IIPM- NEWS RELEASE

Monday, August 16, 2010

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS RE-VISITED!

Are celebs paid monster-bucks for their glamour, star attraction and red-hot performance curve in their area of showbiz, or snow-white morality and politically correct image in the public space?

In the past, Salman Khan, Fardeen Khan, Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton (among a zillion others) have played with fire and emerged with different degrees of damage. Many have bounced back because the public has a short memory and the ever-hungry, promiscuous and sensation-seeking media quickly moves across to the next big stink. The buzz is that with wife Elin moving out, pressing for divorce and demanding half his incredible fortune, there could well be a ‘sympathy vote/shift’ towards Tiger. And then who knows, both the growl and the sponsors could well be back!

At the end of the day, we live in an age of gross opportunism where everything is up for sale. In the case of celeb-disgrace, it might do some good to remember the classic line: When giants fall, dwarfs walk tall.

Monojit Lahiri

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
“We will change your outlook” - The Sunday Indian on B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED! A must read...
The Sunday Indian:-
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
For Exclusive Footage by Sunday Indian Click Here

Outlook Magazine's B School Ranking Scam Exposed
Business Standard Exposes the Outlook Magazine Money Editor
Don't trust the Indian Media!

IIPM enters into media education
IIPM makes record 10,000 placements in five years
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here
Pioneer Exposes the fraud called Mahesh Sharma and Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Barbel Schwertfeger of mba-channel.com
IIPM: An intriguing story of growth and envy
Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Friday, August 13, 2010

Mohit Khattar

Managing Director, Godrej Nature’s Basket, talks to b&e’s angshuman paul about the peculiarities of the industry and the company’s future plans

B&E: Don’t you think the Godrej Group has been too late in recognizing the potential of retailing?
MK: I can’t comment on other businesses of Godrej group but regarding Nature’s Basket, yes. Five years back, the group didn’t have any intention to foray into retail. But during the last two years, the group has moved on and we are exploring all possible opportunities for growth; and one of the biggest opportunities in recent times is in the retail industry.

B&E: Ernst & Young claims that organised retail accounts for an approximate 4% of the total retail sector market, and players are in an inordinate hurry to capture the retail sector. Is this the reason that propelled you to join the retail bandwagon?
MK: We are not into the trading business and we don’t believe in doing something just because other players are doing it. Our retail brand was an initiative to offer everything that the Indian consumers’ palate would require. Most of these are gourmet retailing, which Indian consumers have never seen before. That was the reason we rolled out Nature’s Basket.

B&E: Gourmet retailing already has brands like ‘Le Marche’ functioning. Given that, how do you think your brand is unique?
MK: We are tying up with many foreign brands and will be providing a wide array of products related to food and beverages. Moreover, we have our own food products [of the company]. We started operations in 2005 and in five years, we have done our market-research, set up our logistics and supply chain. We are fully prepared to expand our presence now and we know we won’t come across a situation where we will have to shut down a store once we’ve opened it. We have ten stores while Le Marche has just eight.

B&E: Yes, you have ten stores, but the first store was rolled out in 2005. Do you think the pace at which you’re growing is relatively slow?
MK: The type of format that we are offering [in fine dining] is very exotic and we did not want to roll out stores unless we have done our ground work. Our conscious steps have paid off; we did not have to shut down our stores like other brands had to do in Mumbai. Nature’s Basket is different in terms of the products, offerings and services that are offered. Our target audience are the people living in metros and we can’t be expanding in every nook and corner of the country.

B&E: But then, even in metros, you are present only in Mumbai and Bengaluru. Will you continue to follow this retail penetration strategy in the future too?
MK: Not really. Of course, we didn’t expand in all cities across India as we didn’t believe in going places where we don’t have a market. And then there’s no point in opening stores unless you are financially or logistically prepared for the same. In gourmet retailing, we don’t have much competitors and we are the only one having presence in two metros. We will be rolling out Nature’s Basket in other metros too by the end of this year.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Casting a spell!

From The Princess Diaries to Ella Enchanted, from giving the voice-over for Little Red Riding Hood in Hoodwinked to playing the adorable Andy Sachs in The Devil wears Prada, 27-year-old Anne Hathway certainly has become the face of all fairy-tale and fantasy movies in Hollywood. After recently playing the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, Anne is now all set for playing Emma, a Cinderella-like character in the upcoming movie, One day. From princess to queen to fairy, she surely has her audience enchanted!

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
“We will change your outlook” - The Sunday Indian on B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED! A must read...
The Sunday Indian:-
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
For Exclusive Footage by Sunday Indian Click Here

Outlook Magazine's B School Ranking Scam Exposed
Business Standard Exposes the Outlook Magazine Money Editor
Don't trust the Indian Media!

IIPM enters into media education
IIPM makes record 10,000 placements in five years
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here
Pioneer Exposes the fraud called Mahesh Sharma and Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Barbel Schwertfeger of mba-channel.com
IIPM: An intriguing story of growth and envy
Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Dr. Manish Gupta

Director, IBM Research - India & Chief Technologist, IBM India/South Asia talks at length with virat bahri of B&E on IBM’s Vision 2015 and the future of business analytics

B&E: Tell us about the Big Bets happening out of IBM India research and their implications.
MG: The research division globally places what we call big bets in certain technology areas, which usually means a $100 million investment over a five year period. There are two big bets where we are making very significant contribution. The first is the mobile web big bet. It was the first instance where a non-US lab was asked to drive the big bet. Two main reasons why India given leadership – the first is the innovation that our research team has shown. Secondly, in India, there is a revolution happening in the mobile space, both in terms of mobile phones becoming ubiquitous and in terms of the business models. They are Indian telecom companies which are under stress due to price wars but still making money at ARPUs of $5, where companies in the US are losing money at ARPUs of $50. One of the key innovations that Bharti did was to outsource IT infrastructure and network (considered core at that time) to focus on acquiring customers and maintaining relationships with them. When I give talks to universities in India, students have that perception that we take research from US and apply in India. I cite Bharti’s example and ask them, how many US companies do they know with over 100 million mobile phone subscribers. We have been a key partner of Bharti and provided certain services like billing et al at fractions of amounts that other telecom companies end up spending in the US. We have developed technologies like Snazzy and have already completed planning for Bharti when it crosses 200 million subscribers.

B&E: Research is normally perceived as a cost in most companies. How do you measure research outcomes?
MG:We have fairly well defined processes to measure the impact of research on IBM’s businesses and clients. We define research division accomplishments of different kinds – base level accomplishment, outstanding accomplishment and extraordinary accomplishment. There’s one accomplishment most common – business impact… where we measure whether the research help create more revenue for IBM or helped IBM save money. You have to have atleast $10 milion of impact before it is considered a RDA, next level is $100 million and then it is $1 billion. Another accomplishment is scientific impact. Have we created a new field or established a new direction for the research community? We also talk about Horizon 1 2 and 3. There are some projects where we are looking for an impact this year, some where we look at 5 years and there are technologies where we know we won’t make money on for the next ten years, like quantum computing.

B&E: IBM’s engineers were criticised for many years as being disconnected from the market. How is that changing now?
MG: Many many years ago, research was corporate funded and research teams would do what they wanted to do. Often there would be technologies that we would develop and competitors would take them to market first. IBM Research’s Edgar Codd developed relational databases, and yet who made the most money – Larry Ellison and Oracle! We have started working very closely with our product teams. Now we are also working very closely with clients. We now believe that true innovation has to be done in an open, collaborative manner. It has to be global and multi-disciplinary. Once you understand your clients you can come up with insights that are important.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

An electric shock or a safe recharge?

Despite promises, Reva has been struggling over the past decade to strike gold when it comes to sales. But with M&M acquiring a controlling stake in the electric carmaker, much is expected to change in the near future. So has Anand Mahindra placed an electrifyingly winning bet? by Pawan Chabra

There is also another interesting talk doing the rounds amongst auto experts. When Reva entered the UK market, it did so sans dealers, sans showrooms, sans advertising and sans salesperson – in short, like a bull skydiving sans a parachute! And guess what it had in mind – to sell its products through the online route. However, with M&M coming into the picture, Reva will find due sense being knocked into its head, as it goes on to become a mainstream automaker, thanks to M&M’s widespread distribution network. Just a niche manufacturer, no more! As for M&M, the excitement is no less. Apart from getting aggressive with the upcoming launch of Reva NXR & NXG, M&M is now looking ahead to sell the electric car in US. But what about India? Is there really a market for electric cars?

Sounds harsh, but critics argue that with around 3,000 electric vehicles on the Indian roads, it’s not Reva alone that is struggling. Players like Honda have also tasted the salt, bitter to the tee. Even the much-hyped Civic hybrid gained such a lukewarm response in the Indian showrooms that the company was forced to empty its inventory at a massive discount of Rs.800,000 on the marked price. However, there are optimists who expect that 20% of cars sold in India by 2020, would be electricity-run. Considering this, the bet placed by M&M on Reva seems to be a winning one. Further, as far as synergies between the two are concerned, Mahindra’s past record and its love for alternative fuel engines (Scorpio Micro Hybrid, for instance), the two seem to be a well-matched. “As a result of Mahindra’s investment, the new company Mahindra Reva will be able to scale, innovate and accelerate for greater electric vehicle access to consumers,” explains Maini. In fact, an internal research on past Indian mergers by B&E’s research desk supports Manni’s claim. The study conducted over a period of a decade, reveals that whenever an Indian company has acquired a “controlling stake” in another Indian firm for over $10 million, the shareholders wealth on an average, has increased by over 135% within two years of the deal; that’s a buy for the M&M stock! With a running cost of Rs.0.40/km, Reva has a clear edge in a market like India. Even the Pulitzer Prize winning Thomas Friedman has praised Reva to no ends in an op-ed column in The New York Times early this year. And are we forgetting this – M&M has just laid its hands on the top-selling electric car in the world! So whether we see a new record-breaking hybrid model from M&M (like the Toyota Prius, the largest selling hybrid) or we see the deal falling flat on its face, expectations and critics are a part of any new deal package. Surely, Maini’s got his money and M&M has got the marked “environmental” touch now, and both Anand and Maini know that India will take time to warm up to the hybrid game, but Europe and Americas are waiting!

Pawan Chabra