BRAToSPHERE

Category: Review

  • Who let the dork out – Book Review

    After reading Sidin’s first two books, and following his blog for a long time, reading this book was an obvious for me.

    I had pre-ordered this one online, and was waiting eagerly to grab my hands on it.

    The book 1 in this trilogy (are there more Sidin?) sets the pace and the characters beautifully. It marked dork’s arrival in the literary world.

    Book 2 was slightly annoying with predictable plot and gibberish characters.

    Book 3 continues the same tone of book 1 and 2 in a different setting – the Common Wealth games..Er! The Allied games!

    Who let the dork out?Book 3 is a hilarious satirical take on the mess that was the Games in Delhi in 2010. The story is fast paced, structured and revolves around one thing right from page 1 : the allied games in Delhi where the lead character, Robin’s company is helping out the government.

    The subtle and powerful satire to the events in the book makes the book stand out. Most of the incidents would make you think about an actual happening that you must have read in the newspapers and especially the political characters immediately take your mind to an actual public personality.

    The description of the politician who is desperate to get into Tihar jail for advancement of his career ( as that is where he would be able to network with the who’s who of politics and Business) stands out. The description of the Tihar jail party, the innovatively named food items (Anticipatory Bhel, Quattarocheese pizza) in the jail canteen and the vivid description of the entrance to the Jail is one other instance where you actually feel – Maybe this is really true!

    Overall, the book is an easy read, and it never loses focus on the central issue at Hand – The Allied games.
    A special mention to the innovative narrative used by Sidin right from book 1 – Diary entries. This makes the flow chronological, and at places where suspense and curiosity needs to be built, there is a mention of a particular happening and the details are spelt out later.

    An easy read.

  • Inside Coca-Cola – Book Review

    Autobiographies have been my favorite genre for a long time. More so if the story is more of a general recount of happenings during a particular stint rather than a history of the entire life of an individual.

    PhotobucketInside Coca-Cola: A CEO’s life story of building the world’s most popular brand, By Neville Isdell perfectly fits the bill for this. Neville Isdell was a key player at Coca-Cola for more than 30 years, retiring in 2009 as CEO after rejuvenating the tarnished image of the world’s most popular brand – Coca-Cola.

    The book details and extraordinary personal and professional story crisscrossing from South Africa to Australia, and From Philippines to Atlanta. Neville managed to put out huge public relations fires, opened up new markets, groomed his successor and all this while furthering the cause of corporate social responsibility.

    From the start I remained glued to completing the book, and some stories stand out.

    The story of Coke’s return to India in 1993 and the eventual backlash from the consumers in accusation of killing Thums Up gives a good perspective of the real happenings.

    Also the story of Coca Cola turnaround in Philippines is truly inspiring. It goes on showing how understanding the local emotion and culture helped the company take over its competitor (Imitator as it is mentioned in the book), and how hiring a local person saved the company huge cultural mistakes. This gives a good insight to the strategies in play within huge companies.

    The book also dwells good light on Neville’s personal life. Neville sure belonged to that rare breed of people who knows how to work his way through no matter what comes in the way.

    This book is not about branding or marketing strategies of the brand, but a memoir of the strategies used under different situations the author has been. This book would help open your mind to what the world has to offer if you are game for it.

    The book, in my opinion, is more enjoyable reading it keeping Coca Cola as a company as its main lead rather than Neville.

    As a last note, the book surely leaves you with a lot of working tactics in the business atmosphere, but could have been stitched in a better manner.

    Again, a sure read.

  • The Bankster – Book Review

    There are many reasons we pick up a particular book. Reasons ranging from nice cover, to good reviews, we have all been there done that.

    One of the most pivotal reasons buying the book is – the author.

    After having read Ravi Subramanian’s all previous book, I was eagerly waiting for this one, and I was not disappointed.

    Like someone said, John Grisham is for legal, Robin cook is for medicine and Ravi is for banking. After consistently doling out blockbusters over blockbusters, Ravi truly deserves the accolade.

    The story of the book is like a jig saw puzzle taking you places. Four parallel stories running and you know there is a link but are just not able to figure out.

    The BanksterHow could possibly killing an elephant in some small village in Kerala be linked to a global scam in a multinational bank? This and many other thoughts keep hounding your brain till the very end of the book when everything starts making sense.

    The character, Karan Panjabi, which has been introduced in Ravi’s previous books, again makes an entry as the main lead. He is a banker turned journalist and this time he is in it for personal reasons.

    The story revolves around continuous murders that occur in the bank, and Karan Panjabi steps in to investigate. Little does he realize that this is much bigger than anybody could think?

    Ranging from the Kerala protests against the nuclear plant to international conspiracies, everything is beautifully linked in this maze of money.

    From Angola where a CIA agent gets diamonds in exchange of supplying arms to rebels and getting paid in diamonds, in exchange to Kerala where an elderly man is leading a protest against the nuclear plant. From the head office of the Greater Boston global bank in Mumbai to Vienna where an employee of the bank is holidaying, Ravi manages an interesting ride.

    A slight drawback of the book is the overuse of Hindi, which was sure added to bring in nativeness and authencity in the feel, but loses the readability in the process. Also, the character building could have been worked upon a little more (to an already hefty book!) to relate better.

    Overall, I would go with a 7.5/10 for the book.

  • 31 – Book Review

    A month back, I was at the airport on the way home. And I had decided this time that I would not be carrying any book along. This one week at home is supposed to be spent with family and not with a book.

    And, guess what? I end up not only buying a book at the airport, but also spend the first two days at home glued to the book. Just had to.

    PhotobucketHave to admit, this is probably the first time that a book has been marketed so well that I just had to pick it up impulsively. A complete wall at the book store at the CSIA was branded with this latest offering from westland. A new author and I had not yet heard of the book, but the blurb on the backside just gave me in. I HAD TO READ THIS BOOK.
    31 by Upendra Namburi. Have to say, the title of the book does build up curiosty.

    31 stands for the 31 days in the month of March, and the book is neatly laid out with each chapter detailing each day of the month.

    Corporate thriller is not an easy genre to crack, and Upendra Namburi has given it a very good shot. Upendra succeeds in building an indian perspective and ensuring the humour is intact throughout the book. Any working individual would relate to most, if not all of the problems faced by Ravi Shastri, the main character in the book

    Talking about the Story, the first few chapters are used in introducing the characters and the setting of the book. The protagonist is in a multinational Bank as a branch manager for south. He just completes February month on a high, and is all geared up for the last month of the financial year.

    Target achievements, appraisals, reviews and pressures – all of these sound so familiar. Ravi Shastri is your regular professional trying to make a mark in this big bad world. All the clichés – an over demanding boss, Difficult recessionary times, head count reduction, arrogant HR guy, an even more arrogant top management, ex-flame, wife, kids and parents and of course the Black berries and twiiter. Upendra ensures all of them are tied in complete tandem with the main story.

    One thing to be highlighted here is the way twitter is used in the main story to add continuation.

    The litmus test for any thriller is the ending and Upendra does a fair job. Speaking any more of the ending would rob you of the pleasure of reading the book, and thus I keep my mouth shut.

    Without doubt, do pick this up. One of the better Indian books that I have read this year.

  • Delivering Happiness – Book Review

    About two months ago, browsing through my book shelf on the IPAD, I came across this wonderful cover – a big huge cardboard box being lifted by a person. This caught my interest and after realizing that this is the Zappos story, it just got me hooked.
    My passion of e-commerce and my preferred book categories – autobiographies, immediately took me to start reading the book.
    Tony Hsieh, candidly starts off from his childhood where, in his words, he admits that he was not what you would call a model student. He preferred reading a magazine rather than learning to play a musical instrument that his parents had him enrolled for.
    Right from a young age, the entrepreneurship bug had bitten him, and he details the earthworm venture that had failed before it had even started.
    His advertisement for a magic kit, generated only one order, but that did not loosened his spirit by a bit. In Harvard, he had figured out how to make money selling food on campus.
    His brief stint at oracle after campus is something that most of us would relate to. A normal job, being restless, finding it tedious and being drawn towards entrepreneurship – these are the things that I keep hearing from most people my age.
    Delivering HappinessLinkExchange, his first major business, which was a mix and match of a clever idea eventually got sold to Microsoft for 265 million dollars. This sale came with the caveat that he had to be a part of the company for a year.
    For a brief period of time, after the sale of Linkexchange to Microsoft, Tony dabbled with poker, investing and other things when Tony realized his real passion lies in building companies.
    In spite of the risk of losing the money, and trading a chill life, he again got back into business costing him 8 million dollars!
    This book is less about the e-commerce business company, and more about the great culture that he managed to imbibe into the organization. Today, without a doubt, everybody would agree that zappos is more known for its winning culture rather than the business of selling shoes.
    From day to day decisions that would be on the mind of any startup entrepreneur – whether to hold inventory or outsource it? To bigger life decisions like – sell off everything that he owned to put into the business, the book details it all out.
    From the beginning days of zappos itself, Tony was clear that the USP of the company had to be its “World’s best customer service”. The call centre reps had just one KRA : WOW the customers. And they did, in turn getting more orders and generating wide reaching word of mouth.
    Within a decade, Zappos hit a billion dollar in sales, and was the numero uno in online shoe selling. Eventually Amazon bought over the company for 1.2 bilion dollars and this particular chapter is detailed out with clear alacrity from the author. Reading this one, you actually feel a part of this whole happening and by then you start relating to the company as if you have been a part of it for a long time.
    The whole book is cleverly structured into three parts – Tony’s childhood till he starts looking after Zappos, The Zappos Story and finally Tony’s lessons in public speaking and public relations and the core that is within Zappos.
    The most important take out from the book is the chapter on the core values that make up the soul of zappos.
    Delivering happiness, as Tony Hsieh points out, is the single corporate mission for the company.