Managers by nature not by choice.

Yesterday, when I was waiting in line for my turn to buy naan at the Tandoor wala I realized something, something that we generally miss out in our daily visits to the market, that how obliviously the Tandoor wala (a.k.a Naan wala) behaves like a manager not by choice but by nature. He manages to do predictive analytics, just in time and strategic planning, but for him it’s just work!!

“In business, predictive models exploit patterns found in historical and transactional data to identify risks and opportunities. Models capture relationships among many factors to allow assessment of risk or potential associated with a particular set of conditions, guiding decision making for candidate transactions.” …Now as complicated as this sounds the tandoor wala applies these same principles, calculating and anticipating when to produce more and when not to, without having to study a book on predictive analytics. In my conversation with the tandoor guy I found out that he always prepares more naan during the period of times 2pm-4pm and 8pm-10pm based on historical trends that tell him these are the high selling points.

The tandoor wala may not be familiar with the concept of Just-in-time, he may not have a computer with software to tell him he’s running out of inventory but what he does have a visible storage room that gives him an accurate prediction of when the stock’s going to end and when should he place the next order before he runs out of the required resources.

In strategic planning the organization determines where it is going over the next year or more and how it’s going to get there. The tandoor wala might not have plans laid down for the next twenty years but he most certainly has plans for the near future. In this case the tandoor wala also had plans to expand his business, open up a new shop in a near buy neighbor hood, and increasing the revenue.

What I have tried to portray here is that often times we take things for granted and assume others are not aware of what’s important and don’t know how to do things, just because they did not study as much as we did or don’t have work experience as much as we do. Every one has their own perception about things, this is how I think. You’re allowed to disagree with it.

Let me know what you think of this by leaving your comments and feedback.