Is Wal-Mart’s deep retail discounting formula doable in India? Only time will tell.

India is part of Wal-Mart’s rapid global expansion under Mike Duke, the former head of the company’s international division who in February became CEO. In his previous job, he recruited native-born managers in international markets who understood local customs. Mr. Jain, for example, had worked more than 20 years here for Unilever PLC and Whirlpool Corp. Wal-Mart’s 3,400 international stores generate close to one quarter of the company’s revenue.

The arrival of big-box wholesalers and retailers in India was a major political issue a couple of years ago, with widespread protests from small merchants. But as the Indian economy has slowed, the furor has eased. Shoppers became accustom to larger stores from local retailers such as Pantaloon Retail India Ltd.

Read more here.

A Tweet from @Northumbria_RM caught my eye the other day. It was a quote from a contributor to their AC+erm e-Delphi Study along the lines that “RM is something that should be done not something that can be bought and installed.” Nothing too controversial there you might think, after all its what we records managers always say: ‘no quick fixes’, ‘get the processes and standards right first’, ‘try to install a system on a mess and you just have an expensive mess’ etc etc

But what if we are wrong? What if this conventional wisdom is more a reflection of the nature of most records management technologies than representing a universal truism? Sure it’s a certain recipe for failure to attempt to rollout an EDRMS without having prepared every inch of organizational, procedural and cultural groundwork in advance but maybe that’s because of their nature: their size, the (unrealistic) scale of their ambition and their sheer (over?) complexity. But need it be so? After all, most of the technology which is transforming our organizations and our lives seems to be heading in the other direction. We now live in a widget-led world with people designing simple specific apps to solve very specific problems or achieve very specific end results. Take the recent Apple i-phone advertisements extolling the eclectic range of apps available for download, or the simplicity of something like Twitter.

It seems to me that what our users actually want and that we should be finding ways of providing are simple, specific ‘RM apps’ that can be quickly, cheaply and simply ‘bought and installed’ to solve specific problems. Maybe the underlying problem is that we have spent the last decade looking at the problem from the wrong end of the telescope. We’ve been focusing on trying to fix the entire organization whilst hoping that eventually some of the benefits might trickle down and be felt by the ordinary user; where, with hindsight, we might have been better off working out what the problems were that were holding back individual users and building specific solutions to fix them.

When I first started out in records management in 1996 it seemed to me that records management was about finding creative and practical answers to genuine and specific problems in relation to how people managed their records. We needed a means of coordinating retention actions across multiple systems, so we designed one. We needed a way of maximizing the storage space we had available so we designed a location control module that meet our needs. Now of course the talk is of enterprise-wide solutions and international standards. I have no problem per se with either of these but do wonder if together they have unwittingly led us to a situation where all we have to offer is a homogenized, ‘one-size-fits all’ version of records management where we have little choice but to try to shape our problems around the available solutions and where our only route to success lies in trying (and largely failing) to first achieve organizational and cultural change on a scale which is frankly beyond both our reach and our pay-grade.

So it was with rather envious eyes that I read about the forthcoming Repository Fringe Challenge with a bunch of repository developers fired up to come up with genuine, workable solutions to an actual specific problem that is taxing their user community. This isn’t sitting back and hoping that the standards bodies and vendor community eventually acknowledge the problem and build in functionality to their products that are designed to suit everybody. This is a bunch of enthusiastic guys sat round PCs, thinking the unthinkable and finding cool ways of making it happen and then giving it out to the community to use as they see fit.

It’s a way of working and thinking which records management seems to have lost, and I think we are all the poorer for it.

I’m reasonably young and reasonably healthy (thanks to morning runs and taekwon do lessons) and hence, walking a few blocks poses no trouble to me. However, this is not true for all people and moving even a couple of blocks poses a problem for someone with any kind of motion-impairment such as arthritis or those who require oxygen tank. These problems obviously mean some sort of limitation to their mobility.

For those people, I’m glad there’s a way for them to get an electric wheelchair or scooter online through The SCOOTER Store. The Scooter Store allows you to search online for the right product, say an electric scooter to get around town and buy it right there, without leaving the comfort of your home. If you can’t find what you need online, you can call them at 1-800-335-3202 and talk to a mobility-assistance professional and work a solution that suits your needs.

I shall assume that the majority of us have worked for someone (i.e. a Manager).

And no doubt some of those Managers you worked for were great and some should…well let’s just say…should never have been appointed Managers.

There are numerous skills to being a Manager…communicating, delegating, controlling, co-ordinating, staff management, public speaking, decision making, managing meetings…and I could list many, many more.

But what makes a Great Manager?

Is Obama a great Manager?

Great Managers not only excel at some of the above skills but they fundamentally know the difference between ‘inputs’, ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’.

They take ‘inputs’ (i.e. what they do, what action taken) and ‘outputs’ (i.e. the effect of the action, the product) and create outcomes (i.e. the intended result, the performance or service targeted).

Great Managers take time out and think about ‘outcomes’.

Great Managers strive for ‘outcomes’.

Great Managers plan for ‘outcomes’.

Great Managers organize themselves and others to produce ‘outcomes’.

Great Managers implement the right and appropriate controls so the ‘outcomes’ are delivered.

Great Managers communicate and discuss the future ‘outcomes’.

So let’s take a simple example…

Many Managers at this time of year are thinking, planning, organising, controlling and communicating the staff annual performance review.

So the inputs may be…the individuals previous achievements, feedback from customers and peers, any development undertaken, objectives, written evidence of praise…

Outputs being…the actual written performance review, the staff members rating and future development needs, the following years objectives.

Many Managers stop there. That’s it. It’s over and done with. The review is typed up. The staff member has agreed with their written performance review and it gets filed away. Now we can carry on with our day jobs.

The Great Manager will be encouraging the individual to strive for major change in their performance (the ‘outcome’) as a result of the performance review.

Great Managers will work with the individual and put in place a plan to enable the individual to ‘grow’ in their role.

Great Managers organize themselves and the staff member to have the time to develop their learning, maybe go on some self-improvement courses.

Great Managers will implement monthly one-to-ones with the individual to discuss and amend their improvement plan.

Great Managers will ‘paint a picture’ of the future for the individual.

In fact, before the performance review Great Managers will have answers to the following questions:

What difference will the review make?

What would we like the staff member to do differently?

How will the difference be measured and monitored?

How will the department or company benefit?

What controls should be in place to monitor progress?

How will we know if the progress is successful?

Give yourself every opportunity to succeed as a Manager and start thinking about ‘outcomes’.

If you have read our blog lately, you might have noticed that we have paid special attention to the benefits derived from Internet-based services. Businesses and individuals from all over the world are harnessing the power of Internet to find products, make business (and why not, personal) contacts and many more things.

Services are sprouting every minute to allow people to improve their businesses and novel educational services are helping businesses of all sizes to make better decisions. For instance, you can now have real-time interviews with online traders at traderinterviews.com and find out what they know, how they make their own decisions and, in the end, how to make less mistakes and maximize revenues.