Help yourself, please!

The persistent turmoil in the aviation sector coupled with the mounting losses quarter after quarter (all thanks to the increasing input costs) have left Indian aviators high and dry. Moreover, all the major players, which include Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and Air India, are also over burdened with huge debts mounting over them. While, Kingfisher Airlines has a debt of about Rs.90 billion, Jet Airways has a massive burden of about Rs.150 billion on its back. Well, the less we talk about Air India’s financial standing, the better it is! All these financial obstacles have forced the domestic players to urge the Civil Aviation Ministry to relax the FDI investment cap from the current 49%. However, a pertinent question that arises is, will this proposed increase in foreign investment in the sector actually solve all the problems of the airlines? “Airlines need to ensure that they match capacity with demand. There are currently too many airlines, with too many seats, chasing too few passengers. This will require more effective management as well as consolidation in the form of mergers and market exits,” suggests Binit Somaia, Regional Director, CAPA. Surely, apart from foreign investment, the airlines should also look at route rationalisation and cost cutting as effective measures to overcome the crunch. Somaia also highlights the role of the government in pulling the players out of the quicksand as he says: “The government’s key role is to provide a regulatory framework that provides certainty to investors, which is currently missing in the aviation sector.” Thus, it is not only the financial support that is required, but also the various aforesaid measures that must be adopted by the bleeding airlines to help themselves.

Ratan Lal Bhagat

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Will Indian TV formats ever find green global pasteurs?

While TV shows created in India are liked by audiences in Asia and the world, little has been done to license them out. Pallavi Srivastava does a dekho on when that might happen

Amongst all kinds of reality shows that have bombarded your idiotbox in recent times (like Perfect Bride, Big Boss, Khatron Ka khiladi, Is Jungle se mujhe bachao, Sach ka saamna, Dus Ka Dum, Pati Patni or woh, et al), any guesses as to which one was the longest running? It’s Roadies on MTV, which is presently running in its seventh season. And what about the longest running musical show? That’s SaReGaMaPa which has salvaged some pride for Zee TV and is into its 15th year now (It was originally christened SaReGaMa). For the record, the longest running dance show is Boogie Woogie, which has been on Sony’s programme list for a decade now. And guess what? All of these shows are original Indian formats and not licensed versions of global hits a la Khatron Ke Khiladi (Fear Factor), Big Boss (Big Brother) and others of their ilk.

Interestingly, there are many successful original Indian shows like Aap ki Kachehri, Dance India Dance, Nach Baliye. Also, unlike most of the imported reality shows, these have had their ratings soaring one season after another. But this is precisely where we come at a crossroads. It’s a matter to seriously ponder over – while we have a huge list of ‘imported’ television shows, why is it that this current is only unidirectional? In other words, why aren’t Indian shows licensed out to global markets?

Surely, it is not for lack of preference amongst overseas content licencees that this limitation sits in place, as industry veterans like Indrajit Ray, Chief Creative Officer, UTV feels, “Indeed, there is immense scope for original Indian formats – both fiction and non-fiction – to travel abroad.” Especially in markets like South-East Asia, Latin America and many other third world countries, there are some big opportunities going unnoticed... Beat this: Brazil’s number one TV show “Caminho Das Indias” (India’s Way) is an Indian tale with Brazilian actors! It features an upper-caste girl who falls in love with a Dalit boy. The girl’s family disproves their relationship and tries to marry her off, while the boy strives hard to keep their love alive; India sells, and like nobody’s business! And this is not the only proof of it. Dubbed versions of many Indian shows are also quite popular in many global markets as Vanita Khandekar, a media consultant, agreeingly states, “Dubbed versions of a lot of Balaji shows are quite popular in markets like Singapore and Malaysia. Definitely, there is scope for Indian shows, be it in terms of formats or dubbed versions...”

So despite the strong potential, why is it that the export of Indian TV shows is not in vogue yet? Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance Big Entertainment presents his logic, “Indian production houses are not allowed to become stronger. They don’t own the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) of the formats. IPRs are with the broadcasters, who are worried more about their India operations!” The interesting fact here is that earlier, the production houses owned the IPRs in India. Take for example Shanti, which was amongst the biggest TV blockbusters in India. The IPR is with UTV Production house. However, an optimistic Ray of UTV opines, “Somehow in the Indian context, the trend of broadcasters owning TV rights became popular. But things are changing now.” In fact, UTV Television is developing two new shows, the IPR of which they will own, as Ray adds, “We have initiated the process, and I am sure others too will think along similar lines.” Apart from these, there are other hiccups like lack of structured documentation of the formats.

Another reason for this one way trade is that licensing TV formats is not looked up as a serious source of revenues, either by broadcasters or production houses as Ashish Gowalkar, Head Non-fiction, Zee TV admits, “Licensing television formats is not our core business.” However, given a chance to license his content, he will think about going ahead as he states, “If a content aggregator comes to us and says that they will market and sell our formats globally, we would like to do that.” Thus, there is a need to explore this opportunity seriously, as Ashish Patil, GM MTV India & Senior Vice President – Creative & Content, puts it, “Someone needs to pick the successful formats and market them aggressively.” Content aggregators like Bull Dog Media are slated to play a crucial role in this process. Bull Dog Media partnered with Mark Burnett Productions (the format holder of ‘Are you smarter than the fifth grader’) and licensed it out to Star Plus. Currently Bull Dog focuses only on bringing global formats to India, but Akash Sharma, founder and MD of the company, says that as the business grows, they will obviously be looking at marketing Indian formats in global markets.

Questions and doubts aside, looking at the direction in which the winds of change are blowing, it is only but time before licensing TV formats & content is looked upon as a serious revenue stream as Vivek Bahl, Creative Head, Star Plus thumps, “The same is already happening between regional & Hindi GECs… and I definitely see potential in some of the content moving out of the country.” UTV’s Ray feels, reality shows will have the maximum chance of playing the lead role in this change, but surely, fiction formats (especially family drama shows) too will follow. Guess one may soon find Indian TV formats seeking green global pasteurs, and if Ray is to be believed, the moment is only 12 to 16 months away. Fingers crossed we are, Mr. Ray!

Pallavi Srivastava

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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The final battle?

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The history of brand infringements is nothing new to global markets but is certainly becoming much more popular in the evolving Indian auto industry. Especially when one looks at the history of infringements in the Indian market, the recent cases are surely an eye-opener. The latest to join the bandwagon is Mahindra-Renault India. Hyundai Motors India has filed a case against latter stating that the MRPL is planning a car named Sandero alleging that the rival was trying to cash in on its popular brand Santro, as the names sound similar. However, Renault India’s CEO Nalin Mehta issued a statement saying, “We have filed a reply requesting the honourable court for removal of Mahindra Renault’s name as the defendant. Mahindra Renault does not have any ownership of the Sandero brand. MRPL has never used or promoted the brand.” In fact, the history of infringement goes beyond Hyundai and Mahindra Renault India as the most talked about case have been the Bajaj and TVS’ infringement case under which the former filed a case against TVS for using twin-spark plug technology in its much-popular brand, Flame. Though, the court didn’t stop TVS from producing Flame, but it barred TVS from using the same technology, which was then allowed at a later stage. Experts believe that with passing time, the industry will evolve and such cases will keep on happening in one manner or the other.

Pawan Chabra

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here

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‘DOLING’ LOYALTY BONUS

National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Without an iota of doubt, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is the single biggest and most ambitious marketing exercise ever launched by a political party in India; perhaps even bigger than the Garibi Hatao slogan and scheme of Indira Gandhi. Her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi is clearly the biggest beneficiary of this unique marketing exercise. When the NREGS (promising to provide employment to at least one member of a poor family in rural India) was launched in 2005, there were many sniggers about its intent and implementation. But the 2009 Lok Sabha elections clearly revealed that a brand can actually ‘buy’ consumer loyalty.

One of the reasons for the pan Indian upsurge in support for the Congress in recent times – despite anti-incumbency and many instances of poor governance – is the powerful message that the NREGS has sent to hundreds of millions of potential consumers (voters) across India. So what if a few instances of improper implementation of NREGS have come to light, consumers in Indian villages have realised that no other rival brand offers the value proposition that the Congress does through NREGS. The principal rival BJP has tried hard to resurrect a tired old slogan called Hindutva; but the voters decided that bread is certainly better than manufactured faith.

Do not underestimate the power of NREGS to ‘buy’ and sustain consumer loyalty. An impoverished family escaping starvation thanks to the scheme might well become a loyal consumer (of the scheme and therefore the Congress) for at least one entire generation. No wonder marketing strategists of India’s oldest political brand (of course, the Indian National Congress) look so cocky!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

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Another cellular Armageddon... ...but will MTS find its place?

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So, to make its presence felt, MTS is doing what most new operators are resorting to – offering freebies and tariff cuts. The philosophy is to entice new customers through freebies and make them experience its network so that they stick with it. “We are offering certain revolutionary pricing packages to the consumers like the minute millionaire scheme apart from the full talk time on every recharge above Rs.10 and all of these have been very well received in the market so far,” avers Lenny Musatov, CMO, SSTL. And the strategy seems to be working for them so far as the company was able to garner its first 1 million subscribers within just 10 months of its launch in September 2008. In fact, it went on to double its subscriber base to 2 million in another 3 months (by September 2009) making it grow by a whopping 16.8% on a month-on-month basis. The company believes that as it continues to add more circles, the growth story would get only better with time.

However, MTS realises that living up to this challenge would not be easy as the Indian market is quite diverse with each circle having its own set of challenges. For instance, the latest circle that MTS has added (the Delhi NCR) to its kitty is quite different in terms of usage pattern and penetration level than the circles that it was earlier operating in. “To address the needs of Delhi market we now have more high-end handsets and will be looking at getting more smartphones that offer facilities such as live TV” agrees Lenny.

But, as MTS offers wireless services based on the CDMA technology it’s able to offer better data speeds as opposed to its GSM peers. However, what’s important to note here is that CDMA still has not been able to pick up well in India. Both Reliance Communication (RCOM) and Tata Teleservices (TTSL) that had started off as CDMA services providers have now moved into GSM services as well. So, does MTS too feel the need to get on to the other side of the wall?

Not quite, on the contrary MTS seems quite content with its decision despite the fact that it’s the only operator in the country to rely on CDMA technology for growth. In fact, it’s only company in the world to have adopted the 1X advanced technology for CDMA (which is the 3G for CDMA operator). “It makes sense for MTS to concentrate on CDMA as unlike RCOM or TTSL it’s relatively new. It makes no sense for it get into GSM as of now. Further, as MTS would be touting more on the data usages therefore it would be better if it sticks to CDMA technology as data capabilities are always better on this platform,” reasons a telecom analyst.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Ad revenues@www?

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it happened in denmark about six months back; and repeated itself in UK, the world’s fourth largest economy. We are talking about Internet ad-spend overtaking TV ad-spend for the first time in UK. As per a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), where on one hand, Internet advertising spend touched £1.75 billion (having grown by 4.6%), the ad-spend on TV fell by 16% to touch just £1.6 billion. This being great news for online advertisers, website hosts, social networking entities et al, the question is whether this phenomenon can be repeated in a developing economy like India. In this context, it is imperative to remember that online advertising in developed economies are a direct result of the high penetration, fast and cheap broadband, and the quick acceptance of new formats such as video adverts. But, despite Internet fast becoming a strong media vehicle in the country, today, we can only boast of 38.5 million Internet users – not enough to push advertisers to spend more on the Internet than on TV 30-second spots. Even the forecasts by KPMG testify the same.

Advertising over Internet during the year 2009 is expected to touch just Rs.8.4 billion, while the amount sidelined for TV ads is predicted to touch Rs.88.2 billion. So there is where the question comes in – how about a few years later? Certainly speaking, in terms of growth figures, Internet advertising looks more handsome, with a CAGR of 27.9% (between 2009-13) vis-à-vis TV ad-spend, which is projected to grow at just 13.5%, however in terms of absolute amount spent, advertisers will still maintain a higher focus on TV, with expected ad-spend during 2013 to be Rs.155.5 billion, than on the Internet where only Rs.21.4billion is expected to be spent by the advertisers. Translation: In India, TV and traditional media vehicles will reign longer!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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FESTIVAL FETISH

IIPM 3-year full-time Integrated (MBA BBA) Programme

You’ve seen the advertisements, you’ve seen the promotional campaigns, you’ve seen the marketing blast too – but is the festival season just about price discounts? Well, that too; but too much more! 4Ps B&M gives you this cover feature on how retailers and traders are the new kings and why auto manufacturers are not plumping on the price mistress this season to attract the vicarious customer!

You’ve seen the advertisements, you’ve seen the promotional campaigns, you’ve seen the marketing blast too – but is the festival season just about price discounts? Well, that too; but too much more! 4Ps B&M gives you this cover feature on how retailers and traders are the new kings and why auto manufacturers are not plumping on the price mistress this season to attract the vicarious customer!

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Maruti Suzuki is still the most trusted brand in the Indian automotive industry. Pawan Chabra gives an account of its acts...

IIPM B School : King Khan, Bollywood Badshah and Quiz Wiz — that’s Shah Rukh Khan for you

One cannot deny the truth that the Indian consumer still trusts the brand Maruti Suzuki more than its counterparts in the country, when it comes to purchasing a new vehicle. In fact, many experts even claim that the positioning of the company in the late 1980s of being a “people’s car-maker” is still helping Maruti Suzuki to drive its sales ahead. But quiz Shashank Srivatava, CGM- Marketing, Maruti Suzuki, on how the company has positioned itself over the years and he says, “Before the economy opened up, it was one era for the Indian automotive industry and so for Maruti Suzuki. But after liberalisation in 1992, the scenario became altogether different for the industry.” However, of late, there has been a visibly dramatic change in the positioning of Maruti, and this has been a vital factor for its success. With the launch of products like Swift, A-star, SX4 and the recent entrant Ritz, the company has shown India and the world that it is even capable of treading down a more aggressive and technologically intensive path. What’s interesting though is the fact that despite this change in the past couple of years, the image of being a people’s car maker is sill associated with the brand. How have these two positioning quotients gelled together to make Maruti Suzuki a valuable brand in India is the question here.

The tag of a people’s car maker is generally considered as a “cheap car maker in India,” says Srivastava. Considering this, the company has rightfully moved away from the same to an extent, keeping in mind the tactics involved in market segmentation game. In fact, Maruti has done a lot, stitching and knitting to stay right atop the Indian automotive industry. From a time, when the consumer could not think beyond an Ambassador or a Fiat brand, the company launched a Maruti 800 which was an instant success in the country. The smooth ride continued with the launch of products like Zen and Esteem. But on the way, the Maruti logo was replaced by the Suzuki logo on the vehicle, “which clearly signified superior technology,” added Srivastava. Moreover, the company also altered its approach when it comes to reaching end-consumers. In the past one year, Maruti Suzuki, took the dotcom route in a big way to stay close to the consumer’s heart and ensured that the company remains the most valuable brand in the Indian automotive industry.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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KS Oils Ltd.

IIPM conceptualized the grand final of Dare ‘10 — the most prestigious of international B-school student quizzes

Entry Price: Rs.53
Target Price: Rs.64
EPS: 6.3 (FY10E)
P/E: 8.4 (FY10E)
Time Duration: One year
Rationale: KS Oil’s focus on branded products has enabled it to maintain high margins. Further, the backward integration measures ensure raw material supply. The company is also constantly in the process of expanding its capacity, which is expected to drive its growth going ahead.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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And now its 2009…

Sitting tight at his work office in Chennai, C. K. Ranganathan (or CKR as he’s lovingly called by his friends and colleagues) is giving a fair bit of thought to the next big leap for his carefully nourished FMCG gambit CavinKare. In as much, the Rs.700 crore company is poised at a crucial inflection point in its history today. Having already dug its tentacles in regional markets and won the confidence of low-income consumers, CavinKare is now mulling its next step, which includes pan-Indian forays for some of its businesses and even bringing in some SEC A consumers within its fold. Says an enthusiastic CKR, “We are making efforts to be seen across categories. And you’ll see that in another decade, we’ll be an HUL in the making!” CKR ambition is for CavinKare to soon “become a Rs.5,000 crore group.”

It’s not just empty posturing. Peep into his detailed roadmap for achieving that target, and you realise that his ambition is neither inflated nor overrated. CKR believes that the key to CavinKare’s growth is the slew of brands in its kitty, which have a tenacious stranglehold in regional markets, spanning segments like shampoos (Chik, Meera, and Nyle), fairness cream (Fairever), deodorants and talcum powders (Spinz), masalas and ready mixes (Ruchi, Chinni’s), hair colours (Indica) and toilet cleaners (Tex, Topp Mopp). Not only that, he’s also taken his brands in select overseas markets, with a particularly strong presence in Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Today, says CKR, CavinKare boasts a market share of 24% in shampoos, while Fairever has a 7% share in the fairness cream segment. Going forward, it is this strength that CKR hopes to exploit in his growth pursuit. “Most Indian companies simply leverage one parent brand. That is the weakness of Indian companies. They are afraid to create more brands thinking it will cost big money. But look at us, we have dozens of brands and all are growing healthily and we are even able to fund their growth,” explains CKR, adding that the company is now raring to “grow inorganically” and while he refuses to take names yet, he promises we’ll hear about new acquisition plans soon enough.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

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Fun for you, but they mean business

Ramanathan avers, “We are a company that is totally focused on domestic tourism. That is why we are in a way safe from global recession. Although we lost in the third quarter of last year, we covered it in the fourth quarter by focusing on customers, who have not been affected much by the slowdown like doctors, lawyers et al.” This can be well substantiated from the fact that almost all resorts of the company witnessed an occupancy rate of around 75% last year (69% members and 6% by non members). The company even successfully rolled out is Initial Public offer (IPO) last month for the expansion of some of its resorts and setting up of new projects to support its expansion strategy.

So is it all so good with MHRIL? Well, not exactly. There are few issues encompassing the credibility of the company. And the first one comes from its membership agreement. It is a long service obligation on part of both the company and its customers as the membership duration lasts for as long as 25 years where in the admission fee (60% of the total cost) and the entitlement fee (remaining 40%) needs to be paid on EMI basis. This is not only a burden on the part of the consumers for a quite elongated period, but also an obligation on the company to maintain its resorts for that stated time. The second problem for the company comes from the issue of demand seasonality and dependence on travel industry. Explains an industry analyst from Angel Broking, “The company relies on discretionary spending by consumers, which is a lot vulnerable to economic cycles.”

Meanwhile, in order to expand their portfolio now they are even looking at branding of their Spas, ‘Swastha’, so that it can be extended to cities as well. But how will that be possible when the company does not even have a pan India presence? Well, Ramnathan answers, “Currently we have around 23 resorts, but we have bought land in many parts of the country. Our focus will be to grow in India.” Presently MHRIL has resorts in the west and northern India only. Thus the challenges are humongous, but then that does not stop Ramanathan from dreaming big for his company, at least not at a time when the travel and tourism industry is set to contribute 8% to the Indian GDP.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Life@Satyam: Seeking divine intervention

IIPM set to beat economic slowdown

They have their loyalty for the beleaguered IT company on one side and concern for the future of their livelihood on the other 4Ps B&M’s Naresh Nunna steals a look at the plight of Satyam employees caught between a rock and a hard place...

Tiny ancient temple of Lord Venkateswara in Chilukur village on the banks of Osmansagar lake at the outskirts of Hyderabad is being thronged with devotees, following the ‘confessions’ of Satyam’s Ramalinga Raju. Are majority of the devotees Satyam’s investors? Promoters? No, they are Satyam’s employees! Seeking God’s super personal generic exemplification during testing times may not a surprising gesture. But, why Chilikuri Balaji? Because Chilukuri Balaji, is considered to be IT-friendly. Most of the techno-savvies have been seeking divine intervention of Chilukuri Balaji in getting jobs, particularly overseas visas.

“Satyam episode is definitely a bolt from the blue, as IT sector is concerned. It flared up the existing market upheaval, caused by world-wide recession,” facilitator and consultant, Challa R. Phani told 4Ps B&M. With the global slowdown already putting the brakes on India’s $50 billion IT industry, jobs were difficult to come by, he added.

Besides the lavish lifestyle they lead in posh localities like Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, the home and other loans they have taken put them under tremendous tension. Thus, scores of employees had begun sending out their resumes to job portals and to other software firms. It is known that about 15,000 employees of Satyam have sent their CVs to placement companies and job portals during the last two days. Fearing trouble, more than 200 employees have also resigned during the last 3-4 days. A project manager at an international IT services firm said he had received about 4-5 frantic calls from Satyam managers, asking for jobs.

The shell-shocked employees inside the premises of company’s sprawling headquarters at Hyderabad were discussing in groups on the awful developments, the uncertainty and future plans. But they avoided the media on the instructions of their higher-ups. “How would you feel if you were in my position?” said one employee, while being reluctant to speak to the media, which is creating ‘mountains out of molehills.’ They are not only furious with the media for its ‘cock and bull’ stories, but also on off the cuff remarks made by IT bigwigs, like Infosys’ Narayana Murthy, who ascribed Satyam and its employees tainted, while ruling out the possibilities of taking over it. “We sincerely feel we are being subjected to such a harsh action out of no fault of ours,” an employee told 4Ps B&M, protesting the comments of Murthy.

Sudheer Pakanati (name changed) had prepared to settle for a smaller pay packages. “In fact, I applied for Wipro long back to the events of ‘horrifying magnitude. I was offered an annual package of Rs.4.5 lakh. But, now they asked me to join for 40% lower than it,” he told 4Ps B&M. And, if I stay with Satyam there will always be nagging worries about their salaries and their future, he said. A selected trainee- programmer, who has been waiting for his date of joining, felt happy with the developments. “I would have been tied in this fraudulent company because of the bond. There would have been no option left for me. Thank God I am saved,” he said with a sigh of relief. Others too are choosing to pursue different options: a developer who has been with Satyam for seven years said he had been planning on taking a break to do a Ph.D. Some of the stunned employees of Satyam are venting their frustration over the situation and future prospects in portals like Facebook, Orkut and Twitter.

But according to echelons of Satyam, the situation is not that bad, as being portrayed. Besides an amount of Rs.2,500 crore to get from clients, new projects worth more than Rs. 2,000 crore from Railways and BSNL are presently in Satyam’s kitty. “If the employees go with the business, I reckon 55-60% of the employees will find work,” an echelon told 4Ps B&M under condition of anonymity.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

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Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

1500-plus IIPM students placed across the country with 44 bagging international offers

From street promotions to online games to even launching an ice cream flavour that could make you smarter was adopted by Star Plus in order to promote their new quiz show – Kya Aap Panchvi Pass Se Tez Hain, with Shah Rukh Khan as its host. The idea was to create buzz around the show and make viewers familiar with its format to ensure that they feel that this is one show that they cannot afford to miss. All efforts were to make this one a greater success than Kaun Banega Crorepati. Although the show could not get decent TRPs, it paved way for future telly shows to adopt more innovative viral marketing campaigns.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
IIPM set to beat economic slowdown
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As if the debacle with financial services and auto sector wasn’t enough, here’s another one: Retail.

With Circuit City filing for bankruptcy, one wonders who’s next by Pawan Chabra

They say that developing countries like India and China need to maintain steady economic growth of 7-8% to lift millions out of poverty. Unfortunately, for countries like US, who are staring at prospects of economic degrowth, the challenge seems to be with respect to millions that are not in poverty yet. The challenge increasingly would be how to keep them there; as companies, one after another are sounding the alarm about not so impressive times ahead.

After the crunch in financial services and auto, retail is the next source of bad news. Circuit City, the second largest consumer electronics retail chain in US has recently filed for bankruptcy under chapter 11, which has created a chaos in US retail industry.

In a situation where analysts are quite sure of a dull Christmas season ahead for retailers this year, Circuit City’s bankruptcy has given signals of a very rough road ahead to the other retailers in US. As John Crossman, President Crossman & Company states, “Retailers are very desperate for a bright festive season ahead and the industry need a big holiday season. We will see some big winners and big losers this time.” Crossman’s prediction seems true enough as, in a letter posted on Circuit City’s website, Jim Marcum, VP & CEO, Circuit City Stores, Inc. said, “This (bankruptcy) filing will give us the time and resources to address our financial challenges.”

City’s filing for bankruptcy has given many sleepless nights to giants in the IT industry as almost all IT stocks fell down drastically as soon as news of the filing spread. HP is the biggest unsecured creditor of Circuit City as City owes $118.8 million to HP, followed by many others who’ll now have to reframe their strategies to stay profitable in these bad times.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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IIPM - Admission Procedure
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Why Study Abroad When IIPM Gives You 3 global Advantages!