Blog entries

Heights of Comparative Advertising

Abhishek Chanda — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:05:50 +0100

When brands fight it out amongst themselves, the fight is all about capturing market share and toppling competition. And when they do it on TV, it is all about grabbing eyeballs by making the cheekiest of ads and taking potshots at the competitor.

The sub-continent has had ads that have unleashed witty and funny, and at other times drab, commercials to hit back at each other. During the 1996-97 Wills Cricket World Cup there was the memorable Pepsi versus Coca-Cola campaign, when Pepsi Read More...

Of Women Entrepreneurs, Women's Day and a Reservation Bill

Vimarsh Bajpai — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:00:26 +0100

While Happy Women's Day is trending on Twitter, amidst the din in the Upper House of Indian Parliament there is a Women's Reservation Bill is being tabled to give 33% quota to women in Parliament and assemblies. Both seem to be mere symbolic gestures to salute the fairer sex while the situation on the ground remains unchanged. There is still no light at the end of the tunnel for millions of women in small towns and villages. They work on fields, in factories and homes only to be marginalized Read More...

Corporate Downsizers, anyone?

Abhishek Chanda — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:58:28 +0100

Last weekend I got myself tickets for a movie called Up in the Air. A typical American drama film directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner, the film is an adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. Apart from the fact that the film stars the ever charming George Clooney, what all the more interested me was a brief review that I read which mentioned that the story is about a corporate downsizer and his travels.

Corporate downRead More...

My unnamed Pakistani friend in Dubai : Why Indians and Pakistanis must be friends

Krishna Kumar — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100

Every time there is an India - Pakistan standoff, my mind goes back to that evening in Dubai.

This was many years back, much before 9/11 and 26/11. I was on a visit to Dubai and and my return flight was at midnight. Having finished the mandatory sight seeing and having checked out of my hotel room, I sat down on a road side bench to watch the Dubai traffic whizz by.

Some time passed and the Sun was beginning to set, when I heard some one ask me in Hindi - "Are you ok?" Turning aRead More...

My Name Is Khan: fear-uncertainty-doubt and the apparel connection

Binesh Kutty — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:24:52 +0100

A lot has been talked about My Name Is Khan and the FUD surrounding the topic. I had a rather unique experience this evening in Nasik - and let me be very clear that it has no direct connection with the movie. I had walked into a Belmonte (a brand under the umbrella of S. Kumars Nationwide Limited) showroom to check out some suits. While at the shop, I noticed a strange thing across the store - all the blow-ups of Shah Rukh Khan had a newspaper stuck upon it, covering the face of him. I thougRead More...

Standing out in a crowd of similar businesses

Binesh Kutty — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:05:59 +0100

Recently I met a group of entrepreneurs in Nashik, who under partnership, have decided to set up a business in the BPO space. Now, it has been only couple of years since Nasik saw BPOs being set up in the city. Naturally, there was this sudden surge of BPOs in the city. Having said that, one of the many problems that these entrepreneurs mentioned is ‘there is just too many of us who do exactly the same kind of work for the same pool of clients’.

Such is the dilemma of aRead More...

Sheen returning to gems and jewellery

Vimarsh Bajpai — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:44:57 +0100

Not long ago in 2009 it was mayhem in the gems and jewellery units across the country with shutters going down on many small manufacturing shops and workers losing jobs. The major export markets of US and Europe, which have been traditional strongholds of Indian companies for long were in chaos due to the economic slowdown. With people going on recession diets, there was surely no money to buy the luxuries of life such as gems and jewellery.

The year 2010 is ringing in some good news nRead More...

A good time to try out an agro-processing unit?

Vimarsh Bajpai — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:32:17 +0100

Rs 30,000 crore is an alarming figure. And this is not the size of a scam or the allocation the government is making to any of its social sector schemes. If industry chamber FICCI is to be believed, Rs 30,000 crore worth of fruits and vegetables are wasted annually due to glaring holes in the supply chain and storage facilities. Only around 2% of fruits and vegetables are processed, and the figure stands at 26% for marine, 6% for poultry and 20% for buffalo meat, as against 60-70% of the overRead More...

Some tips for interacting with the media for the first time(s)

Binesh Kutty — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:29:00 +0100

In our line of business, we happen to contact several entrepreneurs who have not interacted

with any journalist/media house before us. Because these are not media-savvy people, they turn out to be extremely cooperative and/or way too skeptical. Now, no one is blaming them for being like that. However, these are some poRead More...

Solar PV market set to glow further

Vimarsh Bajpai — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:58:19 +0100

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, if works out as planned, could turn out to be the UPA government's flagship initiative just like the National Rural Employment Generation (NREGA) scheme. Among the various initiatives aimed at giving a fresh impetus to the renewable energy sector, three are noteworthy: Allowing large scale domestic manufacture, a long-term policy to purchase power; and R&D support to reduce material consumption and improve efficiency. The solar mission isRead More...

How to be a good client

Binesh Kutty — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:02:10 +0100

Yes, this is a topic worth thinking about. Don’t we all seek services from some provider some point in our business, mostly for activities that are not your core competency? Then, don’t we all cuss the provider for not doing the job as required. Have you stopped for a moment and thought that maybe the problem is not with them, but with you as a client?

Of global warming, green fund and problem solving

Vimarsh Bajpai — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:05:12 +0100

I wonder sometimes if talking about global warming and climate change has become fashionable these days with governments of all stripes and color talking of their "commitments" to reduce emission of greenhouse gases with hardly anyone walking the talk. At the Copenhagen Summit aimed at setting a definitive agenda, the effort was a failure of sort with only meetings, statements and disputes coming out of one of world's biggest gatherings of world leaders.

The developed countries sRead More...

Of dumb advertising and low-cost options

Vimarsh Bajpai — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:13:37 +0100

An advertisement that caught my attention this morning has got me thinking if it is really worth spending a bomb on putting front-page ads in major newspapers, when you can't put your message across in clear words. Here are some pointers:

1. The full-page ad that I am referring to has text written in bold and a live-size photograph of Bret Lee, the Australian cricketer holding a huge while pearl. The center of the page says : 'Pearls: Touching Hearts, Building Confidence.' What is PearRead More...

Can Email be synonymous to Gmail?

Vivek Kumar — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:55:11 +0100

It was in 2000 when I got my first email ID. Of course, I was very happy about it and went gaga about it telling my family members that I communicate online now.

It was on something called “chequemail.com”, which was supposed to send money as you get more and more emails.(!) A sort of attractive bait for newcomers, indeed! Soon, we shifted to hotmail.com where we got permanent addresses that are still there. Then of course Yahoo! follRead More...

What is the value of a "piece of cloth"?

Vivek Kumar — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:11:42 +0100

Recently concluded Tata Jagriti Yatra, a journey through various cities of India to promote awareness about entrepreneurship, took me through a very revealing story, though I joined it for a very short period of length—from Delhi to Tilonia, near Ajmer. The story was about the importance of a “piece of cloth”. As you read about it, you will come to know why I decided to write about it.

As I was coordinating with the meRead More...

Of mobile updates on stock markets and government regulation of social media

Vimarsh Bajpai — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:58:44 +0100

Unlike last year when every news about the stock markets led to mourning sessions among stock brokers, fund managers and retail investors, this year has started with some reprieve. While the topsy-turvy road to stock markets still has some potholes, the positive data on economy and jobs is bringing back cheers on many a faces.

There has been a growing interest among retail investors in India to tap into the stock markets in hope for quick returns. Interestingly, this is a group of inveRead More...