Eating is something what is an extremely personal act. What we eat communicates to rest of the world our beliefs, enlightening and social backgrounds and experiences. It is a sort of evidence to how we think, who we are, and our intellectual qualities are portrayed through our style of cooking and eating. It is indeed interesting to note that food plays a major role in constructing our identities. This is across psychological, social and anthropological thinking because it also expresses how we are different than others. As humans we are used to differentiate ourselves on a daily basis.

In fact food is our national pride. It can be imitated but rarely duplicated.
Food experts argue that although globally food fusion is rampantly sold, the originality of a craft cannot be diminished. While fusion is not a new phenomenon, it has picked up impetus in the last decade as travel, trade, and ingredient accessibility have hit a new high. Fusion food definitely suits taste buds of some travellers, some staunch eaters feel otherwise – they feel fusion food is a strange-tasting gimmick.

Fusion food is a style of cooking that uses ingredients and techniques from around the world, especially one that combines Eastern and Western influences. It is a kind of fusion that gives the best of different cuisines and complements and enhances the taste of dishes.

Chinese, Japanese to Thai or Vietnamese or Singaporean, we evolve through Asia looking for our next favourite cuisine. Dhokla sandwiches, tandoori chicken, kababas, chicken tikka nazza, pizzas etc. They form part of the Indian fusion cuisine with a twist. But the questions that are an integral part of the chef and culinary debates are whether fusion is the evolution of our demand and understanding of the cuisine, or is it simply going be a gimmick of merging together any two flavours to produce a confused recipe? After all, a gimmick is a gimmick.

The food culture of the world has greatly evolved over the past 10,000 or more years.

Societies have nurtured and grown plants and animals which greatly increased the food supply for their food style and taste. The development of states and industries contributed to changes in vegetation and soil, new fuels for cooking, emergence of new seeds, and the blending of soils, crops, and fertilisers. The boost in travel, trade, and immigration led to the discovery of new culinary routes, spices, and tastes, and the merging of cuisines. In the era of colonisation, cultural identities remained desolate but cuisine paved the way for interesting inspirations and fusions due to the mixing of food habits and sourcing of products from across the colonised territories and the home countries of the colonials. In this way came the French-Vietnamese style of cuisine after a century-long control by the French over Vietnam.

Same is the case with Anglo-Indian cuisine which is a by-product of the British colonial influence in the region. The Anglo-Indian cuisine has become another culinary genre with stratified accessibility. This culinary evolution and intermingling of food habits has led to a fusion of culinary styles and ingredients.

When chefs push the barriers of the evolution of cuisine, fusion happens. With the world becoming a global village, access drives the so called fusion. For instance, Norwegian Salmon was never available in India historically. But now that it is, we have seen the birth of Salmon Tikka. Basically, fusion occurs when ingredients traditionally not found in the cuisine culture of a region make their way into a dish. So now, instead of using Indian River Sole to make tandoori fish, it is salmon that has found its way into the tandoor and so “Salmon tandoori” now is decorated in your plate. The same is the case with some exotic salads and dressings along with herbs imported from other part of world.

A variety of social, cultural and economic factors contribute to the development of our preservation and change of dietary patterns. The way society grows, the development, influences of other cultures and physiological, psychological factors and acquired food preferences and knowledge, can be distinguished from interpersonal or social factors such as family and group influences.

But, I am of an opinion that the originality of food and its authenticity cannot be restrained. If liking truly is that important a determinant of food choice, health practitioners should focus their efforts on preparing original styles  in order to develop food habits. However, claiming that one determinant is dominant over the others implies knowledge about how the various determinants inter-relate in their influence on food choice. After all, “authentic” means enduring, or timeless; umpteen dishes have been evolved from so many cultures in the world. Many chefs and families struggle to maintain the local cuisine’s taste; because an “authentic” dish is one that captures the spirit of the originality!

Creative destruction is a process through which something new brings about the termination of something existed before it.  Creative destruction is required for progress of society. Until we discard the old, new cannot be brought in. It is a term in economics which has since the 1950s become most readily identified with the Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter. The term is used in almost all walks of life including economics, corporate governance, product development, technology, distribution, supply chain management, human resource development and marketing. In product development, for example, creative destruction is roughly synonymous with unruly technology. Often to describe creative destruction the common example is of the smart phone, which almost killed the market for not only regular cell phones but also PDAs, MP3 players, point-and-shoot cameras, wrist watches, calculators and voice recorders- among other things. So, even if smart phone killed market of so many gadgets, it brought with it creativity hence the term “creative” is used.

Creative destruction is inevitable. We are living in a world of constant climatic change, constant trend change, constant cultural change which is so threatening at times. The social fabric itself is changing. All that we can to is accept it, if we cannot control it. Aren’t we all abandoning our old way of living and thinking in order to fit and live in today’s self-absorbed world thinking more effectively and profitably?

In advertising, every new creative ad for an existing product/service is an excellent example of creative destruction. It targets at newer markets, while risking isolation of an existing one. Medical science is another great example of creative destruction. Creative destruction is constantly changing the modern medicines. Besides new drug delivery system, newer molecules, new operative methods it is changing the average human’s everyday life.  The medical discoveries are designed for groups. The interactions of drugs, patients, and diseases are unpredictable; clinical trials are population based and do not account for personal idiosyncrasies and much less medical histories. What if your cell phone helps detect cancer? Did this take you back? It seems beyond reading email and surfing the Web, it will soon be checking our vital signs. It sounds terrifying yet, handy. It will constantly monitor our heart rhythm, blood glucose levels, and brain waves even while we sleep. The miniature ultrasound imaging devices fixed in smart phones will soon replace the icon of medicine – the stethoscope. So friends we never know new innovations might bring such drastic changes in our lives, which are indistinct and unimaginable at the moment.

Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian-American economist, developed the concept of creative destruction from the works of Karl Marx, in reference to capitalist development and the business cycle. According to Schumpeter’s theory, creative destruction will lead to the eventual failure of capitalism as an economic system. In current business use, the term is more likely to refer to unpleasant choices that are considered necessary for sustainability. It will fail capitalism because the creativity and innovation finally will reach the lowest stratum of business – the micro, cottage and small businesses.

As the economist Schumpeter saw it, creative destruction is a positive force, which drives away weaker companies to disappear and be replaced by more innovative and competitive ones. The Austrian American economist himself wrote in his 1942 book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”, it’s a process that “incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, relentlessly creating a new one. This was the time when the world was facing the World War II. It involved the vast majority of the world’s nations.  It included all of the great powers; which eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people, from more than 30 different countries. Schumpeter’s creative destruction theory was shaped in the background of a changing world – cruelty, competition and destruction.

In today’s world competition is constantly driving prices and lowering margins resulting into commoditization of products. How much ever marketers dislike commoditization, it is helping the economically weaker sections of society. Similarly, the digital revolution hit the computer makers first; driving companies like IBM, Infosys, Microsoft and HP into a restructuring which cost these companies scrapping a millions of jobs, but it connected the world. The power of ever-cheaper computing then moved on to attack other companies too, because it enabled smaller companies to arrange the computational resources that only big ones previously had. This truth abruptly removed major barriers to entry. Companies all over the world could lower their operating costs, increase their IT capabilities, and improve their own business models by creating better products and services at lower prices. Though new technologies play havoc sometimes, they are the change drivers. Look it positively – it gave the same computational powers to the smaller companies that only big corporations used to have! This is the beauty of creative destruction. The revolution in social media gave the world new platforms; today the world has really become a global village. The social media has made it possible for people anywhere in the world to instantly connect, share information, and create communities. The conventional media was crashed by the new-found social media; hats off to creative destruction in media business.

The revolution in IT and social media brought in the wake of globalization. Making competition inevitable globally; competitors can now come from any part in the world, no matter what the product is, market or industry is.

Often one thought annoys everybody’s mind that is we are now living in an unsettled world of economic upheavals, territorial and religious disputes, shifting demographics, and a very rapid rate of change. And, all of this paradoxically contributes to running faster to stay in place. Globalization has affected every sphere of society and human living. To keep pace with other countries of the world, all aspects of the technology and its usage need to be brought in education. Knowing the application of technology and technological systems and concepts is not likely to solve the whole problem unless we will be able to sensitize the students to real time issues. Updating the teaching-learning process is a compulsive requirement.

Globalization is having a major impact on education in several ways – in financial terms, in historical terms and in sociological terms.  Most governments are under pressure to reduce their spending on many other heads to expand their educational systems. The quality of national education systems is increasingly being compared internationally. This has placed increased emphasis on mathematics, science and the humanities curriculum, standards, and assessments. Globalization has made nations and people increasingly interdependent. This interdependence materializes in increased international flows of goods and services, of financial funds, labour and ideas. The aspect of increased international flows of ideas is the most relevant one for growth of developing nations. Changing educational policies is of paramount importance. Let me put it this way – education requires creative destruction constantly. Many countries increasingly aim at preparing pupils for a globalized world. Education needs to style the young minds in becoming entrepreneurs. In countries like German, France, England, America, China swift and spiky educational policies are put in place to shape and mould the innovative potential of teens in the schools. These progressive nations are debating on how to make education proactive for facing the ever changing world.

Let us seriously look at our education standards; only theoretical knowledge, mugging up, and higher grades is not leading us anywhere. Emphasizing on humane aspects as the core of an education system for skill development and its application is the need of the hour. The future of the country largely depends on the qualitative learning system.This, keeping in mind that half of India’s population will be below 30 years of age by 2020. Knowledge should be application oriented with changing times. Are the policy makers listening?

Since the 60s the idea of single monoculture is on a slow extinction.  It has given way to pluralistic society that continues to evolve through cultural integration and influence.  These changes are evident in fashions, dietary habit, entertainment, music, literature and sports.  Diversity adds spice to life.

Distinguished management experts have asserted that diversity in organization is a good thing because it forces teamwork, because people know that they must cooperate with each-other to get results, and for a cohesive work culture. Designing and maintaining a consistent workforce with diverse features is a tough managerial task.  Diversity in organization occurs when the organization hires people who have a broad range of background, when the demographics vary on a large scale with difference in age sex, culture and physical challenges.  Cultural ethnicity is one major issue, which needs to be handled with care.  When the pool of resource is large and diverse in nature maintaining equality is a hurricane task.  The reality of globalization is that the boundaries of nations have shrunk, communication speed has increased and the entire world has become a global village.  It is important therefore we respect, accept and celebrate diversity.

Chester Bernard, author of the management classic ‘The functions of the executive’ has described informal organization as any joint personal activity without conscious joint purpose, even though contributing to joint result.  Thus the informal relationships established in-group of people during various celebrations like a dance party, a birthday celebration or a wedding anniversary may aid in achievement of the organizational goals. Globalization, migration and communication challenge organizations to develop broad perspectives of management.  Organizations have to mix and merge people from different parts of world for various operations.  People accept change in cultural diversity if it is a non-issue.  Organizations should constantly but subtly   coach its people to accept change in and around them.

Progressive companies all over the world recognize the advantages of integrating worker from culturally diverse backgrounds. These companies view diversity as a business plan as in today’s global marketplace companies interact with different clients with cultures and different code of conduct.  In the early stages, International business was conducted with an ethnocentric outlook that means the orientation and type of operation was based on the parent company.  The modern multinational corporations have geocentric orientation. The total organization is viewed as an independent system operating in many courtiers.  The relationships between headquarters and subsidiaries are collaborative.  Communication flowing from both directions encourages viewpoints of workers at all levels.  Furthermore, managers of different nationals occupy key positions.

In short, the orientation of multi-national corporations is truly international and goes beyond a narrow nationalistic viewpoint. MNCs have recognized the business opportunities in many different countries.  It can raise money for its operations throughout the world.  Moreover, multinationals firms benefit by being able to establish production facilities in countries where their products can be manufactured more effectively and efficiently.  Companies with worldwide operations sometimes have access to natural resources and materials that may be available to domestic firms only.  Also a large MNC can recruit management and other professionals from a worldwide labor pool.   Companies have recognized the various pros of diversity.

 Increase in Creativity: When different people are put together towards a common solution there is no one best answer to any question because the organization can obtain more and more ideas.  Different cultures of the employees can offer insightful alternatives to a problem.

 Increase in Productivity: When people of variety of culture and variety of backgrounds are made to work together it increases their productivity exponentially. This happens because it kills monotony of work culture, brings freshness in work atmosphere.  Different people have different styles of performing work.  Every employee motivates the other with his difference of style.

Negotiation skills: Negotiating is a part and parcel of life.  Everyone is busy negotiating on some or the other matter.  Every culture has it own philosophy on negotiation.  Americans hate negotiating, they rarely negotiate; you will find them negotiating except for buying a car or a home.  But when Americans have to work with different cultural backgrounds of co-workers they realize the art of negotiation.  Negotiation should always be a win-win situation.  There should be a common ground for negotiation; it should not leave a feeling of hurt on any party.  Germans are called tactful negotiators.  So this can be learnt when diverse people come together to work.

New Business Processes:  Diverse people have diverse attitudes to business.  Companies need to adapt newer business skills and newer processes.  The cross-cultural workforce can bring in better and newer work processes.

New language skills: People can learn new languages while working in organization from their co-workers.  By learning each other’s language the barriers can be reduced.  The companies pay a high sum to language interpreters.  By motivating people who love to learn new languages, companies can curtail expenses.  By learning new languages people can get insight of other countries.  They can improve their communication skills.  After all multi linguistics are always preferred by an organization.

But, Prof.Stephen Bainbridge of University of Illinois Law School argues that homogeneity should be maintained at the workplace as it increases productivity and profitability.  He further states that people feel at home while working with people like them therefore they work more effectively.   He recognizes that people have problem communicating their idea and emotions to people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.   It is a waste of time and energy to work on diverse workforce he comments.

 Prof.Ron Burn a Professor of Sociology and Strategy at the Chicago Graduate School of Business has published several papers on diversity.  He is of the opinion that diverse workgroups are more innovative as they not only have more variety in experience but they are also connected to different source of information in their environment.

Kent State University located in the heartland of America allows students, faculties and staff to learn about variety of cultures from around the world.  Dr.Sheryl Smith – an Associate Dean of students and Director of Campus Life says that the university environment encourages students to explore and understand and appreciate the difference and similarities among cultures especially with diverse student organizations   through events sponsored by these groups.  Students, faculties and staff can experience food, music, dance and sports from wide variety of culture.  The philosophy is simple: students will have to work some day with people of different culture and they will encounter differences.  They should feel at ease and poise when they enter their professions.

Managing cultural diversity is simple.  We all need to address the myths, stereotypes and cultural differences that interfere with our daily chores.  The age-old gender fact that only male and females exist in organizational workforce has lost ground; today we have gay and transgender individuals making vital contributions to our economy. Nations and workforce are both becoming more diverse. The share of people of different color, cast, creed, religion, tradition, language, diction, practice, and ethnicity is part of organizational workforce.

 We are witnessing more women entering the labor force; while taking increasingly the forefront. They are occupying vital roles and are the decision makers in more organizations. It is an open fact that businesses that embrace diversity have a more solid footing in the marketplace than others. Whatever color, black or brown or white.  That is it.   The word “global village” may appropriately describe the world we live in today.  The fiber optics, aerospace and computers link all that exists is a part of our lives. The geographical boundaries are shrinking day by day.   Let’s give up obsolescence and move on to improve productivity.

The form of strategizing within a specific economic structure, dictated by demand and availability of resources, is termed as Red Ocean Strategy. Red Ocean represents all of the existing industries in a market place. Firms compete very hard for market share; they fight so tough that the market gets bloodier; hence the term Red Ocean Strategy. While avoiding use of Mr. Michael Porter’s name, Mr. Kim and Ms. Mauborgne nevertheless attack him head on, arguing that the “five forces” analysis is a formula for remaining in “red oceans,” where the business sharks (market leaders) compete ruthlessly for the action. The key to exceptional business success, they say, is to redefine the terms of competition and move into the “blue ocean,” where you have the water to yourself. The goal of these strategies is not to beat the competition, but to make the competition irrelevant.

Though the Red and Blue Ocean Strategies seem offer two different approaches of looking at strategizing, they are much interconnected and would continuously feed each other. If the markets don’t get overcrowded and if there are no market warfare entrepreneurs will not get out of those markets. I think it’s the Red Ocean which drives out entrepreneurs to create new products and services and profitable businesses models. At the same time, new ventures, which directly contribute to the Blue Ocean, would draw the attention of investors that want to benefit from the tested and uncovered assumptions and hence would soon turn the blue into red.

As more trawlers enter the Red Ocean, the harder it gets for them to be commercially viable, since the ocean does not get any bigger and the potential catch is shared out more. Customer demand remains the same but the number of suppliers continues to increase, thus encouraging fierce competitive practices to ensure that they get as much of the market out at sea, and also when they get back to port. Inevitably this means a price war – and blood everywhere, hence ‘Red’ Ocean. The pioneering company in the world Apple Computers Inc has tied to remain in Blue Ocean by innovating one after other products. While initiating their most out of the box product iPod used more than seven types of innovation. They included networking (a novel agreement among music companies to sell their songs online), business model (songs sold for a buck each online), and branding (how cool are those white ear buds and wires?).World over, people love the ease and feel of the iPod, but it is the simplicity of the iTunes software platform that turned a great MP3 player into a revenue-gushing phenomenon. Apple has guts, instead of fighting in the overcrowded music equipment market to get the bigger bite, the company touched heart of thousands of music lovers all over the world by introducing iPod.

There is a most striking point about Blue Ocean Strategy – that is Blue Ocean has no memory, it has no reliance on any past trend of format. So to create new markets and develop focus on non-customers to create demand, blue ocean strategy is a fundamental approach. One key point of Blue Ocean Strategy is how to create value and how to make customer comfortable and willing to pay for it. Innovation has a key role on this matter, but, it must be aligned with utility, price and cost. Today, organizations across the world have understood that the key to their survival is innovation and creativity. Innovation does not mean only new products and services but it includes many more dimensions. It is about reinventing business processes and building entirely new markets that meet untapped customer needs. Most important, as the Internet has widened the pool of new ideas, it’s about selecting and executing the right ideas and bringing them to market in record time. In the 1990s, innovation was about technology and control of quality and cost. Today, it’s about business processes, efficiency and reworking for creativity and growth.

Toyota Motor Corp., the Japanese auto giant is best known for their compulsive focus on innovations; be it manufacturing processes, new product development or a business strategy. Toyota is earning respect in all spheres of business as an innovator. It is collaborating closely with the customers and their suppliers to generate innovation. Two years back, Toyota launched its Value Innovation strategy for which the company involved its suppliers; instead of asking the suppliers just to cut costs of individual parts, Toyota spent both time and energy in exploring the design process with backward engineering for spanning entire vehicle system.

Ginger is an Indian Hotels chain established by Roots Corp Ltd, part of Indian Hotels Company Ltd a subsidiary of Tata Group. Ginger Hotels has transformed its traditional in-house research and development process into an open-source innovation strategy. They call it “connect and develop.”  Through this forum Tata Group has tapped lot of new innovators in the world and has used their innovations for betterment of the firm. It has encouraged many innovators, scientists, and suppliers for new products that otherwise could be developed in-house.

Hospitality segment, just like many other segments in India is booming at an unprecedented pace. India faces a huge challenge of being “under roomed” while the economy is growing rapidly. This provides for a huge opportunity for hospitality industry. A lot of large real estate developers are also investing into this business to bridge the demand-supply gap and leverage the opportunity. A number of cities have blossomed with suburban”Silicon Valley” type Special Economic Zones (SEZs). The middle class is becoming more prosperous and native Indian tourist travel is growing rapidly, particularly in places such as Goa, Kerala and Rajasthan. Tata’s Ginger Hotels is a smart move of the company to get into ‘Smart Basics’ concept hotels. Ginger has adopted guidelines and tips similar to Blue Ocean. It reflects the new emerging lifestyle in which people want to get things done quickly and efficiently.

It has been ten years since the first Ginger hotel opened in Bangalore. The first prototype of no-frills hotel was launched in mid-2004 under the indiOne brand. In mid-2006, after fine-tuning the facilities and services based on customer feedback, the company re-launched the ‘Smart Basics’ hotels as the brand Ginger, a name designed to convey a stylish, warm and modern identity.  It has been an exciting journey for the brand since then, with Ginger hotels now present in 20 locations across India. The plan is to have 70 operational locations with an average 100 rooms each by 2012 – 13. They have been able to successfully capture the imagination of budget business travelers with their value products. The company claims to be having around 65-70% average room occupancy with some properties fully booked for weeks in advance. Ginger has created a benchmark in the branded budget and economy hotel segment in India. The presence of Ginger across the country and the hotel’s need to increasing customer base has helped us understand the evolving needs of the customer, thus facilitating the process of regularly upgrading services for customers. For instance, despite being a no-frills hotel, it has now introduced limited room service allowing guests to order a select range of snacks.

The innovation process, in the business framework, is a planned action that is remarkably easy to implement. It begins with a problem and ends with profit. As such, an ideal business process revolves around planned steps of processes. So it is remarkable that only few businesses have actually implemented this structured innovation process. Blue ocean strategy caters to spontaneous and unimaginable markets.

To help find the elusive “blue ocean,” Kim and Mauborgne argue that businesses and entrepreneurs must consider what they call the “Four Actions Framework.” According to the authors, the “Four Actions Framework” is used to reconstruct buyer value elements in crafting a new value curve. To break the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve, the framework poses four key questions:

Raise: What factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard?

Eliminate: Which factors that the industry has long competed on should be eliminated?

Reduce: Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard?

Create: Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?

Under blue ocean strategy, however, the strategic challenges look very different. Recognizing that structure and market boundaries exist only in managers’ minds, practitioners who hold this view do not let existing market structures limit their thinking. To them, extra demand is out there, largely untapped. The crux of the problem is how to create it. This, in turn, requires a shift of attention from supply to demand, from a focus on competing to a focus on value innovation—that is, the creation of innovative value to unlock new demand. This is achieved via the concurrent chase of differentiation and low-cost. Under blue ocean strategy, there is hardly an attractive or unattractive industry per se because the level of industry attractiveness can be altered through companies’ conscientious efforts. As market structure is changed by breaking the value/cost tradeoff, so are the rules of the game. Competition in the old game is therefore rendered irrelevant. By expanding the demand side of the economy new wealth is created. Such a strategy therefore allows firms to largely play a non–zero-sum game, with high payoff possibilities.

The Blue Ocean Strategy is well elucidated by Canada’s largest cultural exports, Cirque du Soleil, founded in 1984 by a group of street performers. Cirque has staged dozens of productions seen by some 40 million people in 90 cities around the world. In 20 years, Cirque has achieved revenues that Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey—the world’s leading circus—took more than a century to attain. Cirque’s rapid growth occurred in an unlikely setting. The circus business as we all know is on decline. Alternative forms of entertainment such as sporting events, TV, and video games have conquered the circus business. Children, the main circus audience, preferred PlayStations to circus acts. There was also rising sentiment, fueled by animal rights groups, against the use of animals, traditionally an integral part of the circus.

The champion performers of circus dictated their own terms. As a result, the industry was hit by progressively decreasing audiences and increasing costs. What’s more, any new entrant to this business gave a brash competition to the existing players.

How did Cirque profitably increase revenues in such an unattractive environment? Cirque reinvented the circus. Cirque did not make its money by competing within the confines of the existing industry or by stealing customers from existing players. Instead it created uncontested market space that made the competition irrelevant. It pulled in a whole new group of customers who were traditionally noncustomers of the industry; adults and corporate clients who had turned to theater, opera, or ballet and were, therefore, prepared to pay several times more than the price of a conventional circus ticket for an unprecedented entertainment experience. Today, Cirque provides high-quality artistic entertainment to the world.

A lot of research also reveals that large R&D budgets are not the key to creating new market space. The key is making the right strategic moves. In short, today’s world requires companies who can dare to do business differently, think differently and strategies differently.

Blue Ocean Strategy is indeed for bold corporations.