Between 1980 and 2010, India achieved a growth of 6.2 per cent, while the world as a whole registered a growth rate of 3.3 per cent. As a result, India’s share in global GDP more than doubled from 2.5 per cent in 1980 to 5.5 per cent in 2010. The fact remains though that a slowdown in Eurozone might affect the Indian economy for the worse.

As per Finance minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee, although India has become the fourth largest economy, but the fact remains the the per capita income of India is too low as compared to many other nations. The per capita income of India is still 1527 US dollars which comes down to roughly 74000 rs per person. As the per capita income considers the income of the whole country, and as the country also harbours several billionaires, we can imagine the plight of India in the income department. There is still work to be done to bring the living conditions of India upto mark.

The women of Rural India have realized this and so have the brands. This is why today, if you go down to the rural towns of Ludhiana, or gorakhpur or even the numerous rural towns sprinkled across India –  you will find beauty salons such as L’Oreal, health care centre such as VLCC, and distributors for Fem Fairness cream and Dabur amla in Rural india.

The three brands Dabur, L’Oreal and VLCC are strongly targeting rural area for their growth. Not surprising as about 70% of Indian land is still rural in nature. Furthermore, there is so much competition and saturation in Urban areas that these brands are more likely to get loyal customers in rural India only.

The reason for the beauty and wellness industry to rise in Rural area is the rise in the income and living style of the rural population. The basic need of food, water and electricity are being complete slowly but surely. Then comes the next need –  looking good. Thus in Ludhiana you can find 165 slimming centres of VLCC whereas there are 480 beauty parlours in Gorakhpur.

The growth is further possible if these brands exploit the loyalty in rural markets. Most people in rural markets are loyal to one particular hair stylist. Some of these rural areas have only one hair stylist to whome everyone visits. Thus by conquering only these solo distribution points, the brands can promote a lot of their stock looking at the number of people visiting a particular hair stylist.

Furthermore, as the demand rises, so will the loyalty increase. The brands will need to be ready for the same. The boom is just around the corner for Rural India. Slowly but surely the competition is going to rise there too. Brands better get the first mover advantage which is being seen in Dabur, VLCC and L’Oreal.

In this time of market turmoil, where imports are really becoming costly, India has come out with a nice strategy to brand its own products. Each and every product, including medical equipment’s, toys, vehicles and others being exported from India will get the mark if India design more commonly known as the “India design mark”.

The India design mark stands for quality, safety and innovation thereby symbolizing India as a country which pays attention to quality, values consumer safety and has the brains for innovation. Looking at the economic condition across countries, Indian products are sure to get leverage and attention due to this simple symbol.

The government had invited small scale businessmen as well as exporters to submit their products and in return get the India design mark. The goods submitted will go through a systematic process before being accepted and branded. The India design council has formed an association with Japanese institute of design promotion to inspect all the goods being submitted for approval and subsequently branding the goods with the India design mark.

As per government, the India design mark will convey mainly two things. First is the design excellence which Indian products have. Second, the usability and durability of the products. The symbol can also be used for promotions in adverts as well as for packaging. Anyone can apply the India design mark and any product which has been designed and marketed from January 2010 can be submitted for approval.

What happens when you are working part time

• You have a full time salary + your part time income
• Your salary keeps you safe and the second income appears to be more than enough
• You are working double than you normally would because of your job + part time work
• You want to leave your 9 to 5 and enter full time business
• Finally one day you decide to leave and convert your part time to full time

Now in the perfect world, i would like to say that as soon as you decide to leave your full time job and enter business, your business blooms, your ROI increases, you get more clients and there is money all around. But lets face it. The world is not perfect.

If you do not plan a perfect transition from Part time business to full time business, heres what will happen

• You will initially be happy to be out of the 9 to 5 grind
• If the business gives you the same returns as when you were in a job, you will realize that the money is less
• Previously, you did not have to pay bills from your part time income. It went in your savings. Now your expenses too have to be paid up through this business itself
• These expenses start eating up your capital which affects the overall profitability of your business
• You spend lesser time than a job for working but you are tensed 24 x 7 as you do not know the future.
• There is no one asking you for targets. And some time down the line you might lose your self motivation.
• In the end, you find a major business change happening. And your business may not be able to cope up. Thats when you start updating your resume

The above pointers are real life examples of what happens when your transition is unplanned. However, Fret not. We have the solutions as well. Here are some pointers on how to ensure the transition is a smooth process.

How to ensure a smooth transition between Part time and full time business

There are several precautions you can take to avoid going into a wrong full time business. These precautions will start from the basics.

1. First analyse yourself.  What do you love and what is your passion. Remember if you like what you do, you wont have to go to work a single day of your life.
2. Choose the right type of business for part time. Your part time business is ultimately going to be your full time occupation. So you need to think long term. Else there will come a point where you are not interested in the business anymore just because you cant do it full time
3. What will be the potential of the business 20 years down the line –  OK!! I know its hard to predict that. The business scenario today is such that you cant predict one year down the line, let alone 20 years. The best practice in such cases is to find out whether your product is a NEED product. If it something like a mobile or so, it will get outclassed in a few years. But if it something to do with household products, it will stick around for years to come.
4. Is it generating enough revenue –  Take your full time job out of the equation. Now consider the revenue being generated by your part time job. Will be enough to cover the expenses AND give you a good life. Furthermore, will the business expand as the inflation rises (you need to think of 5–10 years) If yes, only then consider leaving your full time job. If no, then you need to rethink on leaving your 9 to 5 job.
5. Would you remain self motivated –  Is leaving your full time job just a dream or will you actually be able to solely take care of your own business. Are you good at accounts and do you understand how hard it is to take decisions of your own time and time again. There would be no one asking you whether a work has been done or not. You have to do it yourself.
6. Are you prepared fora business change –  This point has been covered in my article on four fears you face when starting a business. But the crux of this point is that a business environment can change anytime (especially technological environment). Thus you need to be ready for such change.

All in all, shifting to a full time business involves a lot of preemptive decision making on your part. Make sure that you have taken the right decisions. Even if you havent, its not late. But be sure that once you enter full time business, you are ready for the long run.

What does Internet marketing do?

Each and every company nowadays has a website. However, there are several things along with a website which can help your business. A good web design can help you in your branding. Good SEO can bring you more enquiries. Adding a blog can bring you higher traffic. And adding a forum can help your customers get in touch with you and get their questions answered for free. This can help build trust for the customer.

Reasons for capitalizing on the internet marketing trend

1) Its early – Internet marketing has not caught on that effectively in India. This is probably because there are still places in India where electricity has not reached, let alone the internet. So the market is not as saturated as that of USA or UK. Although there is too high competition for mass market products such as air conditioners and mobile phones, internet marketing can be used for niche markets such as heavy machinery and other products / services.

2) Its cheap – Internet marketing is one of the cheapest forms of marketing (unless and until you have one of the heavy ecommerce type design). You will have to spend for a domain name (recommended – godaddy), a hosting company (recommended – bluehost) and web designing. You can use a CMS like wordpress for your blogging. Depending on the number of pages as well as creativity, your web design cost will vary. The last contribution to your cost can be SEO which is a must nowadays and is the costliest. SEO deals with improving your websites ranking on search engines – the primary way your customers reach you.

3) Its present 24 x 7 – If you had a retail shop, would you be able to afford to keep it open for 24 hours a day? Probably not. This is exactly what your website does for you. It is working 24 x 7 whether it be a sunday or any holiday, day or night, it is present and promoting your products. There couldnt be a more cost effective sales man for you.

4) Internet marketing helps divulge information – Although it cannot compete with a face to face interaction, a website can definitely help in imparting information to your prospective customers. With the advance of the internet, there are several call-to-action buttons used which induce your reader to take a decision and make some action (either subscribe to your newsletter or contact you for a quotation) Thus this divulging of information is possible through a website channel.

5) Lets customer make their own decision – One of the first things a salesman encounters is sales resistance. A customers attitude where he does not want to listen to a salesman. This is not possible in the case of websites where the customer is not being pressurized. He has to make his own decision. Thus as he is left onto himself, he would take an initiative on his own and contact you only after having a purchasing mindset. This will further help you in converting the prospect to a customer.

6) Builds respect – Of all the things which your website does, this is the most intangible but most necessary. Nowadays, businesses are not taken seriously unless they have a website. Consider this. One of your prospective candidates want to contact you for a job. He wants to check out your company. There is no website. He labels the company as unprofessional and cancels the interview. Same applies to your vendors and clients. If you dont have a website, they will not take you seriously. Might sound too much, but there it is.

All in all, if you still dont have a website, its time to contact a web designer, get a quote and go ahead with it. P.s – Check out SEO costs from a local SEO company and i would highly recommend that you try to rank high for a couple of keywords. All the best.

One of the industries which is untouched by the fear of recession is the liquor industry with a special focus on Scotch Whisky. Scotland is one of the most popular locations in the world for Scotch whisky. Where the other countries have been affected by the economic downturn, Scotland has in fact grown by 23 percent mainly due to its export of Scotch Whisky in India, China, Brazil and other developing countries.

Britain has been the worst hit in the recent economic crisis. But today, due to Scotland’s exports, the total value of Scotch Whisky is a whopping 4.5 billion per year. This comes at a time of turmoil for Britain. As per research, every minute generates 750 pounds (Rs 61,800) for the British economies. Naturally, with such an influx for alcohol, the industry has also seen a rise in the number of employees as well as overall revenue.

The reason for this sudden rise in alcohol consumption is the rise of buying power and social status of the middle class in developing economies. Scotch whisky were initially the drinks of premium customers only in these developing countries. However, the aspirations of middle class consumers is rising, and single malt whisky is specially a hit with them. The authenticity that comes with scotch whisky is a major contributing factor towards the purchase of Scotch whisky.

The only problem in this case is that if the demand continues in this manner, the supply would be much lesser than the demand. Scotch whisky takes time to prepare. As a result, companies have already done a demand forecasting and have accordingly invested in infrastructure. However, due the sudden rise in demand, companies might not be able to meet the supply rate. Whether this seriously affects the consumption of Scotch whisky, or the companies remodel themselves according to demand is yet to be seen.

One things for sure –  If you dont drink, you better plan on selling alcohol during these tough times.

Thus even if RIM officially says that it wants to conquer the festive season, we are sure that even after the festive season the pricing would be reasonable. RIM cannot survive with such a high pricing and low brand awareness.

The 16 GB version of Playbook is now available at 13490 rs. The 32 GB at 15990 and the 64 GB at 24490. These prices are valid only upto 31^st  of December. The pricing is exactly reduced by 50%. However, even after this reduction in price, it is to be seen whether users will prefer Playbook over others. The playbook does not have Android which is the craze right now. Rather the playbook has its own QNX operating system. Along with this, the playbook can only be connected to a WI-FI or through another blackberry smartphone. This becomes a major handicap.

To purchase the Playbook by RIM please click here. Blackberry Playbook 7-Inch Tablet (32GB)

]]> http://www.biztech91.com/buy-playbook-rim-50-discounts/feed/ 0 http://www.biztech91.com/buy-playbook-rim-50-discounts/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Biztech91/~3/8OY6W0GO3lo/ http://www.biztech91.com/how-to-attract-a-customer-to-your-showroom/#comments Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:23:45 +0000 admin http://www.biztech91.com/?p=46 One of the most common challenges a showroom owner might face is to increase footfalls in his showroom. Whether he sells shoes, garments or electronics, walkins are essential. Conversion of walkins is a different topic altogether but this topic mainly deals with how to attract a customer to your showroom which is equally important. So let’s begin.

1) Location – Anyone and everyone who wants to own a showroom knows that location is the key. But while considering location, just don’t consider whether there is enough visibility. You are not selling advertising space, you are selling a product in your showroom. Thus you need to ensure that people not only see your showroom but they find it easier to stop by and just check the product. Thus your location should be an area where people are walking or they have a large area where they can park their cars and have ample time to shop in your showroom. Targeting a common market place is the best technique because the customers are already in a purchasing mindset and hence would definitely visit your showroom. How to convert these walkins into end customers depends on your in store display as well as your in house staff.

2) Showroom space – How large is your showroom? Do people have space to walk around? How many people can it accommodate at one time? Are you wasting money on too much showroom space? Is the showroom capacity 100% utilized during peak hours? These are some of the common questions you should ask before spending on a large showroom. Here’s an article on how to choose your showroom area.

3) Product range – Modern retail chains are the “in thing” nowadays. You just cant beat them with generic products. Thus if you want to have your own showroom the best you can do is to be called an “Expert” on certain products. You can have a niche or specific product line or you can have an exclusive brand showroom or you need to enter the mass market by offering a variety of products. In the end however, the products that you keep will be the ones to attract the customer.

4) Visual merchandising – Imagine a showroom which has a glass fronted window. It is finely polished. The goods are displayed on the window itself and they are so good that you just want to enter the showroom and have a look at other products that might be in stock. This is the first step in attracting a customer. Visual merchandising is an art in itself and the maximum walkins are for people who are learned in this art. Show the right things in the right manner at the entrance of your showroom, and you might just have doubled your walkins.

5) Sales promotions -   Discounts as well as promotional offers too attract a lot of customers. However these offers should completely reflect the location of your showroom. Your customers will mainly be of two types. One who wants something for free whereas other who doesn’t want anything else but discounts on the product that he is buying. The smart retail seller will in fact have both in his hands and will also know what is the best rate at which he can sell and keep the freebie for himself or some other customers. These kind of aggressive sales promotion plans will certainly give dividends later on.
The other kind of promotions which can be implemented includes out of home advertising, banner advertising, standees as well as advertising in local newspapers. The high end retail chains in fact make it a point to be present daily in newspapers to attract customers to their branches.

All the above mentioned tactics are just to attract customers to your showroom. The people who walkin to your showroom are prospective customers. How to convert them into purchasing customers involves different tactics altogether. Thus read the continuation of this article on how to convert a walkin customer.

For answering cloud computing, i will like to take an example. How do you get electricity in your home? Are you yourself involved in the process of making electricity? No you are not. We are just involved in consuming electricity but not producing it. Similarly, there are nowadays a number of Softwares and services which are being run at one point but they can be used in N number of points. Take for example –  email. Your email and messages are stored in one spot whereas they can  be accessed from any computer. Similarly your corporate mail or corporate work can be stored in one server and then can be accessed from a number of different computers.

This is how CRM software works. Imagine a company which has outlets all across the country. It will have a storage and server point in one place but the access will be allowed to all different computers across the country. This is cloud computing. Imagine a system such as SAP. This kind of system has one server only on the basis of which the whole organization is run. The software can have finance, accounts, sales and all other data in it.

There are now several companies in India who have entered cloud computing. Some of them are

1) Tata

2) TCS

3) Sify

For a complete list of the top cloud computing companies in India visit this link –  Cloud computing in India

Although the amount of users or service providers for cloud computing is high, there are companies such as Symantec which think that India still has a long way to go before it adopts cloud computing. Symantec has conducted a survey of 5300 companies globally of which 300 were from India. Only 16 –  24% of the indian companies are ready to adopt cloud computing. The major problem being that the companies do not have the IT staff to support the setup of cloud computing. Thus knowledge of IT staff will be more necessary for the success of cloud computing.

The Future –  The future of cloud computing looks bright for India considering that Indians are known to be tech savvy people. Slowly but surely there would be more companies offering these services. As the number of service providers increase, the people adopting cloud computing too will increase.

As we all know, recently there was a lok sabha meeting to discuss lokpal bill. However, even before the complete bill was drafted there was a huge uproar. Nonetheless the government has presented the complete lokpal bill which has been strongly rejected by Anna hazare, Alok kejriwal and their team. There are several reasons why this lokpal bill is being rejected

1. According to team Anna, the lokpal bill is “Anti-people” as well as “very dangerous”. The bill empowers Parliament itself to choose the members of the Lokpal bill. This is almost like asking a thief to conduct his own trial.
2. The bill covers only 5% of government employees and 10% of the total politicians. Whereas the original request was for 100% coverage. Just like a law applies equally to all citizens, the lokpal bill should apply equally to all government employees.
3. Of the people included in the lokpal bill, most are commercial and religious authorities. There is hardly any concentration on the actual mischief makers
4. The lokpal bill covers mainly Temples, mosques, schools, colleges, hospitals, doctors, pujaris etc. These are hardly the places where major corruption will happen.
5. With the above people being involved in the lokpal bill, Team anna thinks that government is in fact directly raising the finger on civilians rather then taking the onus and taking measures that the politicians are corrected.
6. Even the Lokpal bill now has minorities.
7. Finally, the cherry on the top is that the CBI too is not under the Lokpal bill. The CBI is the one who should be clearing all the corruption in the country. Thus, if its work is not getting defined, there would be a lack of control on intelligence activities in the country.

The reasoning of Team Anna appears appropriate. Anna Hazare himself has gone out on a limb and has challenged Sonia gandhi to a debate on the Lokpal bill. Whether the government will again discuss on the Lokpal bill is yet to be seen. But we are sure that Team Anna will not stop at this.

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