High on Kingfisher’s flight...

IIPM, GURGAON

The beginning of FY’05 had liquor baron Vijay Mallya salivating at the prospect of ‘flying. So he launched his Kingfisher Airlines with an all-economy configuration and competitive pricing. The aim was to be India’s largest private airline both in capacity and market share by 2010. And despite all the problems it faced or losses it suffered, Mallya has successfully achieved his target. In January 2009, Kingfisher Airlines was standing tall as the numero uno private airlines with 27.6% market share leaving Jet Airways far behind with a mere 17.9% share. Not satisfied easily and bolstered by his domestic success, last year Mallya took Kingfisher Airlines to international skies. Drinking and driving don’t mix, they say. But we guess brewing (liquor) and flying do mix well. What say?

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

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WHERE’S YOUR BRAND, DUDE?

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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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‘H’APPY ‘O’WNERS ‘N’EVER ‘D’RIVE ‘A’NYTHING (ELSE)

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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).

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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
IIPM - Admission Procedure
IIPM, GURGAON
IIPM : EXECUTIVE EDUCATION