Business of Business in India

New challenges in retail banking

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:59:00 +0000

I was having a conversation on CIBIL and how it has changed the lending process at most institutions in India when someone asked me this - " A large segment of the population has become CIBIL -ve due to various reasons incl the slowdown. Will these guys ever get credit in future once the economy revives?"

The question is interesting coz when the banks want to grow their loan books again, they would have to become less credit-risk averse or increase their reach.

a)Assuming that the distribution cannot ramp up fast enough (due to branch license issues etc)it would mean more aggression in looking at borderline cases (in terms of credit profile). Banks would have to find innovative ways to lower the credit cut off. Am told its already started happening -- reduction in the CIBIL cut-off for cards sourcing and some are looking at a lower CIBIL score (if the track history on own products is fine).
But the risk attached to this approach is pretty obvious. You are looking down another cycle soon with probably a bigger exposure this time.

b)what will be more exciting is how banks & other lending institutions innovate on their distribution channels. Now we all know that the fast ramp up in loan books happened thru the DSA channel- which amongst other things was costlier but easy scaleable. The cost element meant that this channel was suited for only cases with significant ticket size, so that the DSA covered his costs and made exciting enough profits.
As I look at it, the next wave of credit growth will come from channel innovation- Looking at identifying, building and scaling channels which will make sourcing profitable- even for smaller ticket sizes.
Once this happens, the whole dynamics of lending side profitability will change.
Coz account management (of already sourced customers) is mostly automated and hence costs do not vary with ticket size - infact the more accounts the cheaper it is to manage them due to cost amortizaton. Its sourcing which has significant variable costs and needs to be efficient to handle not only small tickets but find CIBIL OK profiles upfront.

Agree? or you think it would be back to DSA days with larger marketing spends across channels?

Rural telecom users price insensitive?

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:26:00 +0000

Read an interesting report in the ET today, based on some survey conducted by Credit Suisse. They survey found that the rural consumers are more quality consicous and less price sensitive. Hardly any of the polled users had switched operators basis call-rates.
This is very interesting coz most of us (self included) had believed that this is a market where ARPUs would be low and constant reacquiring would mean that the telco's hardly make any money.
Also the report says that the rural consumers would constitute almost 40% of the total users by 2012.

This two findings have some serious ramifications:
- Infrastructure needs to be first priority when moving into a new market. Typically we had seen that most telco's went to these markets with a promise of "cheaper" service
- The first mover will have advantage over others, everything else being same. This is evident from the lower switch rate seen in rural consumers.
- The marketing spends & promos highlighting reduced rates etc will now have to be substituted with better distribution/session-experience.

But the most interesting this is that the rural consumers remain price sensitive inspite of having a clear priority for better service. This would make them a tough market for telco's- providing high quality services at competitive price where ARPUs are anyways lower :-)

Will TATA's Nano command a premium

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:31:00 +0000

The much hyped release of Nano was a welcome change in these recession hit times. For once both the consumers and the manufacturers were speaking in highly positive tones.

It prompted a strange discussion at my house. My dad feels the euphoria around Nano is so much that its booking & delivery process would command a premium. Something which has largely been unheard since Maruti days.
He tells me that the kind of excitement is similar to when Maruti had entered the Indian market - once a domain of only Fiat & Ambassador. A friend also tells me that they had booked two Maruti cars in those days and sold the 2nd one at a almost 100% premium. Phew!

My dad insists that in this age of communication, the dream of NANO has already been sold to millions and not just in metros but in smaller towns also. Point taken. So, he says, this means that the # of people who would book will far exceed the manufacturing capacity (atleast in the first few months) and this would lead to a substantial waiting period- the trigger for market assigning a premium on Nano.

I had my doubts given the economic slowdown and lack of credit etc etc. But yday I went to drop some one at the station and during the time it took me to get my car out from the messy parking lot I could hear a group of auto-drivers talking excitedly about Nano- how they would use the Nano as their "taxi"- something I thought as a distant reality.

I have started to believe that Nano might end up commanding a premium in the market. But I am more interested to know what u think?

Organic farming - tough road ahead

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:12:00 +0000

I went on a trip to Sikkim, with a pal who works for organic farming certification in that state. And while I was doing my sightseeing, managed to enquire a bit about how organic farming is structured and marketed in the country.

Quite an interesting case study it is.

Organic farming involves complete dependency on natural products during the agricultural cycle, which means organic seeds, no fertilisers, no pesticides, no weedicides- all these chemicals replaced by organic/natural stuff. It is claimed that organic farming restores the "natural" composition of the soil and keeps it productive for a sustained period- unlike fertilizers which will give higher productivity in the short term but spoil the soil so that eventually it would be unfit for agriculture.

While I have no doubts on the benefits of organic farming (better health, soil conservation etc) I developed some really serious doubts about its adoption in a country like ours. Here's why:

- The financial motivation to the farmer is not very strong. This is primarily because the end consumer demand for organic products is low, which means there is not a big enough market for the farmers to go to where they might get a handsome premium.

- Organic farming is a slow process- as in takes almost 2 years for the soil to come back to its same productive levels that you would have seen with moderate use of chemicals and its only in the 3/4th year that you see substantial incremental benefits of refraining from using chemicals. Most Indian farmers would not have enough security to afford a cut in production/revenues for 2-3 years. And I guess thats why some of the govt entities are trying out ways to subsidise this.

- The true local effects of organic farming can be seen only if its a community level initiative. One of the ways Organic farming is "sold" to farmers is by telling them that the chemicals are not only spoiling the soil but also contaminating the ground water that your children and family consume. Now even if I have some financial security to take in a cut in production- how will the ground water be un polluted if the farmer next door doesnt adopt Organic farming techniques. So i guess in a way its like starting a revolution- creating an awareness in villages so that people start using it simulatenously.

- Complex implementation process- Now comes the tricky adoption bit. It seems for your farm's produce to sell under organic umbrella, you need a certification. Sounds acceptable. But in order to get the certification one needs to practise it for 6 years and maintain a log-book which carries all the relevant details of what has been added to the farm on which date in what quantities. This overhead means that the farms cannot be too widespread or remote. Logic is thus- the co. which will deploy a dedicated resource to maintain this field book would be able to recover costs only if the resource is shared between enough number of plots. So organic farming will flourish only in big enough villages till some tech smarts are implemented.

- Access to markets. From what I understand perishables are most in demand when it comes to organic produce BUT given the complex logistics its tough to guarantee profitability unless the farm is close to the market itself. In most cases where it isnt, its the staple crops like pulses, grains etc that are cultivated the organic way- where in the inherent demand is not too high..

The way I would have attacked this is:
- Extensive lobbying with state governments for subsidies where demand for organic products already exists. I would assume metros and centres with cosmopolitan lifestyles.
- Start doing branded stuff in small niche areas and use technology in demand estimation. That way atleast the spoilage losses would be minimised and one would be able to mature the logistics as the demand picks up.
- Since awareness for organic products & its benefits is low- create a forum of stakeholders who collectively manage PR around this. Look at high profile evangelists who can easily make this an in thing :-)
- Make certification move towards self-assesment with regular checks. This would bring the cost of certification down.
- Build data models which can plug in local factors to come up with estimates of harvest for each plot under organic farming-> aggregate the same and find buyers well before the stock moves out of the fields.

Will anyone buy Satyam ?

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:08:00 +0000

Its been a not so great start to 2009 for India & world over. The economic crisis just keeps getting worse.
I had last written about how the slowdown could be the right time for cherrypicking. But the Satyam story has made me wonder if the same really applies to competitive industries in the service sector also.

Take the Satyam example:
- There are way too many options available to Satyam clients. They would get similar (if not better) standards of deliverables at better costs probably (given the slowdown and IT industry's need to get more paying clients)
- Most big IT clients already have multiple vendors. So they would not have to start afresh but look at re-distributing business amongst the others
- Most clients will not be rewarded (enough) back home for the risk involved in continuing with Satyam- given that it has already earned the title of India's Enron. So even with the new board and GoI pitching in, my sense is that most of them would want to make a quiet and slow exit.
- Satyam was not into cutting edge IPR generating work- which means that they are replacable with the highly documented processes etc.
- Service sectors like IT do not have much "assets" beyond people & IPRs. With the scale of fraud being discovered at Satyam, this asset(people) will be highly undervalued by any suitor. Even if one ignores the Sr Mgmt and looks at the Project Mgr level- the indian job market is full of qualified and experienced techies looking for better avenues.

So why would any one want to pick up Satyam - a Co. without much assests, with huge and increasing liabilities?

I tend to agree with Phaneesh that window of opportunity to invest in Satyam is now gone- with each passing day it would be tougher to revive an organisation which is losing more than its gaining (since the scam discovery).

Global slowdown- right time for cherrypicking?

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:24:00 +0000

Its known to the kid next door (a keen stamp collector) that its a good deal if a stamp which was worth five triangular stamps (in the network) is now available for just 2 ! In business language, its called- "timing your buy" when the price is lower than the target or true value.

So why is it that the cash rich investors (retail & corporate likewise) are not doing this when corporate valuations have been eroded to half their values.
Surely there must be cash rich investors, who would have been scanning companies before the global meltdown. Why are they not picking up these targets with potential to deliver, at "dirt-cheap-rates"?
I usually get two answers:
a. That the usual investors are no longer playing in the market as they have cash commitments to fulfill- meaning the BIG multinational investors who have seen the worst of this crash
b.Sentiment- And I have a tough time understanding this (as I have never been an active investor). My friend tells me that most investors are scared with the bloodbath and think its safe to assume that the bourse fall will continue for some more time to come.

But look at it from my point of view- if i was sitting on cash & had been tracking the market really well before the crash- i would have a definite point of view about some stocks. I would have definitely invested in some companies for a medium term investment. And looks like at least Malvinder Singh is doing just that with his financial services venture- Religare.
If i was someone holding money in US $ i would have been happier, coz with the depreciated rupee and eroded valuations my Indian target co. - would have cost me almost zilch.

So I wonder what the few cash rich investors are thinking/doing? Is it that they:
- Always relied on the now failed investment banks to handle their portfolios- and are just not too sure right now.
- Want to have a huge war chest to bail themselves out- if the recession hits them also
- Have their targets in sight and are hoping (backed with some insights) that the valuations of the targets would fall further.

What do u think?

And Honda does it Again !

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:44:00 +0000

Honda has always been like the Intel of the automobile market. It has had a steady stream of products coming out of its shop which has meant that one time Honda owners stayed with them while looking for an upgrade or a replacement. The City platform has seen a steady stream of variants and so have the Accord & CRV.

But by slashing the price of its Hybrid Civic by Rs 8 Lacs- they had not only grabbed the attention but managed to make sales in this stagnant market. Only a day before the major auto players (incl 2 wheelers like Bajaj) had cribbed at a forum as to how even their Diwali inventories were lying idle.

Am sure the Civic hybrid still makes money at the Rs 13L tag, but the fact remains they have been able to sell 95 cars in one day and many more would follow. Which means that they have created a much bigger market at lower margins. A great strategy to keep yourself alive - to ensure that your factories keep working, that there are no idle inventories lying in the chain. And all of this achieved while saving on the marketing spends. Without a single ad, Honda Civic Hybrid's price tag is now known to most metro residents.

I think others should take a cue and come up with such steps to milk the market and fuel the demand for their products/services.

DTH Games begin- Elephants will win

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:59:00 +0000

The arrival of the telecom giant Airtel has made the DTH arena crowded and fun to watch. Not only was the Airtel's teaser used by BIG TV, the offers from early entrants like Tata Sky & Dish TV have seen a never before decibel levels.

At stake is the current 6 million household market which is expected to reach 37 million by 2010- assuming a monthly billing of 7 USD, the market (from subscriptions) would be 3.2 Bn USD- and this is only a conservative estimate !

DTH industry has some very peculiar characteristics:
- The installation costs and hardware costs are significant- almost equal to 5-6 months of subscription revenue.
- The "running cost" for an incremental customer is negligible and hence one would assume that early scale is what these players will target.
- However the acquisition costs (largely due to distribution set-up and sales team management) increase with increasing sales targets.
- The current pricing is already at levels where none of the players make money. Also it is expected that barring a few offers,all the 4 players will have similar pricing- so pricing is not expected to be a differentiator.
- All the players merely "distribute" content- hence there is not much content-based differentiation amongst players.
- Few weeks ago, ET carried a detailed article on how pay-per-view(PPV) content could become the key differentiator in this DTH war. It focused on movie as the key PPV trigger, where it is expected that users would pay upto Rs 50-75/-(1 to 1.5 USD)for a movie.

Given the above, what strategy do you think these Big 4 must be working upon?

Well, here's my take on it:

1. Target Scale at pace
Since the pricing is not expected to go up, scale is the only way the DTH players can recover their fixed costs and start making money.MicroEconomics 101 taught that if MVC was negligible and MR was more than MC, produce more units.

2. Attack the geographic long tail early on
The 2 early entrants are not present in smaller towns , the BIG TV & Airtel TV should look at attacking these set of customers early on. Since here the customers would have little choice, one can assume higher conversions and low turnover. Meaning sustained revenue streams.

3. Low cost distribution
BIG & Airtel have an enviable distribution network that touches the remotest of places in India- thanks to their Telecom ventures. Dish & TATA SKY will not have this advantage and they should look at tie-ups to leap-frog this dis-advantage. A tie-up with Vodafone(telecom),forwarding agents of FMCG co's could help increase their footprint whithout large scale investments

4. Pricing innovation
While the pricing bands will remain common across players, one could look at coming up with innovative packages e.g. Hindi only channels for the cow-belt, or Malyalam + English for the Mallus in Gods own country etc. But the problem here is that since content is not "owned" by the DTH players, any success in innovative pricing/bundling will be replicated in the industry

5. Focus on category conversion
I remember the King Khan ad on "Dont be santusht!"- and I feel thats the right path to take in terms of the communication & positioning. Instead of fighting over a share of current DTH subscribers, why not be the leader who is synonymous with conversion from cable TV to DTH. (you suddenly can speak to 80 million cable TV viewing households).
Such a move will help the competition also (as some would convert from cable to the competing brand), but if one can manage to get the biggest mind share of these converting customers, the rate of customer acquisition would be highest.

6. Feature differentiation
True that content is not owned by the DTH players, but they can still do a lot more to woo the customers e.g.
a. Make the box into a poor man's PlayStation.There is only so much TV that a person watches. And if the quality of audio/video doesnt impress him, make his box a high-end gaming console (if he could "request" games - download and play) he might buy the DTH connection as the Diwali gift for his 10 yr old son.
b. eLearning: This is already being done, but the few users who I know have experienced it have complained about the lack of quality content.
c. True PPV/COD- The current options of PPV are only disguised content-on-demand (COD) coz the user is not choosing from the universe of titles the specific movie she wants to pay for. She gets a calendar of movies being broadcast during specific time slots and has to pay for that. If you ask me, its like paying for watching a movie on the flight in the big screen in front of you- I would never be happy paying for it- coz i can never understand why I should be charged specifically for a broadcast content. So why not give the set-top box the ability to "download" content on demand and give user the true power.

7. Implement offers which dont impact marginal cost
E.g. two connections in a household for the cost of one (for 6 months). Is pretty clear that not many customers see value in switching to DTH at the current price points. Hence the challenge is to increase the percieved value of benefits at the same price/cost.

While these 4 compete to sit on the idiot-box, the only thing I am sure of is that winner will take it all- The elephant will do the victory dance !

In the business of breaking (the) news...

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:04:00 +0000

I dont spend too much time infront of the idiot box, but I have been a witness to the news blitzkrieg that Indian consumers are forced to live with. With so many news channels, i usually end up pressing the "Up channel" button almost 20 times before I get out of the "breaking news" zone.

I have never ceased to admire these guys coz I guess it takes a lot of practise to present most of these Breaking News with a straight face. Tell me how can you not laugh when you are on Live TV telling the world that there are aliens living under the sea- when you are talking about the Bermuda Triangle. The other commendable feature they have is "creativity". One would expect, creativity to limited to departments like editing, presentation etc while referring to News- but I guess these truly creative folks have taken it to the "content" part of news- the only holy grail of this business.

They are no longer in the Business of "breaking news", they are in the Business of "Breaking the news".

All this used to be funny and I also indulged in the humor. But now the desperation of these channels to get new content has started affecting the common man.
The TRPs of most of the Breaking News channels has only been rising and its hard to
explain why this is happening.

Maybe the answer lies in the fact that most of the viewers are ill-informed and highly gullible. Why else would someone believe that the world was coming to an end with the CERN experiment and commit suicide in India?

The I&B ministry needs to take this outright ridiculing of journalism, little more seriously....

Why Google launched Chrome ?

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Google launched its very own Internet Browser- Chrome- and die hard fans apart, early experimenters also say- that its cool !

While the industry pundits discuss the features and the strategy behind launching of Chrome- i came up with my very own answer- as to why Google launched Chrome?

And the answer lies in the above image....

It was done coz the guys in the Google analytics team wanted to see their name in the reports .... :-)

I can understand, if you disagree with me...

Floods in Bihar- India's lack of focus towards Infrastructure

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 06:53:00 +0000

The flooding of Kosi has brought to fore the apparent lack of focus government after government has had towards Infrastructure development. Lemme explain why.
The Kosi it seems has been changing course every year that it flows above the danger mark- apparently due to high level of silt. The only water flow management in its entire course is a barrage in Nepal- which has become inaccessible to Indian Engineers.

I ask these simple Questions:
- How could we the fastest grpwing economy rely on a dam in Nepal to control floods that affect 20 Lakh people regularly. This year the scale is higher, but fact remains that Kosi has been flooding every year. If our people are affected by floods we need an instrument developed & managed by us, to control the nature's fury.
- The changing political conditions of Nepal, should have provided us enough & more cues that we can no more continue to assesrt ourselves on our Himalayan neighbour.
- How can there be floods & drought in the same district? As reported in Breaking News - about this distrcit in Maharastra.

I spoke to a few villagers in western UP- & they said "Saare nahar to angrezon ne banwaye the... unmein se bhi jaydatar band ho gaye hein"- Most of the canals were built by the Britishers and most of those also are now dysfunctional. Even if I discount what they are saying by 60%, the fact remains that in the eyes of the common man, the infrastructure growth has not been in line with expectations.

Look at the few achievements we are all proud of
- Golden Quadrilateral has added thousands of Kms of highways and it has surely reduced surface transportation delays BUT various mini projects are marred with controvesy over corruption and delays.

- Delhi Metro is now the preferred mode for many of us Dilliwallas BUT the traffic congestion has only increased in the Capital.

- We bagged the Venue for Common Wealth Games & some want us to bid for Olympics also. But the reality is that we are no where close to providing the visitors with a facility which is par-excellence.

I dont know why we have failed so miserably in Infrastructure, but the time to get our act together is now. Coz good infrastructure is the foundation for a thriving economy.

Free Pricing takes toll on non-life insurers

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 16:04:00 +0000

Today's ET had a front page article with the same headline "Free Pricing takes toll on non-life insurers" where it reported that the once lucrative Fire Insurance segment now makes private General Insurers bleed.

Its an interesting and important development because it could well become the case study in "What not to do in a free pricing regime". Coz most of the current losses are being blamed on the price undercutting taken by these players to get more sales.

So one might be tempted to ask- Is price undercutting a good strategy?
I would say it is a good approach to capture the market share, but only if the following conditions exist:
- The final margins after the price cuts, still allow you to make "normal profits"
- If the above is not there, you have access to a source of funds that can sustain you for a long period in the market place.
- Also the nature of industry/product allows you to lock in the customers from shifting to competition or ensures a high wallet share.

If you ask me, Fire insurance which requires periodic renewals does not guarantee that the customer will be back with the same insurer next time also.Moreover given that most of these are corporate customers, it can be safely assumed that they would shop around for the lowest priced deal.

The worst impacted are the Private sector players, coz they had not built a large enough book, whose corpus could have given them returns to cover the operational losses in the interim. All these are relatively new entrants in the market.

It is not a surprise then, that some of these private sector players are looking for additional influx of funds or a party to even buy them out.

The regulatory changes in General Insurance sector have just started and how the Insurance business pans out, will make for interesting case studies for Strategic Management 101.

TRAI on overdrive ! Telecom business to see a complete overhaul...

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:41:00 +0000

The last 7-10 days have been filled with a lot of action in the Telecom sector, and the regulatory authority TRAI seems to be at the centre of it all.

Consider these:
- 3G policy is launched
- BSNL & MTNL given a go-ahead for an early 3G launch
- Net Telephony proposed by TRAI & supported by DoT
- Legal threats to GSM players for failing to provide interconnect to Reliance's GSM
- Proposal to allow takeover of 2.5G players without the wait period
- Allow callers to choose their STD/ISD carriers

While the 3G announcements were much expected, a few others have indicated a growing discomfort of TRAI with the current players.Else why would all these suddenly be proposed in a matter of 3-4 days.

I personally feel the option to choose the STD/ISD player will see the light of the day much earlier than other proposals. Here's why:
- Existing players will not oppose it as much as other changes coz adoption of calling cards etc requires a lot of marketing muscle from stand alone players. I am unaware of the technical issues involved in ISD traffic where the current players will not be able to sell the purchased minutes of talk time. But am sure they will be able to adapt soon with some kind of a predictive tool.
- Customers will be happy with the announcement and TRAI would have scored a brownie point ot two.
- Primary impact would be the ISD calls as STD are not considered so costly that consumers would pull out a card & punch the long series of numbers therein.Even if look closely at the ISD market, that itself is very segmented coz
a) Well off people who have relatives/friends/clients abroad will not bother too much unless the differential is high
b) most people with internet connection calling family & friends aborad are using Skype/Google talk for longer & regular conversations. So they would rather wait for a Skype phone to be allowed in India
c) People without internet access & typically calling Middle East & SE Asia locations will be the first ones to adopt this. But typically here also, the Indian party more often than not recieves the call- not originates it.
d) Corporate- they should be the only ones to see significant cost reduction by choosing the service provider. And they would want some smart solutions, wherein the code is automatically punched in when the user calls from an enterprise connected device.

The most disruptive proposal of it all would be the Net Telephony- as that would not only take away the key revenue drivers for all existing players, it would suddenly reduce the entry barriers in a very significant way.As consumers we should welcome this, coz the rates would surely plummet, but if you have expsoure to telecom in your investment portfolio (through the current players)- it could hit you hard. Though the new players waiting to enter the market with their Net-Telephony-only services, highlight that this is as secure as the incumbent technology- I have my doubts that they would be able to convince the final decision makers. Given the strong lobbying from existing players & the recent terror experiences - security issues could become the Achilles heel for Net Telephony.

The other proposal to do away with the waiting period for a new player to take over an existing player- seems to send a very strong and positive signal for Foreign players- Indian Telecom sector is now ripe for M&As.
With
- Vodafone already having its wide operations
- Virgin running an MVNO with TATA Tele
- MTN having courted & dumped both Airtel & Reliance
Indian Telecom market is already high up in the radar. With Chinese market still being unaccessible- many more foreign players will try & come down to experience the Incredible India.
One might ask- what will tempt them to come here with falling ARPUs and an even worse scene predicted. Apart from the sheer numbers, I think Indian players have been able to sell the idea to the world that they know how to operate on a large scale with lower costs (playing on volumes rather than margins). This was what everyone felt when the MTN courtship was taking place in full media glare.

Phew! So much action is anticipated that most of us had forgotten about the iPhone launch for a while.... Over to some more exciting & glamorous developments in the business of staying connected !

Kashmir : Business or Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:53:00 +0000

Many keen observers of the J&K situation say that the current state of affairs has thrown the valley back by atleast a decade or so of development. It is also felt that the simple economics provided the means for the separatist movement to gain momentum again.

Its been said that the Fruit growers saw an immediate & real threat to their livelihood by the economic blockade at Jammu. In the 10 days before the army was called out to clear the blockade, people in Kashmir had already lost crores of Ruppees. It was to avoid this further loss, that they opted to sell their produce in the markets across LOC- in the POK.

What the BJP led protestors failed to understand was that the economic pressure that they had put, could play in the hands of those promoting Pro-Pakistan movement in the valley- and thats exactly what has happened.

It was history repeating itself in the valley- with slight change in roles. When Raja Hari Singh was confronted by the newly formed Pakistan to join them (as against India), the then Paki government had imposed an economic bloackade of the region. India came forward to not only remove that bloackade but also as the saviour of the interests of the people. And the rest is history!

What we need to do now is to ensure that the economic interests of the people in the valley are not compromised by parties & their vested interests. If we fail now to convince the people of Kashmir, that India truly feels for their economic independence- Kashmir might move strongly & rapidly towards its Azadi !

Killer Apps in motorbike industry

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 14:16:00 +0000

Was reading an article in the ET today, which talked about how Bajaj was trailing behind Hero Honda in the Motorcycle sales in the country. The article went on to identify the reason for the widening gap- Bajaj's lack of focus in sub 125cc segment where the volumes are still high.

While all this might be true, but if you have not been tracking this industry, you would fail to identify Bajaj as the maker of the last Killer App seen in the Motorcycle industry.

The action in motorcycle industry heated up in mid 1990's when they started selling instead of scooters- not just in Tier 1 but Tier 2 & 3 towns... Those were the days when both 2 stroker and 4 stroke vehicles were available. Since petrol was not that costly, buyers didnt keep mileage as the top criteria- and this era saw YAMAHA emerge as the clear winner with its RX100 range of 2 stroke bikes.
These bikes were known for their pick-up and soon became a rage amongst the young population.

But then came the Euro 2000 norms and 2 strokes were banned all together. Yamaha tried hard to gain a foothold in this segment with its YBX range but failed to do so against Hero Honda- a really entrenched player.
While Yamaha (before 2000) had focussed on power and styling Hero Honda had kept on building brands that delivered mileage and relied on the 4 stroke technology. By 2000 Hero Honda had CD100 and Splendour as its two main products. With Yamaha RX100 being banned, Splendour took over the market like anything. It had already started overselling RX100 due to increasing fuel costs and the Euro norms just consolidated their leadership position.
This ensured that Hero Honda was the undisputed leader in the motorcycle market in India.

It was against this background that Bajaj launched Pulsar- a single product which helped them bridge the gap with Hero Honda. Bajaj had not only taken a big risk by introducing a model in the 150 cc category, it had also brought with it a fresh hope for the industry.

Pulsar caught on the imagination of people - with its disk brakes, flashy design - and soon Pulsar was the new mean machine for the young with money to spend.Pulsar's success saw many more brands being launched in the 150 cc segment but none of them failed to come up to the same level ...

So while Bajaj might trail behind Hero Honda, I think the company has shown a clear understanding of how to create & launch a killer app in the market.

PS: in all this discussion of bikes, I have knowingly not mentioned ENFIELD- coz I think the Bullet in all its variants Machismo, Electra, Thunderbird (my fav)- are in a different league :-)

New way to show you are RICH !

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:17:00 +0000

I know this doesnt really pertain to the Indian Business but I still can't resist sharing this with you.

Just read about an iPhone application which is listed on the official iPhone application store for a mere price of $1000 !!! And this amazing application gives assured value- a small red-ruby icon that sits on your phone- and apart from this does abosultely nothing !

What a novel way to show that you are truly blessed with enough & more $$$$. While the world over, people are ridiculing this app- I see an opportunity here that exists when a product is preferred by people of all levels of disposable income. Some amongst the truly arrived ones, would want an iPhone which combines its usability & features with some kind of exclusivity- given that a mobile will be flashed so many times in the public eye.

Why can't iPhone look at designers making special skins/cases/UIs for these set of people. They should be able to walk into a Cartier store & pick an iPhone skin that is studded with diamonds or whatever is their favourite stone/metal.

And I just cant stop wondering, if this is what an iPhone can do in a place like America, imagine in what innovative ways will people show off their phones in India !

3G now in India... immediate impacts on Telecom Sector

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:57:00 +0000

Today's biz papers were all shouting out loud about the 3G telecom policy now finally being here. For the uninformed like me, it meant too much excitement about half a mark (thats how much of technology leap we would take by this costly migration from 2.5G to 3G ) on the score card...

So I decided to read more about it and understand the business logic behind all the fuss. It seems 3G promises the platform for real convergence on the small screen (read handset)- with streaming video, media rich applications, high speed data transfer and what not. But the real low hanging fruits for the telcos lies in the 3G's spectrum handling efficiency.

As mentioned in a previous note-Spectrum is the biggest fixed cost for telcos and better utilisation in circles of high user base will reap immediate rewards.

So here I go again, trying to predict how the 3G roll-out will happen in India:

-The top players like Vodafone & Airtel will have to adopt 3G when it happens. There will be too much reputational risk (from the premium segment customers) for them to delay this. Coz in my mind, this premium segment customer has either tasted a better user experience abroad or feels that he would use these "cool" features once 3G is here

- If the 3G license is available by circles- the top players will go about doing this in phases. I would have done it coz that way you dont need to implement it in smaller towns - barring a few like Ludhiana, Chandigarh etc

- The battle for content will start- albeit with a substantial lag of 6-7 months, before the critical mass of consumers builds up

- The initial 3G consumption on the consumer side will be high in the school & college going segment- where entertainment will be the underlying theme- music, music videos, sports clips etc

- Over a longer period of time- once the novelty factor fades out, it would be easy to segment the 3G consumers by category of content consumed .Hence the Telcos will have to be tied up with the percieved leaders in each vertical.

- It would create a whole new industry of applications & content providers. VAS as a term would now mean more than ring tones & wall papers :-)

- The average cost of phones bought will rise in short term, before 3G phone prices start coming down. 3G capability will become a decision criteria at the handset level- possible death of mid-segment phones.

Economies around pilgrimage spots

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:17:00 +0000

I remember reading this short note about how Shirdi- the pilgrim destination for Sai Baba devotess- quickly evolved from a small-hamlet-nowhere-in-the-map to a prominent-travel-destination-within-Maharastra.... all within the author's lifespan. The thought was re-inforced by a friend who visited Shirdi and got into a conversation with a cabbie there. The cabbie believed that this family was saved from abject poverty by Baba's grace- he had decided to come back to Shirdi when nothing else was working and leave everything in Baba's hands. He bought land there and within 8-10 months its price was up some 5-6 times- he sold a bit of that and bought himself a cab- and you can well predict the rest.

I was watching Evan Almighty yday -guess a sequel to Bruce Almighty- and one dialogue stayed with me. The "GOD" says- when you pray to be brave, god doesn't make you brave- he just gives you an opportunity to be brave !

If we juxtapose the above with the cabbie's experience, I guess we will start seeing things in a clearer light. Pilgrim destinations not only generate a lot of positive energy, they create a lot of opportunities for people- complete economies start evolving around them.

India is home to many places that rank high on spiritual index. Over time, most of these places start having
- better connectivity (buses, roads, private carriers)
- more places to eat
- places to stay and rest
- Charitable trust/society- that might in due course invest in schools/colleges/hospitals etc

It thus not only creates a lot of employment, but re-inforces the circle of belief- so many people get so many opportunities ....

Card Spends and inflation

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:56:00 +0000

Was remembering my days in the bank when part of my job was to increase Credit card spends by manipulating credit lines for individual customers or clusters. My friend in the same team had a similar goal, but he could manipulate only the offers that were made available to our carded customers.

While the role was really exciting and highly numbers driven, we were not really benchmarking ourselves to some base year/month prices. Consider this: a customer who uses his credit card for all his petrol purchases would have seen 10% increase in fuel spends only because of fuel price hike. This would have resulted in around 5% increase in his total card spends. Add to this the inflation on other consumable items and the average growth in spends would have been around 7-8%.
Now most of the metrics shared & reported in monthly decks are not indexed to a base month price at the start of the financial year- so how does the bank really know whether the non-inflation impacted spends have picked up or not?
The reverse should be true in a deflating economy- even if actual spends are falling, maybe there has been a genuine growth in spends indexed to base prices.
Which brings us to the next Q- how do we map spends across categories according to monthly inflation on those individual categories. Its easy to do for fuel- due to the high decibel debates surrounding it- but what about groceries, travel,health etc etc.
Is there a freely available source of monthly change in prices of commodities across categories and how can we easily integrate it into corporate MIS surrounding spends etc?

Taking a slightly different view on this- it also means that if we target categories with higher expected price rise, we might end up getting a higher share of wallet faster- which means that all card issuers who have been offering 0% fuel surcharge- will get to benefit more than the ones that charge 2.5% . I use my HSBC credit card for buying petrol and my Citibank Credit card for all other spends- suddenly the % spend on my HSBC card has increased- without any effort from HSBC's side. Am sure the next will be grocery and air travel- no wonder I got a mail from HDFC & clear trip offering me 50% off on my next purchase.

The game for spend based offers has just become more interesting !

Fuel costs leading to Closed economies ?

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 04:30:00 +0000

Read a very interesting article yday- wherein the author built a case for changes he predicted in manufacturing services due to the increased crude prices. According to him the labour arbitrage opportunities that many companies/countries could exploit previously, would no longer be as profitable. Reason being that historically the increased shipping costs due to shifting of manufacturing facilities to far-off locations was a smaller percentage and the fruits of low labour cost were enjoyed. Now with increased transportation costs- the overall distance that the raw materials (to the facility) or finished goods (to the markets) travel will need to be contained.
The author predicted that this would lead to near-shoring and the likes of Mexico might again become destinations of choice.
While I was kind of convinced (though am not sure at what price range will these tough decisions need to take place) with the logic, I was more tempted to take this line of reasoning a little further and see where it goes.

Assuming the crude price keeps soaring and we are unable to find viable substitutes.... this could lead to a scenario where probably one of the top optimization criteria would be to minimise transportation.
Areas/regions that have both the raw materials and the market, will become the first choice for locating the production facility. But we all know these are very few... so what would happen to others:
- Create efficiencies in smaller scales also- Companies would be forced to set-up multiple manufacturing facilities- closer to either the multiple sources of raw materials or multiple demand/consumption zones...e.g. Coke already bottles its drink out of multiple bottling plants spread across the country.
- Investing in route optimization- I know from my friends who work in route/transportation optimization, that almost 70% of the players have not even looked at the possible benefits of deploying a routing optimizer.
- Precipitate process innovation- With labour cost arbitrage vanishing , the holders of the brand would be forced to innovate in their processes- to find a viable solution in their high labour cost economies.
- In an ideal scenario where all labour cost arbitrage has been exploited and where the transportation costs are simulatenously rising- the only option is to consume what you produce/process. What I mean to say is that in this scenario- a Chinese car shipped to US would cost the same as a US car, made in China and shipped to US. Now with shipping costs increasing, there would be a point beyond which a US car made in US will be cheaper than both the options above and this in my mind is the onset of closed economies.

Maybe I am wrong here, but I seriously thing that what could happen is that some regions will become closed economic regions. Imagine if India/China and a few SE Asian economies come together to create a closed economic zone/region:
We would have the raw materials (iron ore, coal,grains, meat etc), we would have labour to work on it (China), we would have the process improvements we would need (India, Japan, Korea etc) and most importantly we would have the market for these goods and services.

Washing his way to moolah !

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:45:00 +0000

This is the first in my series of odes to the spirit of entrepreneurship at the grass root level...

At my place we had a "dhobi (washerman)" who would come over to our place everyday and wash the clothes....Since he had small operations and lived in a hut closeby- he washed the clothes of the 8-10 families in their homes, rather than taking em to a "ghat"- a separate washing place- typically next to a natural water body like lake/river etc....

With the advent of washing machines and construction of flats (no open space for the dhobi), his biz saw a drastic drop...which threatened the source of sustenance of this family of six.
They had meanwhile developed another "revenue channel"- ironing . Whereas they were charging Rs 300/- per month for washing, they charged around Rs1.50/- per cloth for ironing. Assuming 10 households and a daily demand of 8 pieces for ironing- they made Rs 3000/- from washing and Rs 3600/- from ironing- a total of Rs 6600/- per month.

What our smart dhobi observed was that "washing" clothes was a diminishing market for him . But he found an opportunity in washing cars- with higher density of people in the neighbourhood and an average of 2 cars per family- he had a growing market in washing of a different kind.
The dude very smartly priced this service around Rs 200/- per month and approached the 10 families he already knew in the first wave. We all were more than happy to have him for this service.
Now- washing car is an easier task than washing clothes- I know, coz i have done both :-) but more than ease, car-washing can be done in one-fifth the time and this guy washes/cleans the two cars in my family on an alternate basis.... so now he manages to clean cars for somewhere around 25 families...do the maths and u begin to see his genius- a cool 5000/- from car washing....

The job ironing is still on- with rising cost of living, our dhobi has increased the ironing rate to around Rs 2.00-2.50/- per piece and hence sees a better revenue from this old channel also...

No wonder he is the head of the dhobi association in this area !

Reinventing the Wheels

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Fri, 09 May 2008 05:00:00 +0000

There was a time when the best car models in India came with Maggi- Hot Wheels- thats what they were called and I remember myself trying to raise a great collection of Ferrari's, and Lamborghini's .... those were the days when there was just an Ambassador or Fiat to choose from- or if you were the trendy types- maybe the Standard was also an option. But thats it.
Then came the era of Maruti 800- probably the single most sold model in India (or maybe the world)...
Today the Indian auto market is abuzz with launches of new models and introduction of many foreign brands, one after the another. So what has changed apart from the higher personal disposable income which leads to increased demand at all levels... the passenger car segment has been growing at around 8% - absolutely in sync with the economy's growth rate.

Apart from the rising demand, what has made this sector grow fast is the supply side innovation. The rate at which most of the auto-players have been introducing new variants and models has been unprecedented- and i suspect the reasons can be found more at the shop floor than the board rooms. What I mean is that its not that the Indian customer has suddenly become more demanding and looking for variety...its just that the manufacturers have realised that its easy (meaning doesnt cost too much) to launch a new variant by changing just 20-30% of the design.
I remember from my Engg days that a major fixed cost in car manufacturing is the cost of the die (the cast used to make the sheet metal body).... it is this cost which gets spread over many more units- whenever a new variant is launched (which has similar doors, hoods etc)... Look at Dzire (the new car from the Maruti stable) ...my nephew tells me its a Swift with a boot and he cant be further away from the truth... The same is true for Indigo and Indica.

Apart from the design changes, each model also comes in
- multiple engine capacity options - since most manufacturers just assemble the engine at the plant, creating multiple options is not adding to the cost
- variations in interiors - again since these are sourced from local vendors, its a question of negotiating hard to get more varities at the same per unit cost
- Multitude of colors to choose from - Gone are the days when Henry Ford had said- I can give you any color so long as it is black !- coz the bottleneck in the assembly line is no longer the paint shop (& black in Ford's days was the fastest drying color)

All this supply side flexibility has ensured that we have products & variants at multiple price points, a never before seen phenomenon in the Indian industry. This has resulted in:
- A not-so-clear path towards upgradation. Gone are the days when one bought a Maruti 800 and gradually migrated to a Cielo. These days a high end Santro can cost you as much as an entry level Esteem .
- There is no default choice for the first car. With Tata's Nano being pitched at Rs 1 Lac, the concept of entry-level cars will undergo a radical change. But even before that the Indian consumer is spoilt for choice
- This is my hypothesis but I feel that this has resulted in faster re-selling of cars (at least the high-end ones). I have seen numerous examples where someone bought a Honda City only to realise that Skoda launched Octavia, and this guy rushed to sell his City & bought the Octavia. Which in turn means a faster growing & moving second hand car market (again - I am tempted to assume, the skew is towards high-end cars)
- Higher marketing spends- with Hyundai roping in Shahrukh & Preity, Toyota getting in Amir Khan, the auto marketing business has gone to the Big Daddies- and these agencies and their campaigns dont come cheap- so am sure the customer is paying the price for some celebrity endorsing their car- given that I dont think Santro drivers are really that smart :-) (pun intended !)
- Move towards aggregated servicing- I read somewhere that the ex MD of Maruti- Mr Khattar has moved on to start his own label of service centers that would primarily cater to non-mass-market models. I think its a very smart business proposition, given that there are many more models now, with smaller # of owners in each location. If all of these manufacturers were to open their own service chains- it would lead to a huge post-sales cost and not doing that would lead to even bigger consumer dissonance. So am sure Mr Khattar would get enough strategic investors from Honda, Skoda, Toyota and the likes.

All in all, its good to see so much action in autoland, but all this frenzy would lead to many early deaths- I am reminded of Elantra (from Hyundai) which I remember v clearly sold exactly 3 units in the country in a quarter- before they decided to pull back the model. I will watch out for the cut-off for other players to take the same decision...... till then keep Vroommmmminggggg !

The Changing Business of Cricket

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:28:00 +0000

Cricket has always been the only rich game in the country- with rights being sold for an unimaginable amount- BCCI has always been flushed with funds. But with the new 20-20 format (in its multiple avtars) coming in- the business of cricket will surely see a lot of changes.
So lemme try & put on Nostradamus' hat & predict what all could happen in what was once the gentleman's game....

- The ones who must be partying really hard are the bookies & the ones who play satta through Cricket. For them IPL & ICL is like dream come thru-like they suddenly have 48 hrs in a day to "work hard" & make money :-). Where there were only some 40-50 days of business in a year.. looks like now they can punt- the year round.

- Lot of proven overseas talent will retire early and come to play in the Indian leagues. Gilly's recent century in 42 balls shows that he is still one-of-the best batsmen even in this young format of game. And am sure the fact that he would earn twice or thrice as much playing 20-20 will be noticed by many others. So what I see happening is this- the overseas players who manage to be consistent & would have made a name in the ICC tournaments would retire slightly early and pack bags for India- play 2-3 seasons and buy the perfect retirement home.

- The county cricket will lose further sheen as there is not enough money to attract talent. And with little marquee talent, they would make still lesser money and the cycle will go on.

- Indians will be overexposed to cricket. Am not a great follower of the game but I feel that even for the most passionate fan- tracking all the league teams- ICL & IPL- & their individual players etc etc will become a pain. This could lead to potential drop in viewership which could mean a drop in advertising rates OR it could lead to monopolisation of the 20-20 format (which both of em are hoping for)

- Ranji will be in doldrums- with so much action the self-proclaimed guardians of this game will align themselves to focus on recruiting talent for the smaller over game at the domestic level. Even the players who would otherwise have been happy to be in a Ranji Trophy match- will now be keen to play for their city team. A Kolkatta player would want to share a moment with ShahRukh as the Knight Rider rather than some non-glam manager for the WB team

- Glam quotient (GQ) of cricket will see a lift. Am from Delhi- but my favourite team is the Bangalore Royal Challengers- simple logic- if BRC wins & plays till the finals- will get to see more of Katrina :-)
Same with the cheerleaders- the current dress code being imposed has taken the GQ down by a few serious notches... but am sure this should be back to its opening levels by the next season :-)
Coz the media companies do realize that there is a market that is made or lost coz of this also ...

The long tail of grocery retailing ...

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:58:00 +0000

Grocery retailing is considered by most as the toughest nut to crack in any new market. More so in India where Reliance's Fresh initiative ran into some serious trouble in the Hindi speaking belt.

But apart from the political resistance I guess grocery retailing is here to stay- atleast in the metros & sub-metros. With the Food World and Big bazaars of the world setting their shops in most localities - it has gradually changed the way people buy grocery.

Now most of the families go to a Big Bazaar to get their monthly supplies and seek only the "top-ups" from the kirana guys. So to that extent its not the neighbourhood kirana store that got hit- it was the bigger departmental store run by the lala. It was this departmental store which was earlier the place to replenish your monthly stocks- he had the best offers from FMCG co's, was known for the highest quality of masalas & cleanest dals. And now, his ever so loyal customers now do their shopping at the malls on Sunday- while having a day out with the family.

For a typical family of four- the one time grocery purchases can run upto Rs. 4000-5000/- per month. The top-up on the other hand is stuff that never made it to the monthly list or where the inventory assesment went wrong or consists of products procured on short notices (like the ingredient for special food cooked during fasts/festivals)... which run into a healthy Rs. 600-750 /- per month.

Its these top-ups that are currently sustaining the kirana shops ,apart from the households that havent migrated to the "buying-groceries-at-the-mall" concept.

As I look at it, most retailers, will sooner-or-later need to identify a strategy to hit this long-tail effectively... Indian consumers will need something closer for their ad-hoc needs, someone who can do home delivery w/o a minimum billing commitment etc. Currently its just the kirana shop, but if the same convinience comes with assurance of quality & advantage of price that a branded player provides- its a no-brainer as to which way the consumers would go.

So how do the retailers attack this long tail of demand effectively:

- They can look at non-offline channels. A home delivery model where the order is placed online or on the phone. This would require investments in smaller warehouses- which can then be used as centers for home delivery of monthly purchases also.

- Partner with Kirana stores to gain maximum reach. If a customer can get the same price & assurance of quality at a kirana- they would prefer the kirana that has partnered with Big Bazaar as against the one which hasnt. This approach has some obvious challenges- how to keep the kirana owners margins intact, how to ensure that there is no last-mile adulteration or price mis-management etc etc. But if somehow the retailer is able to crack this model- he would have taken his brand to the doorstep of the consumers.

- Choosing the store location more innovatively. Most of the top-up items can also wait a day or two. Also given that more households are now moving towards a dual income nuclear family structure- it might make sense to have your store next to prominent office complexes. So that the working couples can pick up their weekly or daily top-ups on their way back home.

In summary- the Indian Grocery retailing will see a lot of localized innovation. It might not happen immediately- but as soon as the big names migrate a large chunk of customers away from the kirana stores- they would start asking themselves- "What next?" and thats when they would start looking at the long tail of grocery retailing !

Business Case Study# 5 Selling @ Traffic Signals

noreply@blogger.com (Wribhu) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:17:00 +0000

Have you ever noticed the kids who are busy selling at Traffic Signals- from tissue paper to calculators, glossy magazines to Indian prints of best-sellers- they seem to have pedelled it all.

The overall logistics here works something like this:
Multiple traffic signals in an area are "managed" by a single "dealer" who issues the daily ration of goods to be sold in the area to each kid. The dealer would in turn get his assortment of goods from various company reps & bigger dealers. He would carry all the possible products you would see across signals in his "area". The kids would then daily turn up at the dealer's godown & based on their judgement, past experience & the pressure of the dealer- pick up the products to be shown & sold at the signals that day. They have to pay the dealer a minimum for each consumed item (like the cost price) & they can keep the margin (introduces flexible selling price). This means that the kids are given some room for price negotiations & they can swing profits by a mix of volume & price manipulations.

But have you ever stopped to wonder as to what products make it to this "channel" & why?
How do these traffic signal salesboys decide on their product mix- one of the most important of the 4 Ps in marketing.

Consider the following facts:
- One can target only the communters through this channel- & the primary way to communicate to them is the product display- most of the cars would have their windows up & music playing inside- so the kid has to get the customer interested - by just displaying the product as he walks past the vehicle.
- Not all products will sell through this channel. One obvious way to find those that will make the cut is to put them through the "time test"- can a person decide on buying it in 20 seconds? Ask yourself- how many things have u bought with that small a decision cycle.
- Since there is no service or product guarantee associated with this channel- the product has to have minimal involvement- which typically means a lower priced product. The typical ticket size here ranges from 30-50/- Rs.
- Inventory carrying capacity: These kids dont have a push-cart that they can carry to the market- so they can only sell as much as they can carry . Which means if they choose a product which is bulky, they cannot carry too many of those->cannot sell too many items->low revenues
- Most branded players would not want to leverage this channel due to fears of customer complaints & some serious dilution of the brand.
- The rising interest in Chinese goods has shifted the product mix to mostly electronics & other gadgets. Though a healthy # of them still sell books & car utility stuff.

My gut feel is that they tend to focus on either utility (water bottles , window screens & hats during summers, tissues or cleaning cloths) or obvious value difference (have seen people buying Da Vinci Code for Rs 40/- & a lighter for Rs 15/-)

But if you were to work on a serious project, wherein you are told to identify items that can maximise revenue for these unique salesboys- what would you do?