FedEx shipping: Deficiency of service

With globalization, Multi-national Companies (MNC) has flogged India to tap lucrative local market. So the FedEx Express has started it logistics business in India. With investments through FDI, the commerce ministry has planned to bring best practices in to Indian market. Now, it’s time to access the situation. The litmus test was done with an international shipping company FedEx Express. The following are the phenomenon, so fare experienced, of Multi-national Companies:

1.      Disregard to consumer welfare

2.      Deficiency in service

3.      Intention to delay the service until demanded by the customers to deliver the consignment.

That was true that best practices were introduced in India with the advent of FDI into local business. But still the system is skewed enough to create deception of false security. The customers are still made to run pillar to post to get service from this multi-billionaire companies. All they want was profit out of Indian consumers.

A consignment which was promised to be delivered in 7 days turned into an ordeal. Despite 

repeated calls and reminders to the customer care executives of FedEx express, they seem to have inadequate resource to mobilize a simple 0.1 kgs (100 gram) consignment.

All the tracking system which is considered as best practices of the world is misleading. They use technology to deceive customers waiting for the delivery. FedEx own tracking system which is updated at each stage of logistics is the clear evidence that FedEx has committed a deficient service. What did take them to wait for two days before delivery? May be I have settled the bill, so they thought it is not worth delivering on time!  

To add fuel to the fire, the local customer care says the consignment was delivered. When stated that  not received the consignment, she said it is with the local FedEx facility and the recipient  have to wait till 8 p.m. to receive the delivery. When again at 8 p.m., recipient rang up the customer care, again she said recipient have wait till next day to get the delivery as it is too late to deliver the consignment. Later, a senior executive called about the query with the customer care, who assured that the consignment will be delivered within 1 p.m. of next day. But still delivery is awaited. The customer care executive of FedEx persist that it is the recipient mistake to have house locked. They never wish to acknowledge the fault on their part. The time which they mentioned as “customer not available or business closed”, the recipient was at home. When demanded with explanation, they had a sweet and short reply that “the recipient mobile phone was switched off”. A blatant lie was let loose to cover up the issue. They got very good management skill so that customer can’t speak up in defense.

A renowned shipping company, FedEx, is not capable of delivering a 100 gram consignment on time as promised by them. We wonder how they would handle massive goods that are shipped all day.

Pathetic Customer Care:

The customer care executives instead of providing useful information to the recipients who expect delivery, they provide their own story of difficulty in managing the goods. For them who complain that they can’t handle the large shipment of goods, it is wise to close their logistic business for good. It is good for them as well to the public at large. With dysfunctional management, they protract the delivery by providing false promises day by day for the same consignment. The FedEx has failed to understand one thing; we don’t need the promises but the consignment/goods which are to be delivered to the recipient.

For those Multi-National Companies, they take Indian customers for granted. They think they can bend the expectation of Indian market at own whims and fancies. The deficiency of service by FedEx Express is good example what these multi-national companies would bring to India as best practices. With protracted judicial system, these companies enjoy at the cost of consumer welfare. For suing these companies for negligence and deficiency of service, individual consumer will made to run from corner to corner to prove that these companies have done malpractice. At the end, they always end with appeal. To deal an issue with judicial proceedings, we will have to wait for four more years. With all the time and money spent to prove that the service is deficient, they will claim that FedEx has delivered the goods hence they are not liable any further.

The symptoms are contagion! Spread like deadly H1N1, sars to other corporates who step into Indian market. To make it more worse, European countries trying to enter Indian market with Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA). By allowing such favor it would aggravate the pathetic situation, the vibrant economy will be of no use to its own citizens.

Multi-billion marketing:

It will make us wonder how good these services would be in their home country! When a person starts a business, it will be established at his home country. Later, the corporate flag will be flouted across the globe to claim the MNC berth. What boost these companies to setup money poaching camps across globe?! Why politicians lobby for such corporates! With pathetic service, how did they claim the top spot! Mere marketing strategy will not fetch the fame. For that, snapdeal must be top e-tailor provided with their undue advertisements. Yet people remember snapdeal for soap-bar and wooden sticks which are delivered instead of smartphones. It would take something more to claim the top spot. With aggressive marketing even before full-fledged entry has made huge buzz for these Multi-billionaire companies. Thanks to media for marketing they did it for free of cost. Whenever a huge enterprise enters Indian market, a business page will have headlines about that enterprise and their strategy planned for India. Not even the local big players get that fame prior to the entry. But these corporates receive red carpet treatment.

Domestic Couriers:

Compared to FedEx, domestic courier guys are good at logistics. They do real service. The goods deliveries were done within 2 days of order. They know the reality. Instead of investing heavily on marketing, these domestic players invest on good service which earns them the reputation. The only drawback is they lack marketing. Despite such huge drawback, they stand good when it comes to competition between these international courier agency and domestic courier agencies.

We wonder how these international shipping agencies manage consignment to be delivered at international location! At domestic level they stumble and choke to deliver 100 grams of weight. Then sure it will be an international drama for sender and receiver of the goods.

At what are they investing?

The real question, at the end of the day, is in what these international companies invest at. As far as we have seen, the service was pathetic. All they do is gross mismanagement of consignments and goods that are to be delivered. So actually what make them to spend millions of dollars to create a fake illusion of logistics? They call technology in place to efficiently manage the logistic works. Is it really worth it? Investing in some technology is going to solve the problem of customers! None could answer. To come to a just opinion, they spend more for the employees who don’t actually seem to work. With goods shifting from one place to another within same city, it is evident that they are inefficient to handle the goods.

Is FDI necessary?

Foreign Direct Investment, shortly called as FDI, is considered to important ingredients of economic development. But not to forget that it is one of the ingredients to cook the economy. Just feeding on FDI will do no good in long terms. The Multi-billion companies are not trustable for the investments. Once, they find the market is saturated they find some new country to spoil with than to improving the present pathetic situation which they have created.

Flying of capital out of country will not only affect the Central Reserve banks but also create unstable social. The residue left would be unemployment, inflation, political crisis, revolts. So, having a grip over the FDI influence in economy is a key factor. Those who advocate lassiez-faire policy will still persist for less state control over the economy will do more good. But with the present state of affairs, letting loose those multi-billion dollar companies will create havoc at some point in the future.

The litmus test with a Multi-national company, FedEx, will stand as good case study of how the world views Indian market. It is for the state to control the indiscriminate exploitation with stringent consumer welfare laws. Promoting citizen welfare is far more important than the multi-billion investments. Still the tug of war between the FedEx and the recipient continues.

Chennai City Map: Chennai Metro Rail Project

The Chennai Metro Rail project is an initiative to map railway lines to the major parts of the Chennai city. For an emerging economy like India such infrastructure projects boost economic growth. The aim was to provide connectivity to the major part of the Chennai City. The present sub-urban EMU services don’t reach most part of the inner Chennai City. The Chennai map is filled with haphazard roads and streets.  The metro rail would provide connection between much visited Chennai tourist places, business hub and hotels in Chennai.

As common among all infrastructure projects, Chennai city traffic got a huge hit. The diversion and one way caused inconvenience to the general public especially people who depend heavily on those arterial roads to commute between office and home. Not to mention the vehicles packing at each signal at peak hours! Despite state government effort to reduce choking at Chennai city traffic signals, the snail pace traffic is the order of the day.

The worst of all is the situation of pedestrians. Majority of the footpath that were just a left-over of present day corporation roads disappeared as the demolition and restructuring debris of buildings has covered all over the left-over footpath.  The worst affected among them are elderly and disabled person.

The recent footbridge between Chennai Fort sub-urban railway station and Chennai Central station are good example. The construction of new footbridge over the crossing is laudable step to help pedestrian to cross between the all-time busy Chennai city roads. But such footbridge must benefit all class pedestrian. The present construction of footbridge between the two railway stations causes too much inconvenience than good.

The new footbridge is not pedestrian friendly than former subway footpath which is closed for the Chennai metro rail project. The following are the major factors that make the present footpath between the two major railway stations a difficult task for pedestrians: 

• The steps of the new footpath are much steeper than normal. To be frank, even a young person of age 35 years has to get hold of the railings on the either side of the footbridge when getting down or up the footbridge. 
• And the steps are not wide enough to keep a firm foot on each step. The bridge seems to be completed in haste. 
• The resonating sound of footsteps of other people who use the bridge may make us feel insecure about the safety. The vibration will make us think the bridge might collapse any moment even though it might be technically fit for use.

Not only is the footbridge between Chennai Fort and Central Railway stations in limbo. Every other footbridge suffer lacuna when it comes to address the needs of elderly and disabled persons. Those who need utmost care and social protection are neglected when it comes to planning infrastructure of Chennai City.

The elderly and disabled friendly footbridges exist at fewer places. Nevertheless, most crossing has not incorporated friendliness of the footbridge to facilitate elderly and disabled. The very use of these footbridges is defeated. At most locations, footbridges were never used. People prefer to cross busy road than using the footbridge.

Not only the elderly and disabled get affected. The tourist who visit Chennai tourist places are worst affected. For Chennai, medical tourism is it famous for. But the tourist who depend on Chennai city map to travel to tourist places are worst affected. They will be left in Chennai Urban jungle without any help than to depend heavily on private transport who will try to fleece tourist.

The intention to place Chennai Metro rail on Chennai city map will help a lot in future but at the cost of present. The great hurdle for any tourist in Chennai is to reach 5 star hotels or 3 star hotels in Chennai of their choice. They are at the mercy of Chennai traffic. The present Metro rail project will address the traffic concerns of tourist but the present change to facilitate the project has cost dear to the commuters.

With unfriendly footbridges and road traffic, the travel within Chennai was made a challenge. The only solution to the present day ordeal was to complete the Chennai Metro Rail Project on time with no more time extension. Not only the road traffic but also the pedestrians suffer the heat of uncomforting travel. With exponential increase the vehicles year by year, the situation would turn worse by each year.

Ballon d’Or : Messi or Ronaldo, Ribery frustrated

The French footballer, Ribery, has expressed his frustration over Ballon d’Or title that Messi and Ronaldo were only two players to have won the award for past seven years. As Manuel Neuer missed out the title for 2014, Ribery has casted doubt on Ballon d’Or title. But the reality is Messi and Ronaldo are better among the best. Those made them get nominated successively.

Gameplay of football has changed. Slow and steady classic form of football has transformed into pace and speed. One who runs with the ball to the penalty area gets the praise. That was the reason Messi and Ronaldo are famous for. Unlike other footballer, Messi and Ronaldo were gifted with great clubs at the start of the career. Both played among the best players and trained with best coaches at the early time of their career.

But for fans who scores for the club is the hero of the day. With Messi and Ronaldo no club would miss scoring the match of that day. Either they will be scoring or assist the team member to score the goal. But somehow they get to the record of cherished moment of the match. This is not happening with defenders and Goalkeepers. They are least attended when it comes to praising for the win. It had for any goalkeeper or central defender to provide spectacular assist as the Ballon d’Or winner. The first shot goal from a punt kick is almost rarity. This has cost Neuer his title for the year 2014.

The hard truth is the voting reflected the change of mindset in the game. All they forgot is the team work. The award truly reflects the amount of goals scored by the nominee. Not the clean sheets or time taken to concede a goal. This was echoed by Ribery. But the frustration has gone too far that Ribery has marked whether it would be worth to attend Ballon d’Or ceremony in future when Messi and Ronaldo get nominated. 

Effective Time Mangement: Simple steps!

In the previous post, we talked about the importance of waking up early in the morning. We learned how to brighten the day when your environment starts turning bright. The essential of time management is not to try too hard. Keep the target simple. But achieve the target. To be short, simple and achievable target is the key to success. Efficient time management from day one will make you weak and tried. It would be wise to add sips of time management tricks day by day. Let’s jump to the other steps involve in efficient time management.

Important & necessary:

Most people find little to complete all the job of a day. Not only those complain, all of us leave behind some part or whole part of the job for another day. To be practical, it is quite common and we can’t help it. So it is good not to worry about your lost day but focus on what was done and how efficient the work was done. Yet, many of us might question, “Hey man! The work which was procrastinated was very important and serious to my business! How come you say it as common?”

The trick used by successful time management is to classify your work. You can tag your work as follows:

·        Important

·        Necessary

Important are “must be done but has some more time to finish it” while Necessary are “well timed work”. Both might be mutually exclusive or inclusive depending upon circumstances of your day. I wish I don’t get too technical here. To keep it simple: “You received telephone bill with 10 days to settle the dues.” It is important but not necessary. “Your boss calls you while doing a work”. Yet the work is far more important, it is necessary to answer your boss. Your work can be done for whole day but your boss will not wait for your answer.

I guess the above examples will help you understand the two tags: important and necessary. While all important work are not necessary but all necessary are important. An imminent work gains necessary status which can’t be subjected to procrastination.

But it is immature to preclude not all important works are not necessary. We find ourselves with “important and necessary” task to do. So, this kind of task gets priority over other tasks ahead. So create priorities for your daily task. At first we may find it time consuming to classify our daily job. But with few days of practice, we will do on-the-fly.

To make it simple further, follow the below mentioned priorities for each task:

1.     Important and necessary

2.     Not important but necessary

3.     Not Necessary but important

4.     Not important and not necessary

The 2^nd & 3^rd priority are interchangeable depending upon the tasks on our hand: “You were handed with telephone bill with 10 days to settle the dues.” It is not important but necessary. If you didn’t find time in that day to pay the bill, it will not hurt you. When it is the last day to settle the bill, it will turn “important and necessary” task. So, it is not the rule of thumb to follow the priorities always. But this will happen very rarely.

You have completed all the work for that day and returned home. All home chores are completed. Now, you will definitely find time to pay the bill (not necessary but important) .Yet it is good to apply simple common sense while scheduling the task. Not all tasks are same.

As the days pass on, we will find ourselves sub-classifying our daily task with in the four priorities.

Time spent on entertainment:

Now it’s party time. How much time you spent on entertainment? Does it really matter! Most people expect an enjoyable life. So entertainment play important role to keep us relax.

Most of us think entertainment is expendable. The time spent on amusement could be invested on productive work on that day. The above assumption will ruin our day further. All must have their own time for amusement. A time spent on your own well-being is not waste of time. So spend some time on other leisure activities when available. A 5 minutes good chats and jokes will relieve you of your stress and tension.

Happiness not only depends upon the amount of money you made in that day. It is good have some time for friends and family. This will not question our time management skill. For being productive, we can’t lose sight on what we try to have at the end of the day. It will always be a happy life. Keep schedule to perform all the tasks on hand but make sure we spent time with our family and friends.

After all, we work for them. We took our job to meet the needs of our family. So to be obsessed with our job will do more harm than good. Our family relationship is lost. Further, we will develop fatigue and sickness. Soon we will feel the work uncomfortable. Thus, loss in productivity. The end result is you will find the available time inadequate.

So, don’t get obsessed with profession. If you prefer to be a loner then you can skip this part. But for people seeking normal life, overcoming obsession will play magic both in personal as well as professional life.

Habit of saying “No”:

The weird strategy to follow is saying “no” to anyone who requests us to work on matter not worthy of our time. Really, most part of life is spent on nothing. 80-20 rule plays vital role. 80% of our life time spent on useless or non-productive work. To be efficient time manager, we have to build the habit of saying “no” for anything which will waste your time.

But we can’t have any hard or soft rule to this habit. When we find ourselves end up with least priorities, you consider saying “yes”. But an imminent task lay ahead it would be wise enough to give a strict “no”.

Some may find this habit and the preceding section as contradicting. But it is not. If we start to follow schedules for our family & friends and profession then it will not conflict with other strategy. Consider, “You have meeting by 8 o clock morning. But your friend calls you for a night party”. An involuntary answer would be “no”. If we play any diplomacy, there will be high probable chance of messing up our business meeting.

We may find ourselves in more awkward situation. When uncertainty looms, better we should answer it with “no”. Playing chances would spoil other day.

Some might feel skeptical about this habit. “Won’t it spoil our relationship with friends & family if we answer in negative? My boss won’t appreciate my negative answer!” Alright, to avoid tussles say no when one sphere encroaches upon another. When we spend time with family, our bosses should be kept at abeyance. Anyhow, our boss will find a way to convey the message when we return to work.

But never say “no” at the time of contingency. For any emergency help or unforeseen accident, respond with immediate effect. As all we know there is no foolproof method for time management.

Think of your goal often:

Actual time management is all about how good we feel about the day when it ends. So if we achieve our goal then we feel the day was really productive and we utilized our time effectively. So the whole time management will feel like a psychological assessment. If we make it, we feel satisfied for the day.

But nothing is achieved in a single day. We have to invest numerous day hours on our goals before we rejoice over the result. The common human tendency is to have reluctance after a few days of vigor. For long-term goals, it is good to split up the targets. Each target must be feasible for that day. Completing day by day target will surprise us. One day we will wonder our long-term goals were achieved with ease.

It is similar to pie by pie approach to eat a big cake. Short term targets and goals keep us motivated. For long term goals, we have to create a short and achievable daily targets. The very big achievement starts with simple steps.

“If you feel you are losing focus on your goal, then write it down in a piece of paper. It will keep you focused on your goal. But I am not sure about it scientifically. But writing it down is good way to keep you motivated and will remind you of your goal”. Sometimes unquestionable stupid things work well. Focusing on the goal will reduce the time spent on unrelated activities. Once such activities are taken out of equation you will find yourself with ample time to muddle with.

Sleep well:

Most hard workers are against the sound sleep. For them who work hard with sleepless night will achieve their goals. We can’t assure that. Not to blame them, that was others thought us from childhood. One who works hard, sacrificing one owns sleep, will succeed in life. But one golden theory was never spoken. They forgot us to educate how to be efficient worker than to be hard worker.

Sleepless night for only meant to night shift workers. The effective to keep a day long is to do all the work in efficient manner. But it need a calm and relax mind. So having a good sound sleep in a day is must for anyone who which to be effective next day.

We can check the effectiveness of the people based on the sleep. How sound your bed time will make you calm and relax. It will improve focus and concentration. Few people get new ideas while they sleep. If you are one of them, then sleep is the best remedy for any creativity block that hogs you.

It doesn’t mean that all those work hard relentlessly are doing it bad. It all about how efficient we might be otherwise. As stated above, obsession with something will create a block on thinking. To overcome such block, a calm and sound sleep is the remedy. The serenity will create new opportunity and new methods to achieve your goals. In present world, only way to get serenity is through sleep where we think of nothing around us. Brain will work on one thing which you sow as goals to achieve.

Having sound 8 hours of sleep will improve our professional productivity. And helps us keep happy. The most desirous life is to live happily. So we have to find the happiness within ourselves than seeking it from other sources.

Naps & breaks:

Do you remember the day one lesson on time management? It was said to wake up early. But the drawback is dizziness throughout the day. Not only the break the dizziness to keep you fresh and energized a short nap is enough. Take a nap for 5 to 15 minutes before the second part of your day. All you will feel energized and motivated.

It is not only limited to naps. How about a chat with co-workers? Discussing funny and weird things happen on work floor day to day. To break monotony, periodic breaks serve as safety value to vent out the boredom.

If it is needed you can try to laugh out loud to relieve stress and moodiness which are resultant of long boring work. Once you overcome the monotony, you are able to get back to work with some vigor compared to the work done without breaks. After all, we are not robots programmed to do a job tirelessly.

Natural tendency of human being is to getting indifferent towards things done repeatedly. We cannot blame anybody. It is how we are created. We are cursed with our brain that it needed heterogeneous acts to keep it focused and concentrated. When you have a break, don’t talk about your work. Talk about something irrelevant to your job. The purpose of breaks is to keep you focused on job. This will improve efficiency. Thus reduce the time consumed on the work completion.

Whatever we might do, the fact that a day consist of 24 hours will not change. So it is up to us to decide how we utilize our day. The above methods are simple and practical methods which will make you work efficiently thus managing your time. Don’t force yourself hard to follow. Try it. It will come out gradually. 

Lu Yong: Chinese Buyers Club

China is prosecuting Lu Yong for importing illegals drugs. But the person was doing to keep his right to live. A leukemia patient was caught for smuggling life-saving drugs illegally into China to keep himself and others alive. A drug when would cost 1000 yuan would cost 100 when bought from India pharma companies. The strict patent regime made the life difficult when it comes to life saving drugs. The medicines are out of reach for majority of the population. The story doesn't ends in China but the ordeal continue in Thailand, Brazil, African countries.

For multinational pharma companies, life saving medicine is just a business but for third world its a matter of life and death. In most cases, the customs department release the seized goods on humanity grounds. But still the strict patent regime continue the ordeal of patients who needed the life saving drugs. While developing countries mulls amending patents law, the MNC pharma companies lobby against the move. For them, Indian pharma companies are high value target to be taken out from the market to get upper hand. Since most buyers club depend on India for generic version of life saving drugs, MNCs started pestering Indian pharma industries with unwanted litigation.

It is good to amend patent law favoring the production of generic medicine. If not then one day medicine would turn to be high cost luxury product. Creating a cure for new disease is commendable and the researchers who spent whole life for the such innovation must be rewarded but with any other lives. The very purpose of invention get a wrong notion when it fails to benefit majority of the human population..

For multi national companies, the drug they produce must fetch profit along with cost incurred in such researches. But such approach when it comes to life saving drugs defeat the very purpose of citizen welfare. We are not still stuck at the old notion of warring state. The Concept is Gross National Happiness is taking precedence over the old Gross Development product. Such notion gains success when citizens are provided with adequate welfare schemes.

The law might stamp him as wrongdoer but the equity discharge him. Lu Yong, not only saved his life, tried to save many others. The charges were that he was trying to smuggle goods illegally. Had he done it for profit the state action is justifiable. When a law which does injustice then such law shall be considered as no law. Hope the the cause of Yu Long might turn the tide in the developing world.