Durex’s Pride Ad Analysis

Durex Ads have always been my favourite brand in aspects of creativity and communications. If you have observed Durex ads, you would notice that Durex is on a mission to prove to consumers that it is more than just a condom brand, as it looks to focus on “the emotional as well as the physical” aspects of sex. Also, what we love about Durex is that it has been continuously reinventing itself through its creative ads. So far as I notice it is the only brand which has been successful in talking about sex without objectifying women. It’s a witty print and online advertisements are smart, funny and do the job perfectly!

As part of my college assignment, I was asked to do an analysis of my favourite ad from any vertical. The first thought was and is been Durex. Durex never stops me surprising with its extraordinary contents with the global and local trending news and events. As we all just passed Pride month, many brands did their best to show their support. Hence, Durex too! This ad was on Durex India Instagram page. As part of queer community, I loved the content the way it begins with the text “These photos contain content that may appear offensive to the conservative and close-minded”. As always with its wittiness it not only promotes its brands, it also educates its audience.

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The targeted audience of this particular ad has two different audience engagement. One the direct audience which is LGBTQIA+ people, secondly the indirect audience which is non-sensitive people who are conservative people. Like any other brands, Durex purpose of this ad was to have a queer-friendly brand identity. Today It has been a trend to be LGBTQIA+ supportive, but regardless of brand shenanigans what is important here is to see how it is communicating? Durex with it witty words it has served its purpose to bring change.

Durex by making this move confronts being part of the neo-feminist movement. Though the demographic target audience of Durex is 19-24 age group (mostly cisgender heterosexual male), this particular ad serves to celebrate love and it needs beyond its TA. If you see the cultural aspects of the ad it works in markets outside the designated target market.

It has been more than a year after section 377 was repealed in India. As we all know the law is not an answer for everything. Henceforth there is a win in the legal system for queer communities sexual and romantic relationship. But Indian society is still insensitive about this. Any ad campaign related to LGBTQIA+ community could be controversial, especially when it is directly about sex.

Durex ads have always been highly emotional quotient. Pride month was just another reason to show their empathetic stand for world’s change. Every two lines of pride quotes encourage conservationists to question their thoughts! Also, it gives immense support and love to the LGBTQIA+ community. If you see above Ads, you can notice as a Condom Brand, it doesn’t objectify sex or body in that matter. The simple illustrations talk about love.

Today the brands make wonders with their ads on social media. But there are very few who are capable of their intelligence for global communication. And Durex is one of them. It is not only about standing for a cause, but it is also how you stand for a cause. How you communicate your diverse audiences to be inclusive with the idea you sell. And I believe Durex is doing an extraordinary job with all its ads, where other brands can learn from it. And it will always be my favourite brand for effective creative advertisements.

References:

• https://www.instagram.com/durex.india/?hl=en
• https://www.marketingweek.com/why-durex-wants-to-be-seen-as-more-than-just-a-condom-brand/
• https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Durex-Ads/
• https://www.grin.com/document/21798

Going with Trend- Cross Media Optimisation

In today’s digitalised and competitive world, brands need to present themselves in all the platforms, utilizing every opportunity to be visible and demanding. Especially in the media and entertainment industry, you need to be representing everywhere and reaching everyone. To do that, the present global trend is Cross Media Optimization. 

As my understanding, simply the Cross Media Optimization is as a brand you exist everywhere by using cross channels and making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource yo have. For example, a TV News Channel/Brand can go beyond from television to have a Mobile Application, Social Media Presence(Instagram, FB, Twitter, Youtube etc.), marking themselves in top search bu SEO strategies and so.

Some CMO strategy trends which could be followed are:

• You need to stand out among your competitors, by having unique contents and ideas to grab peoples attention.
• The brand needs to have contents which are situational interests. For example, presently the COVID 19 or Mental Health topics. Where your audience can relate themselves.
• Making sure your search comes first- Top 1 Search Results. The usage of SEO’s need to be so effective to keep you at first. 
• But you don’t want to be just top one search, you want to be all 10. Which means you need to be actively engaging and exchanged information.
• For the vast presence and optimise of the brand, it needs to invest in paid owned earned presence. There is nothing wrong with paid earned as it gives you a reach, you will always have your organic results based on your content.
• The brand needs to engage in trending topics, and importantly tagging relevant influencers, celebrities and other brands.
• Customisation is one of the important marketing tools today. Understanding your customers and consumers, you need to deliver customised information which builds a personal relationship of the brand and customers. 

Source: Google Images

Just to give examples, I would like to discuss two leading Indian Media brand’s CMO strategies. Firstly, I would like to discuss “Naagin” television series produced by Ekta Kapoor under Balaji Televisions. Naagin has been the highest TRP rated series in India. Due to COVID 19 like any other series it was in a break. The series is shown in Colours TV and VOOT App. They had a great CMO strategy, where it was in all digital Indian news and newspapers, presence in all social media with relevant topic usage and successfully able to grab back the attention of their audience.

Source: Google Images

The other example is Hotstar. After lockdown Hotstar subsidised and became Disnep+Hotstar, it is an Indian over-the-top streaming service owned by Novi Digital Entertainment, a subsidiary of Disney’s Star India. Other than the Star India Series it releases Hotstar special movies and kids entertainment for utilising the lockdown period, with the motive of “Stories for all Ages”.

In the end, I would like to conclude that the Cross media optimization is essential if the brands want to keep costs down and returns high. It could be a complex effort that can take years, but once the used strategies are in place, decisions can be made with greater confidence.

References:

• https://www.slideshare.net/lindseyfairca/cross-media-optimization
• http://mediascale.be/services/cross-media-optimization/

Ready to spend more time on the right information?

There are millions of information available on the same subject today. We have thousands of media houses, news agencies giving their opinions to its audience. It is indeed that there is an overload of information. As an audience, we all do have our choices to consume the right information. Today when the information is overloaded and there are many disinformation and misinformation has broken the trust of its audience. 

According to Sam Wineburg, from the Stanford History Education Group spoke at the Global Media Literacy Summit, held in London said – ‘We cannot use a 20th century solution to tackle a 21st century problem, When we observe students checking the reliability of a certain website by following a vertical reading approach (i.e. working through a checklist and looking at the URL, the graphics, the ‘about us’ tab, the domain, the overall look, and so on) they are not able to ask the right questions. Who is behind this website, who is financing it, for instance’. That clarifies that people are moving on critical thinking today. 

As counterproductive of media literacy today, people do check the background of the new agencies, who owns it, what are the organisations ruling objectives, are they giving us the right information? Today “Trust” has been the biggest question around the world, especially towards the accessing information platforms. Even scientific institutions and popular organisations information are questioned. 

The overload of information has impacted on people to access to many sources to have their own conclusions. As a contradictory, people are not satisfied with one source. Today the audience needs various perceptions and draw conclusions to the news. The question here is… what is the percentage of media literacy? It is very less crowd, but there is a huge percentage of people who are misled by the wrong information. 

“First of all, it is important to help journalists understand how and whether they are susceptible to manipulation, to what extent a technology such as deep fake, for example, is likely to become widespread, and consequently whether or not we will have to teach everybody very sophisticated video verification skills.” – Jenni Sargent says.  According to this Journalists and media are no longer the sole players when it comes to producing and circulating information. This is a shift that newsrooms and legacy media still find it hard to come to terms with. However, they are still key actors and therefore need to understand the change and develop the capacity to assess the risks. Social Media is a great revolution over the circulation of information, there are many information predators leading people to believe what they want, then giving the audience what they need. 

As we speak about information overload, it is important to discuss the sensationalism in today’s information. The media today are often blamed for sensationalism in its news coverage. Reporters are criticized for exaggerating the facts in the name of getting higher ratings or more newspaper subscriptions. Online journalists are accused of writing “clickbait” headlines to boost advertising sales. Every news reporter wants to see their story on the front page or at the top search. That has lead them to the temptation to make a story sound bigger than it is. But this has been a long old game, media has ignored that people are aware of such sensationalism. There are set of population, who just don’t wanna access information because of the high sensationalism. Which has been the result of ignoring to access important information. 

The impact of information overload is more complex and relates, for example, to how information is used in different contexts, as we have recently witnessed in relation to the COVID-19. The facts is taken out of context, and framed in a way that is misleading. If a celebrity is tested positive, it is overloaded with that persons personal life, that giving information to people to stay safe. Recently when Patanjali brand in India announced COVID cure, it became big news for a day or two and misleading people with wrong hopes. With this, we stand with two questions! One how and why the information is produced and circulated and the other is whether it can be reducible as a matter of whether it is true or false.

As the world is evolving day by day, and it has become smaller and smaller, people have become smarter. Media or information predators need to understand it isn’t easy to fool people. With the overload of misinformation and wrong information also with sensationalism, it has questioned the people’s trust. Which has lead to critical thinking. As a positive note, it is good that people are learning to use their own filters to access the right information, but as a negative note mistrust on media has lower its standards also simply it is extra work for the audience to refer various sources. In a simple way, accessing information is time-consuming. 

 

References:

• https://sciencemediahub.eu/2019/09/18/media-literacy-to-counteract-misinformation-and-disinformation-a-challenge-we-should-be-taking-on/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influence_of_mass_media
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy
• https://namle.net/publications/media-literacy-definitions/
• https://www.thebalancecareers.com/media-sensationalism-in-today-s-news-coverage-2315287 

Today’s humanoid was once a human!

As part of our Media and Entertainment studies, we were asked to watch Bollywood movies Peepli Live and No One Kills Jessica. By watching these movies we need to understand the media’s engagement in activism, law, politics, democracy and social behaviour. The above-mentioned movies are small examples to throw light on journalism and stands on various injustice and impacts on society.

I personally do not deny that media can pressure the legal systems to bring right justice, also hats off to many investigative journalists and reporters, who risk their lives to give the right information to their audience. Also, we cannot deny that today the media is also been controlled by powerful industrialists and politicians.

Over these years I have witnessed media activism over various aspects across the world. To shed some light on this, there is active activism by media on recent black lives matters, in India RJ Shruti(from Chennai) made viral news on police brutality, a positive sensitisation of LGBTQIA+ community across the world, and many such topics on social justice, environmental concerns and so. The active participation and dedication of such media have made an effort to bring the right perspectives on societies social behaviour. Indeed it has influenced people’s choices across the world. Many operations are done by the media to showcase the cruelty of corporate, have made brands to reinvent and line them with ethical standards.

The media which fights on such injustice across the world, and who influences the mass choices are controlled by powerful leaders as well. Today media who can change the Court’s decisions, politicians are controlled by monetary. Indeed, money is an important fuel for any organisation to run. But the same money can change the whole ball game of the organisation as well. Today the power rules over the media to spread news according to their choices. Media has been a PR tool than a public’s friend. The one who used to caution us, we are indeed in a place to be cautious about the same journalism. Well, I cannot forget the 2016 incident of TV9’s Operation Anandi which spread the transphobia and made transgender community vulnerable across Karnataka, India.

Media, which is considered to be the fourth pillar of our democracy, it had to be democratic – “for people”. But it has been just a controlled tool over the period. In India, we could witness such journalism, once who used to question harmful political decisions and now who has been enslaved for the same political decisions. There was a time where Journalism and Activism were not so different, it used to be on the same page working on the betterment of society. Today we need activism to control the media who is been controlled by powerful leaders. Now it is a choice of people to see and read the right things. The audience needs to question themselves before believing everything that is shown by the media. We need to ask ourselves what is right and wrong, for that we just need to be humans again than the controlled or influenced robots. Our media which was human, now has been a robot controlled by monetary! Now we need to see are we still humans, or we are controlled by the robots of powerful leaders?

COVID 19 Impact on Media Stakeholders & Media Vehicles

It has been almost four months the COVID 19 has affected globally. This has affected the economy of every individuals and organisation across the world. Among many industries, when we look into Media, the COVID 19 has been given challenges and opportunities as well. The consumption of media has been more comparatively post-lockdown. Media is playing an important role in the COVID-19 response, even as it carries the challenges to the industry. Some recent research shows between 80% and 90% of people consume news and entertainment for an average of almost 24 hours during a typical week. So it is a situation with cautious optimism. 

Understanding the impact on main stakeholders of Media, which are Owners, Advertisers, Operators and Audiences have affected differently. We know that the consumption of media has been more as people are constantly engaging in the consumption of information and entertainment due to quarantine. But there is not much of production. There is more demand but less production. As there are many risks and challenges for production has led to a lack of investment. Owners are in fear of loss and management. When it comes to Operators, the challenge of the economy has forced to discharge many employees, and there is a volunteer back out as well. There is a demand for multi-tasking operators for profitable management. Also, the Owners are not efficient to afford the safety of operators. The advertisement industry has been impacted badly, as there are losses by the brands who are on break or there is no business to offer advertisements. Now advertisement being a financial backbone to Owners and Operators, it has affected the whole production of media. When there is no fuel of income generators, it is high risk and challenge for production and management to afford employees. But we cannot ignore the demand by the media consumers. 

Understanding this gives an idea of how content creators, consumers and advertisers value media is as important as ever. New research by the World Economic Forum sheds light on some metrics that do so, as well as calling for new thinking on improved criteria.

One of the most direct ways to assess value is engagement, and not to lose the audience. On this front media is doing well. Between 80% and 90% of us read, watch or listen to news and entertainment for an average of almost 24 hours during a typical week. It’s no surprise that engagement with media is high, considering the variety of quality providers available today.

The issues forced by the media today are Social distancing guidelines trigger office closings, requiring more employees to work remotely. This increases cybersecurity risks. Compensation and benefits may not be sufficient in this pandemic. Suspension of movie and television production causes delays in release dates.

Upfronts go digital, an untested format that could negatively impact ad sales. Social distancing generates a boost in digital media — video and music streaming and downloads, as well as online publications. Operational, workforce and supply chain disruptions could result in financial reporting implications in current and future reporting periods. Public companies may face increasing pressure to disclose revised guidance related to COVID-19’s impact. The state’s tax implications arise for employees who are now working remotely as a result of the crisis.

Tax compliance operations could delay as newly remote employees lack timely access to information. In the short term, changes to income statements such as short-term losses may affect budgets. A prolonged economic downturn will likely lead to companies to consider significant budget cuts to eliminate optional spending. Remote work, online education and social distancing have been creating demand for products and services delivered by this industry.

The crisis underscores the need for flexible, resilient business models, including an increased focus on income-flow forecasting and impacts with supply chain and commercial channel partners. Company valuations may become more attractive for acquisitions by cash-rich companies that have been sitting on the sidelines with targets in mind. With the audience sector, the fan energy lags, as postponed events don’t generate the same interest they originally did. The crisis could fundamentally change how some sports are viewed, becoming “studio” events with empty venues. Some sports segments that are currently stalled due to COVID-19 — such as sports gambling could see an emergence of new interest after the crisis.

Unfortunately, the present epidemic has posed a huge threat particularly to the print media where thousands of workers have been working at little earnings and with no future economic security. Especially, those who are working at different vernacular print media houses having a gloomy future ahead because of the whim of their owners or proprietors

There is evidence that media engagement increases during shelter-in-place events. In 2017, Nielsen measured a 56% increase in television usage in the US during Hurricane Harvey. The trend is replicated in today’s context too. Italy and South Korea, two countries further along in their experience of the pandemic, have seen increases of 12-17% in TV consumption. Another barometer for value is the number of paying consumers. Some argue this is the most important because it is a critical component of financial sustainability in the industry. Here, there is room for improvement. On average, under half of the consumers pay for media – 44% for entertainment and only 16% for news.

But these benchmarks are static: they don’t prove whether the media’s value proposition to consumers is getting stronger. A more symbolic measure may be a future willingness to pay. This provides a dynamic reflection of value because it implies that the right mix of product and price exists, it just needs to be matched to customer and context. The fact that the proportion of consumers willing to pay in future – 53% for news and 70% for entertainment – is higher than those who currently pay suggests that media companies are in a good position to prove value to greater numbers of people.

This is emphasized by the trend that paid subscriptions are higher among young people than in older age groups. On average, over 60% of consumers aged 16-34 pay for entertainment, compared to 22% of those aged 55+. The youngest country like India can make a lot of benefits with this. The younger group is also more likely to pay for news. This generation grew up with the internet’s culture of free, so their greater desire to consume and pay is another indication of improving value.

The media industry may be among the hardest hit among many industries by the COVID-19 crisis, it is also the one as most of the world is relying on for crucial up-to-the-minute information and entertainment. As a way to counter the isolation caused by social distancing, the past crises have proven, the media industry has shown the ability to recover, it can be kept protected by the reinvention of ideas and the demand for it during the recovery of the media industry. Ultimately, consumers want to stay informed. They want to be entertained. And the media industry incorporating the ecosystem of B2B and B2C companies will continue to find ideas, engaging ways to help and deliver on the promise of keeping customers informed and entertained.

References:

• https://nenow.in/opinion/covid-19-impact-on-print-media-can-newspapers-survive.html
• https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/covid-19-media-value/
• https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/About-Deloitte/COVID-19/gx-respond-bus-cont-communicate-with-other-key-financial-stakeholders-pdf2.pdf
• https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/coronavirus-impacts-media.html
• https://www.financialexpress.com/brandwagon/how-to-handle-brand-communication-amidst-covid-19/1925951/
• https://primefeed.in/news/277534/covid19-impact-global-media-and-influencer-targeting-software-market-recent-industry-developments-and-growth-strategies-adopted-by-top-key-players-meltwater-cision-amplify/

Understanding the facts of problems and impact of conclusions

There’s a tendency for technically proficient people to want to solve things; what’s important is to respond to what the users and business need. The rise of the first point of contact resolution as a metric can sometimes drive this behaviour, when all the users want is to be able to complete the important task they started, which can sometimes be done more elegantly and speedily with a well-chosen workaround.

Problem management and risk management share a lot in common including a strong focus on Return on Investment (ROI). Each problem that is identified as a part of the problem-solving process has a projected impact on the organization and some estimate on the likelihood and frequency of the problem happening in the future. Each problem investigation has a cost, to which we can add the cost for implementing the solution (the investment). Many Problems require investments that outweigh the potential return; these are problems that should not be solved.

To understand the facts of problems and conclusion of the case study we can analyse “Talvar” and “Detective Byomkesh Bakshi”. 

In the “Talvar” case, there were accusations that the three men had been drilled with misinformation before their tests, and their lawyer later approached the NHRC with video recordings of the tests that allegedly showed the CBI “putting words in their mouths” and torturing them to confess the crimes. Their supporters claimed that the investigators were trying to frame the poor Nepalis to protect the upper-class Talwars. Ultimately, all the suspects were released due to the lack of any hard evidence: all of them had alibis and their DNA or fingerprints were not found at the crime scene.

These are just a few of the examples that cite the unexplained queries that should have been addressed before any reports were filed.

For the national investigative agency to base its reports on such loosely bound facts and theories is downright shameful. While the point is not to insinuate that the CBI is trying to frame the Talwars, isn’t it worth noting that even after the CBI admitted the circumstantial evidence had “critical and substantial gaps” and wanted to shut the case, it was the Talwars themselves who opposed the closure?

Had the Talwars not challenged the closure report, yesterday would have been just another day at the Ghaziabad courtroom.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is set in 1943 in a Kolkata populated by grim Bengalis, Chinese drug-runners, expansionist Japanese and at least one oomphy lady from Rangoon who swims in the Hooghly and gives Byomkesh Bakshy what is probably his first kiss. Actor and rich man’s mistress Anguri Devi (Swastika Mukherjee) is one of several characters who don’t actually leave their mark on Byomkesh, who remains as self-contained on the screen as he is on the page.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! works hard on creating a convincing setting for Byomkesh to make his mark, the characters are mostly under-written and the central mystery lacks tension and a sense of imminent danger. The movie is neither a cerebral reworking of an iconic detective’s first brush with evil nor a pulpy joy ride. The 150-minute narrative finally gains steam towards its powerful closing moments, when it all comes together nicely but a bit too late.

Now we will understand what is the impact of conclusion in any cases. A case study ending is your opportunity to bring some closure to the story that you are writing. So, you can use it to mention the status of the project (e.g., is it ongoing or has it ended?) and then to demonstrate the impact that your work has had. By presenting some quantifiable results (e.g., data from end evaluations, analytics, key performance indicators), you can demonstrate this impact. You can also discuss what you learned from this project, making you wiser than the next applicant – for example, something about a special category of users that the company might be interested in developing products for, or something that is cutting-edge and that advances the frontiers of science or practice.

As you can see, there are a few good ways in which you can end your case study. Next, we will outline four options that can be part of your ending: lessons learned, the impact of the project, reflections, and acknowledgements.

References:

• https://www.firstpost.com/india/why-the-aarushi-trial-was-a-double-murder-of-forensics-investigation-1250025.html
• https://www.kepner-tregoe.com/blog/5-facts-about-problem-solving-that-will-improve-your-service-desk/
• https://scroll.in/article/717981/detective-byomkesh-bakshy-is-an-elegant-but-lifeless-tale-filled-with-dead-bodies
• https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/how-to-write-the-conclusion-of-your-case-study

Research like Holmes and Watson

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a “consulting detective” in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science, and logical reasoning that borders on the fantastic, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients. First appearing in print in 1887’s A Study in Scarlet, the character’s popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine, beginning with “A Scandal in Bohemia” in 1891.

Holmes can be described as “bohemian” in his habits and lifestyle. He is said to have a “cat-like” love of personal cleanliness, at the same time Holmes is unconventional with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order. In his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow lodger to distraction. He keeps his cigars in the coal-scuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence fascinated by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece. He had a horror of destroying documents. Thus month after month his papers accumulated, until every corner of the room was stacked with bundles of manuscript which were on no account to be burned, and which could not be put away save by their owner. While Holmes can be dispassionate and cold, during an investigation he is animated and excitable. He has a flair for showmanship, often keeping his methods and evidence hidden until the last possible moment so as to impress observers. His companion approves the detective’s willingness to bend the truth or break the law on behalf of a client lying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houses when he feels it morally justifiable.

John Watson is intelligent, if lacking in Holmes’s insight, and serves as a perfect counterpart for Holmes. He is a Victorian gentleman against the brilliant, emotionally detached analytical machine. Furthermore, he is considered an excellent doctor and surgeon, especially by Holmes. For instance, in “The Adventure of the Dying Detective,” Holmes creates a device that he is deathly ill to lure a suspect to his presence, which must fool Watson as well during its performance. To that effect in addition to elaborate makeup and starving himself for a few days for the necessary appearance, Holmes firmly claims to Watson that he is highly contagious to the touch, knowing full well that the doctor would immediately assume his true medical condition upon examination. Watson is well aware of both the limits of his abilities and Holmes’s dependence on him.

Watson never masters Holmes’s deductive methods, but he can be intelligent enough to follow his friend’s reasoning after the fact. 

Watson is endowed with a strong sense of honour. Watson makes strong claims about “the responsibility and high sense of professional honour” that govern his work as Holmes’s biographer, but preference and professional honour do not block Watson from expressing himself and quoting Holmes with remarkable openness on the characters of their enemies and their clients. Watson is also represented as being very discreet in character. The events related in “The Adventure of the Second Stain” are supposedly very sensitive: “

Patience is the most important qualities to gain details, and the details need to be refined. Also, the important aspect is to know the roots of the sources and see whether it is valid. An individual has to be unbiased to open himself to be open possibilities. And seek for two kind stories of the subject than concluding into one source and one story. The conclusion is always acquired by digging deep into the knowledge. Capability to negotiate your negotiations, and you talk about your research work and give enormous attention for your research.  

 

Reference:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sherlock-Holmes

https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Adventures-of-Sherlock-Holmes/character-analysis/

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/write-down-charactersketch-dr-watson-hound-331320

 

Negligence is the direction of unmanageable failure!

As part of Management studies, I watched “Ankur Arora Murder Case” a Hindi Medical Thriller movie directed by Suhali Tatari. The movie addresses the issue of Medical negligence, and how an eight-year-old boy Ankur dies because of medical negligence. As we had discussed ethics in our previous writings, ethics is subjective. Corporate ethics lies between the dignity of an organisation, and personal ethics lies between the dignity of an individual. Any action which violates other individuals life is unethical.

On our daily basis, at our workplace or at the news we come across many incidents of professional negligence. All actions and the results of an individual is bound to take responsibility. Due to professional negligence, there are many times where it will coast someone’s life(like in the movie). And those negligence are tried to cover by personal influences, but if your personal ethics are followed, the person is reluctant to take the responsibility.  As Adam Smith says, “The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.” The ignorance of someone might put up a wrong model to others in the workplace.

Redressal Mechanism in Organisation is, if an employee is having grievance he must know whom to contact and where to contact. Grievances redressal procedure gives an assurance to the employees about the existence of a mechanism for the prompt redressal of their grievance. In the movie, Dr Asthan could have accepted his negligence and could have addressed through organisation. But his pride of being a renowned surgeon and his thoughts of seeing medical platform as a complete business sided his professional and personal ethics.

In such a situation the Crisis communication plays an important role. It is a sub-speciality of the public relations profession that is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. The term crisis “should be reserved for serious events that require careful attention from management.” But this can go unethical, wherein the movie Dr Asthan used it to cover his fault and blame the patient for his negligence.

In these circumstances, workplace harassment is common consequences. In the movie, Dr Asthan used his powers of being a senior doctor and threaten the junior employees to hide the facts. The power of being superior gives someone to take their pride in a wrong manners. Where the power is used to threaten the employees with their job or make their life difficult at the workplace.

At the end, however powerful a person can be, he/she much admit the fault and face the consequences. Firstly, an individual has to work on professional negligence and be discipline and take every action seriously. Secondly, the crisis management not to lean workplace harassment to other employees, it is important to address the personal grievance in a professional way. One should remember “Without a little negligence, life will be intolerable. There might be lucky with high preparation, and there is always failure with negligence.”

Fear is an old friend of mine…

As part of my Management studies, I watched American 90’s movie “DUEL”. Watching this gave me many insights regarding the fear that can chase an individual and influence your life. And there was so much to self analyse and explore my fears. So, what is fear? Is it something that we don’t know of, or is it something that we know which can harm us? What are the things we fear in life? Well, that can be subjective. Something, in general, could be Love and all the emotions around it… Is it so? Or it could be as simple as question marks of our lives!

As living beings, we need to survive. And any threats to that comfortable survival could be the fear. Personally, fear is an old friend of mine, who has always kept me grounded, who has always helped me to be a good human being. Today I am a fearless person, but I keep the good part of fear which helps me to grow as a better human being on this earth. The things that we fear in life is a long ending list. Love, people and things whom or which we love, and to keep that love to be protected there is always a fear.

Most people get influenced by fear and they make wrong decisions. We might be influenced to be not confident enough, we might destroy things to keep ourselves safe, we might not take any risks or chance to do something. We respond to it as there is a black hole which can consume us and then we are just lost. Most of the people pray to the superior power, not because they love and have faith, it’s just people have fear inside them.

There are always two paths in life, and it is as well with fear. You can take the right one and stay grounded and create your necessary limits to remain human, or take a wrong path and do ridiculous and violent things because of fear. And the wrong path will not lead us anywhere in our lives. It is like a black hole, once you are consumed and you’re lost. We seek eternity with all materials and people we are attached, anything that threatens to that we are lost in fear to have that. It is important to be fearless, but not the one which encourages overconfidence of an individual.

Currently, with COVID19 we all are suffering with “Fear of the Unknown”. As I began, we always fear things that we don’t know. We assume things we don’t know, things that are strange to us can harm us and threaten our survival. Today people are going through magnitude pandemic of this unknown virus which can vanquish the humankind. The only way to deal this is to keep yourself calm and settle with your fear. Otherwise, you will be the lost star in the black hole.

There many influences in my life… to say the three things…

• I fear are trust, companionship, to say yes. Fear of trust always makes my decisions delayed, fear of having a companionship has kept me focused on my passion and career, and fear to say yes always have got me to think twice before I say yes to anything.
• I like to be a friend, to be always positive, to keep a smile. And all these qualities have influenced me to keep myself warm and people around me.
• I love myself, what I do, people of my circle. And these have kept me alive, gave me so much strength and courage, and especially to be focused on what I have to achieve.
• I hate betrayal, personal comments, masks. And all these have influenced me to be careful in my life whatever I do, also to be observant and be aware of me and around me.
• I agree with unconditional love, that everyone is good, you can win by your failures. These things have always influenced my life to be open-hearted and welcoming every positive thing that comes to my life and learns from others, and it is never-ending for learning.
• I disagree that only fair skin can sell, only English can give you the mainstream opportunity, you need to have an influential family to have a better career. And this has always influenced me to prove all of them wrong and show the world that it can run without all these wrong notions.
• I want peace, abundance and strength. Manifesting these every day has always influenced me to be the unshaken warrior of life, to never give up and give all your efforts to bring miracles in your life.
• I wish I have a break, acceptance and strong decision-making skills. And all these motives have influenced me to work on it.
• I would never want violence, wrong people in my life, bad influence. Which has made me set my boundaries and keep me protected and conscious of the world around me?
• I believe in magic, magic and magic. With this, I am influenced always to have hope, have faith in what I do, have unlimited love to everything and everyone I come across and learn all time to evolve my consciousness of the world around me.

The reality of “Corporate”

The movie “Corporate” (2006) gives a small picture of the business world in India. There are many myths regarding the corporate sector. Corporate is known as a sector which is highly paid and promoted easily and often, and it is well systematized with its organisational goals, also it’s formal agencies. But n reality, many employees aren’t really paid well. The myths around the corporate sector only talk about high profiled jobs, but not other employees. There are employees who wait for ages to get recognition and promotions. The sector which is known for its formal systems isn’t any more so formal.

Today the real management in the corporate sector is to keep your employees happy and motivate them to be more productive with their work. Management can be defined in many ways, but what is real management? According to Agha Hasan Abedi – “The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work”. Today management is not about work-oriented, it is people-oriented. Managing the employees is the real task for the organisation and push them to be as productive as they can. Also, very important to real the humanitarian approach of management is a contemporary style.

When we speak about management, the question which arises is how ethical can organisation be? Are all corporates are ethical? It is hard to answer this question, as ethics is very subjective. What is good to me, can be bad to others and vice versa. In the thirst of success, most of the organisation do forget their business ethics, they step down to corrupt their resources to get the favourability of government and media to their profits. Not necessarily the organisation follow their business ethics strictly, most of the times it’s on papers. The business sector just focuses on profit, and it plays its games to achieve those profit whether it’s a fair game or not.

According to Poter Stewart, Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do. And the first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings. For this, you need a Value-Based Management, which gives transparency to your business. VBM encompasses the processes for creating, managing, and measuring value. The value creation process requires an understanding of the attractiveness of the market or industry where one competes, coupled with one’s competitive position relative to other players. Once this understanding is established and is linked with key-value chain drivers for cash flow and profitability, the competitive strategy can be established or modified to maximize future returns.

A recent manipulative corporate news to recall on ethical issues is Yes Bank case, where there was a money laundering case against Yes Bank NSE 0.63 % promoter Rana Kapoor and his wife for allegedly obtaining Rs 307 crore bribe from a realty firm routed through the purchase of a bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi at half the market price. The agency alleged that the bribe was paid to the Kapoors for facilitating around Rs 1,900 crore loans from Yes Bank to the realty firm and delaying recovery. This reports how the successful corporate sector can fail it’s business ethics and be corrupted for achieving profit and luxury.

References:

• https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/yes-bank-ed-books-rana-kapoor-in-fresh-money-laundering-case/articleshow/74679176.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
• https://www.lucintel.com/value_based_management.aspx