What’s common between 4s & 6s and 0s & 1s

Although the Indian Players issue based on Ambush marketing, seems to be totally different from the OSD, there are some glaring issues of employment practices, that is common between them.

• Exploitation : In the Cricketer’s Issue- The players were bound to a contract period one month before and after the tournament. Extending this from 2000 to 2007, according to the GCC rules, a player will be deprived of advertising for his personal sponsors for a period of two and a half years. Similarly in the case of Open Source development, the code developed by the employees beyond their working hours was also to be claimed by the organisation. In both the cases, the organisations looked onto exploiting the IP of the employees,(of their brand in case of cricketers and code in case of OSS employees) beyond working hours.
• What do employer’s have to say.. ? When we look at it from the employer’s perspective, since they give them the training (in case of IT organisations) and help them to develop the brand(in case of cricketers), they feel entitled towards the IP developed with the help of it. But as Sir pointed out in class, because professors give students, the input for the students to help them win competitions, they cannot claim a part of the prize money. Similarly I feel its unfair on the part of the organisation to try claim the work done by the employees beyond the working hours.
• Fair Deal? : In the case of cricketers, the ICC could have imposed a ban only for the period they played, and in the case of OSS, the company can claim the software developed only during the working hours. But how can they claim the work done by the employees beyond the time for which they are paid. In case, if some employee is passionate towards music and develops an album, can the company claim it as its own? As absurd as it sounds, so is claiming the OSS developed by employees beyond working hours.
• Inhumanity: As described in the nature of exchange, time is seen as a commodity. It seems that organisations forget that employees are human beings, and treat them more as machines. The ICC was not even bothered about the legal issues that the players might face with the existing contracts. In the other case also, the employers want to encash the passion of OSD of the employees and the employees are not even entitled to a legal royalty and recognition if the product clicks.

The bargaining power of the employees varies depending on their position. Atleast, in case of cricketers, they did have a say and have media exposure, to explain their plea. But it may not be the case of normal employees. Due to financial constraints, they might have to accept the contract as such, although an unfair deal. Hence in this competitive environment, it becomes more necessary for the employees to develop niche skills to increase their bargaining power and modify contracts so that it suits them.

Above all, I feel organisations should take a more humane stand in developing employment contracts. Today, majority of the organisations are based on knowledge workers and it becomes all the more imperative to provide conducive work environments, which foster creativity and innovation without binding the employees. Organisations should realise that the passion and mental health of the employees are also essential inputs to their profits.

Ambush leading to Anguish

As rightly pointed out by Nehal and a few others, ambush marketing and IPR-restricting contractual agreements are creating a complicated situation for all the involved stakeholders.

What I analyze from the viewpoints of various stakeholders is as follows:

• The official sponsors are understandably infuriated as competing brands are making inroads into the tournament by roping in famous players with insanely high brand values and thus jeopardizing their expensive marketing strategies.
• ICC, being answerable to the official sponsors, is making forceful restrictions on the IPR of the players. They are probably doing so in the fear that the official sponsors would slap damage charges against them if they suffer losses at the tournament.
• The players on the other hand are under pressure too. They have already signed contracts with competing sponsors and they cannot breach existing contracts. They are also unwilling to relinquish their IPR and commercial rights, which they claim is rightfully theirs as professionals. At the same time, by doing so, they carry the risk of being termed as non-compliant by the ICC.
• The BCCI isn’t in a very good position too, as they are under pressure from ICC on one hand and the Indian players on the other.
• In the midst of all these conflicts of interest, the competing brands are finding ways to promote themselves in connection with the Champions Trophy, without having to pay the sponsorship fee and at the same time without breaking any laws.

Thus, everyone right from the ICC to the sponsors to the players is entrapped in a web of protecting their own interests, thus leading to an absolute NO-WIN situation!!

The only solution to this controversial situation is that the ICC, the BCCI and the Indian players mutually negotiate so as to reach a common consensus benefitting all of them. The players have already taken up the issue of their IPR rights with BCCI. While capitalizing on their image and brand value to maximize their earnings, in the future, players should be careful while endorsing brands such that they will not out rightly conflict the interests of ICC. The ICC in turn has to give up forceful and short-notice agreements and try to get into a formalized, well planned out contractual agreement with the players stating explicitly who amongst them has what rights under what circumstances.

I G()t The P()W(-R!!!

One thing which I found on which most of the participants rightly commented is on the fact that you need to stand out from the crowd if or you need to have extraordinary skills if you really want to have any impact while negotiating with your employers. As mentioned earlier the worth of the individual needs to be perceived by both the parties in being able to reach an agreement.
“Can we learn something from our heroes?”
One thing that strikes my mind immediately is that the unity that was brought forward by the Indian players in blatantly refusing to sign the contract. I belief that this might be one of the primary reasons for the ICC to back down post this issue. Cricket has seen many controversies, but rarely have the players stood united as on this occasion. Even players not affected by the contract refused to bow before the ICC.The bone of contention was a clause which prevented a player from endorsing products which are in conflict with the interest of the main sponsors of the Champions Trophy, a tournament conducted by the ICC. The crux of the matter was not money but an individual's rights. The players, understandably, were not willing to sign a contract that would have cost them a huge loss. There was also a clear sentiment running through that the interest of the players shouldn’t be compromised. The ICC wanted to assume the role of a master but the players are not going to bow. Now second point which can be mentioned here is that when ICC was negotiating with such ICON players of India and that it wanted them to let go of their brand image .Taking this into consideration it should have mentioned a clause where they could have been compensated and remunerated accordingly.
The Hen That Lays Golden Eggs .For ICC it’s clearly India as India is the biggest revenue generators in cricket. And if India was stripped of its ICON players due to the controversy which was raging then it would be like US Air force without their F-22 s .The very charm would be lost. Hence Indian players were able to negotiate because of their position and the respect they commanded in world cricket.
Now in one of the post it was mentioned that in case of Services the bargaining power of the individual increases with the increase in expertise.I belief that in Services sector specially the employees bargaining power is very limited in the fact that there are ample resources with the same level of expertise, may be even more, is available in the job market for the employers. Now the trend has become such that expertise matters but being able to project yourself as the next Bill Gates in front of your prospective employers might be able to help you to add a few zeros in your salary which sole expertise may not be able to achieve.
It is very important to remember the fact that Negotiation is not about winning –If either party feels they have capitulated, not negotiated, both parties lose. We know that power is a positive force and it should be used for positive purposes.


The solution is in fact really simple if you think you have got the spark in you to take on the system, to fight for your rights then you should go right ahead and unfortunately if you think you don’t have that in you then the only logical way is to cooperate,compromise,accept whatever comes your way.

Finally I would like to say is that

Qualifications, rankings, gradings, achievements ,the “IIT/IIM” tag do matter but the ability to put it across the table matters even more.

Power dictates the terms

Can we ever think of negotiating our employment contract? Can we ever say to the company that we won’t sign the contract unless the terms are changed? A realistic answer would be “no”. This is because, we are used to a work set up where employers possess a huge power. Employees are mere individual dispensable resources readily available in the market. So we don’t even think that we can really negotiate with the company. What if this dimension of the employee - employer relationship changes, where employees possess as good a power as the employer? In this situation employees can dictate the term of the contract. We see this situation typically in sports when the game is as much in need of the stars as the stars are in need of the game. The case of conflict of interest in sponsorship is a common phenomenon in sports. In the case under discussion, the Indian players were able to negotiate the contract with ICC because of the power they possessed. The power was the fan following of the Indian stars. Without them the game is without any spice. In the above case, ICC wanted to safeguard the interest of the event sponsors by getting a restrictive contract signed by the players. According to the contract players would not be allowed to endorse any brand which would have conflict of interest with the event sponsors for a stipulated time. But by signing the contract, the players would breach the existing contract they already have with the brands they endorse. This could cost them dearly in terms of fines and the opportunity cost of not endorsing during the peak time of the tournament. The players refused to sign the contract with the original terms and brought ICC to the negotiation table to tweak the contract for them. This was possible because of the influence they had on the game. Without the Indian stars the ICC champions trophy would have been a flop show. This would even have gone against the interest of the event sponsors for whom ICC floated the original contract; because, without the Indian stars the tournament couldn’t have pulled huge crowd and without the crowd nobody will sponsor the tournament. The Indian stars had the capability to pull huge crowd, and Indian crowd is the major follower of cricket. Hence the majority of the revenue of ICC was dependent on Indian crowd, and India being a huge market, the interest of the event sponsors lied on the size of the Indian crowd; such was the power of the Indian players. This is the reason why they could refuse to bow down to ICC or BCCI and could negotiate the terms of the contract with them.

We can argue that no one is bigger than the game; People love the game but not players etc… These are true in long term. The game has created stars. It can have replacement in absence of one. But when we are talking about stars like Sachin Tendulkar in the cricket crazy nation like India, it would take a lot of time to fill the void. But it is definitely true that the game will not wait for Sachin. The game would find another star sooner or later. But in a short term, their absence would have a huge impact on the game, which would affect the immediate tournaments.

So the lesson for us from this case is, if we really want to stand up and negotiate the contracts with the employer, we must have the power to back us. Then the question arises, do we have to have power to negotiating any contract with our employers? Can’t we negotiate on the grounds which are very much legitimate and rightful? Yes, we can. But for that the industry should have that level of maturity and professionalism, where both employee and employer respect each other’s rights and both the parties collaborate to get mutual benefits rather than focusing only on self benefits.

Latent power

As mostly discussed in this blog, most of us believe that heroes are at a better position to negotiate a deal than ordinary persons. In other words a person has to be an influential personality in his organization to have a better bargaining power. But there can be interesting cases where an employee has a huge bargaining power without he himself knowing about it. That’s what I meant by ‘latent power’ of bargaining. Here’s a small experience…
A lady complaints to the HR about one of her team mate’s continuous misbehaviour. She could also provide enough evidence to convince the HR head about what she was saying. The HR was furious and wanted to see this particular person out of the company. But the manager felt that this person is a vital resource and that he would be in trouble if this person leaves. So, the manager bargained with the HR on his behalf. Nothing happened to the employee. He never even came to know that there had been a complaint against him in the HR. On the contrary, the lady was made to change her team and was shifted to some other team. This employee was not a big hero…but of course, he had a hero who could strike the deal for him!

Want a Bargain...Be the Best

The Cricket World Cup 2002 would be remembered as much for the resurrection of the Indian fighting spirit on field as off it. The pre events of World Cup saw Indian players at loggerheads with BCCI and ICC over the advertisement rights with the players having the last laugh. When we look into the matter where the ICC wanted the players to breach the contracts with their sponsors and display the logos and ads of the World Cup sponsors on their kits, it appears as though the ICC was trying to violate the rights. The rights of the players as well as their sponsors.

The sponsors have earned the right to display their logos on the players’ kits by paying those loads of money. The ICC too may have garnered millions of dollars in sponsorship money. What the ICC could not anticipate was the strong retaliation from the players. After a month of deliberations, debates and accusations the ICC had to bow down to the players demands. The players also had to compromise a bit, but the deal was in their favour.

What is significant about the event are the parties involved. On one hand, a bunch of high profile, demi-gods of cricket and on the other their employers. (BCCI, ICC). What did the players have in them to have their employers bow down to their demands? What if the first group was a group of un-unionised employees in a firm? Would they have the same bargaining power?

The answer is No.

In my view, to have such a bargaining power one must stand out in the crowd. Unless one has some very special talent/attributes/experience/skill, he/she is replaceable. People pay lakhs of rupees to watch Sachin Tendulkar play. The ICC could not risk loosing this revenue. What does a common employee has in him to demand similar treatment as certain Sachin Tendulkar or Virender Sehwag demand?

While working in the shopfloor, I have seen some improvements suggested by the workmen become the Standard Operating Procedures for the forthcoming projects, reducing costs substantially. All that the workman got was a pat on the back and some encouraging words. Can these workmen demand the share of the profits earned due to their idea? The answer depends on the qualification/type of work done by him. For example, in my previous company there were only 2/3 people who knew how to use a certain profile measuring machine, Leica. These employees were given preferential treatment and they certainly got the better deals everywhere. The more the company specific and technology-driven work, the more is one’s bargaining power.

What we can learn from our heroes is that “Become the best in what you do and everything happens as you wish.”

What happens when a Hero falls?

In case of our discussion on ‘Open Source Development’ we argued as to what is to be done so that the company one works for does not claim as theirs, the projects that the person pursues outside regular office work. We came to the conclusion that proper paperwork would solve the problem.

But what will happen if the person gets involved in work that might indirectly have some negative impact on the company he is currently with? And he might not be doing it intentionally. The situation may be such that nobody would have thought that such an issue could rise. So no norm would also have been documented. Thus, the employee thinks he is no way going against the companies policies. But the company thinks otherwise. This is exactly what happened in ‘Can We Learn From Our Heroes?’. The ICC was not in favour of the Indian players endorsing brands of personal choice and the players agitated by this, decided that it is better that they don’t sign the agreement for the champions trophy. They were not ready to sacrifice their ‘intellectual property and personal commercial rights’.

But here the Indian players could deny signing as they believed that they were of prime importance to the ICC and so they could negotiate with it. But what will happen if one day the ICC says enough and boycotts such teams for some fixed period of time? What will then happen to the Indian Cricket and more importantly to the so-called ‘high-profile players’? Will they still have an edge when it comes to negotiating a deal?