
3.       State Bank of Mysore
4.       State Bank of Patiala
5.       State Bank of Travancore
Earlier SBI had only seven associate banks that constituted the State Bank Group. Originally, the then seven banks that became the associate banks belonged to princely states until the government nationalised them between October 1959 and May 1960. In tune with the first Five Year Plan, emphasising the development of rural India, the government integrated these banks into the State Bank of India system to expand its rural outreach. There has been a proposal to merge all the associate banks into SBI to create a "mega bank" and streamline operations.[8]
The first step towards unification occurred on 13 August 2008 when State Bank of Saurashtra merged with SBI, reducing the number of state banks from seven to six. Then on 19 June 2009 the SBI board approved the merger of its subsidiary, State Bank of Indore, with itself. SBI holds 98.3% in State Bank of Indore. (Individuals who held the shares prior to its takeover by the government hold the balance of 1.77%.)[9]
The acquisition of State Bank of Indore added 470 branches to SBI's existing network of 12,448 and over 21,000 ATMs. Also, following the acquisition, SBI's total assets will inch very close to the 10 trillion mark. The total assets of SBI and the State Bank of Indore stood at 9,981,190 million as of March 2009. The process of merging of State Bank of Indore was completed by April 2010, and the SBI Indore branches started functioning as SBI branches on 26 August 2010.
 [ ]Non-banking subsidiaries
Apart from its five associate banks, SBI also has the following non-banking subsidiaries:
1.       SBI Capital Markets Ltd
2.       SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd
3.       SBI Factors & Commercial Services Pvt Ltd
4.       SBI Cards & Payments Services Pvt. Ltd. (SBICPSL)
5.       SBI DFHI Ltd
6.       SBI Life Insurance Company Ltd.
7.       SBI General Insurance
[ ]Current Board of Directors
After the end of O. P. Bhatt's reign as SBI chairman on 31 March 2011, the post was taken over by Pratip Chaudhuri, who is the former deputy managing director of the international division of SBI. As of 4 August 2011, there are twelve members in the SBI board of directors, including Subir Gokarn, who is also one of the four deputy governors of the Reserve Bank of India. The complete list of the Board members is:
1.       Pratip Chaudhuri (Chairman)
2.       Hemant G. Contractor (Managing Director)
3.       Diwakar Gupta (Managing Director)
4.       A Krishna Kumar (Managing Director)
5.       Dileep C Choksi (Director)
6.       S. Venkatachalam (Director)
7.       D. Sundaram (Director)
8.       Parthasarathy Iyengar (Director)
9.       G. D. Nadaf (Officer Employee Director)
10.   Rashpal Malhotra (Director)
11.   D. K. Mittal (Director)
12.   Subir V. Gokarn (Director)
[ ]Branches of SBI
State Bank of India has 172 foreign offices in 37 countries across the globe.
SBI has about 26,000+ ATMs (25,000th ATM was inaugurated by the then Chairman of State Bank Shri O.P. Bhatt on 31 March 2011, the day of his retirement); and SBI group(including associate banks) has about 45,000 ATMs.
SBI has 21,500 branches, including branches that belong to its associate banks.
SBI includes 99345 offices in India.
India's number one ADB is in bellary i e State bank of India bellary ADB
[ ]Symbol and slogan
The symbol of the State Bank of India is a circle and a small man at the center of the circle (and not a key hole). A circle depicts perfection and the common man being the centre of the bank's business.
Slogans : "Pure banking nothing else"
also includes : "With you – all the way" "a bank of common man" and " Banker to every Indian"
[ ]Loan to NTPC
On 8 July 2011, SBI agreed to give a loan of 100 billion to NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation), making it the largest loan SBI had ever given to any single customer in its entire 200 year history. The loan had a "door-to-door" maturity period of 12 years, accompanied by a drawdown period of four years. An NTPC press release said at the time of the declaration of the loan that: "The loan shall be utilized for financing the capital expenditure of ongoing and new projects."
NTPC chairman at the time, Arup Roy Choudhury clarified that the loan amount would be used to add 128,000 MW capacity by the end of year 2032 (NTPC'c capacity at the time of the declaration of the loan was 34,584 MW).
This loan was offered amidst declining finance for power projects in India, which were a direct result of the lending constraints placed by the Reserve Bank of India and the increased risk awareness of power projects. It will also help minimise the shortfall of around 4.51 trillion that the Power Ministry of India expected to incur in achieving the objectives of the Eleventh Five Year Plan (This plan targeted an addition of 78,577 MW or power generation capacity which would require an investment of 10.3 trillion).

[ ]Recent awards and recognitions
1.       Best Online Banking Award, Best Customer Initiative Award & Best Risk Management Award (Runner Up) by IBA Banking Technology Awards 2010
2.       The Bank of the year 2009, India (won the second year in a row) by The Banker Magazine
3.       Best Bank – Large and Most Socially Responsible Bank by the Business Bank Awards 2009
4.       Best Bank 2009 by Business India
5.       The Most Trusted Brand 2009 by The Economic Times
6.       Most Preferred Bank & Most preferred Home loan provider by CNBC
7.       Visionaries of Financial Inclusion By FINO
8.       Technology Bank of the Year by IBA Banking Technology Awards
9.       SKOCH Award 2010 for Virtual corporation Category for its e-payment solution
10.   The Brand Trust Report:[14] 11th most trusted brand in India.

  MISSION STATEMENT
Ø  To retain the banks position as the premier indian financial services. It also aims to be a group with world class standards and significant global business commitments to excellence in customer, shareholder and employee satisfaction so as to play a leading role in expanding and diversifying financial services while continuing emphasis on its development banking role.
  Vision Statement
Ø  To be a premier Indian financial services group with global perspective, world class standard of the efficiency and professionalism and also its core institutional values, To retain its position in the country as a pioneer in developing countries, It also aims to maximize its shareholders value through high sustained earnings per share, To become an institution with a culture of mutual care and commitment. It also focuses on a pleasant working environment to have continuous learning opportunities.


Values
  1.   Excellence in customer service
  2.   Profit orientation
  3.   Belonging and commitment to bank 
  4.   Fairness in all dealings and relations
  5.   Risk taking and innovations
  6.   Team playing
  7.   Learning and renewal
  8.   IntegrityTransparency
  9.   Discipline in policies and systems  
Changing Strategies of SBI

  1991

Ø  Maintaining profitability
Ø  Credit Portfolio
Ø  Management
Ø  Service Quality
Ø  Regional Economy
Ø  Cost Management /
Ø  Expense reduction
Ø  Declining
Ø  Earnings/ more failures

  2011

Ø  Service quality
Ø  Maintaining profitability
Ø  Market / customer focus
Ø  Operations/systems/technology
Ø  Credit portfolio management
Ø  Productivity Improvement
Ø  Investment to stay competitive

What was going wrong?

  1.   Intense competition in the Banking Industry
  2.   Declining market share in every category.
  3.   Competitors inching closer
  4.   Core Banking Solution not so solvent with the good folks.
  5.   It has lost its connect with the modern customer.
So  What were the changes to be brought?

  1.   Customer centric approach.
  2.   Optimizing the technology the bank used.
  3.   Leveraging the financial, material and human capitals the bank had to grow faster and into new areas.
  4.   Expansion and Leadership Development.
Project Parivartan
Ø  Brain child of OP Bhatt.
Ø  First ever of its kind.
Ø  To gain support and acceptance of the change initiatives.
Ø  Aimed at every single employee from root to tip.
Ø  Objective was to bring a change in the attitude and approaches of the work force.
Ø  Objective was to get maximum Buy in.
Ø  Change within a change.




Parivartan – What was different

·        Completely structured
·        Multimedia Based
·        Interactive Sensitizing sessions
·        Learning session on customer centricity and relationship.
·        Concluding Session calling employees to embrace relationship banking



SWOT Analysis

         Strength
·         Strong domestic position
·         Sustained reach and customer coincidence
·        Strong capital position
         Weakness
·         High NPA
·         Prone to political interventions
         Opportunities
·         E banking benefits
·         Investments in IT will reduce costs
·         New business activities will expand the market share
         Threats
·         Opening  up of banking sector post 2009
·         Stiffening competition
·         Global economic slowdown 

Innovative Products

       It launched a special service for corporate customers called 'telebanking’ and remote login' to support transactional requests.
       The bank's trade finance solution, called EXIMBILLS.
       SBI alliances with insurance companies. 

Strategies to cope with the current scenario

  1.   It is the part of SBI`s philosophy to open new branches .The Bank is forging ahead with cutting edge technology and innovative new banking models, to expand its Rural Banking base.
  2.   Country‘s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI) has prepared a blueprint to go retail in its international operations.
  3.   In response to signals from the central bank, SBI have progressively reduced their PLR from 13.75% to 12.25%.
  4.   SBI is working on infrastructure sector projects, which has seen a growth of 26%in the current year.
  5.   With market-linked products finding fewer takers, insurance companies are launching more ―guaranteed products to lure investors. The latest to join the bandwagon is SBI Life insurance with SBI Smart ULIP.






















Monday, July 23, 2012

Productivity and Teamwork


Definition of 'Productivity'
An economic measure of output per unit of input. Inputs include labor and capital, while output is typically measured in revenues and other GDP components such as business inventories. Productivity measures may be examined collectively (across the whole economy) or viewed industry by industry to examine trends in labor growth, wage levels and technological improvement.

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/productivity.asp#ixzz21S3i3NeN


The Importance of Productivity

Productivity is a key measure of supply-side economic performance and labour efficiency.
Output per person employed.


PRODUCTIVITY LESSON


Of all the cases in the world we learnt about the productivity through a small copyrighted video for training purpose which I will call the “three monks”. Showcasing the video is not possible anyhow I will describe that very much.

Scene 1-
A monastery located on the top of a hill and the only water source (river/lake) is at the bottom. To collect water one needs to get it from the bottom of the hill in buckets. His daily routine was shouldering water, chanting sutras, knocking the wooden fish, adding water to the holy water bottle on the table honoring the Goddess of Mercy, and watching over the mice from stealing food at night. His life was smooth and comfortable.

The Players-

 




Initially there are 2 monks. Soon after, a tall monk came. He drank half of the jar’s water as soon as he arrived at the temple, so the little monk asked him to fetch water.  They could only carry one bucket a time, and they would only feel content when the bucket was placed in the middle of the shoulder pole. Anyway, they still had water to drink in this way. Who after lot of fighting with each other, decided to carry the bucket together using a rod/log, and share the load equally – THE TEAMWORK.

 Scene 2 –

When they collected enough water, they were joined by the third monk the big fat one, tired from all the climbing and finished all the water in the monastery.
Everyone chanted his own sutras and knocked his own wooden fish. As nobody would add water to the holy water bottle, the plant in the bottle withered soon.




Scene 3
FIRE FIRE FIRE


Later that night, At night, a mouse came out stealing, but everyone pretended not to see it. As a result, the mouse was so rampant that it knocked over the candleholder and caused a fire. There was a fire in the monastery. Ina desperate  attempt to save the monastery all the 3 monks forgot their differences and started working together. Dividing the path in three parts.

Methodology In FIRE – The Teamwork and Productivity Lesson

1.First monk filled the buckets from the source and give it to the second monk.
2. Second monk run the middle section and gives the bucket to the third monk.
3. The third monk takes the bucket to the monastery and pour the water on the fire. 

The OUTCOME –
With lot of effort they were able to extinguish the fire and save the monastery.
Lesson Learnt -
This made them realise to have a proper way of bringing water up to the monastery.
The Sustenance
 So next morning they came up with a simple solution. They installed a pulley on the cliff, through which one monk can lower a hook to the river.  Another monk can hang the bucket filled with water to the hook, which can be pulled up using the pulley. The third monk can carry the bucket from pulley to the monastery.

Something about the VIDEO

The film tells a simplest story with simplest lines and a simplest form. There is no dubbed voice. Even the background music is reduced to the occasional sound of wooden fish. But it is this simplicity that makes people unwilling to miss a single scene. When we review the Three Monks after seeing numerous Japanese, Korean, European and American cartoons, we will be shocked. We will even smugly say, look at our Chinese “silent movie”. Maybe, only Chinese water-and-ink painting has such a magic to depict a figure with distinct personality with just a few strokes. The film is based on a folk proverb. It has national features, a complete scene of mountain, water and temple drawn with traditional painting skills, and figures with strong characters. Although it is meant to reason things out, the film is humorous and void of rigid sermon.  
INDIVIDUAL Vs COLLECTIVE APPROACH
To put out the fire each monk got panicked and tried his best to run down to the river and bring the bucket full of water. But this process was ling and tiring, and also had to many glitches on the road. So it proved to be ineffective.
Coordinated effort dosed of fire very easily and without being tired.
Productivity is Important
Productivity is about how well an organisation converts resource inputs into goods or services.
Workplace productivity is about how firms can utilise labour and skills, innovation, technology and
organisational structure to improve the quantity and quality of their output.
Basically it's about exploring all the ways that can make a working environment more efficient.
Why is productivity important?
• Basis for improvements in real incomes and economic well-being.
• Monetary policy (inflationary pressures)
• Fiscal policy (financing of health, education, welfare)
• Slow productivity growth = conflicting demands for distribution of income more likely







Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Three Idiots Crossing the Valley - Teamwork Principle

TeamWork??


The process of working together with a group of people in order to achieve a goal.
The team work is often a crucial part of a business as it is often necessary for colleagues to work well together, trying for the best in any circumstances. Team work often means people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedbacks, despite any personal conflicts between the individual.

Why Team work is important?

Well its one thing to create a team but quite an another to create teamwork in the workplace. Just its one thing to join a team, quite another to perform as a team member. To put it in simple words, teams doesn’t work without teamwork.

What is teamwork?
There are several ways to define team work but for some color why not think as French do. The French have an excellent term for team work “espirt de corps       ”. This means a sense of unity, of enthusiasm for common interest and responsibilities.





Let’s have a look at the below picture




We can see that there are three people crossing the valley without much of a trouble. It has been possible only due to teamwork had made this impossible task possible. This is the beauty of team work, the MAGIC works in this way.



We have the following observations:-



1.       All three members have equal distribution of different kinds of situation :
High Risk 01 times
Half Risks 02 times
Fully Safe 02 times
2.       All three members have the same role in terms of effort and risk. Nobody was overloaded or relaxed.
3.       Communication and feedback is essential while working in a team.
4.       Every member is indispensable in completing the task.
5.       There were equal instances when one needed each other.


Five Stages of team work

Pshychologist bruce teckman came up with five key stages through which team moves. They are

1.       Forming
2.       Storming
3.       Norming
4.       Performing
5.       Adjourning 






Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Khan Academy.org - Making Studying Change

Khan Academy - A Revolution in Making - Redesigning Learning

Khan academy is a name now synonymous with the generation-i, who are glued to social networking sites like Youtube for most of their time through their computers and mobiles. It has become a viral way of studying at your own pace and at your time.

Khan Academy - Profile

TOGETHER WE KHAN



The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. With the stated mission of "providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere", the website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematicshistoryhealthcare and medicinefinance,physicschemistrybiologyastronomyeconomicscosmologyorganic chemistry, American civicsart historymacroeconomics and microeconomics, and computer science.


About Salman "Sal" Khan 


Salman Khan 

Khan was born in Louisana, USA, an MBA from HBS, technical BS from MIT, a former hedge funds analyst, who left his job to pursue a dream of free for all education system and went on to get funding from Bill and Melinda gates foundation for "Khan Academy".

Principles of Organisational Management - Its all there in Khan Academy


It all started with a small idea or out of a sheer need of Salman to teach her niece Nadia mathematics lecture using yahoo doodle. It went on to gain popularity as many people got hooked on to the videos that were posted on the youtube. It immediately caught hold of Bill gates who had a belief that this academy has the mettle to improve the education scenario.

with what vision does salman start this? It was initially a private endeavor but the paradigm of implication of such a tool hit him instantly. He started with a vision of "  We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere "
the keywords in this were the changing education goal and the result was the ever sought after "a free world class education", the target audience and beneficiary being any one anywhere in the world. in this world where still many of the children are feared loathed and pushed to one corner in building run schools, where they are not free to ask question due to sheer fact that they can be ridiculed of their stupidity, khan academy provided them with an interactive video based tutorial where they can pose any question of what so level it may be.

He used the technical skills of a manager in making this website and the concept while managing to touch upon the human relations. It was a highly conceptual idea and was fructified into a full grown website.

The Pedagogy - How Students benefit- The Model



Students can make use of its extensive video library, practice exercises, and assessments from any computer with access to the web.
Complete custom self-paced learning tool
A dynamic system for getting help
A custom profile, points, and badges to measure progress
Coaches, parents, and teachers
Coaches, parents, and teachers have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the Khan Academy.
Ability to see any student in detail
A real-time class report for all students
Better intelligence for doing targeted interventions
Its library of videos covers K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even reaches into the humanities with playlists on finance and history. Each video is a digestible chunk, approximately 10 minutes long, and especially purposed for viewing on the computer.

What's Unique in Khan Academy




the need for tutoring arrived to Salman Khan as an opportunity when he was making his niece study through web. It was a good example of creative problem solving where in a need was made viral through the use of web based services. 

The videos are of 10 mins length and not more than that using the scientific principles of retention such that the effectiveness of study is maintained. It has over 3200 video hours of lecture and more watched than MIT Sloan Open Course Ware(OCW).

Its interactive unlike the chalk and teacher videos and children can ask their question to the software, form the youtube videos it has now turned into an interactive software, this is an example of progressive evolution of an organisation. 

The Entrepreneurial Drive

being just a start up , he started getting funding from various beneficial of the videos which prompted him to quit his job and start this enterprise. he has received praise and funding from bill gates too.

Now he employees many developers for the site development and maintenance.

Its a uniquely global model, where in the physical boundaries of nation doesn't matter.


All in All, Khanacademy.org is a great initiative for spreading knowledge.