Top Down: Why Hierarchies are Here to Stay and How
In spite of all the talk about flatter, looser organisations, top down hierarchies are - and always will be inevitable in the business world. But there are ways to make the hierarchical structure more humane for the people who work in them. This book shows how It argues that every organization today even those that "disguise" themselves as open or flat structures are still hierarchies. Rather than resisting this reality, this is book offers managers realistic ways to "tame" hierarchies to make them more humane, egalitarian places to work. "Top Down" is particularly vacuous commentary on authoritarian hierarchies, as exhibited by corporate America. First, the author wants to make the overwhelmingly obvious point that American corporations are undemocratic hierarchies and that no outbreak of democracy is going to occur anytime soon. Apparently, those comments are meant for idealistic academics, because working people are well aware of the continuing master/slave nature of corporations. Secondly, the author continually flip-flops between discussing hierarchies as authoritarian control structures and as a means of organizing tasks; those are two distinct subjects. Democratic governance does not preclude hierarchies or other organizational forms. Speaking of corporations primarily as hierarchies and not as bastions of authoritarianism verges on dishonesty. Curiously, the author readily admits that authoritarian hierarchies are un-American in their disenfranchisement of people and in subjecting them to a control regime little better than a ruthlessly run feudal estate. Corporate America infantilizes employees, creating fear, dependency, and conformity. The much heralded claim of efficiency is gained at a high cost: the reduction of intelligent beings to timid, tunnel-vision followers. It can hardly be ignored that corporations are constantly going off track, making bad decisions, if not engaging in criminal activities. Perhaps thinking, empowered employees could head off such disasters, even if less "efficient."
Abhijeet Dwivedi
CRISIL -Fund Insight
Aditya Birla Sun Life MIP II - Wealth 25 Plan (CRISIL FUND RANK 1) Launched in March 2004, Aditya Birla Sun Life MIP II - Wealth 25 Plan is a debt-oriented hybrid fund and has been ranked in the top 10 percentile (CRISIL Mutual Fund Rank 1) since June 2016. The fund’s primary objective is to generate regular income to make monthly payments or distribution to unit holders and secondary aim is growth of capital. The fund’s average assets under management (AUM) tallied at Rs 1,836 crore in June 2017. Performance The fund has given 10.8% compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) since its inception versus 9.7% by the category (MIP Aggressive Funds as per CRISIL ranking – June 2017) and 8.4% by the benchmark (CRISIL MIP Blended Fund Index). The fund has also outdone the category and its benchmark in all the periods analysed. Chart 1 – Performance as on September 18, 2017 Note: Returns above one year are annualised The fund has performed well in terms of risk-adjusted basis (as measured by Sharpe ratio) in the past three years. It has given a score of 0.1 compared with the category’s 0.08. Portfolio analysis The fund’s debt portfolio was primarily invested in safe bets, with 90.4% of the total debt holdings in top rated papers (AAA and A1+) and government securities for the past three years ended August 2017. The interest rate risk was managed well by altering its modified duration. For instance, when the benchmark yield for five-six years’ maturity bucket fell from 7.18% in March 2017 to 6.91% in August 2017, the fund increased its modified duration from 5.73 years to 5.85 years. Further, the fund maintained average equity exposure of 29%, with finance, auto, banks, pharmaceuticals and industrial capital goods forming the top five sectors in three years ended August 2017. Fund manager Mr Satyabrata Mohanty, CA & CFA, is Head - Mixed Assets and has over 18 years of experience in finance and research. Mr Vineet Maloo, B.Com & CA, is the equity fund manager and has 13 years of experience. Mr Pranay Sinha is fund manager – fixed income with around 11 years of experience in the financial markets
How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumer's Trust from Wed
Until Josiah Wedgwood, Britons ate from wood and pewter plates. Until Henry Heinz, ladies drudged over cured sustenances. Until Michael Dell, few individuals claimed a PC, not to mention longed for getting one "worked to arrange." According to business history specialist Nancy F. Koehn, these pathbreaking business visionaries shared an effective blessing: the capacity to perceive how monetary and social change would influence customer needs and needs. In "Fresh out of the plastic new", Koehn acquaints us with six unprecedented pioneers of brand creation who lived and worked amid times of broad change: Josiah Wedgwood in the Industrial Revolution; Henry Heinz and Marshall Field in the Transportation and Communication Revolution; and Estee Lauder, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, and Michael Dell in the Information Revolution.Through convincing and drawing in profiles of these entrepreneurial visionaries, she uncovers a provocative connection between financial turbulence, family unit needs, and friends procedure that holds imperative lessons for the present brand manufacturers. As indicated by Koehn, these ground breaking people comprehended the significant impacts that financial change has on what clients need, have, and can bear the cost of as much as on what organizations make-and were aces at misusing the colossal business openings these request side movements made. To be sure, the brands and organizations made by these people have turned out to be such a piece of regular daily existence that we've influenced them to some portion of basic discourse: we pass the Heinz; eat off Wedgwood; arrange a Starbucks. Koehn draws from their journals, correspondence, and authority business records to exhibit that these business visionaries were more than shrewd advertisers; they were organization developers.