What’s common between GigaOM, Kingfisher Airlines and PepsiCo? Probably several things (or nothing?). But in unrelated reading, insights linked up, as insights tend to do..

In this wonderful February 2011 piece on GigaOM, Om Malik writes about changing the DNA of a company. And he argues about how tough that is – but its possible instead to identify the bad behavior – which is creating the drag – and steadily change those behaviors. That’s very tough too… but possible.

In an unrelated piece, in the January 2012 Forbes India issue, Samar Srivastava explores how PepsiCo is approaching the BoP market in India and the changes its having to introduce into its retail operations. Including the creation of a new set of goals, different team and a cost structure and business model that is very dissimilar to the Global Pepsi business – but necessary in the context of a distributed, competitive, fragmented market like rural India.

And sometime in December I read a newspaper article analyzing the difference between Low Fare carriers and Low Cost carriers. (Couldn’t locate a link to this article unfortunately). But in essence the article pointed to Kingfisher and Jet being full service airlines trying a low fare service – with a full cost mindset. Versus Indigo (and the former Deccan airways) which were set up as Low Cost Carriers – thus making it possible for them to succeed in the tough industry climate – because their essence and core DNA was to be low cost across all aspects of operations and delivery.

What links them together?

Essentially the 3 different pieces of thinking all pointed back to the fact that:  To solve a nagging problem and to INNOVATE around a challenge, its impossible to find the direction without first RECOGNIZING THE MINDSET or DNA that drives the BEHAVIOUR of the organism. And start by changing the behavior that’s blocking innovation.

PepsiCo as a part of its India BoP strategy has set up office in an area that maybe somewhat dilapidated, but half the cost of its offices in the Global Business Park in Gurgaon. They are located with several other similar businesses, are using local production facilities, field sales men without field devices, leveraging local distributor cash, focusing on providing good incentives to the retailer and a variable pay structure to its team. Back to the basics of retail in many ways. But combined with a new set of relevant products for this market.

After a few unsuccessful years of trying smaller packets of popular products and cheaper costs – PepsiCo finally put together a strategy to start fresh in rural and BoP markets, without the behaviors of the global business. Collaborating with Tata on an energy drink for daily wage labour defines a big new start.

In Om’s article he quotes Gregory House, the cranky, genius doctor from the television show, House, who solves medical and diagnostic mysteries. House say’s “Almost dying doesn’t change anything. Dying changes everything.”

Indeed. Kingfisher airlines seem to have found some direction in its near-death experience. Will it go ahead and kill itself before it recreates though? It appears that the Management is keen to lay claim to the Full Service model, exiting Kingfisher Red over a period of time and focusing on its ‘service’ and ‘hospitality’ promise. Jet airways is seeking to stay in both fields – but with two different companies and two completely different operating cost models – one designed for an Efficient Full Service and the other designed around the promise of Low Cost.

Have these two airline teams dug deep enough into their DNA – and have the bad behaviors been identified? Will PepsiCo’s Iron Chusti, Glucoplus and Lehar win the market in rural India?

For now… it’s interesting to see the reflections and the new behaviors that are being put into place…. in the search for innovation impact!

Parvathi Menon, Bangalore.