The Hunter and the Farmer

The Hunter and the Farmer

Airtel recently announced their reaching the 75 million subscriber mark . Reliance and Vodafone had hit the 50 million cellphone mark some time back . Idea will reach it maybe a year or two later and Tata might take even longer . What is significant about these numbers is that Idea was the first cellphone operator amongst them all and is yet to reach even the 50 mn mark while Reliance was the last to begin operations . . So why is one operator so slow and one sprinting away to glory ?
ICICI has crossed the marketcap of India’s largest bank , SBI . ICICI’s market cap is just under 85000 cr ( had crossed Rs.1 trillion when its stock hit Rs.950 ) , with SBI at 65000 cr and the robust HDFC at 35000 cr . With much higher NPAs, ICICI bank is aggressively straddling all spaces in the financial basket and moving to overtake SBI in overall sales soon . Its stock gotten hammered , punished for mistimed moved in the US markets , yet it carries on .What makes a bank like ICICI so strong ?
Infosys makes more press than TCS . Isn’t TCS’s $4bn revenues similar to Infosys’s US$ 4 bn revenues ? Here’s the difference , TCS was established in 1968 , while Infosys was created almost 15 years later with a $250 corpus . TCS rewrote none of the rules of IT game . When Indians became expensive manpower , Infosys went to China and got work done cheaper . It listed on the NASDAQ . As the dollar strengthens , Infosys rewrites its strategies every week . It has targeted attrition and won that battle too . Its annual reports begins by calling people its assets . So why does Infosys make so much press ?
Why does the Times of India increase its rates by 40% in an inflationary year or a Dainik Bhaskar launch editions rapidly while the Hindu reduces cover price as competition enters the city ? The Times launches an additional newspaper to combat a competitors entry . It changes advertising pricing , dictates editorial policy differently , kills the subscription business to thrive and trounce competitors . Its count of innovations is legendary . Why is there no no.2 newspaper around for miles .
How did UTV movies break into the top 10 distribution companies in revenues in the US in under 3 years or how does Adlabs buyout over 300 theatres in the US in under a year ?
SO why do some companies grow at an abysymally low rate even in a super-charged economy and why do some others grow at a rapid clip , consuming all available venture capital and human resources ? Why do some companies continue to languish inspite of enormous opportunities around while some others with seemingly sketchy business plans create need and want in the process of sprinting away on the sensex ? Why do some managers who join a new company do very well but some who join quit immediately citing cultural differences ?
The difference in these companies is genetic in nature . Lets examine the difference in operating style of both types of companies . One set of companies operate as hunters . They have no idea what is the next business idea or where the next years growth is going to come from . They aggressively seek out ideas for growth and move rapidly in that direction . They borrow capital on the run , set up businesses , expand , buy out competitors and hit new peaks of market capitalization . Like hunters , they have no idea which forest to hunt in , which animal they are likely to confront and what tools are going to come handy . They could go hungry over days and feast for the next few . The other set of companies operate as farmers . Farmers seek predictability – they get up at the same time every morning to toil on the land with their cattlefolk , sow the seeds , wait for the monsoons and rejoice when the crop yields what it is meant to yield . They have set systems – the time to wake up , the time to herd cattle , the time to return from fields , the time to eat is all defined and any upsetting of schedule results in under-performance .
Hunter managers don’t care much for systems , and stay extremely focused on results . They deliver higher than expected results , but can fail dramatically too . And they will be the cause of failure , but they will find the next big company to work for and move on. Some hunter workers grow to become hunter managers and hunter leaders , increasing their maturity of aggression and their ability to create control in chaos and unpredictability . Farmers are less likely to take risks and operate within a web of systems and processes . Many hunting firms evolve to become farming companies with a myriad of systems , but the genetic coding makes its appearance once in a while as they attempt a hostile takeover or start a new businesses absolutely unconnected with their core strength.
As Reliance Industries gets into Retail , one sees remarkable aggression be it in its acquisition of talent , land , alliances , consumers or capital .
Hunting firms focus on results , Farming firms on procedure . Ever wonder why Infosys puts its sales figures on page 13 of its annual report while TCS talks revenues on page 32 ? Its in the genes .
When mergers fail , it is most likely that a hunting company has acquired a farming firm or a farming company picked up a stake in a hunting firm . AOL Time Warner alliance collapsed as the hunting instincts of an AOL and a Warner Bros. conflicted with the farming culture of Time . Similarly , when people quit , examine the DNA of the person who quit and the genetic coding of the company he left behind and you find the hunter vs farmer fight playing out .
There is nothing wrong in being a hunter or a farmer . Great hunters and Great farmers have both had their places in the history books . Realization of where one stands makes the difference .
Look yourself in the mirror every morning .
Who do you see - A hunter or a farmer ?
And where are you dressed up to go - To the forest or to the farm ?