HOD’S MESSAGE
Dear Reader, Greetings from Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay! The first decade of the 21st century was a time of unprecedented change for India. While the Indian industry confronted the challenges and opportunities of globalizaProf. Karuna Jain tion and liberalization, the nation was faced with the imperative of rapid and sustained economic growth. The second decade of the 21st century is perhaps the most critical decade for India with a tremendous opportunity for India to grow in all aspects. In such a scenario, the School believes that the premium will be on professionals who are equipped to manage human intellect and imagination, on managers who can provide innovative solutions to problems and on executives who can “deliver” when required. Also, the School espouses the belief that the use of technology would be invaluable in providing competitive strategies for overcoming all business challenges. With this in mind, the School has its quarterly e-magazine called L!VE which aims to provide an interface between the school and the industry. The magazine invites articles from industry experts, students and budding entrepreneurs with an aim to throw light on relevant issues of importance. This year the unifying theme for the next three issues of L!VE is “Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship” which are the three basic pillars on which SJMSOM rests. It gives me great pleasure to introduce the “Innovation Special” edition of L!VE which talks about some of the interesting frugal innovations emerging from India. The theme of the next two issues would be “Leadership” and “Entrepreneurship”. We thank all those who contributed towards this issue and we hope to get more articles in the future from the industry and academia and take L!VE to greater heights. With best wishes, Prof. Karuna Jain Head, Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management
IIT Bombay
EDITOR’S NOTE
Dear Readers, Ever since the liberalization of Indian economy started, Indian companies have steadily grown in their competitive strengths - be it in automobiles, Aerospace, steel, chemicals, pharma, IT, or manufacturing. The success of Indian firms can be attributed to prudent management, cost advantage and innovation. Innovation derives from the Latin word innovates which means “to renew or change”. Although the term is broadly used, innovation generally refers to the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies or ideas that affect markets, governments, and society. This edition of L!VE is based on the theme of innovation with the cover story focusing on innovation at grassroots level in our country. The story explores those innovations in India which seldom reach the limelight . Also in this edition we have articles which deal with how to create an online presence using inbound marketing and an analytical report on the influence of personality traits on customer oriented service. We revisit the concept of Lean management through the eyes of Prof Owen Berkley in the Experts speak section.One of our alumni throws light on where the cloud technology is heading in the future in the face to face section. Our Start-up story section features a fast growing SMS service company called SMSGupshup.This edition also features the winning articles of L!VE article writing competition on the oil crisis and surrogate advertising. With challenges like corruption and terrorism haunting the Indian growth story in recent times I hope some innovation comes as a guiding light to take us past these dark times. Happy reading! Aditya Kaul Editor-in-Chief
TEAM L!VE
Abhishek Mishra
Aditya Kaul
Akansha Gupta
Gowtham Muhtukkumaran T
Manish Kumar
Sujata Murmu
CONTENTS
START UP STORY 02
19 | SMS Gupshup
BIZ WITS 23 | Quetzal
COVER STORY
BOOK REVIEW
02 | Grassroot Innovations-The Indian Story
25 | The Difficulty of being good
RESEARCH LABS 06 | Influence of Personality Traits on customer oriented service behavior and service recovery
CREATIVE BLEND 12
27 | Logos beyond the design 30 | Football in India??
FACE TO FACE
SOM-thing SPECIAL
08 | Sudip Mazumdar
32 | Continuums@SJMSOM, IIT BOMBAY
EXPERTS SPEAK 10 | The Age of Inbound Marketing 12 | Please, once again, what exactly is lean?
STUDENTS SPEAK 13 | The next Oil Shock 15 | Implicit Positioning and Surrogate Advertising 17 | Winning in Diverse Markets through supply chain flexibility
34 | NDTV Budget Session
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35 | YI Tree Plantation 36 | IR@IIT Bombay 37 | Avenues 2011
COVER STORY AKANSHA GUPTA, SJMSOM, IIT BOMBAY
GRASSROOT INNOVATIONS - THE INDIAN STORY The Oxford dictionary defines innovation as “A new method, idea or product.” According to another definition Innovation is defined as a process by which varying degrees of measurable value enhancement is planned and achieved in any commercial activity by the introduction of new or improved goods, services and processes.Simply put any novel idea, method or product should qualify in the real sense to be called an innovation. I recently came across an article from the New York Times which discussed the issue of lack of innovation in India. The
tries such as Trinidad and Tobago, Romania and Latvia edged out India in the survey that polled businessmen from several countries and relied on data sets from the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Most innovation indices rank countries on the basis of their research spending as a proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP) and number of scientific publications and their patent
“Historical reasons, excessive Government control in some sectors, and lack of avenues to raise money are some of India’s present difficulties on the innovation front.” article debates the point, “Why hasn’t India itself produced an Apple, Google or Microsoft and can India actually innovate?” The article cites historical reasons, excessive Government control in some sectors, and lack of avenues to raise money for some of India’s present difficulties on the innovation front. Another pointer that points to the low level of innovation in India is the Global index on innovation. The so called devel-
output and other newer parameters. We need to raise a question here that is innovation just restricted to these parameters? Shouldn’t it be more broad-based and not necessarily confined to laboratories? There are several innovations in India’s agriculture and other sectors that can’t be captured by citations or patents and most of them go unnoticed. Getting back to the definition of innovation doesn’t any novel idea, method or
“There are several innovations in agriculture and other sectors that can’t be captured by citations or patents and most of them go unnoticed. ”
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oped world has come up with indices and rankings for innovation recognizing the key role of innovation as a driver of economic growth and prosperity. One such index is the Global Innovation Index (GII) which is recognized worldwide as a valuable benchmarking tool to facilitate publicprivate dialogue, whereby policymakers, business leaders and other stakeholders can evaluate progress on a continual basis.
product qualify for an innovation?
India ranks 97 out of 124 participating countries on the Creative outputs index, 47 out of 132 in the Innovation potential index and 25th out of 132 in the Innovation Ecosystem index according to the Global Innovation Index 2009-10 developed by INSEAD e Lab. In short the rankings throw a very poor image of India in terms of innovation. Another such rankings declared that India ranks 56th in the world in terms of innovation last year. Smaller coun-
What should we call this? Is this not innovation?
Does innovation translate only into world class products? Textbooks preach that Innovation can happen both in process and in product. After the Indian government opened its economy, Indian IT vendors created a global delivery model and thus a new business model.
It is true that not much is being done in innovation on the product side, but that too is changing with the Nano car and other real innovations that have made life simpler at the grassroots and as the Indian economy matures there will definitely be more product based innovation. Innovation is not just thinking of new ideas and products
COVER STORY
“Innovation is not just thinking of new ideas and products but using ideas from one section and applying
it to another. There are several unique innovations in India that truly fit this description and are not much known.
”
but using ideas from one section and applying it to another. There are several unique innovations in India that truly fit this description and are not much known. Let us have a look at a few of these and the stories behind them and see for ourselves whether India is truly lacking in innovative and creative ideas. Innovative Solutions: Nano Ganesh- A boon for Farmers “ Nano Ganesh “- A revolutionary electronic device manufactured by Ossian Agro Automation, a company working in the field of rural automation, since the last 15 years.
Operation of irrigation pumps in villages and rural locations in India is difficult due to the many problems like fluctuations in power supply, difficult terrain, fear of animals on the way to pumps, hazardous locations of the pumps along the river or water storage beds, shock hazards, rains etc. Nano Ganesh was a result of a resolution by an engineering graduate to provide a solution to this problem prevalent in the rural agricultural landscape.
It is a GSM Mobile based remote control system exclusively for use with water pump sets in agricultural areas. A farmer has to simply dial a number dedicated for a Nano Ganesh set and then punch his on or off code for the control of
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COVER STORY the pump set. It can be connected to any existing electrical starter and motor pump. Hence, there is no necessity of replacing the pump set. The innovation makes unnecessary multiple trips to the fields to start the pump that waters the fields and has made life a lot better for those people who sweat it out in the fields to provide us food to eat. Nano Ganesh not only helps farmers but also saves water and electricity. It is a boon in overcoming water management-related problems and saves precious water for the farmers. Farmers in many of the states in India pay for electricity based on the power (in HP) of the motors they use. This has resulted in a tendency to keep the motors on for long periods of time, leading to excess water being pumped into the fields. This in turn gradually reduces the fertility of the land. These problems arise mainly from the inability of the farmers to switch off their motors in time. This is the first time that a ‘remote control’ that uses wireless-link technology is made available to farmers. Recently, Nano Ganesh has been awarded as the best mobile application in the world in the emerging market by Forum Nokia. Santosh Ostwal, the person behind this innovative solution has received many prestigious awards like, Mr. Engineer from The Institution of Engineers, Pune, Parkhe Award from MCCIA,Pune and Wantrapreneur Award from Villgro etc.
The thought of creating paper from elephant poo first came to the innovative duo while on a trip up the Amber Fort in Jaipur. More than a hundred pachyderms help tourists make the climb each day, inevitably leaving a lot of roughage along the way. There was dry elephant dung underfoot, and suddenly, it struck them how similar it looked to the raw fibre from which paper is made. Elephants apparently have a bad digestive system, which makes their dung highly fibrous, resulting in good quality paper. After a year of experimentation the paper was successfully launched and is creating buzz in the market. This innovative company has created various other useful and innovative products using the same smelly raw material
Innovative Ideas: Elephant Poo Paper-Go Green..!!
Creating value out of something as obnoxious as Elephant dung requires a really creative bent of mind. Yes it is true that the paper is made from elephant dung! The brainchild of retailer Mahima Mehra and Jaipur-based handmade paper producer, Vijendra Shekhawat, this paper, christened “Haathi Chaap” meaning “Elephant Print” is creating quite an impact in Indian and international markets.
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like bags, notebooks, stationery, coasters and many more. They are based in Delhi and cater not only to requirements from India but Germany and UK as well! This is a major step towards going green and would help a long way in saving trees from being cut down merely to produce paper.
COVER STORY Innovative Marketing: Phokat Copy PhokatCopy is an innovative business idea that provides subsidized photocopying to students and in return, serves them ads on the backside of each photocopy.
Essentially, Phokatcopy service enables you to avail certain discount per photocopy and for every 20 sheet that you photo copy, you get a pin card.You need to register the PIN via the website/sms, accumulate points and redeem them via advertisers’ service. This initiative links student needs with an innovative marketing strategy, providing an opportunity for highly streamlined advertising, with targeted brand visibility to impact this demographic. Innovation at the Grassroots A section of rural people in West Bengal have devised a TV set around which people can sit and watch from all the four sides. Someone else has worked out a fishing rod that gives off an alarm when a fish bites the bait. A bullock cart with brakes and a cycle made of wood are other grassroots innovations coming from the same state. But most of such innovations continue to remain at rudimentary stages unless they catch the eyes of a venture capitalist. This is the main problem with grassroots innovations in rural areas in India. They hardly scale up. But by harness-
ing the creativity of its grassroots entrepreneurs India can sustain its long-term economic growth. Till now, no matter how innovative the initiatives are, their impact is confined only to local or regional markets. Tremendous amount of effort is needed to cross-pollinate and scale up these bright
ideas among India’s large agricultural community which lives scattered across more than 600,000 villages. Most grassroots innovations aim to solve a problem which the innovators and other people around them might be facing. But, due to lack of financial support, most of the innovations remain just within the circle of the innovator and those within the same small community. To solve this problem Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network, popularly known as GIAN, was set up in 1997. This was soon followed up with the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) – a venture supported by India’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. GIAN identifies promising innovations, does the market research, develops business plans and provides risk capital. SRISTI is another non-governmental organisation set up to strengthen the creativity of grassroots inventors, innovators and ‘ecopreneurs’ engaged in conserving biodiversity and developing eco-friendly solutions to local problems. More and more such efforts can help make India an inventive and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies.
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RESEARCH LABS Siddhartha Sarkar, Phd, SJMSOM, IIT BoMbAY
THE INFLUENCE OF PERSONALITY TRAITS ON CUSTOMER ORIENTED SERVICE BEHAVIOUR AND SERVICE RECOVERY
Increasing competition and customers’ expectations has forced service firms to distinguish themselves on the basis of service quality. Delivery of quality service is the responsibility of service personnel of the firms. For most of the service organizations the nature of customer and employee interaction is personal and dyadic. The personal interaction component of services is often a primary determinant of the customer’s overall satisfaction. Customer oriented service behaviour is an individual construct and central to the service organization’s market orientation. Behaviour is influenced by individual’s personality traits and with the situation in which the individual finds himself/herself. In service firms the behaviour of employees is influenced by the customers they contact and interact. From a customer’s point of view the behaviour of a service employee is equally important in the first encounter and in the subsequent service encounters. As mistakes and failures are inevitable in service encounters, the behaviour of service personnel is found to be of critical importance. Thus, the service personnel play a crucial role in service firms and their selection should not be taken lightly. There could be 16 personality trait factors that make a person to behave in a certain way and account for individual differences between people. The latest “big five” fundame-
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ntal factors were identified and they determine about individual differences. Research on personality has also explored personality and work performance relationships. Overall work performance can be contextual and task performance, where the task performance relates to the technical core of the job and the contextual performance is relevant to broader social and organizational environment in which the behaviours relevant to the technical core are conducted. Consciousness was linked to performance across all job types. Personality trait of extraversion and agreeableness are positively associated with workers’ service performance ratings that are provided by managers. Customer orientation is a combination of three basic personality traits i.e., adjustment, sociability, and agreeableness. Previous study revealed that emotionally instable workers are short of customer oriented behaviour whereas workers’ agreeability trait increases their customer orientation. Personality predicts the behaviour of a person under different situations. This article tries to explore the influence of “big five” personality traits on customer oriented service behaviour and service recovery performance. Customer orientation as a main fundament of the relationship marketing concept which defines as an employee’s
RESEARCH LABS tendency or predisposition to meet customer needs in an on-the-job context. There are two dimensions of customer oriented service behaviour i.e. needs dimension (ability to satisfy customer needs) and enjoyment dimension which have a significant relation with sales performance. Customer orientation is the degree with which salesperson practices the marketing concept by helping in satisfaction of customer needs. Customer oriented service behaviour involves not only in-role behaviours but also extra role behaviours that may be voluntary and non-compensable.
line staff plays a crucial role in each service recovery and they are the first port of call for a disgruntled customer.
Service recovery has been identified as a critical issue in retaining customer loyalty and satisfaction with the service firms. Effective service recoveries result in positive word of mouth, satisfaction and repurchase intention. Service recovery efforts play a crucial role in achieving (or restoring) customer satisfaction. In spite of growing importance of service recovery in service firms the service recovery performance of service (frontline) employees is relatively unexplored. The effectiveness of service recovery is highly influenced by the frontline staff. Research studies on antecedents of service recovery performance of frontline employees considered the perceptions of managerial attitudes and working environment. These studies also found that ef
Extraversion (or introversion), which is a part of “Big five” personality traits, represents the degree to which a person is outgoing. It was found that the higher the degree of introversion the lower the customer orientation of the worker. Extraversion is said to be a significant predictor of extra role behaviour. Stability represents the steadiness or evenness of a person’s emotional makeup. Instability is negatively related with customer oriented service behaviour. An instable employee would not be able to stand up for an aggrieved customer’s frustration or anger and dissatisfaction in a service recovery context following a service failure.
fective service recovery leads to the employee job satisfaction which enhances their future customer orientation. Frontline staff plays a key role in anticipating customers’ needs, customizing the service delivery, and building personalized relationships. Prior research studies have shown that frontline employees are very effective in estimating the service level which customers perceive the firm to offer. Generally, frontline staff receives very little formal job training and often work with minimal supervision. Front-
The model aims to measure the effects of “Big five” personality traits viz. conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness on the customer oriented service behaviour (COSB) and service recovery performance (SRP) of the frontline employees. Also, the research model aims to identify the relation between customer oriented service behaviour and service recovery performance.
The agreeability dimension of personality of a person represents the extent to which an individual tends to behave in a good-natured, cooperative, flexible, and tolerant manner. Highly agreeable employees have an empathetic feeling for their customers. Such employees possess the desire to solve customers’ problems and derive personal satisfaction from helping others. In the service recovery context customers require the service employee to understand their state of dissatisfaction and frustration due to failure and need personal attention for service recovery. Conscientiousness is the degree of orderliness, precision and organization. It is linked to performances across all job types. It may reflect a task orientation, or a need on the part of the service worker to get the job done correctly. The final dimension is openness to experience which represents the degree of imagination and originality. People who reveal openness to experience are likely to be tolerant of ambiguity. Effective service recovery performance results in higher job satisfaction for frontline service employees and makes employees to get pleased with their efforts and intention to do more good service for their customers.
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FACE TO FACE
sudip mazumder
Sudip Mazumder is currently the Head of Partner Alliance - UK & Continental Europe, Microsoft Strategic Relationship at Cognizant Technology Solutions.
What are the downsides to moving to Cloud Computing? Cloud computing is going to make business more cost effective, operationally efficient, and scalable. Per se, it does not have any downsides. However, it may take some more time to take off than was estimated. The concerns that are raised by the industry are identity, security and access management of the Computing infrastructure esp. in today’s evermore volatile politico-economical situation. There may be additional attitudinal factor called ‘status quo’ i.e. not having the drive to change. Regulatory issues also are continuously challenging Cloud computing. Having said all these sides Gartner predicts at least 30% of the Fortune 1000 companies will have at least one business critical system on cloud by 2015. 90% of the Microsoft’s investments in R&D for new products are related to Cloud alone which clearly reflects the ‘Cloud’ reality. What is the scope and future of cloud computing in India ? According to IDC the Cloud Computing market size will grow from 67 MN USD in 2009 at a CAGR of 40%. A management consultancy firm Zinnov which has done a study called ‘Cloud Computing – way forward in India’ in which they have estimated 1.4 BN market size by 2015. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg; the initial sluggishness will still be a factor in slow uptake as evident from the market size. India has 1.4 million developers, over 11000 system integrators and more than 1300 independent software vendors.
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In fact, Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer had opined in the press that “India will not only see a surge in cloud computing services but companies all over the world will look to India to support their transition to cloud computing.’’ India has huge potential to adhere to cloud given the size of the country and its SMB sector alone. You have a diverse experience in the IT consulting domain with many shifts and jumps. What was the experience like? In one word, it has been ‘fascinating’. I have seen some Product and Service line ‘envelopes’ and ‘sub-envelopes’ unfolding during this time. If you take the example of CRM as Service line alone, it started with a Client server architecture, moved on to web based transactional CRM, brought in light touch Analytical CRM on web-based CRM, then came CRM as on demand along with rich web-based analytical CRM coupled with enrichment of web technologies and so on. I still remember managing the first deployment of web based CRM product Siebel 7.0.3 in India for TCS sales team spread across globally. The challenges in that version in terms of technology, architecture and deployment were so huge that the IT folks were even doubtful about selling the product! I even tried with Siebel 7.0.3 deployment on Citrix which was equally ‘jerky’ in the early 2000 ! I have observed the fall of CRM as a standalone CRM and its gradually getting integrated with ERP, DW and Marketing. I have also seen the consolidation of Application product companies and infrastructure providers as the industry maturity progressed.
FACE TO FACE Is there a vast difference between technology progresses in the Foreign markets as compared to the Indian context? Indian companies are generally not the early adopters of technology though some of the companies have done a wonderful job compared to their foreign counterparts. One such example is ICICI Bank retail banking expansion enabled by it smart and forward-looking technology based approach to bring in a revolution in mass banking on internet. I can personally compare the websites for transaction banking of large banks like Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC, Lloyds Banking vis-à-vis ICICI Bank. I can safely say that in terms of user friendliness, functionality, look n feel, security etc… it is one of the bests! However overall, lead-lag will continue between the developed market and India in the foreseeable future… in my opinion. What are your views on the IT Industry in India and where do you see it heading in the near future? I feel the global mobility of Indian IT Industry will be coming down in the near future, off shoring will continue to increase, infrastructure will improve due to investments from abroad to support the global majors, Cloud computing will take off esp. for the SMB sector which is a huge market in India, competition with China will intensify. I think there will be some kind of easing of differences in price and perceived value between the global IT majors such as Accenture, IBM, Cap Gemini and ‘Indian software service providers’ i.e. TCS, Infosys, Wipro etc. What are the differences between career opportunities in Systems abroad as compared to India?
What has your SOM experience been like and what do you think we could do to keep up with the changes in the industry? SOM experience has been great! Starting from the words of Prof. Mangesh Korgaonkar that “in IIT we feel the need to put you through grinding wheels as you will not be able to say ‘no’ to you corporate bosses” to Professor S G Deshmukh’s words that ‘I am also learning from you guys’… It has been a process of changing my thinking horizon that enabled me to challenge the existing paradigm. My recommendation will be … IIT, being one of the best brands in the world, build on its strength. The strength is in thinking and writing i.e. creating IP which is long standing. Apart from doing the class, daily studies, reading the business magazines, doing analysis on behavior of the companies etc. please do research. Take up topics, write a synopsis, refine it and approach the Industry to sponsor and publish in journals both Indian and foreign journals as well. Do research on social issues, inter-departmental in nature with a management outlook. There are organizations who will be interested in taking IIT facility and associations to increase their visibility and in return, they will provide access to the data and information. One such example will be doing research on women’s health issues in the changing demographical and psycho graphical characteristics. These researches will also help in contributing to the society as level and number of researches in many such areas is abysmally low in India. Increase industry interactions by networking through SOM Alumni and IIT B network. People will love to come back to their alma mater to interact on topics of relevance. Any advice for you juniors?
I think India is the land of opportunities as far as systems are concerned. One of the contributing factors is commoditization and consumerization of IT which needs scale. India could and still is delivering on scale better compared to the other global markets.
Be confident that you guys are at par with the bests in India and perhaps in the world in your trade. Have humility, learn to communicate and don’t be afraid to take new initiatives and execute it. Lastly, there is no shortcut.
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EXPERTS SPEAK
mandar marathe The Age of Inbound Marketing Mandar Marathe works as an Account Director at Reprise Media India. His previous stints include being a Software Engineer at Infosys and a Technology Manager at Digitas. Mandar holds a MBA from Texas A&M, USA and a B.E in Computer Science fromVJTI, Mumbai. He loves the outdoors, traveling by train and eating roadside food. If not a digital marketeer, he’d be an adventure tour guide, a travel show host or a hippie ;) ‘Aaj ki raat, koi aane ko hai, re baba re baba”. My MERU cab driver picked up his mobile and answered his call centre guy. Then he showed me the Imran Khan Coke commercial on his cell phone. “Sahab, Coke ka naya Ad aaya hai”. Coca Cola India had launched its TV commercial via an SMS blast, nine days before it was aired on television and this had happened for the first time in India’s digital history.
people and are increasingly ineffective. In inbound marketing, instead of interrupting people with information about themselves, businesses create useful content that potential customers want to receive. Instead of driving their message into a crowd like a sledgehammer, the purpose of inbound marketing is to attract interested prospects many of which turn out to be highly qualified customers. In effect it acts like a magnet for a firm’s best customers.
Every Marketer right now is doing digital but not everyone in India is doing it the right way. When asked how marketers in India generate leads and fill the top of their sales funnel, most of them say trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising. Let us spare a thought for all those who switch on a television set to watch a cricket match or something of interest or open up a newspaper to read an interesting article. Most people have a limited attention span and do not want to be disturbed by advertising. But the sad truth is that most advertisers end up doing just that. They browbeat their consumers with irrelevant ads and that defeats the actual purpose of advertising. The fact that people are no longer receptive to intrusions and the recent financial crisis have further put pressure on marketers to find more effective ways of marketing.
What is Inbound Marketing?
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Outbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing
The goal of using inbound marketing is to get Print Ads found by one’s best customers by creating an Television Ads online presence that attracts qualified web visitors and leads. Cold Calling
Blogs, Ebooks, White Papers
In outbound marketing, companies focus Trade Shows on finding customers. They use techniques that are often poorly targeted and interrupt Email Blasts
Webinars
Viral YouTube Videos Search Engine Optimization Feeds, RSS
EXPERTS SPEAK Components of Inbound Marketing
Inbound vs Outbound Marketing
Successful Inbound Marketing campaigns have three essential components:
Inbound marketing has three major advantages over outbound marketing.
1. Content - Content is the fundamental element of Inbound marketing. Businesses are able to draw potential customers only by creating valuable content that subsequently draws the prospects to a company’s website to learn more. Content may be in the form of blogs, videos, white papers or e-books.
1. It Costs Less – The three components of Inbound Marketing—content creation, SEO, and social media—incur low to no cost in addition to saving in human effort. Undoubtedly, employees of a business need to spend time on writing blog articles, optimizing the company website for search, and promoting content on social media, but they are likely spend lesser time than those planning large-scale marketing campaigns. Given the low cost of the tools it utilizes, Inbound marketing is overall less costly.
2. Search Engine Optimization - SEO refers to building both a website and inbound links to the site to optimize search rankings. It makes it easier for potential customers to find a business’s content. It is the step to be taken after content creation that would increases the visibility of content on search engines and thus its likelihood to be found. 3. Social Media - Social media amplifies the impact of a business’s content. A business can both distribute content across social networks and consolidate its brand by creating its business page. Sharing content across personal networks makes it appear authentic, while creating business pages offers a business more opportunities to make its content known. Many social channels exist – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Forums & Blogs being the notable ones.
2. It Targets Interested Prospects – Techniques like mass email campaigns and TV advertisements are designed to reach a large number of audiences. While they maximize the reach to prospects, they often neglect to address individual attributes, which are key to triggering the interests of a diverse group of people. Outbound marketing might therefore not be able to maximize the pool of interested prospects. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, draws only those who show interest in the content of a business. Self-qualification is embedded in the process of finding a business through search engines or social media. Leads that inbound marketing attracts are therefore of higher quality, which may shorten the sales cycle or increase the closing rate. 3. ROI Increases Over Time – At the start of implementation of Inbound marketing it might take some time for employees to become familiar with the different tools and techniques to create, promote, and optimize content. The additional cost incurred gets paid off as long as a business practices inbound marketing consistently and vehemently. As employees develop expertise they invest less time on implementation and as a result the brand grows, contributing to an increase in the return of investment on the Inbound Marketing Campaign. Unlike outbound marketing, which may become an on-going expense, a business can create the image of a resource hub through inbound marketing and grow the quantity of prospects with increasingly lower cost.
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EXPERTS SPEAK Owen Berkley
Please, once again, what exactly is Lean? Owen Berkley-Hill is currently a visiting professor at Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay.He has a rich 19 year experience of working with the Ford motor company.He is a Six Sigma Black Belt and an expert in the area of Lean Management. His other areas of specialities are Six Sigma, Process Improvement, Facilitation, developing and delivering kaizen training material and coaching etc. The reason I ask this question is because Lean has been around for about two decades (if we define its genesis as the publication of The Machine that Changed the World in 1990). According to Richard Schonberger, the half-life of management ideas is around five years, and so Lean should have been overtaken by some other management fad, or been distorted by accidental (and possibly deliberate) misuse. I see signs of both. From my perspective, by now Lean should have spread wider than the shop floor and manufacturing. To some extent it has, as witnessed by the interest shown in the health and public sectors. However there are levels of misunderstanding that make me wonder if the Lean community is not doing enough to get its message across. Lean competes with IT, Off-shoring and Outsourcing, and when the chips are down it comes a poor second. There is the faction (Toyota Taliban) that believes that Lean is a subset of the Toyota way which you can only understand if you’ve spent a considerable amount of time at Toyota, dining on an exclusive diet of Ohno. Advocates of Lean Six Sigma suggest you need both because Lean only focuses on eliminating waste while Six Sigma minimizes variation. And some believe, Lean is not effective in improving non-manufacturing process. I prefer the inclusive view of Lean as catalogued in John Bicheno’s series of “tool boxes”. I would go further and say that Lean could possibly be the basis of an emerging and radical management philosophy which owes a lot to Toyota, but not exclusively. However, if Lean had taken a firm hold on management thinking as I had hoped: 1.) Every business school would base their lucrative MBAs on Lean Thinking and not confine it to an optional topic below something called Operations
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in which no one is interested as Manufacturing is a shrinking sector. 2.) Every Dean of every business school would now have a thorough grounding in Lean and would have notched up around 20 papers which pushed the boundaries of our knowledge. 3.) Business leaders would not follow, lemming like, and outsource and offshore departments and functions, purely based on labour costs. 4.) The IT fraternity would base its infant analysts’ education on Lean so that their knee-jerk responses in later life would not be to cut more code (I believe IT could play a big role in making the right information flow flawlessly as a necessary aid to value flowing flawlessly) 5.) Lean watering holes like this group and those at other Lean sites (e.g. the Forum at www.lean.org) would be peopled primarily from the Gemba and Change Sponsors, and not exclusively by us Change Agents. When I began my Lean journey over a decade ago, I enjoyed learning from my ex-Toyota coaches. However, my inspiration was Konosuke Matsushita and the speech he made to visiting business leaders in 1979. His inspiration convinced me that Lean is unique among the competing methodologies and philosophies: Lean is about inspiring the workforce to improve, not getting experts to improve them. The bedrock of this version of Lean is an obsessive compulsive disorder called Kaizen which gets every employee making an improvement or two every month. So, what exactly is Lean and has it had its day?
STUDENTS SPEAK GAUTAM GOGOI, VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur
The NEXT OIL SHOCK
Crude oil consumption (at today’s price) accounts for an outrageous 5% of the world’s GDP. This huge number and the huge dependence on oil is the reason why so many decisions at the global level are inherently linked in someway to oil. As such spikes in oil prices have been mostly followed by major global economic downturns. Even the 2008 crisis (although not directly linked with higher oil prices) was preceded by oil prices breaking the $100 barrier. The clashes in Libya between the forces of Gaddafi and the rebels have resulted in halving of Libya’s oil output. Although Libya supplies only 1% of the global oil output, it has still resulted in higher oil prices with prices touching the $120 mark. Even the revolution in Egypt (an oil importer) resulted in increase of oil prices by more than $5 because it acts as a vital conduit through the Suez Canal and through the SUMED pipeline for Europe. So what impact can a oil crisis have? Crude oil currently accounts for about 5.0 per cent of the world’s GDP. So, a rise in $20 per barrel on average crude prices would increase the world oil expenditure by 1 per cent. As the oil companies will not spend all of it immediately, global demand would fall by nearly 1%. The higher oil price will lead to inflationary conditions which will lead to tightening of monetary policy. This will have a multiplier effect on the GDP which will decline by more than 1%. This effect would vary across economies but it will be more severe if price increase is expected to last for some time. A temporary spike will only lead to consumers utilizing their savings to increase their energy expenses. Increase in fuel prices leads to a dilemma whether to loosen
or tighten the monetary policy. On one hand, higher fuel prices acts as an extra tax which calls for loosening of monetary policy. On the other hand they also lead to an increase in inflation which calls for tightening the monetary policy to control it. There are fears and concerns that an oil shock now will lead to a deceleration in the recovery process as the developed countries are still recovering from the 2008 crisis. The developing countries are on the other hand suffering from high inflation. India’s inflation rate is more than 9% and China’s inflation rate is around 5%. But the monetary policies are quite loose in these countries. So we can expect further tightening in case of an oil spike. But that will again lead to slowdown of their growths.
The special thing about oil is its ubiquity and its inelastic nature. As it is such an important source of energy, demand goes down only marginally after a price rise. People tend to cut expenses on other things to accommodate the price increase. This situation is also made worse by governments absorbing the price rise which break the demand supply cycle and prevents a reduction in consumption corresponding to the price rise.
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STUDENTS SPEAK of 2008 after Saudi Arabia makes up for Libya’s share (Fig-2). The consumption of China, India and other developing countries are also rising sharply. Middle East and North Africa, which are highly unstable areas, account for more than one-third of the world’s total oil production. Saudi Arabia has a large pool of disillusioned teenagers who have been kept pacified with the result of huge government spending. A crisis in these regions can lead to serious supply problems leading to even a complete breakdown of the oil market. Apart from demand and supply, fear also plays a big role in determining the price of oil as seen in the case of Libya. The mismatch between demand and supply has been growing. Total demand has grown by an extraordinary 2.7 million barrels per day in 2010 (International Energy Agency). It is expected to keep growing at 1.5 million barrels per day in 2011 and 2012 on account of the growing demand in the developing countries and the recovery of the developed nations. On the other hand supplies have grown negligibly. Infact expansion in non-OPEC sources is expected to be negligible. So are we heading for another oil shock? The Libyan oil crisis has been negated by utilizing the spare capacity of Saudi Arabia. The nations are also well prepared for oil spikes unlike earlier times as they have oil reserves for such situations. The US Strategic Oil reserve can cover for a period of around 50 days. The developed nations have also reduced the amount of oil used per unit of output (Fig-1). Infact Europe is using lesser oil (total consumption) today than what it was using in 1980. A shift has also occurred to more fuel efficient vehicles and towards fuel substitutes from plants. The high price has also made it profitable to explore new supplies which were uneconomic to exploit earlier. But when oil markets operate at the boundaries of supply capacities, even the smallest new disruption can have a disproportionately huge effect. The present spare capacity of OPEC is also going down. The spare capacity as a % of demand will become lower than what it was during the crisis
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The same dynamics which resulted in the Oil spike of 2008 is reasserting itself. An oil shock is evident in the near future. Ways of avoiding this are well known like using more energy efficient appliances, developing and utilizing renewable sources of energy, carbon trading, etc. But not much headway has been made in that direction and we are still heavily dependent on oil. Maybe the impending shock will change the world like the 1970 crisis and lead to the start of the end of our dependence on oil. Such a change will be a good thing but we need to be wary of the costs involved in such a change and also be wary of the problems that can be caused during such a transition. References1. http://www.economist.com/node/18281774 2. http://www.economist.com/node/182857683. http://www.economist.com/node/18291511 4. http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2011/02/24/howbig-is-the-2011-oil-price-shock/
STUDENTS SPEAK PRERNA V NAGPAL, wellingkar, mumbai
IMPLICIT POSITIONING AND SURROGATE ADVERTISING
“ Advertising is a non-moral force, like electricity, which not only illuminates but electrocutes. Its worth to civilization depends upon how it is used.” - J. Walter Thompson
Let me start with an ad that is etched in our memories and we dance to its tunes: “Dance on the clubboat, a group of party people in the age of 25 -40 years have a glass which seems like having water in it. After that music starts in advertisement “be watcha you wanna be” and young people dance and then the ad closes with Bacardi brand showing bat as their logo and in the end -says cassettes and cd’s available on SONY. This is surrogate advertising. Surrogate advertising means duplicating brand image of one product extensively in order to promote another product. Origin of this trend Advertising is widely accepted to be the most potent tool in the hand of a marketer. Whether it is to launch a new product, entrench an existing one, educate on the new salient features or create a new market, most consumer products manufacturers orient a considerable amount of time, energy and money to reaching out to existing and potential consumers though various media. Direct advertising of tobacco/alcohol and other products was rampant before the enforcement of tobacco control legislation in India. Billboard advertising of international and domestic brands of cigarettes and chewable forms of tobacco was a common sight. But now all direct advertising of tobacco products in all media has been prohibited with the enforcement of National Legislation. Cable Television Network (Regulation) Amendment Bill,2000, which completely prohibits cigarette and alcohol advertisements, which directly and indirectly promote sale of these products (enacted from September 8, 2000).The ban has spawned a generation of surrogate marketing initiatives as corporations learnt to sell without communicating to the consumer.
• ‘Wills’ (brand of ITC, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco) used to sponsor Indian cricket team/matches. • Tennis tournaments were sponsored by ‘Gold Flake’ cigarette (brand of Godfrey Phillips India Ltd. -GPI, a subsidiary of Phillip Morris). Boat racing was sponsored by ‘Four Square’ cigarettes (brand of GPI). • Charms’, a cigarette brand sponsored the ‘Spirit of freedom concert’, a musical event. • ‘Manikchand’, manufacturers of gutkha (chewing tobacco), patronized the Filmfare awards ceremony. Trends after the enforcement In this context, one can imagine the predicament of a producer who is mandated to legally produce and stock and then has his hands tied by being denied the right to market the produce. This is a ditch that many liquor and cigarette companies have found themselves in after the enforcement. Most of the large players adapted quickly to introducing what are termed as complimentary products which fell outside the ambit of the Government’s regulation. After the ban imposed on the 12 advertisements identified as surrogates by the Government of India, and the show-cause notices issued to Star TV, Zee TV and Aaj Tak in 2002 under the provisions of the Cable Tele-vision Regulation Act of 2002, the whirlwind of surrogate ads hitting the telly calmed down to a large extent. Advertisers started diversifying and shifted their focus to other advertising avenues
Trends before the enforcement Sponsorship of sports events and cultural events by tobacco and alcohol industry.
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STUDENTS SPEAK which often stretched the concept of brand extension to previously unheard-of levels to perpetuate brand recall among the target audience. Let me quote some examples. Brand Seagrams (Alcohol) Mc Dowells Bagpiper Red and White Bacardi Kingfisher Four Square White Wills lifestyle Goa Gutkha, Pan Parag Gutkha Johny Walker 502 Pataka Smirn off, Aristrocrat
The Drift between the industry and Government
Surrogate Compact discs. Water and Soda Water and Soda, Casseetes and Compact discs. Bravery Awards Cassettes and Compact discs Water and Calendars Water Rafting and Gliding Apparels, Accessories Pan Masala Soda 502 Pataka chai Apple Juices
Advertising paan masala/mouth fresheners bearing the same brand name as tobacco products is a common practice. Sponsorship of sports and cultural events is widely being undertaken by alcohol companies in India. “Royal stag”
sponsors Indian cricket matches. “Shaw Wallace” sponsored the Indian open golfing event as the Royal Challenge Indian open and the Kenya cricket team. Kingfisher promotes their liquors, beers and whiskies, which constitutes 95% revenues of the UB group, by different strategies like they owned a cricket team ROYAL CHALLENGERS Bangalore and launching India’s costlier calendars which are limited in edition. One interesting trend which was observed in the mid 2000s was the “socially responsible advertising” taken up by many liquor companies. Several advertisements exhorting viewers to be responsible citizens and refrain from driving
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after drinking were seen by media analysts as a form of surrogacy.
Government feels that promoting these brands has influence on young minds , recruits new drinkers, increase sales among heavy drinkers. In 2005 Health minister Anbumani Ramadoss alleged that the tobacco industry was directly paying cinema stars to smoke in films. When millions of people give polio drops to their children inspired by Amitabh Bachchan’s appeal, the impact of smoking scenes is not difficult to imagine. The industry people quote that advertising is only about protecting brand share, not total consumption, and industry self-regulation is the answer for any problems.
Need of the Hour However the surrogacy in advertising continues in the absence of a strong code by the ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India). The need of the hour is to develop an unambiguous plan of action. Recently, the Information and broadcasting ministry assured that stricter measures of surveillance to identify such advertisements would be put in place.The tobacco and liquor manufacturing lobby has been trying to persuade the government to relax the restrictions on advertising. The following measure will go a long way in easing the deadlock: The ASCI should have an unambiguous guideline for differentiating acceptable and unacceptable forms of advertising for surrogates. Also it should be empowered to implement the guidelines and issue penalties for non-conformance. The government must look beyond having the cake (the advertising ban) and eating it too(tax revenues).
STUDENTS SPEAK ROHIT BHAGAT, IIM RAIPUR
WINNING IN DIVERSE MARKETS THROUGH SUPPLY CHAIN FLEXIBILITY
The ability of an organisation to respond to uncertainty has always been important for success. Due to the increase in the number and the nature of threats that can affect our supply chain, the need to have a flexible supply chain has increased. It is no longer about managing the uncertainty but about managing it better than one’s competitors. In fact, companies should perceive it as an opportunity in disguise. Here is a list of some practices that a company can adopt to win in diverse markets through supply chain flexibility:COLLABORATIVE PLANNING, FORECASTING AND REPLENISHMENT (CPFR) – CPFR aims to enhance supply chain integration by supporting joint practices. Information is shared between the components of a supply chain to reduce the inventory and to respond to the changing demand. As Hitachi’s supply chain expanded globally, its value chain became more complex. To respond to this increase in complexity, Hitachi shares accurate and timely information on projected part sales with its vendors to be more able to
2. Risk Pooling – It suggests that demand variability is reduced if a company aggregates demand across locations because as demand is aggregated across locations, it is more likely that the increase in demand at one location will be offset by reduction in demand for another location. This leads to reduction in uncertainty in demand which leads to reduction in safety stock and hence to reduction in average inventory. 3. Managers should be able to make supply chain decisions quickly. They should be able to analyse the changes in demand if any and should be able to respond to it quickly. The managers should be able to make sense out of numbers and should know which data to rely on and which data to discard. Such a manager will be able to place frequent but small orders hence reducing average inventory as well. The structure of the system should be such as to allow the different departments to take the necessary decisions as and when required eg. Toyota gives its assembly line workers
“Maruti develops close relations with its vendors through strategic relationships and providing incentives
to them. This also helps in reducing the purchasing power of Maruti’s suppliers as the company maintains and develops a network of suppliers.
”
adapt to the changes in customer demand. 1. It is not necessary to have expensive IT systems to improve collaboration. Simple moves such as establishing direct communication from planner to planner and running forecasting processes jointly with key suppliers can improve collaboration.
the authority to halt the production by pressing the emergency button. 4. Use of concurrent processes instead of sequential processes – Use of concurrent processes reduces the dependence of processes on one another in a supply chain. This can speed up processes in case any emergency arises.
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STUDENTS SPEAK 5. Reducing risk due to cost fluctuations – Having a mix of short term and long term contracts with the suppliers will help in reducing the risk in supply chain due to cost fluctuations. Outsourcing can also come in handy in case the cost of production of the company increases at certain parts. 6. Converting stock outs to Back Orders— If it is possible to convert stock outs to back orders, it would take away a lot of pressure from the supply chain. However, it requires an effective supply chain which can ensure delivery of the committed quantity of the products at the committed quality at the committed time. Incentives can also be given to the customers in case they agree to commit to their orders well in advance. 7. Vendor Management – Several companies develop a network of vendors who are able to supply inventory to them within the stipulated time. These companies work closely with their vendors to develop them and assist them in periodically improving their processes. Maruti develops close relations with its vendors through strategic relationships and providing incentives to them. This also helps in reducing the purchasing power of Maruti’s suppliers as the company maintains and develops a network of suppliers. 8. Use of standardized and generic parts – This will reduce the dependence of production on certain specific parts. In case of any emergency demand, the parts can be bought from other suppliers or the production of these parts can be outsourced to other reliable suppliers who can supply these parts at the desired quality and quantity at the right place and time. 9. Effective Communication between teams can help to respond to the varying market demand. This will help the procurement department to procure supplies in case of increased demand and will also intimate the sales department to reduce the prices and destock the less sold product. While changing production schedules, the opinion of all the departments need
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to be taken in consideration to avoid any last minute hassles. 10. Increased Production and Purchasing in low-cost countries – As a company increases its production and purchasing in low-cost countries, it is able to adapt itself to changing prices eg. Husqvarna has a well-developed production base to handle variations in demand related to seasonality and weather conditions. A major reason being that the share of purchases from low cost countries is increasing steadily, and amounted to approximately 23% in 2009. 11. Build models to evaluate the possible alternatives i.e. “What if Analysis”– The Company should build models that are expected to work in case of any deviations in the supply chain. This requires the managers to predict the various ways in which things may go wrong and be prepared for them. 12. Role of Human Resource Department - The workers should be conditioned to be resilient and flexible. The HR department should ensure that the workers have enthusiasm for their work.
START UP STORY
“ Globally there are 1.8 billionWeb users and 4.6 billion mobile phone subscribers, double counting some multiple SIM cardholders. India has 40 millionWeb users, 4 million broadband connections and 400 million mobile connections.While there are 5 mobile connections for every Net connection globally and in India, the figure is 10. For crores of Indians, SMS can and does do what theWeb does for the better off.That’s a powerful comparison if you’re in the business of social media, and a group of entrepreneurs got the message. ” “A majority of the connected world has nothing but a basic handset and SMS so, no Twitter or Facebook equivalents work for the proverbial bottom of the pyramid. Text messaging on cell phones, a popular mode of interaction in emerging markets and especially India, is the route to tap into that vast market of hundreds of millions.” This is what was there in their mind when Beerud Sheth and Rakesh
Mathur launched Webaroo Technology in April 2007 in India. The Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were targeting the smart phone industry and only planned to utilize the company’s India backend for development. However, it quickly became clear — as the company switched to the short message service sector — that India was more than just a place for R&D. It was the best market for its products. The Platform SMS GupShup, which means “chit chat” in Hindi, is a social SMS service that allows users to communicate and connect with others using mobile handsets. The company lauds the SMS GupShup’s ability to bring SMS technology to the social networking capabilities common on the Internet, including messages sent from one user to many, from many users to many and many users to one. The concept is Facebook on the go, only using text messages. In India, where basic mobile phone users significantly outnumber those using smartphones, which have better access to the Internet and thus established social networking Web sites, SMS GupShup has proven to be a very attractive offering for consumers. According to the company, SMS GupShup, has taken off like wildfire in India and it has over 45 million users in India (up from 26 million users last year) and accounts for more than 5 percent of all text messages sent in the country. SMS GupShup extends the capabilities of p2p sms technology to social messaging includ-
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START UP STORY
ing one-to-many, many-to-many and many-to-one communication, thereby enabling social interactions on sms, the only medium that reaches 4 billion users worldwide. Launched in April 2007, it is used by 34 million users in 3.5 million communities. Brands and enterprises use the SMS GupShup platform for reach based advertising, promotions, customer engagement and Mobile CRM. Carriers use the reply-all capability of SMS GupShup to increase ARPU and loyalty of their subscriber base. SMS GupShup also sells premium content and services to consumers. By using a short number code (567678) and sending an SMS, you can form communities or join them, and exchange messages, fight for causes, build brands or share ideas on SMS GupShup. For those unconnected to the Net, the simple SMS community is akin to a money order used by an illiterate villager who has no bank account or credit card. SMS GupShup has already tied up with social networking giant Facebook to enable India Facebook users to go mobile. With reports suggesting the Indian mobile subscriber base will approach 800 million by 2013, there is a lot more potential for SMS GupShup in the Indian market.
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There is much more utility for public services and rare tribes in SMSGupshup which also offers its website as an interface to create SMS communities. The Mumbai municipal corporation uses it to reach citizens. UTI Mutual Fund has nearly 500,000 investor-members who get SMS alerts. Little-known Hmar tribe in the Northeast has more than 16,000 members using Roman script text messages on GupShup to talk to each other. Rajasthan Royals uses it to build fan following for its cricket team. According to Webaroo, over 3 million publishers use SMS GupShup. These range from religious groups to sports teams to celebrities, all use the service to send news, updates and offers to connected consumers. SMS GupShup has well over 100 advertisers that run on the network, including global brands such as Puma, Microsoft and Cadbury. The Growth Story The interesting part of the story is that the founders of this creative venture have their roots in IIT Bombay. Beerud Sheth is an IIT Bombay alumnus with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Sheth came to the United States shortly after that to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated from the school with a master’s degree in computer science. He worked in the financial
START UP STORY
services industry in the early part of his career with Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup. He then founded Elance, an online services marketplace. Webaroo co-founder and chairman Mathur also graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai and he connected in Silicon Valley with Sheth. Mathur had started three prior companies: Junglee, a virtual database technology company, which was acquired by Amazon in 1998; Armedia, a chip design business focusing on video components that became part of the DVD standard; and PurpleYogi, now Stratify, an enterprise data management business. In 2007, when Webaroo was first started the company focused on extra storage products for smartphones, but Sheth and Mathur switched directions after about a year. “Even though there is a lot of buzz about smartphones, there still are a lot of these basic phones,” Sheth said. The pair saw more potential in a service for the majority of mobile users who were using basic phones. “We were a little ahead of our time [with the smartphone products],” added Sheth. They admit that the focus was not originally to start a Silicon Valley business targeting India, but when the company switched its focus to SMS services and started to delve into the opportunity India was too big to ignore. With Silicon Valley having the best funding structure for startups they did not see a better option than to start a business there even if India was a target. They soon realized that the mobile large markets are China and India. In and interaction with Beerud,he said that there is a
three-pronged plan for SMS GupShup. The first step is to continue to grow in India. The second is to move into other emerging markets in Southeast Asia. The last is to expand globally. Backed by $37 million in venture capital funding from investors such as Globespan Capital Partners, Charles River Ventures and Helion Venture Partners, Webaroo has every intention of chasing the 4 billion SMS users worldwide. The company has been continually innovating and improving its platform to make it more user friendly and accessible to the public. In 2010 it unveiled the “reply all” service which would make it at par with an email from the point of view of convenience.
Deployed first by carrier Globe Telecom in the Philippines, the reply all ability makes it more convenient to organize meetings or events via SMS. Instead of relaying and forwarding messages from one person in the group to the other, everyone in a group can update everyone else at the same time. It’s a boon to promoters as well as to personal users. It’s easy to imagine the possibilities. Event organizers at a big nightclub could deploy invitations for an instant, secret party and keep invitees apprised of developments.
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START UP STORY
A college or university could send important reminders to students, such as when campus is opening or closing. Local governments could use it to notify denizens in case of emergency. The firm has been widening its base ever since its launch at a tremendous speed and it recently announced a number of new milestones, including that the service is processing over 2 billion messages per month (up from 480 million messages a month a year ago) and is adding over 1 million members per month. The Success Factor SMS GupShup’s wide India growth has attracted some savvy executives who want to take part in what the company has to offer. The entire team is dedicated and the culture is very informal making it a great place to work. The informal environment breeds creativity and commands dedication instead of demanding it. The employees own the company and that is the reason the company is on a super fast growth track. Very recently the company revealed that its revenue increased by over 400% in 2010 despite a ten-day SMS ban by the Indian government issued in advance of the verdict to the highly controversial Babri Mosque land dispute that raised tensions between Muslim and Hindu groups.
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BIZ WITS - QUETZAL Indranil Biswas, SJMSOM, IIT Bombay
BIZ WITS - QUETZAL 1. What connects Elizabeth Fry, Sir John Houblon, Adam Smith, George Stephenson, and Sir Edward Elgar? 2. Who is credited for framing Maxwell House’s famous slogan “Good to the Last Drop”? 3. “Sense & Simplicity” is the punch line of Philips, then whose tagline is “Power of Simplicity”? 4. Given here is the list of World’s most famous innovative companies 2010.Which Company holds the 22nd position?
5. Celebrity endorsements began way back in 19th century when Queen Victoria endorsed a product. The brand is still in existence today. Name it. 6. What was created by the bakery to commemorate this lady’s wedding?
7. Which famous logo was designed by little known graphic designer Carolyn Davidson for Blue Ribbon Sports Company in 1971 for just 2$ an hour? 8. Genentech Inc. is the world’s first biotechnology company founded in 1976 by a venture capitalist Robert Swanson and a biochemist Herbert Boyer. What was its ticker symbol on the NYSE before being acquired by Roche Ltd? 9. Name the famous couple shown below. (Hint: Think Viruses!!!)
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BIZ WITS - QUETZAL 10. What is shown below?
11. Connect:
12. This term comes from a French root word meaning “Free from Servitude�. Developed during the feudal regime where there was a distributed collection of taxes. What is it? 13. This Company was started by two brothers Andre & Eduard. They later published red & green Travel Guides. Which company? 14. This takeover marked the end of the oldest independent airline in the world. Which Airline took over and which one of the two held this position? 15. What is the term given to the context of when a company buys out a company which has bid to take it over?
The answers can be found on page 26
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BOOK ESSENCE REVIEWED BY NISARG GANDHI, SJMSOM, IIT BOMBAY
THE DIFFICULTY OF BEING GOOD Book Title :
The Diffuculty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma
Published by : Penguin Books India Published :
15-Aug-2009
ISBN :
9780670083497
Classification : Non Fiction Gurucharan Das, former CEO of Procter and Gamble and author of ‘India Unbound’ inquires on the ‘Difficulties of being good’ by studying and analyzing the moral dilemmas arising in the great Indian epic Mahabharata. After an early retirement from a successful professional career he experiences a void in his life. He sets out in search for the true meaning and aims of life by examining ancient Indian texts. He gets fascinated by the scope and content of the Mahabharata and after six years of patient and complete reading of the text tries to find out the answer to the moral problems, which even existed at the time of the epic as they do today, in the book ‘Difficulty of being good – On the subtle art of Dharma’.
to deepen reader’s understanding. His education in western philosophy, his elaborate readings of ancient Indian texts as well as his broad spectrum of economical, political and social know-how allows him to delve into these diverse fields with élan. He interleaves the stories of the great Indian epic with those of the Greek epics and the ideals discussed here with those of western philosophies to encompass the global audience. By doing so it seems that the author is advocating that the moral ideas being discussed are not only pertaining to classical Indian psyche but even to the modern global collective consciousness.
“In the quest for finding out the purpose of life author realizes that by depicting the virtues and frailties of various characters of the Mahabharata, the epic is trying to bring out the nature of dharma.” In the quest for finding out the purpose of life author realizes that by depicting the virtues and frailties of various characters of the Mahabharata, the epic is trying to bring out the nature of dharma (the word has various meanings in Indian spiritualism but in its present context it can be related to moral well being).
The author along with discussing various attributes of the heroes of the Mahabharata spells out important lessons for the reader in economic, political, social and personal spheres.While talking about Duryodhana’s envy author discusses the presence of the positive and negative forms of the same emotion in our own lives. He quotes the examples
“It seems that the author is advocating that the moral ideas being discussed are not only pertaining to classical Indian psyche but even to the modern global collective consciousness.” Gurucharan Das probes into the characters of the heroes of Mahabharata to highlight the virtue or failing they represent. He tries to find out the root cause of the existence of such quality or failing in human nature by looking at societal and cultural structures, other philosophical works and even sciences such as evolutionary biology. The author also emphasizes the implications of these moral ideas on the civic society and private lives. He tries to relate each moral idea with economic, political or a personal incident
of envy between Ambani brothers as well as the positive aspect of envy which reinforces competition and is a pillar for sustaining free-market economic activities. Similarly through draupadi’s courageous questions in the Kuru court author conveys important ideas regarding sovereignty of slaves and women. The nature of war, its consequences and the view point of a soldier and a political leader about the wars are brought out
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BOOK ESSENCE
“The question over the moral ideals, ‘The difficulty of being good’, which the author talks about is not
merely the difficulty that one faces in being good but its more of the difficulty that one has in finding out answers to the question such as ‘Why be good?’, ‘What is good?’ and ‘Can good be achieved?’.
”
by various emotions and actions of Arjuna, Krishna, Ashwathama and Yudhisthira. The philosophy of human actions ‘nishkama karma’ as advocated by Krishna and practiced by Bhisma is well brought out in various parts of the book. The nature of caste systems and various harms they cause is discussed at length by depiction of the ‘wronged hero’ of Mahabharata Karna.The flow of the book though seemingly jumps from one hero’s character evaluation to another the author does a good job at maintaining a parallel flow of the original narrative of the epic. The reader thus enjoys the poetic narrative with the intellectually probing, absorbing and satisfying discussion over moral ideals. The question over the moral ideals, ‘The difficulty of being good’, which the author talks about is not merely the difficulty that one faces in being good but its more of the difficulty that one has in finding out answers to the question such as ‘Why be good?’, ‘What is good?’ and ‘Can good be achieved?’. One of such incidents is very well depicted in the book when Draupadi asks Yudhisthira about ‘Why is he insistent on standing by dharma when dharma doesn’t protect him’. The author furthers this question with other references later to ask ‘What is the nature of dharma’ and ‘Can it be achieved’. This quest for the search of the elusive dharma goes on throughout the book as it does in the Mahabharata. The characters and the author together proclaim that ‘Dharma is subtle’. Through this they try to bring out the ambiguous and incomprehensible nature of certain moral ideals especially when they stand opposing each other. Through the chapter ‘Mahabharata’s Dharma’ and the author’s own conclusion, the book tries to bring out a coherent message of compassion as the highest virtue and an awareness of the natural tendency of human beings to be moral as evolved social and intelligent creatures. Seeing our own self in somebody else’s place would make us realize that one should not do to somebody what one doesn’t intend to be done on oneself. Along with this author also tries to bring out a rational morality concept of reciprocal altruism which is validated even through scientific techniques of game theory. The author does not fail to acknowledges the ambivalence
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that the Mahabharata and incidentally the book leave the reader with when it proclaims ‘Dharma is subtle’ i.e. it is so subtle that we are unable to grasp it and are still searching for it. Through this uncertainty the author tries to give another message that is very relevant in present times that moral absolutism and fundamentalism is not the answer to any crisis, it is through tolerance, pluralism and continuous evolution of morality that one can face these uncertainties. Finally, the author’s style of self reflection actively engages the reader as one feels a personal touch attached to the narrative. The book provides lessons for the governments and citizens alike to reflect upon morality and not mere narrow-minded and short-sighted selfishness. The book is an enjoyable read and keeps the reader’s intellect actively engaged throughout. ANSWERS TO BIZ WITS - QUETZAL 1. Appeared on Bank of England banknotes 2. Theodore Roosevelt 3. Tally 4. IPL 5. Cadbury Cocoa 6. Marie Biscuit- Peek Frean & Co.- the bakery & Duchess Maria Alexandrovna-the bride. 7. Nike Swoosh 8. DNA 9. Natalia Kaspersky & Eugene Kaspersky the founders of the Kaspersky Antivirus in 1997. 10. The “Toyota Bow”, Akio Toyoda ,grandson of the founder of the Japanese automaker says sorry after his company began recalling cars by the millions. 11. Deutsche Bank , The Pics are Old Logo of Deutsche Bank; Twin Towers Headquarters of Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt, Germany; Sania Mirza & Sunil Gavaskar have endorsed Deutsche Bank Cards in India & Gateway of India which appears in their print advertisements. 12. The Franchising Concept. 13. Michelin. 14. Air France Took over KLM. KLM was the oldest airline. 15. “Pac-Man” Defence
CREATIVE BEND Nikhil Kumar, SJMSOM, IIT Bombay
logos beyond the design Logos and mascots are visual mediums which show customer the quality products offered by the company. These logos are very useful for customer retention and brand reinforcement. Thus, a very significant way, in which brands remain in the hearts and minds of customers, is through creative designs and colours, or simply logos. Logos say a lot about their brand. Consider the Nike 'tick marks swoosh' logo. Nike's tagline says 'Just do it'. According to Nike, every Nike customer has a never say die attitude, and the tick mark goes well with the attitude of accepting every opportunity that come their way. The Nike logo has become so popular globally, that product name, description and quality are all depicted by the logo itself. Similarly, logos of automobile giants BMW, Mercedes are identities of their brand. Even in the field of sports, logos play a significant role. Logos of top football clubs like Manchester United, Arsenal, and Real Madrid show the respect and passion towards the sport. Not only these unique logos represent their clubs
vision, but they also play a major role in merchandizing, advertising and branding exercises. Even the biggest sporting spectacle, the Olympics has its own logo of the five interlinked rings depicting unity, healthy competition and passion amongst all participating nations. All brands start by developing symbols which represent their product and vision. As time passes by, not only do these become popular in households, but also are able to overcome national and international language and cultural barriers. Across the world, logos speak a common language about the company's brand, quality and utility. Mascots also go hand in hand with logos. One of the most popular and easily recognizable mascots is Ronald from McDonalds. Ronald the clown emphasises the value proposition of Mc Donald's showing that it is a fun place for the entire family, and goes perfectly with the tag line “I'm loving it”. Thus, mascots too add to the value of the brands significantly. Here are a few logos and their meanings
for some of the global brands:
This logo doesn’t seem to hide much at first sight, but it gives you a little insight in the philosophy behind the brand. First of all, the yellow swoosh looks like a smile: Amazon.com want to have the best customer satisfaction. The swoosh also connects the letters a and z, meaning that this store has everything from a to z.
This is probably one of the best known logos with a hidden meaning. If you look closely, you’ll see an arrow that’s formed by the letters E and x. This arrow symbolizes speed and precision, two major selling points of this company
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CREATIVE BEND
Continental is a manufacturer of tyres.You could actually see this in their logo, because the first two letters create a 3-dimensional tyre.
Toblerone is a chocolate-company from Bern, Switzerland. Bern is sometimes called ‘The City of Bears’. They have incorporated this idea in the Toblerone logo, because if you look closely, you’ll see the silhouette of a bear.
The old logo of Baskin Robbins had the number 31 with an arc above it. The new logo took this idea to the next level. The pink parts of the BR still form the number 31, a reference to the 31 flavours.
Sony Vaio is a well known brand of laptops. But did you know that the name Vaio logo also had a hidden meaning? Well, the first two letters represent the basic analogue signal. The last two letters look like a 1 and 0, representing the digital signal.
Carrefour Carrefour is one of the biggest European retailers, and it’s also French for “crossroads”. The logo symbolizes this word via two opposite arrows. They also added the first letter of the name, because if you look closely you’ll see the letter C in the negative space between the two arrows.
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CREATIVE BEND
Unilever is one of the biggest producers of food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. They produce a huge amount of different products and they wanted to reflect this in their logo. Each part of the logo has a meaning. For example: the heart represents love, care and health - feeling good, a bird is a symbol of freedom. Relief from daily chores – getting more out of life.
At first, this logo might not make much sense. But if you look closely, you’ll see the number 1 in the negative space between the F and the red stripes. I also love how this logo communicates a feeling of speed.
The Sun logo is one of the most famous ambigrams in the world. You can read the brand name in every direction; both horizontally and vertically. This logo was designed by professor Vaughan Pratt of the Stanford University.
The NBC (National Broadcasting Company) is one of the biggest American television networks. I think most of you have already seen the peacock in this logo. The peacock has 6 different tail feathers, referring to the six divisions at the time that this logo was created. The peacock’s head is flipped to the right to suggest it was looking forward, not back.
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CREATIVE BEND manish dhiman, SJMSOM, IIT BOMBAY
Football in India is quite a popular game and I would assume it to be almost next to Cricket. It has a huge fan following across this entire cricket crazy country. Though there is a great fan following for international football, Indian interest in national version of the game is fast dwindling (though many Kolkata and Goans guys would disagree with me). It is a very popular sport in states like West Bengal, Goa, Kerala and the entire North-East especially in states like Sikkim, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Mizoram. In fact in some of these places you can find people having miniscule interest in cricket compared to football, but in other states if I ask to name a few indian footballers people would be befuddled with the exception of knowing names of Baichung Bhutia or Sunil Chettri, but of course they all know who is Christiano Ronaldo (especially Girls know him), Rooney, Torres, etc. Current status of Indian football is sad but it is going to improve as it shows that Indian youth is interested and loves to play this game a lot even if they know only foreign club, player’s names. All it will take is awareness and encouragement to the sport. While in other sports Indian players are making presence in the global stage; the Indian football team continues to be at the bottom of world football ranking. But despite all this I feel this game of Football which is played in over 200 countries is a sunrise sport in India. It has a huge potential both from an entertainment and business standpoint; it’s the most opportune time to be here. I personally was introduced to this beautiful game during my school days. At that time I was a big fan of cricket and always looked at this game as second fiddle with little or no respect. I got majorly involved with this heavenly game during my college days. One of my friends one day asked me to play football with them, during the game I
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saw some guys from northeast and Bengal were showing off some football juggling skills and I looked upon them with contempt that “kya hero ban rahe hain yeh to koi bhi kar lega” and I started trying that but I couldn’t, even today I can’t do those stunts. Then I started watching the game of football and followed footballers through videos on YouTube and ESPN etc to learn more about this game. I remember in hostel we use to wake up till late night to watch one of those El Classico’s or Super Sunday clashes and the feeling use to be awesome. There always used to be clashes of opinion amongst supporters of individual teams with lot of swearing against opposite playing team players. If one of the players of your opposite team uses some pressure tactics on referee or does some blunders or resort sto playacting he was treated as Ashish Nehra (cricketer) in terms of respect. I realized that it is because cricket overshadows football in India, that we indians know nothing of this beautiful game Football popularity is taking baby steps in India. It is mostly popular amongst youth (college students, software professionals etc).With more awareness and encouragement to this game, this game will have bright future in our young country. One can ask steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, telecom czar Sunil Bharti Mittal and liquor baron Vijay Mallya; they all see a great business proposition in Indian football. While Mallya’s United Breweries sponsors East Bengal FC, LN Mittal and Sunil Mittal have drawn up big plans to support the world’s favourite game at the grassroots level in India. Hindustan Unilever (HUL) for example was one of the top advertisers during EPL matches in 2008. In India cricket has grown into an Rs 5,000-crore business only because private business took interest in the game. We all know that Indian Premier League (IPL) is all about the moolah ,while business of football is pegged at
Football in India, a nation of 1.1 billion, where viewer-
CREATIVE BEND
just around Rs 200 cr. Of course, this can grow manifold if the renewed corporate interest is backed by the AIFF’s commitment to develop the sport. Indian football needs more stadiums to move to the next level. If desired infrastructure is in place, football can threaten cricket over the next five years. Maradona visited Kolkata in 2008 to start of Indian football school and the whole of Kolkata (football capital of India) was rejoicing with stadium packed to the brim. On Sept 2 Lionel Messi along with the Argentinean side is slated to come to Kolkata at salt lake stadium. The Argentina team are scheduled to play an exhibition match either against Spain or Portugal. The visit of the Argentine team will be a latest addition to a host of football celebrities and sides which have visited the soccer-loving city of a cricketcrazy India in recent years. FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter who also called India the “sleeping giant of world football” - while on his tour. Last year Uruguayan star footballer Diego Forlan - the golden ball winner of the 2010 FIFA World Cup - spent two days in the city for a promotional program of a channel. All these stars were welcome by thousands of supporters and fans. This mammoth fan following shows that even if today we organise a match here in India in two parallel stadiums where in one IPL match is happening and in other we have a match between teams like Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid etc, I’m sure the football stadium will be fully jam packed and they won’t require cheerleader for them to attract crowd. Another evidence of football popularity is Football world cup; it had a very high TRP ratings here in India almost comparable to cricket. We all must be remembering Paul Octopus he satiated Indian hunger for Masala content. Popularity of EPL (English premier league) is so huge that these days, Indian media gives more importance to EPL than domestic football .How can football in India grow when the people of India themselves devote their great Football-passion to the other leagues rather than their own league? Huh!! This is why some also call EPL as Necessary Evil for Indian Football. This is because there was a time when Football was enclosed within the lower and middle class societies in India only. Now there is absolute no denying the fact that EPL has played a major role in triggering the Interest of Football among the rich and the urban people of India.Football is no longer considered a game for the STREET-BOYS!! More and More Kids want take up Football as a profession!! They harness the desire to play for their beloved clubs like Chelsea, ManU, Arsenal, Liverpool etc!! They DREAM Big!!
Baichung Bhutia seen in action during the Nehru Cup Final in 2007 against Syria, which India went on to win eventually. ship has grown by hundred of percentage basis point over 5 years represent a huge consumer base. The fervour can be felt in Mumbai, Kolkata and all metro cities with viewership late on any Saturday or Sunday night, local time, verged on the surreal as large numbers of Indian Manchester United jersey wearing fans packed into cafés to watch clashes of titans (Of course Manu fans always outnumber any other club supporters Grr…!!) .The respected media tracking agency faqs says football viewership has been growing continuously in India. In 2007, it says, the English Premier League reached 42.8 million viewers in India, almost 50 per cent of the cable TV-wired homes. This is also echoed by one of the TAM reports saying football viewership in 2010 was around 83 million. The target audience is mostly male, in the age group 15plus, in the top four socio-economic categories. That is the exact target audience of your potential Twenty20 fan. All above is a evidence of what we call in football parlance it’s just minutes after kick off for the sport in India. Thus far the beginning has been steady rather than spectacular and there is no telling which way the game is going to go. However, with the likes of Wayne Rooney, Ronaldo, Gerard and Fabregas on the ground there is perhaps more than a chance that the coming metaphorical 90 minutes will not be short of excitement. Ultimately, India’s economy is booming because it is aspirational; can there be anything more aspirational for the Indian fan than a slice of the world’s biggest sport?
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SOMthing SPECIAL
continuums@iit bombay
Marketing Continuum Days are past when you could afford to say “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black” and still be successful. It is now generally accepted that a company can win only by making the customer win. The theme of the Marketing Continuum 2011 conducted at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay revolved around the customer centric approach of a marketer i.e. “Marry Your Customers: From Acquisition to Retention”. Marketing Continuum held on 30th July 2011 marked the beginning of the second phase of Continuum 2011, the rolling seminar series held every year at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay. The event was organized by Marktrix, the Marketing club of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay in association with the Covacsis and Financial Express. The one day seminar saw the participation of eminent delegates from different organizations, Faculty and Students of IIT Bombay. The Continuum was graced by the presence of top leaders like Mr. Jayant Somani, Senior Director, Cypress Semiconductors, Mr. Devendra Chawla, Head - Private Brands Business, Future Group, Mr. Vinay Bhatia, AVP, Marketing and Loyalty, Shopper’s Stop, Mr. Sandeep Suvarna, Head - Marketing, Linkedin India, Mr. Satish Karandikar, Head Product and Marketing, Mahindra and Mahindra, Mr. Sudip Ghose, Director Marketing, Samsonite South Asia and Mr. Ed Melicor, South Asia Region Director at Caterpillar sharing their thoughts on various topics like Consumer Internet, Frugal Innovation, Product Innovation, Emotive
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Brand Laddering, Spreading the word, Glocalization and so on. The speakers deliberated the advent of new and innovative ways of marketing like social networking, blogging etc. Customer acquisition and retention has emerged as the most challenging area for marketers in this new decade. They opined that customer relationship has evolved from being a passive to a more active one and companies strive hard to leverage each and every interaction which they have with their customers. Through multiple activities which involve branding, advertising, sales promotions, PR activities, companies try to deliver customer satisfaction. Thus having matured from simple interactions, customer engagement is now synonymous with Marriage. Mr. Sudip Ghose, Director- Marketing, Samsonite stressed that it is important to connect the Brand to the consumer on an emotional level and that the product would be a success the day consumer connects to the brand instead rather than the product. The speakers also discussed the latest trends in Marketing Management, key challenges faced by them and insights from their experience. The knowledge shared by the speakers enlightened the minds of the future marketers of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay.
Finance Continuum India with its amazing growth story attracts financial investments from foreign investors. Mr. Akhilesh Tilotia, Kotak Securities said “You don’t need to sell the India story”. However, there are many challenges in sustaining the high
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the key causes of credit crisis and the impact credit crisis had on India from a crediting agencies perspective. Mr. Akhilesh Tilotia, Institutional Thematic Analyst “Game Changer”, Kotak Securities, spoke about the new entrepreneurial and career opportunities that exist for an entrepreneur in India. He spoke on the theme by covering four broad areas including mobile money, agricultural value chain, water management and Indian household savings.
rate of growth. The theme of the Finance Continuum 2011 held at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay on 31st July, “Financing this decade for growth and sustainability” was on these lines. The stage was set by Professor S. N Rao of SJMSOM, IIT Bombay who during his inaugural speech briefed about the challenges and opportunities in the field. Mr. Govind Sankaranarayanan, CFO & COO, Tata Capital stressed the importance of creating employment opportunities in the next decade in order to exploit the demographic dividend of India. Mr. Ajay Srinivasan, Chief Executive at Aditya Birla Group spoke elaborately on how the financial services sector needs to address supply and demand issues if India is to achieve its growth aspirations. He stressed on the importance of financial literacy, financial inclusion and human capital for the establishment of an efficient and sustainable financial system. The necessity for a strong corporate bond market to mitigate the supply side problem was among the key points that were highlighted during his speech. Mr. Badri Nivas, Director at Citi Bank also emphasized on the need for a strong corporate bond market in India to bring in foreign capital. Mr. Badri argued that a strong corporate bond market is important for economic growth as it increases the accessibility of Indian borrowers to more capital and reduces the exchange rate exposure of Indian borrowers when compared to ECBs.
Mr. Rohit Madan, Associate Director at KPMG shared his opinions on private equity and its role as an emerging source of finance for Indian companies. He also discussed the key trends in the private equity investments and exits. He discussed from a neutral perspective about the value addition PE brings in to the invested company. Mr. Sameer Wagle, Executive Director, Nomura talked about the factors influencing the venture capital industry. He highlighted the need for investment monitoring in order to succeed as a venture capitalist firm.
The event also hosted Mr.V George Antony, Country Head, UAE Exchange who shared his views on how money transfer has changed over the years. He stressed on the importance of having a cashless economy in the future and opined that India would also move towards the same in the near future.
With the focus growing on corporate bond markets and new financial instruments like CDS likely to be introduced shortly in India, credit rating holds more relevance now than any time in the past. Mr. D R Dogra, MD & CEO, CARE Ratings built on the context by discussing about the importance of credit rating agencies. He also spoke about
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NDTV BUDGET SESSION On 1st March, about 24 hours after Mr. Pranab Mukherjee delivered the most awaited speech of the year at Sansad Bhavan, the students at SJMSOM were involved in a critical analysis of the same on camera with industry specialists..!! In its endeavor to be in touch with latest happenings and getting a business perspective of those, SJMSOM organized a Post Budget Analysis Session inviting experts from the industry and academia to discuss the implications of budget on various sectors and economy as a whole with its students.
The panelists included Mr. Ajay Srinivasan, Chief Executive, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group and Mr. Kewal Handa Managing Director, Pfizer Limited. The discussion involved participation of students from JBIMS, SPJAIN and NMIMS as well. NDTV Profit found it worthwhile to cover this discussion between present and future business leaders with an excellent anchoring by TV Journalist - Ms. Manisha Natrajan. The show was telecasted in NDTV Profit and NDTV 24X7 with the name B-school Budget of NDTV.
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Tree Platation on the World Environment Day As it is commonly referred every drop contributes in making of an ocean. On World Environment Day 5th June,Young Indians Mumbai along with Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd planted approx 600-700 seeds in the IIT Powai Campus to ‘do their bit’. Three varieties of seeds i.e. Karanj, beda and amli were planted in the specified area of the campus. IIT SJM School of Management students took the lead for the initiative and did a fabulous job. The activity commenced with Mr.Narayan Jaisingh, Chairman Young Indians – Mumbai, briefed the enthusiastic students about the need for planting more seeds in the campus on an ongoing basis and commencing it on World Environment Day was a perfect start. Mr.Pragnesh Poddar, Chair – Environment Vertical at Yi Mumbai, educated the students about the various seeds and procedure of planting them with the necessary fertilizers. He also spoke about the other varieties possible and why seeds like Karanj, Beda and Amli were chosen.
tively participating with the students. He also encouraged the students to take up more such causes related to environment and assured full support for the initiative.
Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt ltd has a ‘policy’ of planting a seed/plant for every insurance ‘policy’ sold by them. This unique and noble approach made them the Ideal sponsors for the initiative.
To further boost the moral and spirit of the team socialite Ms.Shaina NC who is also very active in Environment related causes visited the campus and planted few seeds along with the students. She advised the students the importance of the role of youth in environment and social causes. She encouraged the students to take out time and become change agents and spread the message by leading with examples.
Prof. Patil, the Convener of the “Green Campus Initiative” committee at IIT Bombay supported the initiative by ac-
All in all a good day with the Yi Mumbai team pledging to do more such activities across all colleges of Bombay.
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International relations@sjmsom, iit bombay
In this era of growing globalization, it has become essential than ever before for budding managers to have international exposure, to succeed as global leaders of tomorrow. SJMSOM considers International Relations as one of the key elements of management studies. It aims to provide its students with a plethora of opportunities to interact with the world.
ent research papers at International Conferences over the years from countries like Japan and USA; thanks to the impressive research facilities at our school. NUS Case Competition, KPMG International Case Competition, Google Global Case Challenge, are some of the competitions that students of SJMSOM regularly participated in and have brought laurels to the School.
Exchange Programs The School is privileged to maintain International Linkages in the form of Student and Faculty Exchange Programs and Joint Research Activities with some of the top B-Schools in the world (like Kellogg Graduate School of Management, National University of Singapore, Ontario Universities International and many others from countries across the globe like USA, Canada, France, Turkey, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. The International Relations Team at SJMSOM continuously strives on building better relationships with these universities and simultaneously looks for opportunities to lay foundations for long term associations with other universities from different parts of the world. Student exchanges at the school are favorably looked upon and regular participation is witnessed in numerous programs that the school has to offer. Our research scholars also get opportunities to attend summer school in different parts of the world. Participation in International Events Students of SJMSOM have been participating in international events since long. However, recently the number of participants has grown tremendously. Two teams of our School qualified for the regional finals of the Hult Case Challenge. Our students also participated in the Michigan-based Next Billion Case Writing Challenge. Besides these, our students have also received invitation to pres-
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Visits The students of SJMSOM do utilize the considerable resources of IIT Bombay to get an international exposure. Business leaders and academicians are regularly invited from abroad to share their experiences and knowledge, for various institute colloquiums and guest class room lectures. Currently, we have the privilege of having two fulltime visiting faculties from USA and UK. With its ever increasing focus on international relations, our School has been able to draw attention of the international academic and corporate communities. Our School has hosted a record number of international guests from various universities from different parts of the world, who have expressed keen interest in initiating active relationships with our school. These exposures not only inspire students but also give insights on the paths treaded by magnates of today.
SOMthing SPECIAL
With updates on awesome Mumbai mausam flooding FB walls and a constant downpour ruining any plans of venturing out I am left without much option but to recline in this comfortable bean bag and sip a steaming cup of coffee. Rains give you quality time with yourself as well and I can’t help but dwell on the happenings in the past couple of months. After a successful outing last season blessed by personalities from the world of corporate and entertainment and many quality competitions the expectations this year are definitely going to be high and I hope I will live up to that. If you haven’t noticed it my logo got a makeover in its new black and red avatar. Well, for starters, that is a promising sign I will be aggressive in expanding horizons this year around. The month of February also witnessed the launch of the theme which will be – Crossing Chasms, Realising Dreams. The theme aptly captures the spirit of a nation moving forward in leaps and bounds and making its indelible mark in the global landscape. I believe chasms as we see today are opportunities more than threats which are driving future innovations and acting as breeding ground for future leaders. They drive the passions and aspirations of the visionaries, the innovation leaders of tomorrow. I just provide a platform for the same. And I will be coming to you this year in October for a three day extravaganza from 14th – 16th. I know you guys are looking for a change, a break from the tried and tested B-school event formats, a break from the case studies and power points. I have in store for you much more exciting events this time around what with the lounges, corporate dinner, discussions on global scale, social events, cultural shows and much more in store. The success of an event I believe can be measure in the impact it will have on the community as a whole and this season I will be bringing to you events which will make an impact, and which sticks. The run-up to the festival this year has been so far so good. We have Aeon Networks as the Technology Partner this year. They bring with them a rich experience in professional website development and an agile project developmental methodology. SIDBI Venture will be the Prize Sponsor this year and that’s just the beginning. So people get ready to pull up your socks for some action this October. Keep looking this space (www. sjmsom-avenues.com) for details of various events and shows. Well, you definitely won’t like to miss any of these.
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