Recession - Is it our imagination??!!
Yesterday, there was an event conducted as part of the inauguration of a festival of our quality club. There was a panel discussion planned on the topic of "Recession - What is it and what to do about it?". The panelists invited were
- Ms Haseen Taj - VP, Citibank
- Mr Vaithyanathan - president, cognizant
- The president, TVS motors ( I forgot his name) and
- Mr Jagannathan - senior assistant editor, The Hindu
In America, there was an illiterate, who used to sell hot dogs. He didnt know to read or write. He just had a small hot dog shop and it was running ok. Later, he set up a colourful board in front of his shop, announced incentives like buy one, get one free, and other such schemes, and business was quite good.With that she finished the story, and said that the moral is, we are imagining things, and are overcautious. She asked us students to shake all our fears and move on.
By then, his son graduated from college, and came home. He assessed his father's way of doing business. Over dinner, he said, "Dad, do you know there's recession going on now? Do you have any idea how the whole world is struggling right now?". To which, the father replied, "How will I know, son? I'm after all an illiterate." And then, the son explained the recession to his father and proposed an xyz action plan. Cut x% of staff, increase the price by y%, cut raw materials by z%, et all.
Following this, the father did as he was asked. There was no colorful board now, no free hot dogs. Soon, the business slowed down, and became very poor.
Now, the father went home, and told his son, " Son, you know what, all you told seems to be true man. Business is really down these days. There's something going on".
While I personally dont have a solid opinion about whether India is really in recession or not, the panelists generally seemed to agree to the story.
Now, how was the story and what is your opinion about this? Let your thoughts flow.