WHERE’S YOUR BRAND, DUDE?

IIPM Global B-school

Trade pundits believe that to make their mark in the cat-eat-cat world of the world’s billion dollar fashion business, desi designers need to take some risks and evolve contemporary strategies. With a sharp growth in the world’s millionaire population, the days when luxury was still exclusive are nearly over. In India itself, despite the slowdown, dollar millionaires are growing by the day. Clearly, it’s time for crafted sophistication and exclusivity to give way to creating brands for the fast-growing premium segment of the market, mass-marketing and profit margins. The queen bee of Indian fashionistas, Ritu Kumar, who kicked off her show at the recently concluded Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WLIFW) with her new ready-to-wear, lesser priced collection, takes not a moment to agree. “We have to break the barrier that fashion is only for the rich and make it more affordable to the Indian market,” says the lady behind the 40-year-old House of Ritu Kumar, one of the oldest designer labels in the country.

Like Kumar, most India-born designers began launching prêt lines a few years ago to cash in on this growing market. Rohit Bal (Balance), Raghavendra Rathore (Inde Prêt), Kiran Uttam Ghosh (Kimono) and Rocky S (Rocky S Jeans) are among those that capitalised on the opportunity early and are still reaping the benefits. Many others, despite launching their prêt lines, have faltered in evolving simultaneous distribution reach and logistics paraphernalia. Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, for example, obtain over 85-90% of their sales via a network of departmental stores and shop-in-shop formats. In contrast, unable to stitch up deals with corporate retailers, many designers continue to sell only through their own niche couture outlets – which are limited in number and reach. “Brands like Prada and Hugo Boss became famous, not only because of their designs but also because they are supported by strong logistics & retail. In India, the retail revolution has just started,” says stylist Raghavendra Rathore.

Says designer Anita Dongre, “To appeal to buyers, you need to be unique in your offerings. To create a popular brand, you will have to figure out the budget suitable to the various target segments and create brands accordingly.” In tune with her logic, Anita too has created five brands of her own, of which ‘And’ is for the masses and ‘Timeless’ (priced at Rs.50,000 and above) is for the classes. Agrees the spokesperson for US-based Anthropologie, a buyer at WLIFW, “I feel you need to have a USP or specialisation to create a proper brand, I mean if I am here to buy something from the designers, I am looking at what unique collection he can offer to my store.” Anita’s strategy is reminiscent of the one followed by legendary designer Giorgio Armani (turnover of three billion euros today) almost two decades back and has paid off. Her organisation has been growing at 50% y-o-y. Even maverick designer Manish Arora has loaded his brand portfolio with diverse offerings across price points. Insiders say that Manish (along with Ashish Soni) has bagged maximum orders from global buyers in the WLIFW despite the slowdown. Read more

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

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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
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‘H’APPY ‘O’WNERS ‘N’EVER ‘D’RIVE ‘A’NYTHING (ELSE)

The Most Revolutionary Concept In Education PLANMAN CHE CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Supported by IIPM India’s Leading B-School

It is true that technology has been considered a dramatic core competence of Honda over the ages. Somewhere early along the line, they brilliantly converted technology into deliverable customer value and became amongst the top auto sellers of the world. The third world for decades meant only two wheeler sales, given the lack of purchasing power. And with the Hero group ensuring that world class standards were beaten time and again in the motorcycle segment with the Hero Honda JV, Honda’s focus during its 14 years of India existence never really got on to how energetic could the passenger car segment be in India. Their JV with the Bharat Ram Charat Ram convert called Sriram Industrial Enterprises Ltd notwithstanding (Honda-SIEL), cars were sold by Honda in India only for presence and only to have “Success against all odds,” the initial philosophy of the legendary Fujisawa Honda when Honda entered the extremely negative looking United States market with their motorcycles.

And that has how it has been for Honda for most of the past few years, that is, until now. The economic slowdown has suddenly brought out the sales orientation of Honda like nobody’s business. An erstwhile lumbering Honda has seen a transformation that, though not incredible, is enough radical to surprise the Wilde out of Oscar. Take their Honda Civic hybrid shock marketing warfare tactic, for example. While the Honda Civic hybrid had just sold around 60 odd units since its launch in June 2008, a smashing limited time Rs.8 lakh discount offer for a week in November 2008 got them up by a smashing 235 units within a week itself. If that seems great, think about the fact that Honda is the only company in the car industry that changes product design not for ergonomics or for design efficiency, but purely to give customers exciting variety – their new Honda City and Accord designs included. Not surprisingly, on the JD Power India Sales Satisfaction Index Study, Honda ranks a close third! That’s a brilliant vindication of the fact that consumers perhaps are going more by the sales effort during these downturn times than by other factors.

Enough said about growth; experts now say that there is a strong belief among the experts that the Honda growth till now was just a small lull before the storm and worst is still to come for the Indian automotive sector. Well, perhaps they’ve not heard of Fujisawa yet. Instead of getting worried, Honda is in fact banking big on emerging markets like India to get out of the deepening global potholes. As the ex-CEO of Honda Motors Corporation, Takeo Fukui once said, “India has less risk than China. India has political transparency and a neutral sentiment towards Japan.” It seems that the company is taking Fukui’s statement very seriously as India is clearly now one of the priority markets on their charts.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Detail of all IIPM branches
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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG)

Facebook’s new change in ‘terms of service’ is a real threat to sheer privacy of personal information!

The Most Revolutionary Concept In Education PLANMAN CHE CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Supported by IIPM India’s Leading B-School

Bill Gates had once said: “The Internet will help achieve ‘friction free capitalism’ by putting buyer and seller in direct contact & providing more information to both about each other.” He was wrong, and Facebook (where the company he founded, Microsoft, bought a 1.5% stake at a whopping $240 million) proved him so! ‘More information’; but that special power has only been granted to the ‘seller’ for now...

Today, Facebook is doubling its base of users every month (as per Fortune), and while this may sound great to all at the company, this very swelling base (which is currently estimated to touch about 175 million) might just revolt in the latest development at the networking giant! And what’s the crime? Privacy! Apparently, Facebook intends to capitalise on the wealth of information it has about its users. On February 4, 2009, Facebook changed its ‘Terms of Services’ announcing its self-proclaimed proprietorship on ‘your total account content’, even if you deactivate/delete your currently existent Facebook account. And this is how the new policy reads: “You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content; ” not really great news for Facebook fans arond the world!

Very clearly activists around the world are interpreting that the changes in ‘terms and conditions’ means that the ‘change’ means that “anything you upload on Facebook can be used by Facebook in anyway it deems fit; forever, no matter what you do later...” There’s more – Facebook also reserves the right of user content usage for ‘promotional reasons’. As per Facebook: “By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant... to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works...”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Detail of all IIPM branches
1500-plus IIPM students placed across the country with 44 bagging international offers
IIPM set to beat economic slowdown
IIPM Admission Detail
IIPM INTERNATIONAL - NEW DELHI, GURGAON & NOIDA
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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG)

Doordarshan is too staid and boring... Yeah right, so what’s new?

Ratan Lal Bhagat of 4Ps B&M screams out loud why we’re all Rip Van Winkles and why DD now has the top 10 prime time shows!!!

Does the mere mention of Krishi Darshan make you break out in teary-eyed nostalgia? Pardon our trite gluttonous presumptions, but if you’re one of those who still buy multiple rerun DVDs of extinct Doordarshan (DD, if you please) weeklies like Chitrahaar, or Chandrakanta, then this article is obviously not for you. But for all the others this side of Proxima Centauri, who truly believe – like I did before I started writing this article – that DD is as out of fashion a channel as Elton John’s atrocious dressing sense, may I kindly correct you dear gentlemen! As on date, as per TAM data, the top ten programmes watched “during Prime Time are from DD1 across all platforms.” And if that weren’t enough dope to send Cobain (god rest your soul Kurt) to eighth heaven, then eat this – DD1 now gets “the highest share even in the news time band among both Hindi and English news channels!!!” And that figure also holds in the cable and satellite platforms!

There! I said it! If you found the figures shocking and unbelievable, my advice is, take your time, as these figures don’t seem to be going away anywhere and cannot simply be wished away. DD’s fantastic rebirth seems to be more stunning than Bachchan’s in Don, and better in money terms too!

To its credit, DD – started a whopping 50 years ago in 1959 by the government – of course used to have great products ranging from the mass audience pulling Hum Log, Buniyaad, Nukkad, Fauji to the beyond legendary episodes of Ramayan and Mahabharat. These popular programmes, serials and mythological dramas did have millions glued to the channel in the eighties and even in the early nineties. The Indian audience of that era grew on the entertainment and information imparted by . But all these names faded into oblivion over time and DD seemed to be truly a thing of the past. DD, since the opening up of airwaves in 1992, evidently and slowly lost its presence and significance among the medley of sprawling general entertainment channels (GECs) across the nation; its first mover’s advantage clearly rendered useless by the entry of stalwart private channels like Star, Zee, Sony, NDTV etc.


Then what in heavens changed the equation where DD has again rocked the vogue yacht to rule again? “Reach! Reach! Reach! And of course, better viewership metrics and analysis by rating agencies,” argues Namita Chhetri, CEO, ICMR (Indian Council for Market Research). It’s astounding that currently, more than 90% of the Indian population receives DD terrestrially. Not many are aware that DD operates through as many as 30 channels – seven all India channels (DD National, DD News, DD Sports, DD Gyandarshan, DD Bharti, DD Rajya Sabha and DD Urdu), 11 regional languages satellite channels, 11 state networks and an international channel (DD India) available in 146 countries!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
The Most Revolutionary Concept In Education PLANMAN CHE CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Supported by IIPM India’s Leading B-School
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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG)

A billion dollar baby or just a midnight dream?

No doubt the company has started thinking in the direction and is continuously working on it but it really needs to be more aggressive as Victor Hugo had once said, “there is nothing like a dream to create the future.” Certainly Gupta too is more or less dreaming on the same theme, as he wants to create an independent business for Adobe in India and “if it can be a billion dollar business, then there can’t be anything better that I can think of,” he shares with 4Ps B&M. But then it’s an easy said than done task as there are not many billion dollar software businesses running today across the world. Moreover he shouldn’t forget that the best way to beat your competition, particularly in the IT arena is to come out with a technology, which is far superior to your competitor’s.

That’s surely not impossible for the company which is one of the best places to work for in the country. However, given the hiccups like broadband reach and connectivity in India the task looks a little difficult for Gupta. “The hiccups are just a part of the story but at the macro level we have made huge progress and we will continue to do so,” Gupta disagrees with us. But then Adobe India has definitely been hit by the prevailing slowdown and like others it too has lowered its Q1 forecasts for 2009. Considering this, it would really be a tough time ahead for Adobe to manage competitors that have huge cash chests. However, Gupta doesn’t seems bothered much by the fact and is all gung ho about Adobe’s Indian business. And more importantly, at a time when all the other companies are in love with the pink colour, Adobe India is planning to hire more people than the company did in 2008. Though, the company recently fired 600 people globally, none of them were from India, as it only let go people from where the projects were being shelved. Moreover, “we will continue hiring in India very aggressively and will come out with great sales and marketing strategies. And as the slowdown ends, we will be in a very good position,” claims Gupta.

The company is also exploring the possibility of striking gold in the short run by tagging ads on its products. In fact they are running a pilot with Yahoo! to make it a huge success. Keeping in mind Adobe’s massive reach, the opportunity certainly seems to be huge for it. “Our products are available on almost each and every system in place on earth. So, it is a pretty attractive business for us,” agrees Gupta. And if they can do it in a way that adds value to the advertiser, publisher and user, there is surely an opportunity for Adobe to build its business. Though Adobe doesn’t want to decide its next step unless it ends the currently running pilot but surely, the company is focusing on this area in a more aggressive mode than before. However, when we asked Gupta about the possibility of their new ads business taking over their core software project, he had a very straight forward answer, “The ad business will never replace or displace our core business.”

But considering the ambitious plans that Adobe has for India it’s sure that it’s going to face a lot of challenges in times to come. Though, they have a big ecosystem but Microsoft and Google are not those competitors that can be taken lightly. So, as we moved out of the Adobe office we still doubted Gupta’s dream of making Adobe a billion dollar business in India, but one thing that we were sure of was that the Great Indian IT story was still not over!

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
1500-plus IIPM students placed across the country with 44 bagging international offers
IIPM set to beat economic slowdown
IIPM Admission Detail
IIPM - Admission Procedure
IIPM, GURGAON

Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG)
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG)