India, Camshafts, Entrepreneurs and the Global Market

Monday, 11/30/09, Karan Shah, a Entrepreneurship Learning Community [ELC] student in my ENTR200 class last Fall is going to present his father’s company to my Marketing in a Global Economy [MGMT649] class. His girlfriend Mayura is a  current ELC student in my ENTR200 class, and along with team mates Eugene and Zheng wrote the following blog entry. Hank

Introduction:

Precision Camshafts Ltd., Asia’s largest camshaft company was founded in the year 1993 and is based at Solapur, India.  Its Managing Director is Mr. Yatin(48), a Sydenham College alumnus. He started this successful company from scratch and today it’s Asia’s largest and is marching towards being the World’s largest.

What is a camshaft?

A camshaft is a very vital part of an automotive engine as it controls how much fuel and water air [thanks Brent] enters the engine and how much exhaust is given out.

Here are a few pictures of the camshafts especially designed for customers under their belt:

Here’s some concrete information about this company:

Operations:

• Supplies to almost all OE manufacturers in India
• Major share in domestic market for Passenger Car Segment
• Single source to customers like Tata Motor, Hyundai, Ford India…
• Preferred source to GM Europe
• Development / Strategic Partner for Ford Europe
• A Very Strong Focus – Chilled Camshafts
• The “ only Tier 1 supplier” from India to export internationally
• Quality System: ISO TS16949: 2002
• Certified to ISO 14001: 2004 and OHSAS 18001: 2007

Work environment:

• Total transparency
• Visual Management across all units of manufacturing
• 5S- Philosophy
• SAP driven ERP system
• A young & committed Team with culture based on Quality

Technology:

• State of the art facilities for Foundry & Machine shop
• CNC machining and cellular manufacturing
• Only Indian company producing straight & profiled Hollow Camshafts
• Next generation Cam Profile machining facility already installed
• Capability to offer next generations camshafts like Tri Lobe

Why PCL?

• Well entrenched as “domestic leader”
• Customer quality expectation – Currently surpassing the GM, FORD, BMW and Porsche bench marks – less than 5000 PPM
• Exported +12 Million camshafts

In the Near Future:

• PCL will emerge as the most dominant player in India and will continue to enjoy 85 % share in the domestic market

• Will manufacture 13.5 Million Camshafts per year with Group sales crossing USD 125 million by the Year 2013 out of which 70 % coming from Exports

This company is surely doing its best in contributing to India’s Global identity. Here’s a link to a video where Mr. Yatin Shah takes the opportunity on the Republic Day of India of talking about his company and India in the global market today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDG1VJRhw4Y

We would also like to share a newspaper article published about this company. http://www.indiacar.net/news/n48096.htm

The remarkable part about this company when it bought out a UK based company- G Clancey, which was its 51% stakeholder. It was a very critical yet, a very remarkable decision taken by PCL.

For more information, please visit http://www.pclindia.in/.

So, it’s the small beginnings that lead to bigger accomplishments. They could start off in the minds of young entrepreneurs like us and end up transforming into international companies like this one!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Break!

We’ll be back Monday, November 30, 2009. Enjoy! Hank

Droid + Qik = Uber Video

Background: A couple of semesters ago I decided to video several of my entrepreneurship classes. To do so, I bought a Canon GL-2 camera, and a Dell dual xeon workstation for about two grand. The setup worked OK, but took forever. An hour of classroom video took at least an hour to stream real time from the camera to the computer, and hours more of processing to turn into a video suitable for uploading, then hours more to upload. All this was a very time consuming process. Enter the Droid smartphone and the guys at Qik.com.

According to Crunchbase, “Qik enables live video casting over any cell network or wifi connection. Currently based in Redwood City, Qik went into private alpha in December 2007 and launched into public beta on July 21, 2008. Unlike sites where you have to wait for the video to be uploaded, Qik streams the video straight into the site with a delay of as little as half a second to two seconds.” The Droid is one of the first smartphones to offer 720X480 native video resolution. About a week ago, I read a post on TechCrunch that Qik.com was first out the box to support this resolution as a streaming resource and that those interested should request access to the closed beta. Last Saturday I requested such access, and no less than Bhashar Roy, one of Qik’s cofounders immediately responded with an invite. [Note aspiring entrepreneurs - it's Saturday and a cofounder is responding to email requests!]

I followed his directions and now have DVD-quality streaming video from my Droid. No streaming of miniDVD video off a camera, no hours of processing video on a computer, no uploading, it’s just there. How far we’ve come in just a short span of time should be painfully obvious. I gave the dual xeon to a friend that runs a computer store in Lafayette; the Canon is in storage. I’m going with the Droid.

So what does it look like in operation? The video embedded below was shot with the Droid, handheld – no OWLE/bubo, but I did use the small microphone that came with the OWLE. See this past Tuesday’s blog for details. It is obvious to me that the Droid doesn’t do as well as the iPhone in low light conditions, and that the iPhone produced slightly better looking video than the Droid/Qik connection BUT, the latter uploaded itself without any input on my part. For that, I thank Droid and Qik.com for a very useful combination. And, the embed code was provided. Not that this is rocket science, but how many readers of this blog can readily whoop up the code? Hank

Save your local economy

Banner removed at request of Cindy Baxter. Hank

“For every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures.  If you spend that on a national chain, only $43 stays here.  If you spend it online, nothing comes home.”  Cinda Baxter, founder of the 3/50 project.:  http://the350project.net/home.html

Founded in March of this year in response to declining small business revenue, the 3/50 project has quickly taken off in the US as a way to spread the message to shop and save your local businesses.  Independently owned businesses all across the country have eagerly joined Cinda’s website which asks simply “What three independently owned businesses would you miss if they disappeared? Stop in.  Say hello.  Pick up something that brings a smile. Your purchases are what keeps those businesses around”.

Will the national campaign help these businesses survive this holiday season?  Our own Purdue Prof. Richard Feinberg was quoted in newspapers last weekend saying “for some small retailers in town, this will be the last Christmas for them”.  This holds true for all small businesses, in all towns across the US.

Here’s how it works:  The 3/50 project asks only that we spend a total of $50 a month in independently owned businesses to save those businesses and help our local economy.  There’s something in it for all of us; independent businesses account for nearly 50% of all employment in the US.  They pay more dollars in local taxes which directly affect our lives and help our local economy.  Do we have a responsibility to help keep local independently owned businesses in business? If we don’t, what will the long term effects be on our economy, our local shopping districts, our merchandise selection?  To find unique merchandise, will our future include shop windows for us to browse at Christmas-time, or only computer screens?  Does it really matter to the consumer or only to the independent business owner? BbB

iPhone’s OWLE: New Tricks

Not too long ago the OWLE/bubo I ordered came neatly packaged and numbered. Seems I have # 159 of 500 – interesting touch. It works exactly, to use a favorite word of readers of this blog, as advertised. I slipped my iPhone into the provided rubber case, this combination into the recess in the back of the bubo, plugged in the provided external microphone, and shot the video below. IMHO well worth the $100 bucks. It’s heavy, but is to be replaced by a lighter/cheaper model shortly, probably when #500 is sold What’s not to like. See the iPhone/bubo video below.

This week in ENTR200 we are studying Intellectual Property (IP). Seems that the OWLE guys are good examples of what can happen to young entrepreneurs. See the email below: Hank

Hey Henry,

Graham R. McBain
graham@wantowle.com
480-717-7165

Droid Tethers

Before we delve into what tethering is, first some background. Friday my wife and I are traveling to Seattle, WA to meet our oldest son’s new fiancee, Grace. It’s get more complicated. Our son Justin, is living in a new home that a builder who owes him money for excavating work couldn’t sell; he’s living there until the wedding 1/8/2010. As such, there is no cable or internet hooked up as that is normally left to buyers to contract for. We are going to stay with Justin in the new house and having internet access during our stay is very desirable. How you ask? Enter my new Droid smartphone and tethering.

Wiki defines tethering as”the use of a mobile device such as a mobile phone to supply Internet access for another device which is otherwise unconnected, using the connected device as a modem.” In layman’s terms, Droid will provide us internet access via Verizon’s 3G network and either a USB or bluetooth connection from the Droid to our laptop, in this case a Gateway Netbook running Windows 7. And yes, I opted for Verizon’s $30 data plan. And yes, this is not yet available directly from Verizon. And yes, Verizon probably “frowns” on this approach, but what are they going to do about it? It’s my phone and my service that I’m paying for. This scenario is different from the iPhone wherein Apple/AT&T control everything that you can legally run; not the case with the Open Source Android 2.0 system running on the Droid. We can run what we chose to. But I digress, back to tethering.

There is an app for the Droid available from http://junefabrics.com aka PdaNet. I downloaded the beta/2.11 version to the Netbook. Here’s where the fun started. The first installation didn’t work. I went to the Help menu, and was told if I got 103/104 errors, which I did, to reinstall PdaNet which I complied with. After following the installation guidelines to the letter the second time through, I now have access to the internet wherever I have access to Verizon’s network, which, as you know from recent TV ads, is much larger than AT&Ts . Does it work? You betcha Red Ryder. I tested it from the Farmers Bank parking lot in Mulberry, and while pumping gas in the Sam’s gas station in Lafayette with perfect results, including streaming YouTube and Qik.com/hrfeeser videos also. For those of you who really want to know what’s involved, I’ve embedded a 9:55 video below. BTW, I was given access to the 720X480 beta version of the Qik app for my Droid. More about this later.

The app is free to try for 30 days, then $30 to purchase thereafter, a bargain seeing as how it will also work in airports etc. So what’s the point of this blog other than via the Droid I have internet for our visit to Seattle? And pretty fast too, it clocked at 2.4Mbps. The Droid is open, and developers will in due course build great apps for the phone that currently are thwarted by Apple’s closed-mindedness and AT&T’s greed. You can either get on the freight train, standby and watch, or wonder what happen. The choice is yours. Hank

Getting Started on Google Wave

I recently received a Google Wave invite, not certain if it’s from Josh or not, and haven’t really gotten into it yet. Any of you?

Below is a video about it, and here’s a link to an online “book” about it. More “stuff” to learn. Talk to me. Hank

Fifty Different Building of the World

Have A Happy Friday: Suryia and Roscoe Certainly Are!

Great video of….. A web site about them is here:

My thanks to my BIL Jerry for making me aware of Suryia and Roscoe. Hank

Sell a little, make a lot!

This post up on TechCrunch this past Wednesday, pitting Apple and its relatively small market share, but huge profitability, against the “rest” is worth every entrepreneur’s read. The link is  here: Hank