Fools’ Walk Continued

Fools Day had been termed as “Entrepreneur’s Day” way back in 2014 as the thought came to my mind “Entrepreneurs are Fools”. That got further converged to a book called “Fools Walk”, as a entrepreneurs life story.

As we progressed in our entrepreneurial life for around 13 years and 9 years post the initial concept of Fools as, I can still understand, I have not progressed an inch to be wise from the state of foolishness.

Today I am going to state few contexts which I come across regularly through my team, colleagues, community and customers and most of the cases I still not have enough clue to solve the puzzle:

1)Phone is ringing no one picking up : I have told several time to my fellow members, if someone does not pickup your phone, how I can solve. Should I call him/her and patch you in or should I start calling instead of you? If not, how I can solve this problem? But why someone doesn’t pickup a call? He/She only does it when the call does’t give a comfort.

2) there is no requirement if anything comes up will get back to you : This is a typical reception barrier to say you know passively “No”. If we can not break this barrier, then surely we can not penetrate to an account

3) Price is too high : This is a Common problem & I think everyone of you face it. If I have win an opportunity only being L1, then there is not sales team needed. Every opportunity we will submit proposal and if we become L1, we will get it. On the contrary L1 doesn’t reflect anything till the time someone have comparative facts & figure between L1, L2, L3 etc. Fundamentally if we can not focus of values and demonstrate the same, we will be surely be trapped only into price war.

4) Ownership, Accountability & Inclusiveness: In my journey I keep on struggling on the pointers from surrounding with open ended non solvable issue:

• Never did earlier, first time doing it
• forgot it/Not remembering now
• Getting confused
• Do not know much as it is very technical
• Not finding the mail
• Need help, not finding proper way out
• Did it / Read it long back, can’t recollect now
• Customer wants to talk you only
• Getting Frustrated
• Can not handle pressure
•  

It is not important we will have solutions for every problems in our life,. But, it is important for us to try, discover and flag issues/concerns sothat your immediate superior / mentor can guide through a path. Otherwise, anyone can not address/solve the issues if it comes only as a problem. We can’t learn to fight standing in the back instead of facing the war in the battlefield. We can’t learn to swim unless we jump into the water, struggle and then gradually overcome problems. This can only happen once step into it with inclusiveness, accountability and ownership. This is part of behavioural patterns of human being and can not be taught. Skills can be nurtured and trained, but surely not attitude.

5) Terms & Deliverables: In business, it has been observed, all of us are always getting pressed by everyone else other side of the table, sometimes other stake holders in the team, sometime customer, sometime vendors and OEMs. If effect, we will always get pressed and compelled to agree the terms /deliverable from our side. Parameters can be be price, payment terms, sow, discounts, timeframe, milestones etc. In effect we will always be in catch 20 situation unless we have our own logic and have attitude the peruse to agree on a mutually beneficial agreeable pointer.

Many of these pointers are demonstrated through small real life stories in the book called “Fools Walk” which is nothing but a journey two fools/entrepreneurs, myself (sushobhan) and my friend Pritam.

The book is relaunched today with combinations of multiple editions and additions/alterations.

If you have time, you go through it. I am sure, you can relate the same.

Annual Office Picnic 2023

Last Saturday, 21st January, we had our office Picnic at Prime. The venue was little outside of the city on the Bank of Ganges. It is actually a day-out destination named Ganga Bitan Homely at Uluberia.

This financial year 2022-23, we were planning various different initiatives for internal bonding, engagement inside team to emerge as a bigger brand to penetrate globally. “Built in Bengal and Serve Global” is the vision for Prime V2.0, in spite of sitting the negatives inside the community, where the thoughts are nothing can be done in Bengal. However, we are surviving since last 13years and fighting back sticking to our global headquarters in Kolkata, 2nd largest and important city of British India. In line with the same, we had our sales conference on 14th April with “Good to Great” workshop. In between we had regular celebrations on Birthdays, casual fun with events, parties etc. Once winter arrived, Picnic was already in the Radar with main objective to a fun day along with family outside office and beyond work. Office is a place, we spend most of our day in a 24hrs span, after home. Hence the place needs to be beyond a workspace so that it is part of extended family and off course beyond money and work. The same can only happen when get connected with our family members, spouses, kids, parents and relatives. We can be of any help to each other mentally, morally even for a personal, family problems. In order to do that Office needs to be place of Fun where we can enjoy, share problems, get solutions, get friends-guides-mentors. This can only be established through out of office activities. I am a vivid believer of old school thoughts which I have seen 30/40 years back like Office sports, picnic, cultural programs, drama, songs, outbound travel with family etc which I had experienced on my father’s office.

Anyways, Picnic this year was conceptualized almost a month back. Finding out the venue, planning for menus, organizing the vehicle etc were organized by the Team professionally and smartly.

Finally on the day two 25-seater traveler bus and 2 private vehicles started at around 8.30am towards the venue. Two buses were stationed one at Airport and the other at Exide to cover both North and South participants respectively. It was around 2hours drive from Airport. To reach Ganga Bitan homely, we had  to take 2nd Hooghly bridge from south/ Nibedita Setu from north then take Bombay Road NH 16 towards Uluberia. Once driven from Uluberia flyover to Goruhata more, we took right towards Ulughata 58 gate ,vent (garchumuk). On the way, first we got Mohini more and then Belari More. From here, we took left Village Road to reach Ganga Bitan project , on Ganga Bitan Complex, Plot A-1 is GANGA BITAN HOMELY.

We all reached around 10.30am total around 50 people. Few of the members could not join as pre-occupied or health hazards and the members from other parts of the country surely got missed due to locational proximity.

Once we roamed around the property for few moments, we all rushed to breakfast. The menu was comprising of Green Peas Kachuri (karaishooti Kachuri), Potato Curry (Aloo Dum), Boiled Egg, Sweets (Seasonal Sandesh). On completion of the breakfast, team got settled in distributed manner, few got relaxed inside rooms (there were three well furnished rooms, one in the ground floor and two in the first floor), few went to the field besides the river with cricket, football, badminton etc. Few kept on roaming here and there, while few others engaged in casual gossiping. Meanwhile at around 12.30pm hot vegetables fry and chicken fry got severed along with liquor and milk tea. Sprite and Thumps up were also there to accompany for few enthusiasts.

Post this small break again people got engaged in freaking out in the field besides the bank of river. In between we got a cake cutting session to celebrate the success as a Team.

Finally, at 3pm, we reassembled for Lunch. Menu was sumptuous and mouthwatering with Rice, Daal, Fried Potatoes (Aloo Bhaji), Cauliflower Curry (Aloo Gobi), Fish (Katla Kalia), Mutton, Chatni, Papad & Sweets. It was so delicious and heavy, most of us couldn’t go back to the field even though we wanted to. Hence post lunch session mostly spent on gossiping, casual talks, music and kids dance.

Finally, it came to a end as all good things doesn’t last long. Around 4.30pm we had our evening Tea and bid adieu to our Day-Out spot. With the gratitude to river Ganges, we aspired to have similar outbounds along with team and their families in a much larger duration (possibly a nigh halt) so that we can cherish the colors of nature in different phases of day and night.

We all got rejuvenated and promised ourselves to have better interlock internally and surge ahead together to serve our customers in a better way so that Company will not only grow, we all will be the part of that journey with vision “Born in Bengal, Rising Global”.

Fool’s Walk – Retrospection in Covid19 Outbreak

Fools Day had been termed as “Entrepreneur’s Day” way back in 2014 as the thought came to my mind “Entrepreneurs are Fools”. That got further converged to a book called “Fools Walk”, as a entrepreneurs life story.

Last year this date, I had written my initial observations in lockdown phase during initial Covid19 outbreak.

But furthermore as you all know Covid situations still threatening all of us be in life or in business, my retrospection says terming Entrepreneurs as fools including me, was not at all wrong, rather this same analogy got further reinstated during last one year on Covid19 outbreak.

Let us run through few of the samples.

Collaboration:

Collaboration is a myth. In my last 10 year’s of journey, I have tried to collaborate with various enterprises in the community. The idea is to generate Businesses for the community enterprises for mutual benefits. every provider has its own strength and customer base. In effect if in the same base (where I have good relationship, existing Businesses), we can surely cross-sell new offering showing fellow enterprises as group companies, consortium and sometimes as a new SBU under my company itself. This will not open up extended sales arm for my fellow enterprises, but there will be additional revenue earning opportunity for me as well. Same is vice versa for the other companies as well. But unfortunately this got miserably failed due to ego, mistrust, doubt, lack of ownership etc. Similar experience got further revalidated during Covid times. The moment I am interfacing to the market, end customer is depending on my personal image, goodwill, repute, past credentials, trust, my methodology, thought process etc. But my collaboration partner is never ready to understand or rely on my thought process post picking up the order. He/She will completely overrule the baseline of the parameters on which the business was picked up. They will try to impose their own methodology completely suppressing me or my customers’ thoughts stating those are not practical as we do not process any domain knowledge. And then the real problem starts. Delivery team or partner does not listen to me, customer becomes unhappy, customer is unwilling to talk to delivery team, delivery team not interested to talk customer. I keep on try to become an interface or bridge between all stakeholders and try to settle the matter amicably. But nothing works out

 Delivery team/partner starts thinking I am trying to accuse them without any fault of theirs and having intent to not paying them. Customer keep on getting disheartened and finally order gets cancelled. This in effect waste a large amount of time to bring business and trying to deliver on a domain which was not my core competency, rather dependent on collaboration partner expertise. But story is concluded yet. The moment order lost, the partner/delivery teams becomes more doubtful as if I am creating a drama and trying suck the project from them and give it to someone else. They are least interested to understand the order is lost, rather they keep on pressing for their claims on payment. They are not interested to the loss of time, repute, goodwill, rather focused on recovering their receivables by any means (threating, legal, whispering campaign and what not).

The same story took place several times in 10years and got further reinstated in Covid times. The same was a learning as I am not learning from previous experience being a fool.

New resolution “No collaboration at all” and no experimentation in Business where I do not have internal competencies.

Employment:

I think many of you learnt though my lot of articles on employment problems in Bengal. We hired a senior sales person last year January (2020) and selected one more senior Sales Person on February end to join from April 1st week. Meanwhile Covid19 propagated and lockdown imposed. Still we had hired the 2nd sales person since committed.

May 2020 onwards we had started a 20-30% temporary deduction policy and committed employees we will replenish it back once everything settled down. Now April to October, entire sales team Business generation was zero. Two senior sales persons were playing hide and seek game by showing same lead every month and generating fake commitments. There was no intent of creating buzz even in those challenging times. In eight months (February to September), as there was no contribution from the sales team, we were forced to tell them about revision in salary structure by reducing fixed component and increasing variable component. Immediately both of them left and interestingly both of them reviewed us public rating site as below:

This has happenned many a times during last 10 years where employees will leave absconing, they will leave in just a overnight notice , they will complain about company strategy, they will run whispering campaing about company work culture etc, but very few found to be couragous enough to face exit interview and document his/her grievences(if any). More precisly the Covid19 taught me, employment situation in India has not changed. There are enough jobs, but not enough employable resources

The moment we float any requirement (JD) to the market, we are flooded with resumes from the markets from every possible sources. But interestingly most of them do not appear even in interview. Even after few people appear in the interview, once offered they put up “No show”. Many of them do not even confirm that they are not joining and more precisely they avoid picking up calls form HR.

Existing employees will leave overnight without extending any time for transfer of knowledge, handover and taking stock of the situations keeping customers into a no-man’s land. And post leaving the Job, they will post here and there in a whispering campaign mode.

Customers:

Best product or solutions in lowest possible price (if possible free) was always expected in the eco system and more precisely once it is a service. The same mindset shoots up further during Covid times. There were situations customer wanted something immediate without understanding COvid situation, lockdown etc. The demand was immediately someone needs to visit onsite either to enable a collaboration tools or to conduct a digital forensic for a ransomware attack. But they were not willing to pay additional charges for private vehicle etc and more interestingly once the job finished, they were reluctant to pay immediate with the clause of lockdown, finance issues etc. One of my customer taken hardware/software in January 2020, they have not yet paid large amount of money taking Covid as an issues and while running pillars to post (government, MSME, legal), no leaves could be turned as yet.

Family/Relatives:

Home had become our new office almost for 6-8 months during lockdown. Even after that many of the people are still continuing Work from Home and that may be permanent trend for many of the large organizations even. Here comes the problem statement. Mixing Entrepreneurial life with Home Atmosphere is always complex. During covid as Business went down, we had to stretch ourselves to find innovative ways to generate business and it was Web Meetings. Since morning 8am to 9pm night, it was stressful time to meet and explain new technologies, tools to the customers to bring business. But family always thought of us being too busy and not spending time with them in spite of being in office. The problems in office, financial troubles, business downsizing nothing could ever be shared with them and we never want to spread stress among the family. But in effect we had to suffer in a sandwiched situation between stress and family life expectations

There are many more examples can be shared. But the article may become too lengthy. I will try to express in the next article on the same.

However, let us celebrate today either as Fool’s Day or Enterprenure’s day.

 What do you say?

Mr. Chandraketu and ASAP Syndrome

It has been months, I was unavailable in my blog. Let us discuss today on some interesting topic.

Last two three months I was working with one of my ex colleagues and present business associate Mr.Chandraketu Verma for a specific global projects. The activities were covid related items like gloves, mask, PPE, medicines etc.

Interestingly every time any opportunity comes, it is on fire i.e. customer wants on yesterday basis. In effect all the people in the value chain including Chandraketu and Me keep pushing the downstream. However, at the end of the day it was happening like neither downstream nor upstream was getting moved by the push, rather they were becoming much more reluctant, slow and apprehensive if unnecessarily we are creating a situation always. Suddenly it struck my mind and I have named it “ASAP Syndrome ”.

In my 20 years of career, I have observed it across the community, eco system. Customer always jumps into the last moment and needs the same immediately. They always threaten at GunPoint as if otherwise he will place the order to someone else. The poor fools like us who thinks it real, jumps into the sea, get pressurized, take tension, thinks the situation as life and death scenario and try to achieve for something really war footing.

There are several pros and cons with this “ASAP Syndrome”. Oops, my apologies, I have not yet explained what is “ASAP” ! This is the short form of “As soon as possible”, and the same is quite commonly used in corporate world.

Now “ASAP Syndrome” is like a trap. Only few people gets attracted towards it by thinking about customer centricity.

Lets give an example of last Sunday. A specific material was supposed to be sent to Mexico from Bangladesh. Customer had given a purchase order on Thursday evening along-with payments as per payment terms. The moment the swift transfer slip passed to us, the pressure was building on us if the same could be dispatched. Mexico being 10/11 hours behind, they were pushing us to dispatch immediately. However, that was evening at Bangladesh and business hour already closed. More precisely Bangladesh is closed on Friday and Saturday being weekly Holidays. Hence last Sunday was the earliest possible time the same could be initiated. Sunday morning onward there was continuous push on updates on every half an hour form upward chain. Ajay Swin was getting pressure from Mexico and was pushing Chandraketu. In effect he was chasing me and I was further passing the same to Chandrashekhar, Ajhar. My counterpart Aminul Islam was also chasing them locally. Counter response was always ” we are working on the same and it will be done ASAP”. But unfortunately, the material was not available in the city and that had to be sourced from outskirts and in effect it could not be possible to dispatch on Sunday. But the customer pressure was still on and in effect all of us (me, Chandraketu, Ajay, Ajhar, Aminul etc) had sleepless night. Even our time night 3am, customer demand was to supply the courier slip of dispatch. How much in unrealistic it may be, customer was not ready to listen any practical difficulties. Even after the next day (Monday)bonce actually material got dispatched through DHL and tracking sheet shared , there was follow-ups like when tracking will be made available online, why they have not airlifted as yet etc. No one in upward chain was interested to listen that we do not have any control on DHL process, there are scarcity of flights in Covid situations.

This is just an example and I had mentioned the story with the name of Chandraketu as this was the recent one and “ASAP Syndrome” got evolved through this incident.

One of my other customer had a Cyber Security software product and they did not renew with software AMC last year. In effect many of signature based services were unavailable to them. After also one year struggle they had released a PO 15days PO for the last year backlog as well as this year’s renewal together. After releasing the PO, very next day they have started demanding not only the lic related features and services, but also started accusing us as if we are delaying the same and in effect their business dependencies are getting impacted.

They were not ready to understand, there will be certain procedures on deal approval, order loading etc at our side and OEM side as well. As they delayed the procedure for more than a year, old price clearance got expired, prices got escalated by 25% by now. Still they started blasting us why these processes could not be done in 24hrs. While we had asked for money as AMC renewal loading to the back-end distributor has to be 100% advance as the customer was defaulter (lic was not renewed last year), customer reaction was again accusing us as we had to manage it. They can not release money unless their internal processes are cleared. Almost every two hours there were follow-up calls and mails to extend Services to them “ASAP”.

Actually this reminds me good old story of “Cowboy and Tiger”. The cowboy was kidding every now and then seeking help with imaginary claim of Tiger Attack on his Cows. Every-time it appeared to be fals while people came for assistance. Finally one day really tiger came and alas no one appeared for his help.

In life everything can’t be “ASAP”. That actually dilutes the real urgency in emergency times. Most of the time most of the people will not react/support to the people with ASAP Syndrome. This may result many mistakes, mess, unwanted issues as no once can think in peaceful mind under “ASAP” pressure. More precisely, the rare people like us (who still responds to this syndrome and acts on war footing) suffers as upward steam keeps on pressing as we appeared to be responsive on pressure and down-steam does not bother to respond or shows reluctant to react. As a result the people like us suffers in a Sandwich Situation and struggles with dual pressure.

Have you faced “ASAP Syndrome”? How was your experience?

Happy New Year 2018

Year 2017 has passed and we have landed into 2018. With best wishes of the New Year, let us try for few simple resolutions collectively and make our lives more meaningful. I have listed few pointers as it came to my mind:

1. Let’s build, ratain and carry forward Human Connections. This only matters, not internet of things.

2. Enjoy the time which is present, lets not worry about Past and futures

3. Let’s accept whatever comes to us instead of being judgmental.

4. Let us keep it simple.

5. Never give up, Be patient and stick to the situations. It is just about time when everything will turnaround.

6. Lets be brave, handle situations with courage, fight to win the battles in life.

7. Let us forgive.

8. Let’s relax and respond to to the situations in life instead of reaction and having panic.

9. Be positive and enthusiastic to spread the vibes around us.

10. There needs to be secrets and mystery in life. Let us not blow the covers always.

11. Let us acknowledge and appreciate those who helped.

12. Spread the message of love and peace. Nature belives in harmony, let us not break it.

Do you have any more suggestions?

Look forward for your inputs.

Season’s greetings – wish you and your family a wonderful year 2018 ahead!

Only Present Time Exists, neither Past nor Future

In about 48hours we are about to bid adieu to the ongoing year 2017. Before you are flooded with messages, wishes and carried away with celebrations in welcoming new year 2018,  I thought of spreading my lesson as I have learnt through life.

I had started writing seriously in the year 2014 through this English blog with the inspiration of one of my close friend. But the same  lost it’s track again while I have started writing in Bengali, mainly short poems (limericks) and essays. But my non Bengali friends kept on complaining as that they could not understand anything about it. Hence this year end post is dedicated to everyone , mainly for the people who could not understand any of my Bengali creations.

Anyways, let’s come to the topic !

Last week I met one of the senior fellow entrepreneurs of Bengal and got an extremely thought provoking insight. He said he learnt bathing in his old age (60+) from his grandson. I felt extremely curious. He said while concluding one day bathing session his 4 year’s old grandson told him” Relax grandpa, Bathing is not about just washing the body, but also to enjoy. Let me enjoy my bathing for few more moments”. I was speechless, how deep understanding of life from a just 4 year old kid.

The People of my generation (in mid forties) are not only in crisis, but also always in confusion. We have seen both the worlds, the world before connectivity and the aftewards. Hence even if we are addicted towards google, Facebook, Twitter, we keep on missing our older disconnected times. With the rise of connectivity we keep on getting overenthusiastic on hyped technologies like cloud, internet of things (IoT), Big Data, Blockchain and so on. People might be jumping on arguing on this , but may not disagree to the fact none of these are able bring peace to our life. Human lifes are becoming miserable day by day.We are worried about future with the knowledge of past and become too engaged in transactions. The aim is always to have greater future. But in the strive of having bright future we can not experience our present. In our life only present moment of time persists. Past is gone, future is unseen. But unfortunately none of us are able to enjoy the present. 

What ever is happening around us, we are not happy about it. We want something else and feel that will make us happy. Last day me and my family were enjoying the laser show in Lumbini Park , Hyderabad. Due course of the show of around 30minutes, my little son (6years old) poked me at least five times tos get a promise from me about playing mobile games once we are back home. We visited a family marriage ceremony few months back with my kids. Immediately after reaching venue, my daughter (10years) started persuing me for mobile games as she was getting bored. These are just some indicative samples to illustrate the facts. There are plentiful of similar examples to complement my thoughts. We keep on talking about external noises, sound polutions. However our internal noises are so vivid, it is not allowing us to live our present time happily.

In continuation of the little kid’s philosophy on bathing, please think how many of us are giving real importance on bathing. Bathing is always a hurried approach like a compliance of our daily routine life while the mind is internally talking about what all things are to be done post bathing and what all not went well or remained pending before the bathing. Same is applicable for every instances of life. Suppose I am writing something now and my mind is thinking about family activities to be done tomorrow, I have not written english blog frequently this year and next year I need to ramp up. Let’s assume we have bagged a project from a customer. Immediately during kick-off, i am thinking how fast I can finish this project, get the money and do some more businesses there. In life we keep on saving money for family, kids with a thought process while everything will get settled, then I will enjoy. By the time all settled, kids grown up, my age also travelled a long way with several physical problems like sugar, pressure, arthritis and so on. In effect I can not enjoy now as well. In life all three parameters like time, place and the entity get altered with time. Hence whatever is valid now, may not be relevant in the very next instances.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” – Buddha

What does it mean to live fully in the present moment? It means that your awareness is completely centered on the present. We are not worrying about the future or thinking about the past. The past and future are illusions, they don’t exist. As the saying goes “tomorrow never comes”. Tomorrow is only a concept, tomorrow is always waiting to come around the corner, but around that corner are shadows, never to have light shed upon, because time is always now.

Can we deep drive in this year end and have a resolution in the coming year 2018 to enjoy every moment of our life?

Market Mystery

After Reliance JIO launch on October 2016, the entire telecom market in India is under some kind of turbulence. JIO had worked silently over last 3years to lay fibers even in remotest part of the country and using the gigabyte last mile capacity, introduced voice over data (volte). Not only that , they had introduced all possible services through these high capacity backbone like on demand video, live TV and literally became India’s only full-fledged streaming platform. Being an ex-telecom practitioner, I had personally experienced visionary steps by Tata Indicom way back in 2004, as I was also the part of the journey. However, the vision of triple play services using DSL /Metro Ethernet/Wireless last mile and backbone fiber data network could not be successful due to several strategic decisions. However, that is not the discussion point today and may be elaborated through a separate blog later. The point I was trying to make that JIO had not only shaken up their competitors, but also created a market disruption. The competitions are not facing challenges in offerings, but also prices. In effect, lot of different initiatives evolved like Vodafone and Idea planning for joint movement (either merger, or JV or some other strategy), Uninor and Aircel are moving out of the market by selling spectrum. Swan Telecom, Systema Shyam Telecom were already resigned from the market way. More precisely Telecom market is going a consolidation, convergence. This in effect will influence employment. Operators will look for low budget employment and less in quantity. In effect, the jobs of several senior resources in high salaries will become vulnerable. Today or tomorrow job retrenchment is bound to happen and new requirements will gradually be evaporated. Not only for telecom, but also for the telecom ancillaries like ZTE, Huawei, Ericsson etc. will experience the similar impact due to the change in demand for their customers. Gradually, the JIO launch is bound to affect television, cable TV, dishtv market as well. In effect same telecom disease is bound to influence there as well.
My discussion today is about employment situations today and tomorrow. In effect, I was forced to explain market situation as an introduction, before we drill down further.
This kind of situations are not new in the country. Trust you remember problems at aviation industry, Kingfisher, Air Deccan, Sahara collapsed, Jet Airways did optimizations. There was huge impacts due to money market Fiasco. In West Bengal, there were more than 300 money market companies with wide presence. There were minimum 1 lakh unemployment with the sudden shut down after Sardha, MPS, Rose Valley incidents.
We keep on herring job cuts, pink slips almost every now and then from the biggies. With the tremendous rise of internet-based media, there has been a severe impact in print media as well. The turbulence there, would surely affect employment.
My concern, consideration, doubt with the outcome of these completely unstable job situations. With the illustrations, till now in the previous sections, trust it is quite eminent fact that there are lot of people got unemployed in recent past. The numbers are not at all thin. More precisely, lot of unemployment happened in the top level (people with 40+ age) in senior positions. So the market is bound to be flooded with eligible candidates. Will the emergence of many institutions, there are huge numbers of freshly passed out candidates with the pool of retrenched senior employees.
However, it seems a vapor wire. While companies search for suitable candidates for employment, they hardly get people interested for job. Mostly aspiring employees are interested to get monthly thick ATM top-ups without much of tension, hard work, and struggle. In case job life is not easy going, free flowing, more accountability required with more ownership, people prefer leaving jobs and keeping the search on for the next launch pad. They are not bothered to stay back at home with lot of liabilities before they find one more stopgap engagement.
With the so much uncertainty in the market, why there is no hungry, desperate, job seekers?
I do not know the answer. Do you?

 

Infocon Bangladesh 2016

Introduction

The civilization has always been interested on protection, let it be primitive or sophisticated present ages.  Human Life or property or business, our thoughts revolves on safeguarding the same.

With the advancement with technology, we are getting more engaged with internet and in effect data security is becoming more critical worldwide. Information security is a well-known consideration globally. We are regularly facing attacks, frauds, security breaches, confidentiality issues, information misuse, piracy, sniffing and leakage of data across the domain.

During my last visit to Bangladesh (During 14^th to 18^th March, 2016) , Bangladesh bank fraudulent activities came to my notice. Bangladesh got into the news for all the wrong reasons. The situation enforced the banks to take corrective actions in line of Cyber Security. We thought of spreading awareness on the domain in Bangldeash through our initiative “Infocon”.

Preface

In line with Bangladesh Bank attack, the mandates came to all Banks to cover Information Security and Cyber Security risk/threats in order to secure public money and confidential/critical information.

The Cyber Security Governance and risks assessment are to be enforced across the employees of the organization. There should be preparations for Assessment of technological difficulties and emergency management procedures. The same may be achieved through third party assessment, skill development on security for all Employees.

Information Security should be continuously monitored through Operation Centres 24×7 basis.

PCI-DSS compliance is to be adopted with two-factor authentication systems for Chip-n-Pin based cards. Logs should be collected, maintained, co-related and maintained for all critical assets in order to have proactive measures.

Besides there are needs for ISO 27001:2013, ISO 20000:2011, ISO 9001:2015 standards. Apart from these Risk Assessment Framework based on the industry de-facto standard NIST Controls and FISMA Law/Compliance/ Cobit framework.

People are looking as protecting against malware, ransomware, APT etc

In effect various providers, OEMs positioned their product/solutions to the financial sector potential clients. But different product/solutions on same domain created lots of confusions, dilemma in the customer mind before going for conclusion. Before “Infocom Bangladesh 2016” event is narrated, I will try to explain some of the burning topics on Secuirty which are not only critical for Bangladesh, but across the globe.

Ransomware

Now a days threats are multifold. Every day we are discovering new lines of threats. Ransomware is one of the latest in the bucket. Ransomware is turning out to be one of the most virulent and potentially heart-breaking malware infections to become a victim of. If you are unfortunate enough to accidentally download this type of malicious code — whether through phishing attacks or illegitimate downloads and compromised websites — the malware locks your screen, encrypts your files and attempts to exhort a fee before giving you the cryptographic key required to get your files back. There are many strains of ransomware including CryptoWall, CryptoLocker, CoinVault and Bitcryptor. This malware is nasty enough, however the prediction is that new generations will increase in sophistication — including stealth tactics, the silent encryption of data — on both systems and backups — and potentially the use of kernel components to encrypt files on the fly.

APT

An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a network attack in which an unauthorized person gains access to a network and stays there undetected for a long period of time. The intention of an APT attack is to steal data rather than to cause damage to the network or organization. APT attacks target organizations in sectors with high-value information, such as national defence, manufacturing and the financial industry. An APT attacker often uses spear fishing, a type of social engineering, to gain access to the network through legitimate means. Once access has been achieved, the attacker establishes a back door.

The next step is to gather valid user credentials (especially administrative ones) and move laterally across the network, installing more back doors. The back doors allow the attacker to install bogus utilities and create a “ghost infrastructure” for distributing malware that remains hidden in plain sight.

PCI DSS

PCI-DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

PCI DSS and related security standards are administered by the PCI Security Standards Council, which was founded by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc. Participating organizations include merchants, payment card issuing banks, processors, developers and other vendors.

There are three ongoing steps for adhering to the PCI DSS:

• Assess — identifying cardholder data, taking an inventory of your IT assets and business processes for payment card processing, and analyzing them for vulnerabilities that could expose cardholder data.
• Remediate — fixing vulnerabilities and not storing cardholder data unless you need it.
• Report — compiling and submitting required remediation validation records (if applicable), and submitting compliance reports to the acquiring bank and card brands you do business with.

PCI Data Security Standard – High Level Overview

Build and Maintain a Secure Network and Systems	Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data
	Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters
Protect Cardholder Data	Protect stored cardholder data
	Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public network
Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program (VAPT)	Protect all systems against malware and regularly update anti-virus software or programs
	Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
Implement Strong Access Control Measures	Restrict access to cardholder data by business need to know
	Identify and authenticate access to system components
	Restrict physical access to cardholder data
Regularly Monitor and Test Networks	Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
	Regularly test security systems and processes
Maintain an Information Security Policy	Maintain a policy that addresses information security for all personnel

Sometimes, in orders to comply with PCI-DSS, some components are essential to implementation as a part of remediation:

• Web Application Firewall,
• Web Content Filtering,
• Endpoint Security,
• HIPS (Host Based Intrusion Prevention),
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM),
• Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing Tools (VAPT),
• Data Leakage Protection (DLP),
• File Integrity Monitoring,
• End point Encryption,
• Privilege User monitoring,
• Identity Management (IDM) etc.

ISMS

ISMS is Information Security Management System and the latest standard is ISO 27001:2013. It is essential to protect company data, not only to protect the future of your systems, but also to protect customer information, that has been entrusted to you. This requires a holistic approach covering price, IT Security, physical security and staff policy & procedures. ISO 27001 is the formal standard against which organizations seek independent certification of all their Information Security Management Systems.

 

IS0 27001 helps to protect against

• Customer Information leakage
• Virus & hacker attacks
• Incompatible software conflicts
• Failure to back up systems
• Loss or theft of unencrypted backups
• Internal security breaches
• Loss of information resulting from staff turnover
• System downtime

Ideal Coverage should include:

• ISMS Scope Definitions
• ISO 27001 ” Gap “Analysis Assessments
• Performing an assessment of your existing ISMS
• Information Security Policy and Procedure Development
• Information Security Risk Assessments
• ISMS Manual Development
• ISO 27001 ISMS Implementation Support
• Security Improvement Plans
• Incident Management Plans
• ISMS & Internal Audits
• Management Reviews
• Pre-certification Audits and support
• Post Certification Audits Corrective Action Support
• ISMS Trainings for Management & Employee
• Integration of ISMS with COBIT, COSO, ITIL/ISO 20000 etc

VAPT

Vulnerability assessments and penetration testing (pen tests for short) are processed to identify threats and Vulnerabilities in the IT landscape using valuable tools, that can benefit any information security program and they are both integral components of a Management process.

Vulnerability Assessment

A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying and quantifying security vulnerabilities in an environment. It is an in-depth evaluation of your information security posture, indicating weaknesses as well as providing the appropriate mitigation procedures required to either eliminate those weaknesses or reduce them to an acceptable level of risk.

Vulnerability Assessments Follow These General Steps

• Catalog assets and resources in a system
• Assign quantifiable value and importance to the resources
• Identify the security vulnerabilities or potential threats to each resource
• Mitigate or eliminate the most serious vulnerabilities for the most valuable resources

Penetration Test

A penetration test simulates the actions of an external and/or internal cyber attacker that aims to breach the information security of the organization. Using many tools and techniques, the penetration tester (ethical hacker) attempts to exploit critical systems and gain access to sensitive data.

Depending on the scope, a pen test can expand beyond the network to include social engineering attacks or physical security tests. Also, there are two primary types of pen tests: “white box”, which uses vulnerability assessment and other pre-disclosed information, and “black box”, which is performed with very little knowledge of the target systems and it is left to the tester to perform their own reconnaissance.

Penetration Testing Follow These General Steps

• Determination of scope
• Targeted information gathering or reconnaissance
• Exploit attempts for access and escalation
• Sensitive data collection testing
• Clean up and final reporting

With the increase of usage for Social, Mobile apps, Cloud, Big Data, IoT (more precisely SMAC – Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud), we are approaching towards a danger zone. Hope you have heard of Jeep Cherokee incident where hackers can take control of a connected car and lead you to death as well.

Event Details

Prime Infoserv LLP being a domain expert in the category, wanted to spread the awareness on Information Security and “Infocon Bangladesh 2016” took birth. The idea was to empower Enterprises with better wisdom with knowledge for doing proper diligence, understanding the actual need to cover-up the concerns.

The event took place on 16-04-2016 (Saturday) with the audience from major banks. Speakers took sessions on various aspects of cyber security and risks. The knowledge sharing was OEM agnostic in order to spread more awareness so that people can be more empowered to take decision beyond OEM/System Integrator Influence. The sessions were fully interactive like Q&A, discussions with concern areas and off course encouragement with surprise gifts.

   

Event had kicked off with lunch, followed by discussions on the burning topics as mentioned above.

The attendees were awarded with Trend Micro endorsed certificate.

More details of the events can be fetched from below links:

• Presentation
• Photographs
• Videos

Conclusion

Infocon is not just an event, rather a process to build eco system surrounding the topic. We intent to create forums where domain experts and attendees can exchange thoughts even after events. There will be follow-up awareness sessions. There are serious thoughts to publish a Book covering pain points and resolutions to spread the awareness.

This retrospection will bring our smile back in order to have peace and fulfilment with wisdom.

We will have follow-up event in Bangladesh. Upcoming events are being planned in Kolkata, Bhutan, London, Africa and Mauritius.

Stay tuned for our upcoming initiatives under the brand “Infocon”.

As usual with my any other visit, this trip was not completed without localization. I had visited several persons including customers and as usual hospitality was awesome. I tried fakruddin and hazi biriyani which are treated as legacy. Besides “Bakharkhani” was one more food tasted as ethic local item.

     

Look forward coming to Bangladesh once again soon

 

 

 

5 Different Professions, Similar Characteristics

During casual discussions with my friends, I always mention myself as a better doctor than that tribe in the present market. Why? No disrespect to the profession, rather a discomfort to the prevailing trends. Once you visit a doctor, what he/she used to do? In normal situation, your pressure is measured, your chest conditions  are verified by stethoscope and further most your throat, ear, nose or any other organs will be physically checked (based on the symptoms are being told by you). In most of the situations, outcome will be some pathological tests (different blood tests, Xray, ECG, CT scan, MRI, USG if not more). Initially some basic medicines (mostly drugs from a specific company, not generic and majorly now anti biotic) are given and post test results, more specific medicines are applied. But these are not a characteristics of a good doctor. I can search my symptoms on the Internet now and see possible causes with possible remediation/tests, even some tricks for natural healing also without even medicines.  Directly based on symptoms (if have tenacity to do little study/research), we may conduct tests and follow further medication based on test results. Only I (we) cannot read test results clinically and cannot write medicines without the help of third party (book/internet).

But a true doctor is different.  He /she is having lot of intuitive power, analytical mind based on experience.  The doctor can observe the patient and can understand /predict lot of things without even asking. Patients body language,  his posture,  talking, skin color,  facial situation,  nails, eyes, nose, hair etc. will give lot of informations to the doctor even without having a single dialogue. The moment patient starts talking symptoms, the doctor will map his initial observation and ask further relative questions to come to a conclusion on the root cause. Based on the same, he will apply medicine  (rather like a chess player the doctor will think of after effects of the medicine and give a protective  measures  also in case of any side effects). But in today’s situation, it has become mostly gadget oriented.  A good doctor will only suggest a test which will be used to justify his prediction.

Same applies for a detective, advocate, astrologer and auditor.

Hope you have read Sherlock Homes, Agatha Christie to Bengal’s very own Felu da, Byomkesh Baxi.  The major power lies in observations.  The power of seeing things which are not visible by the common man makes them different. They analyze human behaviors, writing strokes, co-relate incidents and finally concluding decisions based on their sixth sense.

Do you think a true astrologer needs anything else that three information of your life – place of birth, date of birth and time of birth (X, Y & Z axis)? Based on these three inputs, he/she creates your birth chart and through critical mathematical, statistical analysis can see images of your past and future. But this knowledge is important, other it will lead to throwing some stones to us as remediation.

What does an auditor do? Let it be financial, IT or process auditor, first and foremost criteria is to see what all evidences available. What all missing, what all needed to mediate the gaps. Accordingly a report is generated where he/she refers to some third party benchmarking/reference /law.

An advocate also relates our problems, comes out counter plans where the opponent can be pushed back legally/logically.

So below are the charasterics which make these 5 Professions different:

1) Observation

2) Co-relation of facts/incidents

3) Understanding human psychology

4) Analytics

5) Intuition

6) Prediction

7) Imagination

8) Logical Strong Mind

 

What do you think?

Music Has No Language

Sufi Sutra ! I had attended the musical event organized by Banglanatak dot com.

I know the organization for quite long time now and also it’s founder Mr.Amitabha Bhattacharjee. However, I am getting associated with their activities recently. I had been to akhra several times now and attended other concerts including “Bhalo Theko Nepal”.

And after attending the sixth version of Sufi Sutra (my first and last of it’s kind as next year onwards, it will be renamed as “Musiana”), I regret why I did not attend it earlier. Sufi Sutra pledges collaboration among nations, greater empathy between diverse cultural traditions, creating music transcending physical barriers and bring about a reunion of soul through the language of music.

The three days musical program once again proved that music has no language. The impatience, intolerance across the globe can only be controlled, re-directed through cultures. And music can be one of the most powerful medium towards it. As we (me and few of my fellow friends with similar mindsets) are also geared up to create a movement surrounding cultures, I could feel the pulse of cross border pollinations.

With the trend of Globalization, culture differentiates geography, cities and creates it’s sole identity. Folk artists across the globe assembled for three days in Rabindrasadn to demonstrate the message of tolerance, peace through music.

The artists from Scotland, Hungary, Portugal, Burkina Phaso, America, Brazil, Equador performed alongwith indian performers to tune people with variety of musical instruments.

We were spellbound with the violin by Cherry Grove from Scotland. First time we heard and seen an amazing instrument “Balafon” from Burkina Faso. Mamadou Diabate with his team mates from Percussion Mania took us to the heavenly world. They played other instruments also like Kiara, Talking drums, Ngoini as well which were new to almost all of us.

 

Hugo Osga from Kerrossel  (Portugal) played Indian banjo and I have seen first time a band performing banjo on a stage. Besides accordion, bagpiper were instrumental as well in their folk performance.

Remengo form Hungery came up with their ola gypsi folk music where they not only sang, but talked, used tones, sounds and make overall arrangement as a package.

Finally music touched all os us and took to a different word where no religion, no bullets, no bloods exist, only harmony, co-existence prevails.

Long love music.