Pint of Medicine

A small comment or a 5 X 5 cm news can make so much impact on the world can be seen few times in a century but rarely are such news good. It is a moment in history that such a rare news is seen during our lifetime which perhaps rivals the sighting of a once-a-century meteor. Predictably, I was unaware of the magnitude of the news until I was hit smack in the face. The medium was unlikely commercial artist friend of mine. It was just a casual visit to a person who had pledged his life to working only for a pharmaceutical sector. I never knew the reason but the determination was fierce. So imagine my surprise to see him drawing something for what looked like a liquor brand. I could not resist the jibe, ‘So you finally sold out your pledge to for money’. He looked up and gave me the startling answer ‘No, I still am serving the pharma sector except that this is a new entrant so I am taking up the challenge for its smooth entry’.

Seeing my puzzled expression, he slid a the day’s newspaper folded at the news of a research report on Beer being medicinal. ‘So?’ I asked in innocent ignorance. ‘This bottle is to be placed on the shelf of a chemist and not a wine shop’ he clarified. ‘The packaging has to appeal to the patient and no longer to the tippler’ he explained. To prove his point he took out one bottle containing respiratory ailment syrup and an equivalent size bottle. I must admit, each bottle evoked a different feeling. The point was driven home and felt proud that my friend was approaching the issue so scientifically with such a forensic angle. If I were the dean of any university, I would have awarded him a doctorate immediately.

‘Have you seen fancy packaging for prescription drugs? When the Doctor jots you a prescription, you hand over the scribbled paper to the chemist who ducks and brings up your strip of tablets or bottle and puts it on the shelf in front of you. If it weren’t for your sickness making you uneasy, you would have applauded enthusiastically at the magic he performed by exchanging a scribbled paper for a prescription drug.’ Coming from an industry of accounting where one predominant is pessimism, I asked how the patients would get a Doctor’s prescription for that ‘new tonic’. This sent my friend into peals of laughter. ‘Translated, you never even look at the package but grab it and head home to hurry and take the first dose so why should the companies spend money on design and packaging?’ I understood, ‘Okay so, beer is an over-the-counter or OTC drug.’ ‘The new term is SELF-MEDICATION and not OTC’ he lectured me. ‘Even my dentist told me that beer makes the teeth healthy by washing away all the oils and sticky stuff of the food that attaches to the enamel’ he gave his parting shot to promote beer.

As I walked home I saw some of the current chemist shops and wondered how they would look once they started selling beer as an OTC drug. Will the pharmacy or the chemist as commonly referred advertise the availability of the OTC tonic called beer or will the beer shops sport the red cross sign or will they innovate and have a cross made out of beer bottles to have a maximum impact? It all boggled my mind. I felt a bit giddy wondering whether the beer companies would turn pharma or would the pharma companies now manufacture ‘drug quality’ beer? To clear my head I went to a restaurant and ordered beer. I flipped though the daily paper and saw an ad of Pharmaceutical All India (PAI) companies annual seminar. The main bold line caught my attention as it read, ‘PAI WECOMES NEW 460 BEER COMPANIES INTO ITS PHARMA FAMILY. With the entrance fee and annual fee being sizeable, the organization may now be rolling in money to even influence a study that showed drinking whiskey is good for health! I thought.

Even the ambulances may have to undergo a make-over to advertise what people should consume to lead a healthy life. While the encouraged may be well advised the maximum dosage, we all have serious doubts if most of the patients would remain capable of understanding it after the first few doses. Such ordinary people who use supplementary health tonics can also include ambulance drivers is what I realized gradually and was scared to even imagine the impact of an ambulance driver driving at speed with the vehicle wailing. I doubt very much whether the duty of the designated trip would be executed to its fullest as the driver would be on his own private trip.

Just then a partner of a famous large firm of accounting requested my immediate presence in his office. We had done work in the past but today it seemed ‘eons’ ago. ‘What giv…’ he did not let me finish my question when he started rattling off his problem. ‘Without drinking a stuff of what this client makes, I am dizzy’ he said throwing a hardcopy of a spreadsheet in my lap. After I concluded the ten pages of study, I went into raptures of laughter. My learned friend calculated the strategy of ‘tax holiday hopping’ every three years in declared areas of tax holiday by shifting the client’s factory lock, stock a barrel but at the end of ten years, the cost of dismantling and assembly wiped out the cost savings thus ruining my friend’s seven day effort and chance to bill a client. As I wiped the last tears of laughter, I asked, ‘What does your client produce?’ ‘Beer’ was my friend’s flat answer. ‘Didn’t you read the papers declaring beer to contain medicinal properties?’ I asked. ‘So?’ he demanded. ‘The tax provisions are more favourable for pharma than liquor in this country’ I blurted my eureka moment. My friend just stared. ‘I have already considered that’ Now I felt sheepish at the deflation of my moment of glory. I kept staring at the sheets as if they would suddenly come alive and stand up to whisper a solution in my ear. After some time, they did! I was carrying a dummy packing from my friend’s office which was a reject. The important difference is now the beer pack had a detailed list of ingredients being medicine category. Here is where the idea germinated. ‘If you could just TRANSLATE the ingredients to their hindi names, you could register this as an ayurvedic medicine which has a much lower tax rate than allopathic medicine’ I fired my shot of creativity and paused for an applause. My friend lapped it up and so did the client and months later, the papers reported it as an exploited loophole as others followed suit and then the Government was mulling over how to plug the loophole. We would then all wait and spot another one and the cat and mouse game would continue forever ……

Point of Petrol

While the whole petrol user population of the country was cribbing about the number of changes in prices (all upward) done by the petroleum companies in a year, instead of being apologetic, the companies practiced a Murphy’s law by doing the opposite to shock us all into silence. Thus instead of promising to do just one or two changes in a year instead of the 16 done last year, they actually announced power to revise 24 times – once every fortnight. So in one fell swoop, objections of millions regarding frequent change were silenced.

Now whenever I announce going to the pump to fill up the car, my son advices me to keep sorbitrate in the pocket as well as a bottle of asprin as these are the first to be taken in case of a heart attack and in addition a large card containing the phone number of my cardiologist. All this is to prevent any fatality I may suffer after viewing the current price of petrol. Also, if I was not back in a hour my son was on the standby to rush to the designated petrol pump with an ambulance. Frankly, I just cannot fathom the idea of paying for fuel in one year more than the capital cost of the small car I had purchased just a few years ago before the petroleum decontrol.

I opine, the word ‘de-control’ to be replaced with ‘out-of-control’. To allay their fears I decided that instead of the usual ‘tank full’ I would just mention the last figure of amount I paid for tank full I remembered in the ‘good old days of price control’ and accept what is given. I would probably not notice the increase in frequency per month. But my clever son put his statistical knowledge in use and built a predictability model on the price trends and amount of petrol that would be available for Rs. 2,000. So, from 23 litres in 2011, it would reduce to 7 litres by March 2012 and by August 2012, it would be so low that instead of a pump, the petrol attendant would use a dropper.

I showed the model calculated by my son to my friend who was also a senior Banker and he saw an opportunity in the plight of the common man. I had heard about the term ‘carpet baggers’ but never in my life even thought I would meet one leave alone from my friend circle. Seeing my shocked expression he pacified that his opportunity is a ‘win-win’ situation and not an exploitative one. ‘If you realize you are not able to pay from your limit exceeded credit card and you have to take your family to that wedding of the relative, what will you do?’ he put before me a marketing scenario. ‘We shall open kiosks at petrol pumps and depending upon your car model and requirement we shall have one point loan authorisation for the calculated amount of petrol! I thought to myself, if the car model was one of the determinants for the loan, my 10 year old beat up would not even permit me to write the application form leave alone get a loan.

It was my Banker friend who reminded me that we had a classmate working in high position in one of the petroleum companies and promptly even called him. When I was handed the phone and appraised him of my calling in life as a consultant he was elated. It seems their company was looking for a consultant. I too was happy to earn something for my car instead of just for my human family , after all, the car is an extended family member too. When I met him the situation was a nightmare and they wanted me to contribute to that. It seems none of the petroleum companies were happy with the 15 day mandate for price change. ‘This is too ill frequent’ said the Finance G.M. ‘Everyone knows the prices change daily. Does’nt anyone watch the news?’ I was new to their area of operations so I politely asked them if they had contracted periods and prices fixed for that period with the suppliers. I was greeted with stunned silence and piercing looks so bad that I ensured I kept my mouth shut. ‘Another thing that changes is the Foreign exchange rate and that too every split second.’ said the Operations G.M. Now the Chairman bellowed, ‘All Chairmen of Petroleum companies are meeting the Finance Minister tomorrow and we are demanding that freedom of pricing means full freedom and we can change it any time even hourly if our model of costing so demands’ bellowed a portly looking man seated behind a huge desk.

‘So you want me to develop a model? I asked seeking reason for my presence there. All nodded while the Planning G.M. rattled, ‘the model must have real time trend changes in crude prices and FE rates along with our budgeted costs for the period and determine rates to ensure the set profit rate per 15 minute time span.’ Wow I thought what a detailed brief. The finance G.M. was obsessed with the word ‘real time’ cause he kept harping upon Fuel-Price Adjusted Real Time as if that was his only motive till he died. I could not resist the fun in his coinage which could be abbreviated as FART. I told him so adding that the ambition of the model as described had a lot of ‘gas’.

The Inormation Technology G.M. looked at my perplexed face and said, ‘I know you are thinking how we shall communicate the rates to the lakhs of petrol pumps. All the pumps are electronic and each will be linked to a local hub which shall be controlled by a our central computer and changes will happen in a split second over all the pumps. Where the bills are generated by the pumps, there shall be immediate changes!’ I still had a query. ‘how will your system react when the prices after filling are different from the price at the start of filling?’ The mum expression conveyed that the consumer was likely to bear the brunt as usual.

All this made my head spin and I felt the bottle of asprin in my pocket as reassurance before I fainted. To escape being contributory to the nightmare, I tried the excuse, ‘for this I am afraid you will need the help of an M.I.T. professor and not a local University professor like me.’

‘All I know is that you will add fuel to the discontent of the consumers and they may substitute your fuel.’ I tried to warn them short of threatening a riot. The Production G.M. laughed and said, ‘you laypersons are so naïve that you feel all you need is something to help the spark explode with a pressure to drive cylinder in an internal combustion engine and any alcohol will do.’ I really had not thought it to be so simple but since he started the subject, I might as well have the last word so I retorted, ‘Perhaps your scotch may not be a good substitute but our local brands more popularly known as DESI DARU is so potent that it makes people fly so imagine what it can do for vehicles with wheels.’ That sent everyone scurrying to scribble on the unused note pads conventionally kept at all meetings but rarely used other than for doodling.

Now even I planned to visit the local ‘desi bar’ and purchase a crate or two for my car.

The Revival Project

Being the 3rd or 4th stand-by speaker at seminars of my Institution was regular and I took the mere opportunity as a compliment. But when a senior IAS officer who was my school mate plonked a thick report for checking on my desk I was not quite happy seeing the title and not the fact that many others had refused to do it. Any subject hot on the headlines spells trouble as good news never hits the headlines. In 2008, when the same airline had declared its half yearly loss, I remember having a discussion with my son on its revival in a light manner. But here, this was deadly serious report I had to leaf through. ‘Why me?’ I whimpered. ‘The consultants before you were not able to finish it before they were taken seriously ill.’ My friend answered. ‘Not cardiac I hope’ I asked remembering that my family on father’s side had a history of this. Instead of feeling assured that it was not cardiac, I was more disturbed when he revealed that all had checked into hospitals for the insane. ‘This report has been developed by an expert study team set up by the aviation ministry under directions of the PMO’ he rattled mumbo jumbo of administrative communication conveying importance of my work.

After he left, I leafed though the report wondering why the sudden support for a company who messed up in its costing. Just then a phone rang and on the line was the young man who had recently started an eatery out of his father’s retirement funds and was experiencing difficulty of survival in mere 3 months. ‘Uncle, since I too am experiencing financial difficulty, can you please see if my name is also included for financial aid for revival of my business?’ That was a typical and normal reaction in a democratic country where all are considered equal – in principal.

The report ended with some direct and precise action for revival. The policy of suggestions hinted at self revival instead of the bailout. Let me share what they were:

1. FUEL: Very rightly, the highest cost element was attacked first. Since this was a volatile element also involving foreign exchange, a radical solution was suggested in view of the group’s diversified business interests. The report founded the solution on the group’s business of making alcohol for drinking. After delving into the technicalities of substitution they arrived at the conclusion that cost of manufacture before excise of the company’s whiskey was Rs. 30 per litre which could be used for fuel. The excise holiday would extend only for 2 years or until the company went into black is what this point ended with.

2. More premium service categories: The Business Class which cost a whooping 400% for just a broader seat and more food, which made you broad in the first place, was not much of an incentive as it did not achieve more than 10% occupancy as per the studied statistics. Therefore the report made a suggestion to make the incentive so exciting as to ensure the travelers would not even dream of cost benefit analysis. Some bizarre sounding suggestions confirmed there are no limits to man’s imagination. One suggestion harped upon the attractiveness of the hostesses which was an acknowledged USP (Unique selling point) of the airlines. After this disclosure, I was scared what direction the report would head. It suggested earmarking selective hostesses for the special class perhaps with a cheer leader type of uniform and call this class the ‘VEP’ class (not VIP). To allay the reader’s misgivings of a typo error, the extended form of VEP was given as ‘Visually Exciting Place’. This suggestion emphasized a normal warning that this service would be selected by males only but then since 80% of the business class were already males so there was not much damage there! This suggestion was rounded off with a costing conclusion that shorter the uniform, lesser would be the purchase cost as well as the cleaning cost.

3. Overnight Parking fee: This was another high cost item in the final accounts of the (any) airlines. Ever since the Airport authority was privatized, the prices shot up was the observation of the report insinuating privatization to be an antisocialist action. Now I was curious how this would be circumvented. First an outlandish plan of creating mere parking near Nagpur as it was the centre of India, was analysed and rubbished. What was suggested was to park these planes at existing airports and convert them into night clubs. Only added cost would be removal of a few seats for ‘comfy club seating’. Suggested entrance fee was placed at 10 times of local ones which would more than recover the parking fees. Off duty hostesses can officially moonlight as bar-tenders etc. in the club. A small alteration in uniform may appropriately remind the patrons to fly with the airlines thus achieving publicity in the process! While the patrons are ‘clubbing’ inside, the technicians can tinker outside maintenance since the plane is just parked there the whole time!

4. Food sponsored: Food was the wrongly touted as the chief cost burden instead of jet fuel for such a long time that whenever any airlines went in for cost cutting, they first decide to leave the passengers hungry. The report suggested the passengers to be fed totally free and that too without any stealing! They relied upon a popular TV serial for cookery and suggested a tie up of the airlines with them. Since the show creates so much food, let it be taken up for tasting by the passengers of the plane. A feedback form will be compulsory and you get non-partial judges giving you a ‘more realistic real T.V. show’. Of course the risk of food poisoning and other medial ailments caused by improperly cooked food or excessive spicy food were also mentioned in this suggestion with a cost saving twist that all such health issues were to be sponsored by a chain of hospitals.

As the remedial measures dropped with the quality of imagination of the study group, I suddenly developed a severe headache. Fearing to join the earlier evaluators at the asylum, I decided to just see the last suggestion. Reading that, gave me such an attack of laughter that anyone would have thought I had really flipped my lid. The last suggestion was that in case all the 170 (yes there were 170) suggestions failed then the last 171st suggestion was to ‘privatise’ the company. Obviously, the study group had copy pasted a report of some public enterprise and ‘borrowed’ a few suggestions. While the rest were after due thought and analysis, this one perhaps escaped the notice of the irony of how to privatise the already private company! The icing of the cake was the details to which the privatization was discussed was till the re-naming of the new company (what else other than) PHOENIX AIRLINES.

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