Tag Archives: cost

Lessons in Business from Bala Balachandran

About a couple weeks back I happened to come to know about Mr Bala Balachandran from a friend of mine who also shared with me the printouts of an article titled “I firmly believe that all customers are not equal” that  appeared in Business Standard on 24th December 2002(couldn’t manage to find a link). It’s not often that one comes across this much business wisdom in a 4 page printout.

After giving that article a re-read yesterday, I searched a bit on Mr Bala Balachandran and amongst other things I stumbled upon this series of fantastic videos on everything from Cost Management to Customer Astonishment. This would by far be the best material on business I’ve come across in 2010 and the fact that these gems are hidden from the world is reflected in the fact that these videos had been viewed 2-5 times at max. It’s only now after repeated views from me that these numbers have jumped up :). Also, Balachandran not only shares his business wisdom, he does so in a nice and funny manner. At 72, he has contagious energy and passion.

Only if someone could stitch these  small 2-3 minute videos together would they make into an amazing video.

The Cost of Learning

A while back I happened to share with a dear friend a small mistake I made and as expected I wasn’t particularly happy about it. It was then that he succinctly told me

Mayank, when you are doing something new/different you incur a “cost of learning”

If you think about it, it’s indeed true. When you start doing something new or different be it a business or some other activity, you make mistakes in form of bad investment, incompatible partners, unreliable suppliers, wrong decisions and more. So if you happen to make a mistake in something new that you are doing, don’t feel bad and simply think of it as a “Cost of Learning”, but having said that, always try to keep your “Cost of Learning” to the minimum 🙂