Context Matters

According to the Context Matters Principle, when somebody asserts X in a certain context A, you might believe X but, when provided more context, you might change your mind. Based on the additional context B, you might doubt X, or stop believing X, or even start believing the opposite of X (aka ~X or X’). … Read more

Three Truths About Outcome Based Model

In Output Versus Outcome Model, we described the difference between output-based model and outcome-based model. In this post, we’ll look at a few attributes of the outcome-based model. To recap: Output: I deliver ERP, you use it to reduce your DSO. Outcome: I deliver a reduction in your DSO by using ERP. where: “I” means vendor “You” … Read more

Pune Metro Card – Third Time’s The Charm

At its inception two years ago, Pune Metro supported the following ticketing options: Human-operated ticket counter Self-service kiosk WhatsApp e-ticket Contactless prepaid card. Since I’ve a great experience with contactless prepaid cards on rapid transport networks in several cities in the world (e.g. London Oyster Card), I jumped at the last option. My first attempt … Read more

Trump Tariffs: 7 Reasons Consumers Won’t Pay The Price

Economists claim that American consumers will bear the cost of Trump Tariffs. Dealmakers insist that overseas exporters and / or American importers will find ways to avoid passing on the burden of Trump Tariffs to American consumers. According to me, the question of who pays tariffs is extremely nuanced. As a career sales professional in … Read more

Why Does It Take So Long To Be Unsubscribed From Mailing Lists?

(This post is a slightly edited version of my answer to the above Quora question.) In my company, we run many email newsletter campaigns for customers and ourselves. We rarely get unsubscribe requests, as you can see from the following exhibit. On the rare occasion that somebody wants us to stop sending them our future email … Read more

Dealmakers Trump Economists In Predicting The Impact Of Tariffs

To: editet@timesgroup.com Subject: Alternative to Dollar Trump | Letter to the Editor Dear Editor of Economic Times: This has reference to op-ed entitled Alternative to Dollar Trump by T. K. Arun in Economic Times. Most economists says tariff is paid by the consumer. Some economists say it’s paid by the supplier. As a career sales … Read more

10 Things They Didn’t Tell You About Trump Tariffs

This blog does not get into politics but tariffs have significant impact on business in general and sales and marketing in particular, hence this exception. Tariffs on imports has been a major plank on which Donald Trump ran for President of the United States. Unlike many political candidates who forget about campaign promises after assuming … Read more

Output Versus Outcome Based Pricing Model

During the recently concluded NASSCOM Technology & Leadership Forum 2025 conclave held in Mumbai, the OGs of Indian IT industry noted that the time is ripe for the industry to pivot to Output-based Model. I shared this article on LinkedIn (and X fka Twitter) with the following comment: “Output-based Model” is correct. Kudos to Indian … Read more

Success Story: Using ChatGPT To Migrate From Scraping To API

In my blog post entitled Using ChatGPT As A Data Analysis Assistant, I described a Stock Portfolio Prediction Tracker in which I’d used the Data > From Web feature in Excel to scrape the Current Market Price of various stocks from Yahoo! Finance website. While I was quite satisfied with scraping in the short term, I … Read more