Levi’s is using Instagram for conducting a casting call inviting fresh faces across the world to apply by uploading photos on Instagram. Now, if you have are an iPhone user, chances are you have heard of Instagram and have used it as well. Instagram is primarily a simple photo sharing app for the iPhone with certain filters to improve the picture quality. So, Levi’s is leveraging the photo sharing attribute of Instagram and leveraging it for a campaign that essentially a photo as the key engagement enabler.

  Image Credit

This is a rather interesting use case of using an application with social sharing capabilities. With Instagram’s inbuilt ‘Like’ button counter it becomes even easier for the company to track and monitor the progress of the activity . In terms of reach, the sharing capabilities (Facebook, Twitter etc.) presents enough scope for brand visibility as well as the constant engagement. However, given Instagram’s limitation of being an iPhone only app the participation in itself might be limited to a certain extent since non iPhone users will not be able to participate.

What are your thoughts on this interesting use of Instagram for running a casting call by Levi’s. I personally find it rather interesting and will be keenly following the #iamlevis hashtag

Gdgt’s 2011 zeitgeist stands testimony to Apple’s dominance as a leading technology vendor in 2011 with Apple products pretty much taking the top stops across major categories. iPad 2, iPhone 4s, Macbook Pro 15, Macbook Air 13 took the top 4 spots in the Top 10 products of 2011 (launched in 2011). Similar picture exists in the top 10 products of 2011(launched whenever) with iPhone 4 and iPad 2 taking the top spots. Apple’s iOS continued to dominate the mobile platform in 2011 with a significantly large margin. Hence, it is no surprise that all major Apple products made for the perfect gifts globally as well. Blockbuster products or not, Apple products sure know how to capture the imagination of people across the globe and make them latch onto every incremental upgrade Apple throws at them.

One of the key attributes of the consumer technology industry is the buzz generated across various media platforms. Apple has always managed to get the publishers going crazy over whatever it does and 2011 was no exception. Apple managed to be associated with some of the most talked about stories in the technology world right justified by Techmeme’s biggest tech story feature post.

Notice the 3 biggest stories!! All Apple. Obviously, Steve Job’s resignation and demise was a really sad moment but this also highlights the love and affection of the publishing industry towards Steve Jobs and Apple.  Apart from that also, there are some 4-5 stories in the top 15 biggest stories in technology for 2011 and that says something for brand Apple.

It is noteworthy here that as i pointed out earlier, 2011 wasn’t one of the best years for Apple what with falling short of expectations with its product launch and losing a visionary like Steve Jobs but Apple still managed to reign supreme in 2011. What will be more interesting to watch out is how Apple fares in 2012? With Steve Jobs gone, there are already doubts on whether Apple has what it takes to raise the bar. Tim Cook will have his hands full in ensuring that brand Apple continues to maintain the legacy.

Do you think the year 2011 belonged to Apple be it product sales or media buzz and more necessarily will Apple be able to maintain the same in the years to come?

However, social media adoption in enterprises is still at an early stage and the early adopters (which I think is the FMCG / CPG sector) are experimenting with the medium and tasting success as they go.

The biggest challenge when it comes to social media in enterprises is not really due to lack of a definite answer for "What’s In It For Us’ because frankly social media is finding its applications right from marketing,  customer service, lead generation etc. The challenge when it comes to enterprise adoption of social media is around the ownership and the lack of a ‘What really works in Social Media‘.

Social media is disrupting traditional marketing in more ways than one. From the consistent addition of new platforms and the best ways to leverage these platforms to making the CMO increasingly collaborate with other CXO level executives in other departments, social media is revolutionizing marketing in enterprises.

A recent CXO survey conducted by IBM Global Services including 80 Indian CMOs (overall 1700 CMOs) throws some interesting insights on social media adoption in the enterprise.

The overall study showed that the market was changing faster than CMOs felt prepared for. The factors that they said were the most important ones were surprisingly the ones they felt least prepared for.

Indian CMOs are no different and even though the general awareness around the importance of social media is there there are challenges when it comes to strategizing and executing.

Despite the high regard for social media, Indian CMOs feel more unprepared than CMOs anywhere else. This is unexpected because at any marketing forum, we talk about social media all the time

Lack of control is suggested as one of the reason why Indian CMOs have inhibitions with respect to social media. Come to think of it, its not surprising given how brand communication is a closely guarded activity in enterprises. The unpreparedness of CMOs could be due to this very face of communication wherein the communication is no more controlled and the company has to be open to retaliation on social media.

Social Media Is A Key Agent Of Change For Indian CMOs

As is visible from the chart, majority of CMOs are wary of the change being bought about by Social media and they find themselves unprepared. Data explosion is another key challenge which to a certain extent is a byproduct of social media. Using social media as a key engagement channel is a priority for most CXOs followed by monitoring the brand activity on social platforms.

The coverage by Business Standard has many more details on the changing marketing paradigm and CMO perceptions of Social Media including the increasing use of technology and access to more data for deriving a better ROI from marketing spends.

However, it is evident that social media is expected to remain a cause of concern for Indian CMOs and those who continue to take social media as just another channel for traditional marketing are not likely to succeed.

Do you agree that Indian CMOs at large are unprepared when it comes to leveraging social media in the enterprise? 

The post Social Media: Indian CMOs find themselves Unprepared [Survey] first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

According to the quarterly mobile workforce report published by  iPass,

iPhone is now the top smartphone in the enterprise with 45 market share among mobile workers, up from 31 percent in 2010. Blackberry’s market share actually dropped to 32 percent from 35 percent in 2010

The results were based on a survey of over 2,300 mobile employees at over 1,110 enterprise worldwide lending some credibility to the percentage based market share split.

Enterprise Mobility Being Powered By iOS and Android based devices

Enterprise mobile brands growth / fall (1010-11)

Come to think of it, it is not so much about Blackberry losing significant market share (~3% down) but more about increasing market share of iPhone and Android based smartphones even in the enterprise.

What the graph also suggests is the marketshare loss of Symbian OS (Well, we knew that already) and Windows Mobile also losing market share. Well, its not so bad for Microsoft (and Nokia) since the early reviews of Windows OS based Nokia smartphones seem to positive and even the respondents in the survey (3.6% of them) are looking to buy a Microsoft Windows mobile as their next phone.

But even as the incumbents have been losing marketshare, its the growth of Android based phones that is staggering especially given the skepticism in enterprises around anything open-source. Well, kudos to Android for creating a new market more than stealing the marketshare

There are multiple reasons for this shift in smartphone preference in the enterprise.

• For one, it is clear that Blackberry’s USP around highly secure e-mail is not enough for domination. Enterprise Mobility is now more than just using e-mail and is more about applications, mobile browsing etc. No surprises then that iOS and Android based smartphones are lapping up the marketshare then.
• There is also a clear shift in who provisions the smartphone at the workplace. 58% of the companies are now provisioning smartphones to their employees as against an estimated 66% last year. Companies are warming up to the idea of employees using their personal smartphones for work related activities or in other words open to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work mantra.

What this means is that mobility in the enterprise is increasingly being led by the end users and not some large IT department which are often a few years behind the technology adoption curve. The only worrying aspect to this trend is the mobile security vulnerability which companies will have to work on.

The mobile workforce report also points out an increasing adoption of tablets emerging as part of enterprise mobility tools with iPad being the leader with Blackberry’s Playbook with around 4.8% marketshare.

Guess it never hurts to have a sizable installed base to sell your new shiny product even as the existing one is fighting a lost cause.

Overall enterprise mobility space is evolving at a rapid pace. There is a clear shift in the demand side preferences and the supply side is hard at work to WOW this ‘I decide my mobile work device’ workforce.

One thing is however clear, iOS and Android seem to be the way forward be it enterprise mobility or general consumer preference. The others can fight for the third spot!!

Your thoughts?

The post Blackberry Losing The Enterprise Smartphone Market Share To iPhone! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Lufthansa Cargo has taken crowd-sourcing a step further and has created a public co-innovation platform primarily targeted at finding innovative solutions for its supply chain.

Lufthansa Cargo has launched Air Cargo Innovation Challenge and is inviting people from across the globe to submit their innovative ideas around key supply chain processes like Green Solutions, Add On Services etc. and even general process improvement ideas

The innovation challenge is essentially a crowdsourcing platform wherein Lufthansa Cargo is asking brilliant folks to think up innovative ideas to improve Lufthansa’s operations and get rewarded in return. The central theme of the contest makes me think that crowdsourcing could actually help the company find some real strategic ideas to implement.

I am firm believer in the power of crowdsourcing and if executed right the same can provide tangible benefits to businesses of all size. There are too many success stories which highlight the power of crowdsourcing be it Unilever’s  Pepperami campaign, Lays Ad campaign and even IBM’s translation project

Green solutions and Add-on services are two primary ideas wherein a larger set of people can participate and emerge with brilliant solutions. For Green solutions, the company may not have the best ideas emerge in-house but if there is a thought leader around Green solutions, he /she can submit their idea and Lufthansa can tap into a subject matter expert at minimal cost.

The same goes for  ‘Add on services’ wherein forget a large audience, the existing customers can themselves suggest new services and service improvements that they encounter on a daily basis while working with either Lufthansa Cargo or other carriers.

The contest which started on 1 Nov, 2011 is already seeing decent interest and as many as 31 ideas are submitted by various people. The overall community engagement is also rather positive with lots of comments and messages happening on the site.

What is also interesting is that the rewards are non-monetary in nature. The company is going to invite the top 3 winners to present their ideas to the corporate team at Lufthansa Cargo and provide a guided tour of the operations center.

So, the company is not going for too many idea approach (in lieu of rewards) but has rather tailored the contest to ensure that people who are passionate about the contest topic only submit their ideas.

What are your thoughts on Lufthansa Cargo’s innovation challenge? Are you going to be a part of this crowdsourced initiative

The post Lufthansa Cargo Wants To Crowdsource Business & Process Innovation [Contest] first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

This is the second round of fund raising for Fashion And You which raised $8 Mn earlier from Seqouia Capital earlier. The company intends to use the fresh round of funding to scale its operations and also consider strategic acquisitions going forward.

It is noteworthy that Smile Group which owns Fashion and You along with Goldsquare Sales India also owns popular daily deals site Deals and You as well as BeStylish.com which is an online shoe store. Smile Group is definitely at the heart of the Indian e-commerce and is pulling big VC money for its companies. A portfolio of multiple e-commerce companies operating in different segments does give the group as a whole a key advantage to extract synergies in maintaining supplier relations etc.

Indian e-commerce companies are showing no signs of slowing down as far as VC funding is considered. However, despite the frequency and the size of funding rounds there has not been any visible differentiation that most companies are trying to utilize. The focus for most e-commerce companies in India seems to be scaling for now and that’s where most companies are investing now

What are your thoughts on Indian e-commerce companies and crazy VC interest in them?

Staying true to the focus on Asia and all things internet, the latest Neilsen report on internet usage patterns in South Asia presents some key findings which i had to summarise crisply would be,

Internet consumption as a whole is increasing both interms of more users as well as activity per user

Mobile Phones are driving the internet usage growth with Tablets also emerging as a platform for internet consumption

Even as social networking growth increase, E-mails are not dead and continue to be the most activity on the internet. Oh and Yes! Facebook is the clear leader in social networking

Video consumption over the internet continues to rise with Youtube being the biggest enabler for the same

Now, if you notice these trends which are specific to South Asia and then compare the same with other regional internet trends there seems to a common pattern at a global level and the internet usage summary will most probably be pretty much similar. But as they, Devil is the details. As a marketer it pays to not only know what works at a broad level but also to drill down into specific regions within a broad geographical segment.

Singapore has highest penetration while Indonesia has the lowest international penetration in South Asia

The internet penetration is good across most south asian regions except Indonesia where the penetration is really minuscule. Slow growth rate of internet penetration in Indonesia has been a cause of concern for while but mobile internet is expected to change that in the years to come. Singapore without doubt has the highest penetration which is not surprising given the region’s overall infrastructure and economic growth.

Internet capable mobile phones reign supreme, tablets seeing increased adoption

Before we delve into the role mobile phone are playing in internet growth (the graph shows it crystal clear), you see Indonesia’s device trend and you know mobile phones are even more crucial in places where traditional device infrastructure used for internet are not developed. On the other hand, tablets are yet to witness major adoption but considering the lower price point tablets such as Kindle Fire should fast track the adoption of tablets.

E-mail is here to stay, Social Networking Usage notwithstanding

Tech pundits have these fetish for declaring one or the other technology/communication medium “dead” when a new shiny thing comes by. A lot of people declared e-mail dead as more and more of conversations shifted to social networks but guess what e-mail refuses to die and if you ask me, it never will. E-mail remains the most used activity on the internet in South Asia as well even as social networking is growing at a meteoric rate. “News” is also a high usage activity on the internet in South Asia.

Come to think of it, the growing internet penetration driven by mobile phones is bridging the divide between what used to be developed markets and emerging markets. Even as the sheer internet usage numbers in say US might be much bigger than in South Asia region, the % growth and usage patterns are increasingly becoming similar.

You can download the entire report here (contact details required)

What are your thoughts on the internet usage patterns in South Asia? 

Comscore recently published a report on visitation to local Indian sites highlighting a key trend especially when it comes to leading local news portals in India,

Among the top local news destinations in India, most brands saw non-residents contribute a significant share of global visitors

Leading new sites like Times Of India has an international traffic amounting to as much as 36.2% of the total, while 31.76% of OneIndia’s traffic comes from outside the country. Mid Day.com and DeccanChronicle.com seem to be getting as much as 45% of their total traffic from an international audience.

Indian Newspaper Site Traffic [India & Worldwide]

Interestingly, almost every news site gets high double digit traffic from outside India. One clear explanation for this is the fact that these news sites become a window to millions of Indians residing abroad into what’s happening in India.

What is even more interesting is whether these news sites are aware of this trend and more importantly whether they are doing anything specific to cater to this audience. For example, the recent trend of reverse brain drain among senior executives is one example wherein these news sites could further the cause and awareness by reporting on the emerging opportunities in the Indian marketplace etc.

Another angle to this contribution from international traffic on local news sites is monetization strategy. I recall my conversation with a friend working with the internet ad sales of a  leading news daily and she did suggest that a variety of advertisement options are used along with a fixed price model based on total traffic numbers- irrespective of audience segmentation.

However,most leading dailies seem to extensively using the contextual advertisement via Google Adsense which works well to monetize both local as well as international audience.

If Comscore’s numbers are true the advertisers might be better off working on a audience segmentation pricing approach (if they aren’t already). Additionally, marketers can also consider the local news sites a vehicle to target a fast increasing international audience as well instead of solely focusing on the domestic audience

What are your thoughts on the growing international traffic on local news sites in India?

The post Indian News Sites Seeing surge in International Traffic [Comscore] first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Onto more pressing matters now such as what Raviwari is. ‘Free local classifieds for apartments, cars, jobs, services, used goods, events and more’ is how the site positions itself. So in essence, Raviwari is your typical online classifieds portal which allows pretty much anybody to post an ad be it buying/selling any services/products under the sun across any location. What Raviwari is currently offering is the lure of *free* posting of ads as against some established classifieds portals charging a certain fee for posting ads (especially for small businesses etc.). The site seems fairly new and i did not found a lot of listings even for popular categories like Cars etc.

I have to say that the user interface is minimalistic and neat- just the kind i like. The home page has tons of categories listed and a list of locations to choose from to narrow your search. There is a nifty search option at the top with some filtering options to again narrow down your search to what you are looking for.

Even the ‘Post an Ad’ and the listings follow a similar approach when it comes to being easy on the eye, i found the listing format a little weak. There is no consistency when it comes to classifieds posted. Now i understand that it is dependent on individuals to populate the fields in the ads but Raviwari could try and include a sample ad template to increase awareness about inputting more data. This will not only help with organic ranking (more content, better indexing) and also lend some consistency to classified posting.

All said and done, here is my problem Raviwari’s ambitious plan to become the go-to online classifieds site in India? There are already tons of classified portals in India both broad based (everything goes) as well as niche ones (say only real estate listings). Add to that the presence of Sulekha, Just Dial etc. who boast of tons of listings and enviable search engine positions. Raviwari does not seem to have any edge (so far) which made me think that they will be able to disrupt the current leaders in the online classifieds space in India.

In my opinion, Raviwari could do really well by going hyper local and even focusing on  rural locations to a certain extent. Rural penetration of internet is increasing and if Raviwari can somehow bring this huge audience on the internet selling their services/products online that could be a winning proposition in the long run and not to forget a differentiator that Raviwari could dearly use. Raviwari also has the edge since it has a rather colloquial name which should resonate even with a non-internet savvy audience.

Give Raviwari a try and let us know what you think.

Samsung Nation is the gamification engine aimed at building a community and increase engagement on its website. The simple principles of activity based reward mechanics are at play where users get badges to complete certain actions on the website and certain badges then result in real rewards for users

We have a lot of coverage of gamification and one can argue whether gamification is a smart business strategy but from the looks of what Samsung is trying to pull here, gamification looks like a winning proposition. Samsung might be the first corporate to have taken to gamification in a big way by implementing it on its website itself but we have seen enterprises toying with gamification earlier as well.

Chances are that if you have ever played the Farmville’s or the cityville’s or you are an active user on Foursquare you have seen gamification at play. The gamification framework promises a variety of benefits depending on the type of application but one aspect comes out for sure whenever we talk of gamification – increased user engagement.

Be it the forcing users to perform actions via time-bound actions (e.g. crop to be harvested in 4 hours as in Farmville) or be it the community building (e.g. sending virtual nothings to friends in order to unlock special items) all platforms / application leveraging gamification lead to increased user activity.

There is no better place for users to engage than on company website itself!

Samsung is striving to make its website the go-to place for Samsung and non-Samsung users by rewarding one and all for spending time on the website and performing actions. Be it really simple ones like ‘spending 15/30 seconds on the website’ to ‘watching a video on the website’ to ‘contributing to the Q&A’ section, Samsung is using gamification to entice everyone to engage with its corporate website like never before.

Some of the noted industry analysts have voiced their concerns on enterprises investing too much resources on building communities on Facebook and directly / indirectly sending users to their Facebook page instead of bringing them to their own website.

Come to think of it, it does make some sense because despite Facebook’s reach and the viral quotient, the end goal has to be increase activity on the website and not Facebook. Then, there is the fact that Facebook is not a platform you control unlike your website.

It might be still early days when it comes to enterprise flirting with gamification but boy it does seem exciting and something that has the potential to make their corporate websites super effective. For e.g. Consider a non-Samsung user ‘watching a video’ on the company website (thereby unlocking a badge) and actually discovering that the product demo in the video wins him / her over thereby converting into a purchase!

What are your thoughts on Samsung’s gamification of its corporate website? Do you think its a winning strategy and more enterprise will adopt game mechanics in the future?

The post Whoa! Samsung Gamifies Its Corporate Website In Style first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

China Mobile (world’s largest carrier with 628 subscribers) wants Apple to share a pie of the apple store revenue as part of the iPhone carrier contract without which Apple will not get access to carrier’s enviable subscriber base

From China Mobile’s perspective, they realize that their scale puts them in a better bargaining position with Apple since China is the fastest growing market for Apple. So, China Mobile is thinking that it is not so much a case of them needing Apple but vice-versa. It is also noteworthy that Apple has been in talks with China Mobile for a while now and the company was supposed to be making an iPhone compatible with China Mobile’s TD-LTE technology. Well, this seems unlikely in the near future if China Mobile is going to act pricey like this and I am sure the folks at Apple are not going to take this lightly.

What’s more! China Mobile is apparently forgetting that China Mobile already has 10 Mn iPhone users. Now while this might sound like another leverage for China Mobile, it actually weakens their bargaining position. Well, if users are buying iPhone elsewhere why should Apple bother striking a deal with China Mobile leave aside sharing its app store revenues. If China Mobile subscribers love iPhone they are going to find a way anyway. Yes, the adoption will be much slower then the carrier contract approach but Apple is unlikely to adhere to China Mobile’s terms. From a pure business sense, even if they do it might trigger similar reactions from carriers all over the world which wont be good for Apple.

This drama between China Mobile and Apple over an iPhone contract would sure be worth following. For now, I just want to applaud China Mobile for its crazy sounding but audacious move

Government of India has launched new scheme for where in the government will provide new dwelling units to slum dwellers on payment of a part of the cost

Essentially, as part of the scheme government will bear 40% of the cost of these dwellings while the rest of 60% needs to be paid for by the slum resident. Commendable initiative but i wonder if the government will also provide credit/installment options for the slum residents because even though the price of these dwellings is on-cost basis, a 60% payment in one go could prove handful for a large majority of the target base.

This is however not the first initiative by the government to create a slum-free India and affordable housing for slum dwellers is pretty much the objective of  Rajiv Awas Yojna as well with projects already initiated in Surat.

While affordable housing is a step in the right direction, i hope these initiatives are also complemented by educational/vocational training programmes so that these dwellers not only have decent clean living environment but also a shot to live a better life. But as they say, One Step At A Time

What are your thoughts on government’s initiatives to make Indian cities slum-free ? 

The post Government Launches A New Initiative To Make India Slum-Free first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

On to the matters of more importance now. Bharti Airtel has chosen to implement a new customer experience management (CEM) platform provided by Nokia Siemens Networks. With the new solution, Bharti Airtel expects to enhance the customer experience across multiple touch points and also provide the company with real-time insights into customer usage patterns.

The management speak sure seems to suggest that the solution is exactly what Airtel needs to keep its customers happy in the wake of company’s massive expansion, challenges in the Indian Telecom sector and not to forget the company’s notorious distinction of  being the leading operator in consumer complaints. Here is the statement from director of network group at Network Group,

The implementation of CEM is an added impetus to our constant endeavor of offering best in class service experience to our customers across GSM, EDGE and 3G networks. It will enable us to identify the root cause of a problem and rectify the same before the subscriber experiences any impairment in service delivery

I dug around a little into the CEM solution offering and the “real-time” and “proactive” approach that the solution promises could indeed be beneficial for mobile operators.

For example, NSN proposes that its CES solution can automatically flag and correct data access configuration settings for a subscriber in the event of subscriber failing to access data on his mobile. Now, wouldn’t that be great for a subscriber.

More than that, it will be great for Bharti Airtel because automated fault detection & remediation could free the company’s resources to focus on more strategic issues. After that, that has been the proverbial use case for outsourcing network operations et all to third-party providers till now.

Technology Is Not Always The Answer

With real-time systems also comes the power of getting a peak into subscriber usage patterns and Bharti Airtel is expected to use these insights to create better experiences for customers.

However, given the current state of affairs, I guess subscribers will be more than happy to get uninterrupted access to traditional voice & data services and if possible- workable solutions from customer care executives.

This brings me to introducing twitter complaints in the title of the post. All said and done, I wonder what is stopping Bharti Airtel to implement a decent Social CRM solution (please let me know if they already do).

More and more people are ranting about their frustrations about their mobile operators (Airtel is the not the only one) on twitter only to be slapped with template messages such as ‘Please DM us your number’ etc.

May be the operators have outsourced their social media to agencies but having a CRM system with interface to social networks atleast presents an opportunity to capture the customer complaint in the right fashion. So while, Bharti Airtel can implement n-number of technology solutions, it will have to take a more “hands-on” approach towards delighting the customer.

It will be another story if the new CEM solution is so robust and fail proof that customers will not have any reasons to complaint and voice their frustration on twitter or elsewhere but then who are we kidding here…

Do you think adding a customer experience management solution to its arsenal will help Bharti Airtel make the customer experience better leave side delighting the customer?

.

The post Airtel Picks Customer Experience Management Solution from Nokia Siemens – Will Twitter Complaints Reduce? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Over 2000 ancient manuscripts in Ahmedabad’s Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology have now been digitized. The e-library of ancient manuscripts runs into 5 lakh pages and has digitized versions of ancient manuscripts/books on religion, language, culture, history, maths, astrology and astronomy

The e-library will be inaugurated by former president Mr. Abdul Kalam on 11 November. The digitization project was massive not only in number of pages but it took 3 years and cost Rs. 40 lakh. But then, the cost is insignificant considering the extent of knowledge that has now been restored to live forever. The nature of the knowledge (ancient manuscripts) is especially important in the context of India. India is known for many things but its ‘rich cultural heritage’ outshines everything. This digitization project is a step in the right direction to protect and preserve this very cultural heritage embedded in the form of ancient manuscripts for future generations.

What is commendable is that Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Institute of Indology does not stop at this achievement. The institute now wants to start another massive project of digitizing 75,000 manuscripts and intends to complete the same in 5 years. Long live the digital content!!

I am also curious if the institute could have adopted a crowdsourcing approach towards digitizing the content. I am sure there are enough volunteers who would have stepped up to contribute and expedite the digitization process. Well, that being said I just hope that more and more institutes and libraries look at this initiative and start their own digitization projects. What I wouldn’t give to read India’s rich history dating hundred’s of years back on my Kindle!!

What are your thoughts on India’s first e-library of ancient manuscripts? Are you aware of any such massive digitization projects happening elsewhere

Infosys has been ranked on the top in all the four categories – corporate governance practices, financial disclosure procedures, IR website and online annual report. The ranking was part of a first-ever India focused study conducted by Investor Relations Global Rankings (IRGR).

As many as 80 companies signed up to be part of this ranking study conducted by IRGR including the likes of Sun Pharma, Tata Steel, Aditya Birla, Wipro, Persistent Systems etc.

Infosys has hogged the spotlight and is the only company ranked for all 4 categories. Other Indian companies who rank well in investor relations include,

Best Ranked IR Websites in India:

• Infosys Technologies,
• Wipro,
• Kotak Mahindra Bank,
• Tata Consultancy Services and
• FirstSource Solutions

Best Ranked Online Annual Report in India:

• Infosys Technologies

Best Ranked Financial Disclosure Procedures in India:

• Infosys Technologies

Best Ranked Corporate Governance Practices in India:

• Infosys Technologies,
• Kotak Mahindra Bank,
• Persistent Systems,
• Hindustan Unilever,
• Nucleus Software Exports

Infosys has emerged the clear winner when it comes Investor Relations be it transparent and detailed reporting on financials or efficient corporate governance policies.

I sift through annual reports of companies in the IT sector on a regular basis and I can vouch for the depth and transparency of financial as well as operational data that Infosys provides in its annual reports.

There is always that iota of doubt when it comes to ranking by various institutions much like survey results but IRGR seems like an authoritative body when it comes to IR related research.

It is good to see Indian companies participating in a study like that. Companies will now be able to use these rankings to communicate their high standards of financial reporting and governance to their investors in a bid to win their trust.

Investors on their part do not want another Satyam to happen.

What are your thoughts on the IR ranking of various Indian companies. Do you think companies can use these rankings to garner more investor faith?

The post Infosys becomes Top Indian Company for Investor Relations! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Turn to 2011, and the growth forecasts are being revised on a regular basis. Inflation has been cited as a major hindrance in the context of growth in emerging markets and investors have cited unabated inflation in India as a cause of concern.

Inflation for the common man simply means that the purchasing power is going down. The thing about inflation is the fact that the calculation is rather complex and even with a marginal decrease, consumers don’t see any changes in their purchasing power.

Things continue to become costlier and the recent petrol price increase despite crude oil prices going down is an example of that. Nielsen India has come up with a very insightful video / infographic highlighting how inflation has impacted the price of goods in India and how consumer spending patterns have shifted due to inflation.

Value of Winning During Inflation

The short video takes you through the price changes in various basic and necessary commodities, consumer spending behaviors and additional insights on what segments continue to flourish despite high inflation.Some of the highlights include

Price Increase Of Commodities in India

• Fuel Prices have gone up by 25% in the past one year
• Onion prices have gone up by 50% in the past one year (This is shocking and something that directly impacts the bottom of the pyramid)

Middle Class Is Spending Less *

• Majority of consumers in the segment say that they don’t intend to buy new clothes or take a vacation
• There are some positives as well. 75% of the consumers are opting for car-pooling to save fuel costs and a similar number are now carrying homemade lunches to office

Impulse Item Sales Jump

• Even as consumption of basic food items decreased last year, impulse item such as chocolates witnessed increased sales (in value terms)

The video also has some other data points which are especially useful for FMCG marketing folks. To see the incremental impact of price increases in a basis points may not seem too high but aggregated version does present a worrying picture. I mean onion prices have gone up by 50% for crying out loud. Wonder what’s in store as inflation in India continues to rise with a sure fire solution out of sight.

What are your thoughts on rising inflation and its impact on consumer spending behavior? Have you altered your spending patterns within the past year

*The data points are based on survey results from Assocham. I could not find out the total sample size but the trend is promising

The post Visualizing India’s Inflation and Consumer Spending Habits [Video] first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

China’s Internet advertising market is growing by leaps and bounds and has hit 13.8 Bn Yuan (~ $2 Bn) in the third quarter of 2011 as reported by Xinhua

Even though the numbers are interesting, the real growth is bought out by the QOQ and YOY percentage growth. Internet advertising market in China has grown by 22.5% QOQ basis and 83.1% YOY basis. Now, that means that internet advertising in China is close to doubling every year. Mind you, this is not a nascent internet market we are talking about, China is a rather big internet market already and growth rates like these only mean the tremendous growth. On a comparative level, internet advertising in the US is expected to reach about $31 Bn in 2011 and even if we assume a $2 Bn per quarter for China, that makes internet advertising market in China at $8 Bn. Not bad given US is the most mature internet market in the world.

The report also highlights a structural change in China’s internet advertising largely driven by consistent increase in keyword based (contexual) advertising. More and more companies are shifting advertising budgets from traditional advertising to internet search based advertising. Video and Interactive advertising are also emerging as new mediums.

The growth in China’s internet advertising especially driven by search based advertising is also a sign that more and more businesses might be coming online as they realize the potentials of being found online and the conversions that happen as a result of the same. I wonder what Google thinks of this in China given there constant run-ins with Chinese authorities with respect to privacy issues. Well, Baidu for one should laughing their way to the bank, more search based advertising means more revenues for them.

What are your thoughts on the growth of internet advertising in China? Are there any macro factors at play here or is the sheer size of Chinese internet population which accounts for this consistent rise in internet advertising.

The worst part about this downside of social networks is that it applies to individuals (personal accounts) as well.If you are a real celebrity or even a pseudo (lots of real followers), there is every chance of your tweets getting ample audience to land you in trouble once in a while. Don’t believe me- Ask Suhel Seth who is facing two lawsuits from ITC Ltd. (a business conglomerate). Suhel Seth is a popular advertisement guy and a socialite and is now in trouble for his tweets against ITC going back to more than a year. Even though the tweets in question have been removed from his account, the tweet information has been in the tune of,

“YC Deveshwar of ITC has had a sterling track-record of avoiding retirement at all costs…he could also be offered to the Maosits (sic) but then…” and “YC Deveshwar of ITC has just been nominated CHAIRMAN ETERNUS (sic)…forget Emeritus…”

Now, to a certain extent these tweets would not have come under scrutiny if Suhel Seth was just speaking his mind and voicing his opinions based on common information. Suhel Seth’s company (Equus) handled the account for ITC hotels from 2002 to 2005 and Suhel Seth was involved with the company till 2007. Apparently, ITC Hotels did not renew the contract after that and there are speculations that Suhel Seth approached other brands in the ITC group with no avail. Suhel Seth on his part has come out saying that the tweets were not his and his account was constantly being hacked. Well, I am not going to judge who is wrong here but something tells me that there is no smoke without fire.

This is just another example of ‘What Not To Do In Social Media’ and especially the fact that it is difficult to separate your personal account from your employer or your firm. Despite disclosures like ‘Thoughts are my own’ etc. , you have to extra cautious of voicing your opinions especially when it involved products/services that you are directly/indirectly involved with. So, next time you want to rant about your employer just throw caution to the wind because they might be watching your twitter feed like a hawk.

PS: This is by no means my way of saying that one shouldn’t be vocal about their opinions/ thoughts about brands. Social networks are essentially channels for open communication but it won’t hurt to check all your facts to ensure that your opinions have substance

The interface of the website does look clean and according to them, they have an inventory of 60,000 shoes in over 2,000 varieties. Not bad for a start! Even though it’s a daring move, I like BeStylish’s idea of going niche instead of following the traditional e-commerce and selling multiple category of products. With established players like Flipkart already present in the market, it would have been immensely difficult for BeStylish to compete;instead by positioning themselves as India’s largest online shoe store the company could get the first mover advantage. Another thing that could be working for the BeStylish is the parent company behind the company- Smile Group. Smile Group is a digital media giant of sorts with tons of experience in digital media, e-commerce and retail. Smiles group already has some established companies under its wings including Fashion and You, Deals and You, Tyroo etc.

It’s still early days for the company and it might be too early to comment on how BeStylish will fare in the time to come. However, Online Shoe Retail is a tricky segment to be in. Yes, Zappos proved the skeptics wrong and saw tremendous success in selling shoes online-enough to be acquired by Amazon. BeStylish is playing to become the Indian version of Zappos and the similarities don’t end there. BeStylish has taken cue from what made Zaposs succeed even though they are simple things like slapping the customer care number right on the home page where it is visible.Having read Tony Heish’s (Zappos CEO) ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose’ I appreciate how such a simple step helped him reduce the friction of buying shoes online and helped conversions for Zappos. However, as they say Ideas can be copied, Execution can’t be. BeStylish not only has to communicate the message that buying shoes online is perfectly alright, it needs to do it in a marketplace where e-commerce is still not as mature as in the US.

Besides that, BeStylish will also have to work really hard on something that pretty much makes or break any e-commerce company- Customer Experience. In India’s parlance it is even more critical because your customers might consist of a lot of first time online buyers and if they don’t get a similar experience like they get in a brick-and-mortar store you not only get any repeat business, they might end up not brining any other customers for you. In the case of BeStylish, I haven’t personally shopped as yet (I am old school like that and I am still uncomfortable buying a shoe online) but if the early reviews are considered, they may not be going so good in the customer service department. Then again, online reviews aren’t always rock-solid so I wont really comment on the customer service quality as of now.

In the end, BeStylish does look promising and has chosen a difficult but a unique category to sell online. Only time will tell whether they are able to make Indian user buy shoes online and become the Zappos of India.

Do give BeStylish a try if you fancy buying shoes online, they do seem have some amazing collection of shoes and if you have already shopped at BeStylish do share your thoughts on the service with us

‘India Is’ is basically an competition based initiative with the premise of understanding what India means to different people across the globe. The initiative aims at capturing individual perceptions of  individuals on India

The idea in itself is rather commendable because instead of preaching what India is, the ball has been thrown to each and every individual looking to talk about their version of India.

If India was a brand (it sure is), I would call this initiative India’s version of Twitter Stories feature which essentially captures what Twitter means to different people.

If you ask me, nothing speaks for the brand like its customers / users. I don’t know the end result of the initiative and how much far the initiative  will go in communicating the diverse yet true brand image of India but I will be happy if this particular image gets vanished.

If you’re unfamiliar with the country, your idea of India Is probably that of the land of snake charmers and elephants. Most People across the world identify India with Mahatma Gandhi & Taj Mahal

We are much more than that and I am curious to see what different perceptions come through. To ensure increased participation, ‘India Is’ has been turned into reward based contest where anyone with a camera can create a short 3 minute video on one of three themes – India is Colourful, India is Creative, India is Whatever You Are and submit the same on the website (details).

The contest is open from October 1- 31 December 2011. What’s more, there is a $7500 prize as well for winners (I wonder why reward is in USD, when its for India, by India the reward money could have been in INR as well. Also, in the video why have they chose English accented lady… guess this looks like targeted at International audience rather than Indians.)

Details about “India is” Contest

That’s not all! ‘India Is’ already has popular folks endorsing the initiative already. Talking about ‘India Is’ initiative and inviting people to share their stories is none other than Dr. Shashi Tharoor as visible in the video below (Hint: Watch the video for cues if you intend to participate in the contest) ,

All in all, a nice initiative and from the initial looks of it a well executed as well. I would have loved to see a counter of some sort highlighting the number of entries received so far but I hope the entries are poring in good numbers. I will be sure be following the ‘India Is’ challenge for the next few months (I might as well create an entry myself)

What are your thoughts on ‘India Is’ initiative and what could it help achieve? Are you likely to submit your entry on what India means to you as well, let us know…

The post External Affairs Ministry Wants To Know What ‘India Is’ To You [Contest] first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Public Procurement Policy for goods produced and services rendered by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) makes it mandatory for PSUs and government departments to procure 20% of their products and service needs from MSEs

The policy can do a world of good to MSEs by not only providing an opportunity to aim for a pie of high value contracts that various state and central departments dole out, but also provide them a chance to rub shoulders with large enterprises and compete at a larger scale.

With 26 million MSMEs in India that employ about 60 million people who contribute about 8% to its GDP, 45% to its industrial output and 40% to its exports, there is no doubt that MSEs, SMEs together are critical for the Indian economy which was highlighted by how SMEs handled the recessionary marketplace. An opportunity like this will only enhance their chance to sustain and succeed

The policy will implemented by next fiscal but will be made mandatory 3 years from now on and government departments will then have to set a target of procuring a minimum of 20% goods/services from MSEs.

Additionally, out of the 20% a minimum of 4% will be earmarked for MSEs run by Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes but incase on non-participation by such MSEs other MSEs can fill in. Also, departments who fail to fulfill the 20% quota will have to provide reasons for the same to a committee

The move highlights the importance of MSEs in the Indian economy and the policy focuses on boosting the MSE sector in India. The move can also help improve the credit worthiness for MSEs helping them secure loans easily since banks will take into account the large opportunity available. This will be in addition to attractive loan options available for SMEs already

Policy sure seems out and out beneficial on paper but like all other policies, execution will decide how real the benefits are.  However, preferential procurement is not an entirely new concept and countries like South Africa have seen success by making procurement policies (BEE) with an intention to help domestic companies

What do you think about the mandatory procurement by MSEs? Do you think this will benefit MSEs and in-turn increase their contribution towards the economic development of India

The post Government Boosts MSE Access to Market by making it Mandatory for Government Depts to procure from them! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Come to think of it, one of the primary reasons for the Indian mobile sector hogging limelight for the last 1-2 years has been the unstoppable increase in the mobile subscriber base making India one of the biggest mobile markets in the world.

Turns out, this only highlight of the Indian mobile sector wasn’t one either. Yes, you heard it right! Indian mobile operators were reporting inflated numbers when it came to the mobile subscriber base.
Turns out, 1/3th of all mobile phone numbers in India are not in use and are inactive. To put things into perspective, out of the ~900 Million mobile subscribers in India (August 2011), as many as 300 Million of those numbers could be inactive

Frankly, the whole inflated number news does not come as a big surprise (the magnitude of inflation sure does). We have often discussed that there could be certain manipulation happening when it comes to reporting the mobile subscriber number.

Logically, Indian mobile operators are not wrong on their part since they don’t free up the deactivated numbers so every phone number allotted (active or inactive) adds to the overall mobile subscriber base.

Like how webmasters could resort to inflating their website traffic stats to seek more advertisers, the mobile operators continued to report high subscriber base (including inactive numbers) to maintain their high valuations and apparently their competitive advantage when it came to securing spectrum allocations. Apparently, operators were allocated spectrum based on the mobile subscriber base.

The proportion of inactive numbers (1/3rd of total) is staggering. What I am curious about is to figure out the proportion of inactive to active subscribers by individual mobile operators.

Wonder if the true numbers will change the pecking order of mobile operators in India. On the Indian mobile operators part, they claim that a lot of these inactive numbers are under the lifetime validity plan which makes it impossible to free them for fresh use.

In hindsight, this also suggests that the Indian mobile market may not have saturated post the slowing growth rates of mobile subscribers. Adjusting for the inactive numbers will bring down the teledensity from 65% (Indian Mobile Stats) to a much lower number signifying an opportunity for deeper penetration

What are your thoughts on the practice of reporting highly inflated mobile subscriber base numbers by mobile operators? With as many as 1/3rd inactive subscribers, do you think the incumbents will take a further beating in the stock markets among other places?

The post The Naked Truth About High Indian Mobile Subscriber Numbers! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Well, fret not! Azim Premji is setting about on a plan to revolutionize the Indian Education system. Mr. Premji has decided to take matter into his own hands and decided to walk the talk when it comes to developing and nurturing talent in India

Azim Premji foundation (Mr. Premji’s self-funded foundation) plans to start 1,300 schools across the country- two per district – which will be free, impart education in the local language and be affiliated to the state board

The project has an estimated capital outlay of Rs. 9000 crore and the estimated timeline for completion of 1300 schools is by 2025.

A phased-wise approach will see seven schools being opened within the next 1.5 years in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttrakhand and Chattisgarh. Audacious plans but Mr. Premji is not just another guy in the park.

The interesting concept here is that the AFP foundation schools are not going to impart free education, the onus is to provide real quality education which can hopefully be replicated by other public and private schools over time.

Train Them Young !!

While a majority of corporate initiatives around education are focused on partnering with technical universities and training young graduates, Mr.Premji plans to cover pre-school to class 12 education in the schools that the APF opens.

Personally speaking, this is a welcome change and a great move. I firmly believe that the education system at the primary and secondary levels needs to improve and if that happens, the quality of talent when it comes to pursuing graduate courses will go up drastically.

The private sector has benefited the education sector to a certain extent but a for-free initiative managed with a private establishment type rigorousness and I think APF could do the nation’s education system a world of good.

One can only hope that Mr. Premji’s plans see execution because the scale of the project can really shake the education system in India from the ground-up and for the better.

One good thing about the initiative here is that, this is not a part of the CSR initiative of Wipro which then could have made me wary of the whole initiative. Mr. Premji intends to use his own funds and further the cause of education in India which makes me believe in the project even more.

What are your thoughts on the Mr. Premji’s ‘two schools a district’ education project. Do you think an education initiative at this scale will be achievable?

The post Azim Premji to Revolutionize Indian Education System – To Open Two Schools Per District first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Yes, Infosys has inked a two year deal with Pune FC for an undisclosed amount. Pune FC recently got into limelight by becoming the first domestic club to play against an EPL team – Blackburn Rovers. The deal terms in plain speak are,

Pune FC obviously gets a lumpsum amount in sponsorship money from Infosys. Additionally, Infosys is expected to increase the sponsorship amount by 20% in the second year.

Infosys gets to stick its logo on the jerseys of the Pune FC players as well as advertise on common branding spots. Additionally, Pune FC staff will train Infosys’ football team and also conduct monthly training sessions for the children of Infosys employees

Sweet deal for Infosys, isn’t it! They get an amazing marketing vehicle through jersey logos and wait for it, they make their employees happy. The best of all, Infosys gets amazing press!

Major publications have given this deal a ‘promoting football in India’ spin which might not be entirely wrong but a long stretch for sure. So, all in all a win-win proposition for both parties involved. Pune FC will get resources to develop its team and Infosys- well they don’t make losing bets anyway.

 I have to say, I was initially surprised with Infosys approaching a local team because the branding opportunities are restricted to the domestic market for the most part. Or this might be a precursor to signing bigger sponsorship deal with a much more popular team. Or I might be totally wrong and Infosys only had the noble thought of promoting football!

While it is common for companies in the B2C segment to use sports sponsorship as marketing channels, I have to say IT service company and Sports did seem like an odd match. But Satyam (Mahindra Satyam) kind of initiated the trend by leveraging its IT contract during the Football World Cup in 2010 to advertise in full glory.

Whether it was successful or not can be debated, but it did open up an avenue for IT service companies in India to consider sports sponsorship as a good marketing opportunity. Not a while ago, Wipro discussed its plan for sports sponsorship so there is an increasing traction.

What are your thoughts on Infosys partnering with Pune FC? Do you think similar deals can help make other sports (other than cricket off-course) more popular in India

Image Credit

The post Infosys Inks Two Year Deal with Pune Football Club first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Not only that, Indian mobile operators are hard pressed for margins. Operational pressures have made them freeze new hiring / lay-off employees even as the pure subscriber growth remains positive. This does suggest that Indian Mobile operators are wading through rough waters and if the way things are going, not many will manage to swim through.

If I had to come up with a single reason which plagues the Indian mobile operators, it would have to be Differentiation. In plain speak, there is no freaking way customers can say ‘Oh! X operator is different or Y operator offers me what no one else does". What am I saying? Operators are differentiating all right, you say. Lets do a quick round-up

Network:

Well, all I have to say in this regard is "Check Twitter for the answer!". The specifics may vary with location / operator but overall I don’t think there is one operator which can promise the best network availability at all times (despite what some advertise)

Pricing:

Where do I start on this? The pricing wars did create this competition among operators to come up with the cheapest and most attractive pricing but almost everyone came to a level playing field. For now, most operators are back to raising their prices

There might be more micro-level differentiators (customer service anyone) but if the operators cant differentiate on product / service (network) and pricing, there seems to be something really wrong.

Access To Exclusive and Amazing VAS Is The Differentiation Mobile Operators Need

Captain Obvious answer, isn’t it. True because there are umpteen reports and articles highlighting how big an opportunity VAS is and how it can help mobile operators make higher margins etc.

But, I have never had a ‘AHA’ moment with VAS which could make me a believer. Not until now that is when I actually participated in a VAS offering.

To cut the long story short, there is a service that Tata Docomo has launched known as ‘Tutor On Mobile’ which is basically a conference platform developed by a company Voicetap. What Voicetap’s platform and eventually TOM offers is an interactive platform where people can listen to experts talk on various topics (education, jobs, health etc.) and also ask any questions that they have in real-time.

I singed up to be an expert on one of these TOM sessions and that’s where I got a sense of the differentiation that VAS can offer to mobile operators. DoCoMo’s TOM is only a single example but the idea here is that a product / service like this offers direct benefits to subscribers and they can get real value out of it.

Imagine being able to connect with an expert on say ‘Investment Strategies’ and ask questions directly right from the phone. This is the kind of stuff that not only makes me pay a premium to my mobile operators but also makes me talk about it (Purple Cow if you will). It could be TOM or any other VAS offering that actually delivers immense value.

When an operator has access to ‘Exclusive’ powerful VAS offering, they have that differentiation to position themselves in the market if they market it right!

The focus here is however on ‘Exclusive‘ because if all operators have access to similar VAS content, the playing field gets leveled again. The challenge for them is to work with VAS providers to develop exclusive content for their network alone. VAS providers on their part need to scale and cant be restricted with one operator so they have to introduce enough tweaks to launch different VAS content for different operators.

The idea here is that if mobile operators are able to secure access to amazing VAS content that is useful for subscribers, not only can they use it to set themselves apart from their competition also get free word-of-the mouth publicity (from subscribers). Add to that the fact that it enables the operators to charge a premium helping their overall margins as well.

Do you think exclusive VAS is the differentiation mobile operators badly need as they struggle with their operations and positioning?

[Disclaimer: Tata Docomo is a regular advertiser on this blog]

The post How ‘Exclusive’ VAS Will Save Indian Mobile Operators! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

DoingBusiness has been publishing its ‘Doing Business’ index for a few years now and the report serves the exact same purpose – How business friendly a country is! It is one of the most exhaustive report with 183 countries and uses a large number of factors to rate a country’s potential to attract and retain businesses.

Based on the latest Doing Business report, India’s ranking has improved by 7 places to 132 from the earlier 139.

A lower rank is a sign of improvement meaning that the overall business environment has improved in India. However, it is disheartening to see that even with the improved rank India is behind most of its South-Asian counterparts when it comes to ease of doing business, infact India’s rank is higher than the South-Asian average of 117

Ease of Doing Business Comparison

They say "Devil is in the details"! It comes out in full-light when you see India fare on various factors that comprise the overall doing business rank.

Starting a Business in India – Rankings of Various Factors

Not a lot to talk about here, is there! The diagram shows India faring poorly across all major factors except for one and too. A top level analysis of some of these factors throws light on things that are probably wrong and right when it comes to India’s business environment

Fair Financial Environment

Indian ranks fairly well for access to capital and such as evident from Getting Credit (40), Protecting Investors (46). This suggests that the overall policies governing access to capital and other regulatory policies are favorable.

However, India fares very badly in Paying Taxes (147) but it has shown improvement from last year (165) signifying that the taxation policies in India have improved marginally

Starting A Business Continues To Be A Painful Ordeal

The poor ranking in factors like Starting A Business, Dealing with Construction Permits etc. does hint at poor policies governing the registration and initiation of a new business. Delving deep into the sub-factors, even as the cost of starting a business in India has gone down from last year, the procedures and the time taken for completing those procedures still remains high. One wonders if too much bureaucratic processes hinder the same

International Trade Logistics Have Worsened

This I found really surprising. Even as the time to export documents has decreased by a day as compared to last year, the cost to export as well as import documents has increased.

The post India ranks 132 on ‘Doing Business Index’, gains 7 places! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

‘Buy 1, Get 1 Free’

Ok, I digress. But I am not far from the truth…

Two US senators are proposing a bill which is essentially a spin on the Buy 1 ,Get 1 deal mechanics. Here is the fine print of the proposal,

A bipartisan bill that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S. The provision would create visas that are separate from current programs so as to not displace anyone waiting for other visas. There would be no cap on the home-buyer visa program.

Holy Cow! U.S. Visa to buy a house there and no, U.S. Visa is not the name of a welcome drink that the realtor promises to serve, it is indeed the U.S. residence Visa – the thing that allows you to stay in the US and go about your business.

The objective behind the bill seems rather nice. The U.S. real estate market is still in shambles and there is no demand but a huge supply. So, the senators are proposing that any foreigner willing to shell out $500,00 (or $250,000 in a house and the rest in decorations etc.) gets rewarded with a U.S. Visa. Yes, you can buy the American Dream for 2.5 crore rupees…you don’t need to have anything else!

Well, the senators sure seem to be cognizant of the idea that no one has the money in the US so might as well make the deal sweeter for foreigners who might have spare $500,000 (About 2.5 crore rupees) lying around.

This plan also highlights the growing importance of foreigners in the US. Chinese and Canadians are already buying in the US real estate market taking advantage of the low prices and minuscule competition.

I am wondering if there were any Marwaris or Gujjus (no offence meant, I am one myself) involved in the drafting of this bill. Even if they weren’t, I am sure they will be front runners to buy real estate in the US should the bill get passed.

I also wonder if some another senator will may be want to give Groupon a call and launch a daily deal for a house.

What are your thoughts on the seemingly crazy idea of receiving a US visa on buying a house? However, $500,000 does sound like a sweet deal given that one might find it difficult to buy a house in Mumbai itself in the same price!

The post Need a US Visa? Just buy a home there… first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Yes, IBM has started working with government departments and civic bodies in various Indian cities to implement its ‘Smart City’ offering. In plain and simple words,

IBM’s Smart City aims to provide a top level view of information across various city departments and empower officials to take corrective steps based on data-driven intelligence provided by the system

Going by how IBM has been marketing / advertising its Smart City offering, it sure looks something that can make cities efficient and Smarter.

IBM has already started conducting pilot projects with various civic bodies across various cities to implement the Intelligent Operations Center (IOC). Part of the Smart City offering, IOC is sit on top of existing legacy systems used by various government departments, clean and mine huge chunks of data and provide a dashboard view of all the information.

Government departments can use this analytic data to make decisions targeted at improving the various processes and make the cities efficient.

Based on the progress till now, IBM has discovered that traffic management, water management, and emergency responses are the areas where there is a lot of scope for improvement and respective government departments are showing interest in improving the cities abilities across these areas.

I am all for unique and interesting applications of technology in government departments and god knows we can use with more efficiently managed cities but having worked for a few years on Enterprise databases and developing intelligence reports, here is where I think the problem lies

Intelligence!= Action

Have access to the most clean data and then have the most complex analytic tool in the world to give you the best possible intelligence that you need for decision making.

What does it achieve?…… Zero!Nada!Zilch

Until and unless the government departments initiate action and make sure those efficiency initiatives are being implemented, IBM’s Smart City will not achieve what is intended to do.

So, IBM will not only have to work with various departments in Indian cities to get access to good data, implement its software and train the users but also hope that the officials ensure that the data driven intelligence translates into action.

What are your thoughts on IBM’s new initiative with Indian cities? Do you think there is a hope that Indian cities will indeed become SMARTER

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We had our share of losses and downfall but then we are the first ones coming out of the rut. The industrial growth numbers are looking up , the stock markets are doing comparatively well, SME and SMB sector is on the growth highway. More than that, the past year has seen a flurry of entrepreneurs leaving the corporate whoredom which again is a positive for any economy.

However, a few recent events that transpired got me thinking that Brand India is gaining traction and doing it real fast. The world is looking up to us as one of the underexploited marketplace with immense potential. The events may not be of significant importance and scale but the message is delivered loud and clear,

Brand India is a name to reckon with

Volkswagen comes to India in style

The German carmaker Volkswagen AG has embarked on a Rs. 40 crore ad campaign to build its brand in the run-up to its December launch of small car Beetle and sports utility vehicle Touareg and the January launch of another small car, the Polo.

The campaign partner TOI created a one of its kind print roadblock for Volkswagen brands to increase the visibility of Volkswagen before it hits the road. The campaign drew a lot of flak from the readers and was marred by controversy (cached link) but still created a buzz around Volkswagen.

Volkswagen has even set up a manufacturing unit in Pune for production of one of it cars -Polo. Considering all these, the message is loud and clear from Volkswagen

We are dead serious about Indian Markets (Small Car explains that) and we are ready to make inroads (40 crore for ad campaign is substantial by any standards)

TechCrunch goes ga-ga over India Inc

The epitome of cutting edge technology news is the holy grail for Startups and VC’s alike. The news that goes live on TechCrunch can become a trend in no time. No matter what (and he has enough detractors), Michael Arrington pulls a lot of clout in the Silicon Valley – And now with Indian centric articles being featured so very frequently, it does speaks volumes about the visibility of Indian Companies in the west.

TechCrunch ran insightful articles featuring MakeMyTrip and  NIIT recently which show Indian companies taking centre stage. A recent article by Vivek Wadhwa on India becoming a Global R&D Hub is a shot in the arm. It signifies that India truly has the potential to become a Creator rather merely being a supporter (via Outsourcing) .

The world is keenly following Indian Shores and is in awe of it, even though it is hard to digest for some

These two events may not be a testimony to the fact that Brand India is set for Glory days , but the way I see it, we are sure taking the right steps. We have our shortcomings and a lot of them. But, even with these shortcomings and limitations(primarily infrastructure), Indians are setting the global stage on fire.

On a rather sad note, it is disheartening to see that even when the world is recognizing the potential of Brand India , we are still fighting over petty things like regionalism, language etc (you get the hint) .

The onus should be on providing a free flourishing ecosystem where creativity can breed freely and India can shun its developing country and transform into a world power.

The west is definitely in awe and does not look up to India merely as a place to get dirty work done for cheap (yeah, that’s outsourcing for you :) ) .

What are your thoughts on India’s progress at the global stage??

The post Brand India is on a roll – The West getting even more interested? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

In the end, it is the customer perception that defines the brand at large. Unilever was the latest to use the power of the crowd to define its brand identity, Pepsi has been using it too.

But, then why isn’t everyone doing it? it is because the Brand Identity is a very crucial element of any organization, and more often , companies prefer leaving the brand identity part to professionals. The one’s who successfully uses the power of crowd do enough groundwork and ensure they channelize / promote the campaign in a subtle way to get the maximum out of the crowd sourcing exercise.

We have a lot of success stories about how companies world over are utilizing Crowdsourcing to better their brand presence. For a change, lets see How a certain organization has got it completely wrong in their Brand building exercise.

I chanced upon the recent announcement by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) which is aimed at restructuring its brand identity. According to the official announcement,

Directorate General of Civil Aviation intends to coin a “slogan” and create a “logo” reflecting its role, functions and motto which can be easily comprehended by the common man.

A first ever move of sorts by a government firm of the DGCA’s stature to re-visit its brand identity and trying to get it from the common man. So far so good , the idea looks good enough. But, the next part of the writing is what makes it interesting.

Hence, it is requested that those who are interested to coin a “slogan” and create a “logo” in respect of Directorate General of Civil Aviation, may send their slogan and logo to this office at the earliest.

Now, this is where it all goes haywire!

A clear branding faux pas and a probable worthless branding exercise of sorts. The DGCA has clearly not their groundwork to ensure they get the result out of this exercise.

You can’t expect the common man to have a vision for what DGCA stands for , can you? I consider myself Mango (aam) man and can’t define what DGCA stands for. They should have defined certain parameters for the common man to define the company on.

The target audience is too huge to expect a fruitful result of the brand exercise. Given the bureaucracy that government organizations are in-famous with , is DGCA actually going to monitor and analyze each and every application that comes to them as a part of this exercise.

I am not a brand or a market expert , but this definitely does not make any sense to me. The motive of DGCA might have been noble but the way the execution roadmap has been defined looks weak to say the least.

Wouldn’t it better if a more conventional approach would have been taken by DGCA. With a possible reward for the best design , DGCA could have at least ensured that people put in their best efforts to define Brand DGCA in the best way possible.

The official Source is here DGCA plans to coin slogan, create logo

What are your thoughts ? Is DGCA going to get any positives out of this branding exercise?

The post A branding faux pas by DGCA – and why crowd sourcing may not for everyone first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

So, when you see the usual “Sensex shoots up 500 points” kind of title , there is a little joy of seeing the portfolio seeing some green. For a medium to long term investor, the headline does not mean too much and things go on. But, what if every newspaper / finance website reads:

SEBI slaps a 7 year ban on Pyramid Saimira from accessing the Capital Markets

It attracts immediate attention and in some cases and immediate call of action.What the indictment means is that SEBI has banned the company from dealing in stock markets for seven years after it found that the company colluded with seven persons to corner the portion reserved for employees in its initial public offer in 2006.

SEBI has been rather active in trying to unearth the dirt in the Indian Equity Markets and the SATYAM debacle surely ensured the need to nab on the illegal stock market manipulations – that too before heavy damage is caused to retail Investors.

In the case of Pyramid Saimira like many others, the chairman strongly denies the allegation. Now, I am no judge of whether a manipulation actually took place or not. SEBI will hopefully drill it down to details in due course of time.

What affects me is the fact that announcements like this wreck havoc for the retail investors who are invested in the companies. To get an idea of the potential damage these announcements can do to your portfolio, figure this

Pyramid Saimira Theatre on Wednesday nosedived nearly ten per cent to hit the lower circuit on the Bombay Stock Exchange

Now, if you were an innocent investor in the aforesaid stock and you came back to your portfolio , you wouldn’t know what hit you. The scale of the loss is huge and there is nothing you can do about it.

There are two possible implications of a news like this:

If the allegations are valid, then at least there is some consolation that SEBI warned you about the worthlessness of the stock. A stock market manipulation reeks of shabby management and a mis-managed company is not to be touched.

But, a sudden news like this and the stock hitting lower circuit does not allow me to cut my losses and run too.

If the allegations come out as falsified even though unlikely, that’s when I think the retail investor becomes the scapegoat of such announcements.

A 10% single day loss can kill all the growth momentum of the stock even if the company never did anything wrong. Who do you blame for your bleeding portfolio.

I am not sure if there is any justification / solution to the problem – The frauds definitely need to be exposed but is there a better way to do it. But, can a way be devised so that the retail investor has time to think and act.

This kind of news based panic selling for sure does not fare well with the retail investor like you and me.

Do you think SEBI can devise a way to bring out the news in a fashion that it does not cause panic selling or rather it is better to have the news exposed as early as possible and at the time when the markets are functioning

How would you as an investor in Pyramid Saimira react to news like this?

The post Finance Friday: Why Should The Investor Suffer From Scams Like Pyramid Saimira first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Remember the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise uses finger gestures to control an interactive video screen. How cool would it that be if you and I could do something similar even if it is not for saving the world :)

Now an Indian has invented, which from the looks of it has the potential of being a true technological breakthrough and enable people to carry their Sixth Sense with them.

The project named Sixth Sense is the brain child of Pranav Mistry, a 28-year-old research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab.

The demo was shown first during the TED conference in California in February 09. The crowd were super awed by his technological breakthrough, which actually cost no more than 350 dollars.

This time around, during TED India conference at Mysore, Pranav Mistry was back with more details into the product and further announcements regarding the Sixth Sense technology.

The detailed demo of the Sixth Sense technology is hair-raising by any accounts but I will let you be the judge of it:

If you did see the complete video the reactions could well have been “mind blowing”, “exciting”, “un-believable” etc. I had to watch it more than twice to come to terms that the augmented reality demoed is for real.

The concept is amazing and if the inventors are to be believed, the device which is made using off the shelf components would cost around 350$ .

What’s more, this time, Instead of selling the technology to a big techno giant like Apple or Microsoft, Mr.Pranav Mistry wants to make it Open Source – And that has increased the value of this awesome product way beyond anything I have seen in recent times.

His reasons for making it open source are interesting too,

“I notice that it’s hard to for these kind of things to market in some sense. . . because I don’t want this to comply with some of kind of corporate policy,” he told PTI in Mysore on Friday on the sidelines of TED conference being held in India for the first time.

“Rather than waiting for that time to come, I want people to make their own system. Why not?”

I am not sure what he means by “hard to market”. This thing sure has huge potential even though it may not be a mass-market product. But then, making it open source will see many more innovations and developments which could go a long way in making Sixth Sense a true information enabler as i see it.

It’s a shame though that the brain child of an Indian techie may not hold much water in the India. The pre-requisite for the devise is the all important “Mobile Internet”.  We all know the woos India is going through with this 3G business which is so imperative for a good Mobile Internet use.

The internet in your mobile phone is what powers this device to pull the relevant information. With Indian Internet Infrastructure still very much nascent, I do not see a lot of contribution from the Indian Open Source community even when the project is Open Sourced.

There is no doubting the technological prowess of the Indian minds , hell the project is a baby of an Indian IIT graduate , it is the lack of right infrastructure that is a deterrent here.

More so, the technology makes more sense for developing countries where getting the relevant data at the right time is a tedious and cumbersome process. This fact was bought out by Mr. Pranav Mistry too during the demo,

“It is more relevant to this world than it is to the developed world,” On another note, the amazing technology and its Indian creator made me think about the folks who go on and on about the Indian Brain Drain and how it is affecting India.I just have one question for them,

We have the brains and if we can do it sitting in an MIT lab, what would stop us from doing it in India.

But, the reality is that we are so many light years away from providing the much needed infrastructure for the world class technological breakthroughs to emerge out of India. So, instead of blaming the intellectual folks for choosing foreign shores, the focus should be on providing a world class platform for creative ideas to flourish and see the light of the day.

What are your thoughts on the Sixth Sense technology and its far reaching potential? Does it have the where with all’s to become a mass market product.

The post Sixth Sense For Real and Open Source Too first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

The structure of the IPL was much on the lines of how the football clubs leagues work eg : English Premier League (EPL). The initiative invited lot of doubts initially with people unsure if the Indian Cricket Audience is ready for a state wise loyalty but IPL came through and we all know what a grand success story it is.

Cashing on the ever increasing popularity of IPL and its increasing brand value, BCCI has decided to up the stakes for sponsors vying for an opportunity to get associated with Team India.

The fresh bids for jersey sponsorship might see BCCI overtake one of the biggest football clubs in the world-Manchester United.

RedDevils’s current t-shirt sponsorship deal is approximately Rs. 650 crores for 4 years whereas BCCI is expecting around Rs.800 crore in sponsorship money for a 4 year deal. (Source: Espn)

BCCI is asking for a minimum reserve price of Rs 3 crore for each Test, ODI or Twenty20 game. Interesting to note here is that BCCI is asking the same price for Twenty 20 even though this format of the game has the least duration.

But, with the increasing popularity of the version, the sponsors might as well get the best bang out of their buck even if the eyeball attraction time is comparatively smaller.

The current sponsor SAHARA is paying around 2 crore each for an ODI and a Test match and Rs 1.5 crore for a T20 game. With the fresh bids rolling out, SAHARA might have to reconsider their sponsorship or be ready to dole out truck loads of cash.

BCCI has pulled out a rabbit from the hat with IPL as far as the revenues are concerned. Moreover, along with increasing revenues the brand value of Team India (BCCI) has zoomed too.

The stakes have been raised many folds but will the ROI (Return on Interest) also increase correspondingly for the sponsors. The sponsors will be betting on attracting maximum eyeballs wherever Indian team is playing.

But, shouldn’t the team performance act as an influencing factor too. If the team performance does not match the expectations of the audience, will enough people be watching the Sponsor’s logo on the player’s jerseys.

I have my doubts but then given the buzz surrounding the IPL and Indian team’s decent performance, the bidding process might attract enough players trying to outbid each other.

Do you think the BCCI will have enough bidders for the new deal or the asking price is too high this time around?

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But, BSNL is out there to change the notion and kick start a project to have the rural sector connected like never before.

State-run BSNL will set up 30,000 broadband kiosks in rural and remote areas in the next two years on a franchisee basis. (Source: ET)

BSNL is planning to tie with partners to build a network of around 30,000 broadband kiosks and provide services to people at a small fee. They are targeting areas which have no alternative facilities for accessing the internet.

BSNL has making the right steps in the direction too. ICT systems integration firm HCL Info systems have partnered on the National Broadband Penetration Program (NBPP), a nationwide initiative to accelerate IT proliferation in rural India. The partnership is aimed at providing affordable broadband connectivity to the rural areas.

Come to think of it, rural India has a meaty contribution to the GDP and it makes sense to provide the stakeholders with better resources to enhance productivity.

It is however difficult to buy into the fact that the plan will not be marred into the usual bureaucracy like any other initiatives coming from the government. Most of the times, the projects are conceptualized and announcements made, but the execution seldom happens the right way.

But, this time around, the conceptualization has some salient features which might just make it work

• The partnership with HCL should ensure that one important of the infrastructure will be taken care of by a professional (private) company.
• The franchise model will provide a motivation for the stakeholders to ensure that the project sees the light of the day. The franchise owners will try to work towards providing the much needed maintenance and support
• BSNL is going to feature 4 partners for 4 zone (North, East, South, West) with one sector taken care of by one partner. This should decrease the operation and management overhead for BSNL

BSNL is betting on the franchise model and possibly create a self sustaining model as a result. However, the partner selection will need to have stringent benchmarking standards to ensure that the partners bring the required operational experience to the table.

All in all, a great initiative which if achieves half of its projected targets will go a long way in connecting rural India to rest of the world. Imagine a farmer logging into the internet to see the weather forecast and plan his activity accordingly.

The dream of a connected India will however come true only if the project gets executed well and is affordable enough for everyone to make effective use of it.

Only then would BSNL would be able to justify its Advertising mantra,

“Hindustan Bol raha he”

What do you think? Will BSNL be able to pull it off and connect the rural India?

The post Broadband for Rural India first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Would Multi-National Companies risk crowd sourcing even when they have fat pockets?

There were some valid enough reasons to suggest that big corporations may not risk their brand identity and value proposition by resorting to crowd sourcing.

But, when the benefits are humongous and the price of getting the job done strikingly low, I say why not?

Unilever is offering $10,000 (£6,087) in a competition to find ideas for its next TV campaign for snack food brand Peperami, using its quirky Animal character, as it decides to drop its ad agency of 16 years-LOWE and turning to crowd sourcing for creative ideas.

"We believe Peperami is a brand that deserves radical creative solutions and are confident taking our brief out to thousands rather than a small team of creative’s will provide us with the best possible idea and take our advertising to the next level," said the Peperami marketing manager, Noam Buchalter. (Source: Gaurdian UK)

The campaign was executed via a famous crowd sourcing provider Idea Bounty and the best ideas will be selected for the print and ad campaign for Peperami’s new snack tentatively titled Peperami Bites.

The complete brief for the Peperami campaign can be read here.

The response to the campaign has been phenomenal and much above the expectations of the company and the organizers. The winners are yet to be declared though.

The move from one of the best advertising agency – LOWE to Crowd Sourcing for a meager $10k. A drop in the ocean for Unilever and I wouldn’t be surprised if the results are even more effective.

Clearly, Crowd Sourcing is arriving big time even at the corporate stage. The benefits are far more than just reduced cost and more creativity.

Crowd Sourcing builds the much needed buzz around the product at virtually no cost

The campaign has received a lot of press coverage, their facebook fan page is buzzing with the quirky animal mascot character which is creating the kind of excitement needed for a new snack brand.

What say? Even the big corporate are not shying away to crowd source their operations and not just any operations, it is the Brand Building exercise in the case of Unilever.

The post Unilever goes Crowd Sourcing for their new TV & Ad Campaign first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

The last post on Why Warren Buffet Makes money and you don’t garnered great discussions and conversations, and most of the discussion stemmed from the fact that Long Term Investment is the key to any successful portfolio.

Given Arun’s addiction for data and stats I wasn’t surprised when he asked me dig in and find out the long term returns of Infosys. The company has been in the stock market for long and I was sure that the returns would be amazing. But boy was I stunned or what !

The capital appreciation via Infosys shares is out of this world. But, let’s go down the history lane to find out how it all originated

• In 1982, Infosys opened an office in Bangalore which soon became its headquarters.
• Infosys made an initial public offer at Rs. 95 a share in February 1993 and was listed on stock exchanges in India in June 1993
• Interestingly, Infosys IPO was undersubscribed but Morgan Stanley bailed it put by picking up 13% of equity at the offer price of Rs. 95 per share.
• The trading opened at Rs.145 a share, almost a 60% premium on the day of listing.
• The share price surged to Rs. 8,100 by 1999 making it the costliest share on the market at the time. 6 years and the share multiplied 85 times
• According to Forbes magazine, since listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange till the year 2000, Infosys’ sales and earnings compounded at more than 70% a year.

Your head spinning as yet!! Wait before I tell you the numbers that are hair raising.

Infosys is currently trading at Rs. 2228 (NSE) – which is close 23 times of its IPO price – But more than that it has given handsome dividends quarter on quarter. And don’t forget the bonuses and splits that this share has gone through.

Infosys Stock Bonuses Splits since IPO:

Here is what you would have if you had 100 share in 1993 at IPO bought at Rs. 95 /-

• Your Total investment in Infosys in 1993– Rs. 9,500/- (100 shares at Rs. 95)
• Your Total investment in Infosys as of today (2009) – 28,51,8400/- (12800 shares at 2228)

If you had invested Rs. 9500 in Infosys in 1993, today you would be sitting on more than 30 crores 3 crores (including dividends around 50 lakh) (thnkx Sandeep for correction)

I sure was too small to buy during the IPO stage, but then I am not going to miss out this time. Even though I don’t track IT stocks, writing this post made me realize that Company Fundamentals and Management capability of Infosys makes it worthwhile to study the stock further to understand the Intrinsic value at the current price.

I am reminded of the famous dialogue from the movie “Guru” which roughly translated means,

“Do you want me to become the biggest company of the world”

This is symbolic with how the Stock market investments should be seen as. Buy shares to buy a stake in the company and not to make quick profits from it.

What say? Are you one of the lucky few to have made their millions from Infosys or you have your own stock market riches story to share.

The post Finance Friday: How Infosys made Billions – Made Millions for its shareholders too ! first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

I am sure you don’t have to think too much and probably already have the answer – An advertising phenomenon during this year’s IPL T20 tournament.

The alien looking yet very human egg headed Vodafone mascot-ZooZoo

Vodafone did as much to get the maximum traction in terms of advertising during the IPL T20 series. Created by none other than O & M India, each of the 30 ads promoted a different value-added service on offer by Vodafone, from maps to stock alerts. The ZooZoo characters became a rage with the TV audience and the disclosure that the ZooZoo characters are human made it go viral.

The popularity of the ZooZoo characters has, unlike other mascots not been a short-term affair. The characters have extended beyond the campaign and it can be gauged from this simple piece of information.

ZooZoo fan club on Facebook has a whopping 319,098 fans as of today !

With the characters getting larger than life and popular beyond even their imagination, Vodafone has chanced upon the opportunity to launch exclusive ZooZoo Merchandise to cash on the Popularity.

Vodafone has signed a licensing deal with retail chain Shoppers Stop to launch ZooZoo merchandise across the country.

The deal will give exclusive rights to Shoppers Stop to manufacture and retail official Zoozoo merchandise in specified categories across all Shoppers Stop stores in the country, Vodafone said in a statement.

To top it all and ensure that the Brand “Vodafone” is not lost in the ZooZoo’s promotion, here is another amazing marketing ploy.

Vodafone customers can enjoy 10 per cent discount on their purchases of Zoozoo merchandise (Source: ZooZoo FB fan page. Yes, I am a fan too :)

What makes the licensing deal of ZooZoo’s special is captured in the statement issued by Shoppers Stop Vice-President (marketing and loyalty), Vinay Bhatia

“This is a first-of-its-kind arrangement in the history of India’s advertising that a brand mascot is being licensed for merchandising”

Telecom companies have been at the forefront of ad-wars with each brand going out of their way to come up with a innovative themed ad campaign. No doubt, they spend a fortune paying the creative ad creators like O & M .

But, Vodafone has from the looks of it creating a completely indirect revenue stream out of their ZooZoo campaign. Given the kind of footfalls that Shopper Stop attracts, I won’t be surprised if the egg-headed mascot merchandise is swept off the shelf.

What will be interesting to watch though is, if Vodafone is able to maintain the ZooZoo popularity and more than that, its brand identity.

If ZooZoo becomes a brand in itself (which it surely) is, Vodafone might find itself in a Catch-22 situation. Vodafone needs to ensure that ZooZoo and Vodafone are spoken in one breath.

So, are you buying your ZooZoo T-shirt today?

The post ZooZoos –Out From the Chatter Box and On to your clothes first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Yes, You. For the matter it includes me too but the title seems catchy that way !

Jokes apart, what is it that out of so many people invested in the Stock Markets only a few make a real fortune out of it? As a matter of fact, barring Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwalla I don’t think there is any self-made millionaire in India who made his fortune via the Stock markets (probably very few unknown others).

Does it mean that the others are ill equipped or the luck isn’t in their stride. No, because there are those Ivy League experts who are adept at number crunching like anyone else, yet they don’t ride the Stock Markets. Luck can be a factor but then not matter how clichéd it sounds,

“Fortune favors the brave”

When we are talking about Stock Market Riches, the Oracle of Omaha – Mr. Warren Buffet’s name has to be taken in the same breath. The world’s richest man sits on the top of the world having made him a fortune investing in stock markets over a period of time. What’s more, he has done it for millions of his shareholders as well, invested in Berkshire Hathaway.

Did you know that a $10,000 investment in Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, the year Warren Buffett took control of it, would grow to be worth nearly $30 million by 2005

The marketplace is abuzz with Buffet’s investment principles with dozens of books and millions of citations on the Internet. But, then we haven’t seen anyone come remotely close to the fortunes that Mr. Buffet has made.

Technical and Fundamental Analysis apart, there are some very simple yet important principles which are highlighted in Mr. Buffet’s Investment rationale.

Never invest in a business you cannot understand

Sound simple. The philosophy is so profound yet how many of us tend to avoid it. One look at his portfolio and the statement makes all the more sense .Coca-Cola, Nike, Procter & Gamble, J&J. The business intricacies apart, the companies make products we can all relate to and probably use them too on a regular basis.

Risk can be greatly reduced by concentrating on only a few holdings

How many of us have heard, “Never put all eggs in one basket” or Diversification is the key to effective investment. But, then aren’t we culprits of over-diversification at times. I remember holding 17 stocks in my portfolio at one time. Over diversification leads to dilution of possible gains and it is difficult to track 17 companies at once.

Mr.Buffet’s portfolio has a list of 41 stocks. It may sound too much, but then he has accumulated them over years and has hundreds of people managing his investments now.

Patience

This single word is the game changer of sorts. This virtue alone separates the likes of Mr. Buffet, Peter Lynch from the average Joe. The explanation for this is best understood in terms of Mr. Buffet’s principles itself.

1. Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years
2. Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market
3. The advice “you never go broke taking a profit” is foolish
4. Buy a business, don’t rent stocks

The quotes speak for themselves; invest in Stock Markets to become a co-owner and not to make profits out of fluctuations.

It would be wrong to say that these 3 are the principles that made Mr. Buffet his riches. A lot of research and number crunching is responsible for Mr. Buffet buying stocks at a “Fair” price or on the basis of intrinsic value which the whole world is trying to figure out. But these are some no-nonsense jargon free fundamentals that can go a long way in ensuring a long term healthy investment portfolio.

I would like to know from Stock Market Enthusiasts out there – Do you think that if you stick to these 3 principals of Mr. Buffet, you will make money in Stock market?

The post Why Warren Buffet Makes Money and You Don’t first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

The recent news that made it big and needed intervention from the government was the pilots going on Strike to protest pay cuts.

The strike led to furor and caused the already ailing Air India to lose millions in cancelled flights. More than the monetary loss, Air India got its share of bad publicity. Need I say this that bad publicity in the Airline business is never good, specially in the Indian subcontinent with cut throat competition. As if the the strike was not enough, Air India staff has ensured that Air India stays in the news and this time for reasons that are all the more worrisome.

Another incident, where Air India pilot and the co-pilot onboard the flight from Sharjah to Delhi, got into a mid-air scuffle with a young air hostess and other cabin crew. The incident has fuelled enough rumors for the media to get active.

According to a Business Week report, the airhostess was assaulted by pilots and pushed out of the cockpit. What supposedly happened after that is really shocking!!

Presumably, the pilots followed the air hostess into the passenger cabin leaving the cockpit unarmed. Air India has however denied the claim and the actual details are yet to clarified.

Without delving on whether the pilots actually left the cockpit putting the lives of passengers at stake, IMO it is only true that rumours also have some element of truth behind them. If the pilots did leave the cockpit leaving the aircraft at the mercy of god knows who, the issue hardly remains a matter of Assault on a colleague, it becomes a grievous Security Issue.

Air India has come out and promised a "regular department inquiry" to get to the depth of the matter. But, will the airline be able to restore its lost reputation and customers faith in flying Air India. I have my doubts.

On top of all this, Air India has been bleeding badly and talks are on with the government to bail it out. Yes,the airline sector as a whole is suffering. Being a government backed airline, it is government’s responsibility to ensure that Air India survives.

But, does that give Air India the right to act like a spoiled brat like it is. Even if the employees are at fault, it is the management’s responsibility to ensure decorum and ethics.

Air India has been doing all it can to dig itself deeper into the grave. What with a strike, rat on board , a fire and now a assault/safety crisis. Even if we forget the losses of the airline, these kind of incidents are truly a matter of national shame for the Air India brand has been synonymous with "Carrier of India" before the private carriers made inroads.

For all the news that Air India that it has made, I just have one question in my mind

Should the government actually bail the airline out with the taxpayers money??  

The government cannot just give millions of rupees to bail out the airline and hope that the airline will get its act together. The way I see it, given the theatrics I am skeptical if the existing management has crossed the line which is beyond correction.

Why can’t the government work on a partnership / stake sale model which can help bring a seasoned management team on board Air India. Drastic measures are needed to get the airline out of the grave and money is definitely not going to do any good.

The Air India Brand is near destruction and strict measures are needed to restore the public’s faith in the airline. The sarkari babu type operations are not going to help re-build the image.

On a humorous note,

If the above rumours turn out to be true and the cockpit was left unmanned, Will the government officials (mandated to travel Air India) will be willing to put their lives on stake :) 

The post Is Air India turning into Grave India? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

The recent meeting paved way for coming to terms with a sustainable solution for both stakeholders. Some of the critical issue mentioned above were discussed and solutions proposed,

• Directors of IIMs, the best- known business schools in the country, and members on their respective boards will now be appointed through an independent collegium, instead of a pan-IIM board suggested by a government-appointed panel last year. IIM’s will enjoy more autonomy
• faculty members will now be eligible for additional performance-based incentives It will become easier for the IIM’s to recruit the best faculty
• The IIM institutes have agree to submit a vision document to the ministry by January. Government will have a clear picture of the IIM action plan

But the biggest of the them all was the government approval for ,

IIM’s to setup Schools abroad

IIM’s had been keen to set shop abroad for sometime but the approvals never came through. With the government opening up the sector to pave way for foreign schools setting shop in India, the IIM’s were keen to do likewise and venture outwards. Moreover, with foreign universities ready to dish out fatter pay packets, IIM’s were getting wary of losing their best teachers.

The idea definitely makes sense in a way that the IIM’s have every right to become a truly Global brand by setting up branches abroad.

The only sore point in the whole equation according to me is – are the IIM’s doing it too soon?

It is a well known fact that even with the IIM brand hardly 3 out of the 6 schools maintain the high standards that come with the IIM brand and there is an acute shortage of faculty at most of the places. With the IIM’s cleared to set shop abroad, their focus is bound to shift to their new branches abroad in order to make inroads into the Global rankings. If they push their best resources and investments into the new ventures, How would the Indian Branches maintain the quality of education?

I am not against the idea of setting up branches abroad, but as A S Narang, Professor, Faculty of Management Studies aptly put it,

“The six IIMs together produce no more than 1,500 graduates against the demand of over 20,000 every year. Shouldn’t they focus on meeting this demand first?”

So, instead of venturing abroad to get global recognition why not expand seats and invite foreign nationals to study here !

This would add to the cultural diversification and help the students and faculty collaborate at a global level.

What do you think ?

The post IIM’s going to foreign shores – Is it too soon?? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

According to the article on twitter blog here ,

As we grow, we seek to partner with organizations that share our vision for positive global impact. Our partnership with Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile operator in India, means a huge population of people can now send tweets at standard rates and receive tweets for free. Bharti Airtel is offering people in every city, every village, every remote taluk and even the smallest panchayat the opportunity to connect to Twitter and enjoy the open exchange of information with no added fees.

Twitter has seen phenomenal growth in recent times especially from the Indian sub-continent and the use of twitter through mobile has risen considerably. People with GPRS enabled phones are easily able to access twitter via their internet on mobile or various apps created specifically for accessing twitter through mobile.

But, given the fact that not all mobile phone users have GPRS enabled phones, Airtel is trying to void by providing a freakishly simple way of tweeting via mobile. SMS

Give Twitter a try with your Airtel phone by sending START to 53000

Could it be anymore simpler. A simple SMS can get you going on twitter even when you are on the move. I am not too sure about the pricing but from what I gather, it comes to 1 Rs. per SMS (or the standard SMS rates with your mobile). Sounds cheap, huh. But if you are anyways close to being a twitter addict, then 1 rupee per tweet can take your phone bills to unprecedented heights.

So, AIRTEL is betting on the millions of mobile phone users who are twitter addicts- GPRS enabled mobile phone owners to get its cash registers ringing. From twitter’s perspective, it is looking for an opportunity to attract more and more users addicted to twitter by becoming accessible via more channels, with SMS being the easiest and simplest channel of them all , at least for the Indian mass. To add to that India is one of the top 10 countries in Twitter usage, and also the fastest growing Mobile & Twitter market.

More than the money, what is interesting here is that AIRTEL has continued its legacy of re-defining product marketing/advertising. They were the first to come up with the Branded Mall Concept and if I am not wrong, this partnership with twitter is one of the kind. Moreover, the product clearly demonstrates AIRTEL’s intelligent sense of coming up with innovative products by identifying the evident gaps in the market segment.

All in all, a great product and a greater marketing achievement by partnering with twitter itself to promote its twitter related service.

The potential of the product is loud and clear, as Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone aptly puts it,

There are over one billion people with internet access on the planet but there are more than four billion people with mobile phones and Twitter can work on all of them because even the simplest of these devices feature SMS

AIRTEL is certainly making the right moves, at least when it comes to providing innovative Value Added Services and partnering with the right people to maintain its positioning as the leading telecommunications company in India.

What do you think? Can ‘TWEET via SMS‘ from AIRTEL get twitter a potential landmine of traffic from the Indian sub-continent or the (mobile savvy + twitter) will rather opt for the good old GPRS way of tweeting…

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Generally, if anything has the name ‘Google’ in it, it is bound to create a buzz and a positive one at that. What is surprising with ‘Google Wave’ as a trend is the very definition of how the trend has been defined?

“Google sent out a limited number of invitations to their new communication/collaboration tool, and people are RTing jokes about the scarcity of the invites or just begging for one.”  (twitter )

It is now a well known fact, that Google Wave is being pushed as the next big thing on the Internet which can provide all your online needs at one place, especially when it comes to Social Networking. I have been at the so called ‘lucky’ to have received a Google Wave invite to play around with and unlike many, I was really impressed even with the limited edition beta version.

The interface is neat and easy to use. With some features in the pipeline, it can serve as an amazing content sharing as well as a content aggregator tool.

But from what I gather , one of the strongest premise on which Google Wave has been built is to integrate and aggregate the online user’s social media/network needs.

And here is where Google has lost it IMHO. With invitations limited and restricted, the social part of the WAVE is not getting met.

Google has always utilized the limited invite tactic quite well till now to generate the right kind of buzz.  Eg: Gmail. The simplicity of Gmail with a ‘Only By Invitation’ made Gmail the must have when it was launched.

But, with Google Wave the onus had to be on making everyone connect fast and explore the intricacies of WAVE. But, then even with the power users gaining their Google Wave invite, they are not able to do much with very limited contacts in their contact menu.

Until and unless there is a healthy network of people in your WAVE account, there isn’t much of ‘Social’ angle to it.

Like so many people, I was all crazy to get my hands on the high WAVE that is Google, but when I did get it, I am now figuring out what to do with it with hardly 8 people in my Contact list.

How can anyone expect to run a closed/beta version of communication/collaboration tool?

As @maheshmurthy aptly put it,

Google Wave Catch-22: to function, it needs to spread fast in workgroups. But they’re scrounging on invites, so it won’t

What are your thoughts on the ‘Invite’ only strategy of Google Wave. Is it generating the right kind of Buzz or it is backfiring?

The post Much Hyped Google Wave is here, but where are the surfers? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

This Finance Friday post is directed at people who are just getting into Stock markets and want to start with a relatively safer option.

A SIP (Systematic  Investment Plan) is considered one of the safest Investment vehicles available in the markets today. The basics of an SIP are basically an extension to the MF (Mutual Funds) where regular purchase of units is done every month for a pre-decided amount.

In Simple terms, it helps you average out your buying price which fluctuates based on the market volatility. But, is any SIP good enough to be termed ‘The’ Investment .

It sure ain’t. There are umpteen factors which decide the profitability of an SIP similar to what holds for any equity based investment. With a plethora of choices available in mutual fund SIP’s one can be spoilt for choices and making the right choice can be often difficult.

The answer in my humble opinion, as is clear from the title is a Mid-Cap focussed fund. Now, the rationale here is pretty straight forward. Mid Cap funds are among the most volatile lot. They are the wild bulls at times and turn bears just as wildly. Basically, mid cap funds come with a potential risk in lieu of equally high profits.

So, how could you cut down on the risks when dealing with a mid-cap mutual fund. An SIP in a good mid cap fund is what will make the investment much more fruitful.

What better way to prove it than some real stats. Luckily, I happened to chance upon an article on BT with stats on some mid-cap mutual funds. The stats below will help understand the investment rationale behind the ‘Mid Cap Fund+SIP’ combination

(Source: Business Today)

All the mutual funds are midcap funds from one of the better AMC’ s in India. Did you notice anything common between the returns spanning various tenures.

• All have stupendous 3 and 6 monthly returns
• All have poor or marginal 1 year returns.

But, then why should this data suggest going for an SIP. First, the 3 month and 6 month returns are courtesy of the recent bull market we witnessed. Moreover, Mutual Funds in my opinion are comparatively long term plays(2-3 years).

Moreover, most of the Mutual Funds have a exit load if sold before 1 year. So, people generally buy and hold mutual funds for at least more than a year.

Now, given that the performance of mutual funds fluctuates like the data suggests, would you prefer doing a bulk purchase in a mutual fund. My answer is NO. Simply, because if i invest in a midcap MF at the peak of bull run, there is every chance that my investment can go for a toss should the bears run rampant.

But, with an SIP i am accounting for the volatility since my investment is going to be in a phased manner and the purchases are going to be made irrespective of a bull or bear market.

• Bull market – I get less funds but the NAV goes higher.
• Bear Market- Even though the NAV is falling, the number of units I get is more.

So, with a SIP investment one can ensure that the volatility of a mid cap fund is factored in and my investment is protected.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think the combination makes for a healthy investment or there is a better option available. I would love to know and learn of other profitable options available.

[This Finance Friday post has been written by Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

The post Finance Friday: Midcap MF+ SIP = A Great Investment first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

I had voiced my views on the recent initiatives by the HRD ministry including the abolishment of 10th exams and taking away the ‘Fail’ grade and in my opinion none of those moves made a lot of sense (many would disagree-see comments on my earlier post).

But, the decision to move to a PPP model for government school system might as well turn out to be a dream come true for millions for children studying in government schools across the country.

According to official sources as quoted in TOI ,

There is a large unfulfilled need for quality education in the secondary education sector. It does not appear feasible for state governments to fill this gap in the short term due to constraints on budget and capacity.
PPP emerges as a viable alternative to improve access to quality school education while ensuring equity and social justice. We also felt quality of education can be significantly enhanced as there will be accountability.

PPP in its simplest terms is a venture that is funded and operated by the government in partnership with a private sector company.

Under the PPP scheme, children in government schools would be able to study in fully equipped classrooms. Interestingly, all benefits for the children — free uniforms, midday meal and free textbooks — will continue to be extended under the PPP model. Just that, the government control will be limited to monitoring and the private player will lead the improvement and betterment of the system.

Why I Think a PPP model is imperative for Schools?

More than the money, a private player brings a lot of managerial and operational experience on the table. With improved access to better teaching methods and operational efficiency bought in by the private players, the government schools might see a gradual turnaround in the level of education they impart.

Given the state of affairs of the Indian Government and the kind of bureaucracy that we have become accustomed to, Education is one sector that is better off in the private hands. But, then complete private sector dominance will invariably focus of high profitability and the lesser privileged ones may not get access to the best available learning tools that the private sector offers.

So, when the government joins hands with the private sector, I seriously feel that the average child will also get a shot at securing the best available education there is. The HRD ministry has invited comment from all private stake holders and those interested in taking the initiative forward before November 9.

However, it is early days. Only time will tell if the partnership will bear fruits, but one thing is certain, The vision behind this one is definitely noble. Should this partnership materialize in an efficient way, I am sure we will be proudly able to say,

“Padhega India, Badhega India”

[This post has been written by Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

The post Will PPP model catapult Government Schools to a new level? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

It all started with the Indian Government announcing that Class X examinations of the CBSE will be optional from the next academic year (2010-11) while the grading system will be introduced this year itself. Mr. Kapil Sibal, HR Minister, had been vying for changes to the education system for sometime, and this time he finally had his say.

The ministry has made the 10th board exam optional which is something I do not understand. First of all, who on earth is going to go out of their way to take the board exam when there is no real need to. The only catch is that those who do not give the 10th board will have to appear for 12th board from the same school.

As for the motive cited for this, a few which I compiled from sources were:

• It will reduce the mental pressure on the young minds.
• With so much hype around the 10th board exam, the tuition costs are very high. The move will help parents cut down on costs.

Now for the first point, what pressure is the ministry going to save the kids from? They will now be subjected to the same amount of pressure or even more when they appear for their 12th board. Now, without any prior experience of writing a standardized exam like the CBSE board, aren’t the kids more susceptible to failure in their 12th standard?

Now, there might be a fine line which I may be missing here, but to me there is no way the abolition of 10th board does any good for the future of the kids and helps improve the education standards.

Anyway, if that was not enough a according to a recent circular by the CBSE, the practice of declaring “Fail” will be discontinued.

Candidates, who had obtained grades E1 or E2, could improve their performance through five subsequent attempts.

For example, a candidate who appears in the board examination in March 2010 can appear in July 2010, March 2011, July 2011, March 2012 and July 2012 only in subjects in which he/she has got grade E1 or E1 till he/she gets qualifying grades (D and above) in all the subjects, excluding additional subject as per Scheme of Studies and becomes eligible for award of Qualifying Certificate," the circular stated.
It went on to add that a subject-wise percentile score or rank at the national level would be provided to schools on demand. Though students’ performance would be assessed using the conventional method of numerical marking, only subject-wise grades would be shown in the Statement of Subject-wise performance’ to be issued to all candidates. (TOI)

You got to be kidding me right !

5 attempts to improve the grades. Why not serve them the degree on a platter instead?

I do agree that education has gone highly competitive over the years and the pressure from parents might be a little too taxing on the young minds of young students. But, does it mean that the system makes it a no-brainer for them.

I am not saying that students will use the 5 attempts to clear the exam, but with 5 attempts available, any fool will be able to pass the exam. The whole value advantage of a CBSE exam is gone to the drain.

Except the Grading system which indeed is a welcome initiative to rate students, the whole CBSE revision of the education system looks doomed to me.

I believe that healthy competition and a certain level of hardship is required to the ensure that the students come out enlightened once they pass school. I am not sure if there is a better solution but abolishing the exams and making "No Fail" policy is definitely not a idea I can relate with.

Moreover, it will be interesting how this works out once the students apply for colleges and jobs. A CBSE 10th board mark sheet sure earned my candidature some brownie points in my time. With the whole exam gone, how will the the recruitment factor it out. How will the assessors assess the students and their marks..err..grading?

PS:: These views are not on account of my jealousy that I had to give the exams and my juniors will get out easy:) These thoughts are not biased and reflect my understanding of the new reforms.

I would love to know if anyone can explain the positives of the new reforms.

The post Is CBSE hell bent on degrading the education levels in India? first appeared on Trak.in . Trak.in Mobile Apps: Android | iOS.

Infosys– the IT bellwether has finally decided to hike pays coming this October. It is notable that Infosys among others had initiated a freeze on pay hikes and promotions in April amidst the Global economy crisis and shirking profits.

According to ET, Infosys has begun the Performance Appraisals and pay hikes are to expected from October. With this, Infosys is clearly signalling that the troublesome days are over as far as the profits are considered. Moreover, the falling rupee is definitely adding to the profit margins of IT export houses and hence the pay hikes may not create a big dent on the projections.

"Yes, we are giving hikes this October. It will happen across the board," the paper quoted Nandita Gurjar, Infosys’ group head for human resources as saying.

The stock markets though have not taken this positive news in their stride. Infosys stock almost dropped to 40 points after the news came out. To a certain extent the negative bias is justified too. Given the scale of operations, Infosys has a sizeable Salaries bill estimated at around 45-46% of sales. Any hike in the salaries is going to pressurise the profit margins.

It is estimated that the impact of the salary hike will roughly translate into 2.4% of the company’s revenue. In rupee basis, the figure is likely to be around 475-500 crore. Now, for the speculation driven market that we are in right now, any move that could dent the profit margins of the company is going to be met with negative bias.

As thumb rule, every 1% rise salary cost hit margin by 50-55 bps

But, for a medium to long perspective the pay hike is only going to boost the company earnings and growth. IT Services sector is human resource intensive. The pay hikes are definitely going to energize the manpower and it would directly transcend into happy employees giving more at work and eventually leading to increasing profits for the company.

The timing of the news in also interesting. With the second quarter results on the anvil, the dent on the earnings owing to the pay hike is not going to reflect until the next quarter. So, Infosys is expected to overcome this short term stock market beating with a healthy second quarter result.

[This Finance Friday post has been written by Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]

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