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Showing posts from July, 2006

Mike Cudahy and Marquette

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Our Dubai office – of four people – doesn’t have any dress code, no time clock. We have no objection if office refrigerator is stocked with alcoholic beverages or microwave is used for cooking. But we are a still far cry from this amazing company who did all this for 1000 plus factory+ office employees and also had a day care center within the office premises for employee’s kids. The company was Marquette Electronics based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA producing high quality medical equipments and was one of the top 100 US companies to work during 80’s and 90’s. The architect of this unconventional method of managing this company was Mike Cudahy. I didn’t work for Marquette but during my stint in Oman, I was involved in selling their products, interacting with their international division people and visiting their Milwaukee facility. I was fortunate to meet Mike Cudahy first at Wisconsin and later in Nice, France during distributor conference. Mike started Marquette as an entrepreneur w

Israel's masterstroke ?

When Rafik Hariri – Ex Prime Minister was assassinated on February 14th 2005, with 600 Ton explosives and sophisticated precision trigger device, all fingers of accusation were pointed at Syria. The theory was based upon two rational reasons: 1. Extensive military and intelligent influence that Syria wielded with their 14,000 troops based in the Lebanon at the time of the attack. 2. There was a public rift between Hariri and Syrian Leadership and Syria didn’t want Hariri to continue after serving two terms as prime Minister of Lebanon. As Lebanese people triggered by American and Western Media poured on the streets to oust the presence of Syrian forces in Lebanon, I very much doubted the above logic of Syria being behind the above plot. First : Syria wont be naïve and politically stupid to eliminate Hariri -their political rival to make him martyr in the eyes of Lebanese population. Second : Even if they were to eliminate him, they won’t do it in a public glare – right in the Beirut’s

scotland : with scotch and haggis

I have just passed over Baltic Sea. With clear sky, at 10,688 feet, I could see a coastline of western Europe through my right window and coastline of Scandinavia on left on the navigation map of Emirates flight. Warsaw is ahead of me with Minx on the left side. Eastern Europe and Scandinavia have so far eluded me in my goal of touching diverse geographical places around the globe but my forging business relationship with Hungarian company at EDTA meeting gives me a hope to enter Eastern European block. Now I am past Warsaw, and heading towards Black sea piercing between Kiev on the left side and Budapest and Bucharest on right side. With my seat video monitor no working; there is no better way than to continue to pen my thoughts about my scotalnd trip. When I learnt about Edinburgh being just an hour from Glasgow, I was happy. Else, another visit to the Glasgow city wouldn’t have evoked much passion. Opportunity to escape from Dubai’s desert heat to smell Scotland’s rain soaked cloudy

Japan - after 23 years

My first overseas trip was to Japan in 1983. Since then, I visited this place few times, but this month trip took me to the very places that I had touched in 1983. Akiabara, Shinju Ku – electronic and business district of Tokyo, Narita Airport, Mount Fujii, Lake Hakone, Tokyo Station, Bullet Train etc. In all these years, not much has changed with the exception of the products displayed in shops. Instead of TV sets, Walkman – they have IPODs, Mobiles and Play Stations. Buses now take you right at the top of Mount Fujii instead of a steep climb amidst sulphur induced geysers. Pirate ship at Lake Hakone remains same and so is the precise meticulousness of Japanese people and their criss- cross of metro train system. In today’s global marketing scenario, taking important customers to foreign jaunts is not so un-common and so is getting intoxicated till wee hours, hoping to reach for that elusive precious thread of business relationship. But what if after walloping in Japanese hospitality