IIPM ARTICLE BROADCAST: February 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Abiogenic?!?

Oil’s found between rocks!

King Hubbert predicted in 1974 backed by his Hubbert Curve theory that oil would go to its peak in 1995 and then it would start declining and will then exhaust gradually. But that did not happen. Oil demand steadily went down in 1970s and 1980s due to instability in oil producing regions and then drastically went up in 2000s. In between, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, as well as two other stalwarts – Ali M. Samsam Bakhtiari of National Iranian Oil Company and Chris Skrebowski, founding Director of Peak Oil Consulting – further predicted that the peak in oil would occur somewhere around 2007. However, that again didn’t happen as oil reserves as well as production further went up (US International Energy data). The crux of the issue remains the same – when the hell would oil run out? The reason this question is important is to understand how much money and efforts should be invested in moving over to alternate/quasi-fuels. Allow us to give you the latest dope – oil is never going to run out! We don’t wish to sound off our blocks, but what we said, fortunately or unfortunately is reality.

While oil reserves in 2007 were around 1,184.208 billion barrels, they’ve gone up to 1,342.207 billion barrels in 2009. Despite increase in investments in alternative energy, these in reality might not be required at all. Researches under the new abiogenic theory contradict the age-old traditional theory that petroleum is derived from biogenic processes.

Iconic authors Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith explain in their cult novel, ‘Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil’ how the belief that oil is a fossil fuel and that it is a finite resource has been promoted to make America (and the world) a vulnerable society. And why’re the authors so important as to be quoted by the likes of National Geographic and Discovery? The abiogenic theory that they publicised – that oil is not just fossil fuel and also forms between granite rocks as well (ergo, will never run out) – is now completely supported by CERA, EIA and OPEC!

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Airtel’s robust business model

“There are three pillars of our success – strong vision and unique strategy, scalability and strong execution forces. Our strong and unique business model for the Indian market can now be applied to any other emerging market,” shares Manoj Kohli, JMD, Bharti Airtel Limited with B&E. Airtel’s robust business model has earned it many accolades in the past and continues to be the backbone of its success. Recently, Airtel launched operations in the Sri Lankan region with the same business model as it practices in India. The initial results that the company has received from this region are satisfying and there are already one million subscribers within six months of its launch.

One critical value chain differentiator for Airtel has been Mittal’s belief in employing strategic partners (some call it outsourcing non-core functions) and nurturing them as it allows Airtel to focus on its core competence of providing mobility while its partners take care of other services like tower maintenance, customer care, et al, thereby enhancing its scale. This has given the execution culture fostered at Airtel and in all its projects (like the Sri Lankan roll-out) a world class image. Airtel, perhaps predictably, with an EPS of Rs.40.79 (for March 2009) stands much ahead of Reliance Communication, which has an EPS of Rs.11.40. MTNL and Idea Cellular lag way behind with Rs.3.41 and Rs.3.25 as their EPS respectively.

“Airtel has always had the advantage of being the first mover in the category. It had booked a large number of postpaid customers, which still continue to be its customers. Over the years, Airtel has maintained its positioning of being premium than its peers and that too has worked in its favour,” says Ravi Shekhar Gupta, Telecom Analyst, Springboard Research. Airtel was the first private company to offer services in all the 23 telecom circles of the country.

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Monday, February 22, 2010

The doctor checks in at #44!

low-priced buyouts, cost control & ensuring sustainable revenues, did the trick for sun pharma. what next? STEVEN PHILIP WARNER answers…

At a time when the Indian pharmaceutical sector, once considered immune to downturns, lies battered, Sun Pharma, during FY2008-09, grew its topline by a remarkable 27.3% y-o-y to clock Rs.42.72 billion, and its bottomlines rose by 22.2% y-o-y to touch Rs.18.17 billion. All this catapulted this pharma giant to the 44th spot on the 2009 B&E Power 100 List, making it the only pharma name to feature in the rankings.

Uday Baldota, VP – Investor Relations, Sun Pharma, tells us, “We created sustainable revenues streams, with greater speed to market. A focus on cost leadership and making acquisitions which yielded high ROI proved to be the right strategies…” Although the strategic combo he gives seems straight out of the consultant’s rule book, critics claim the fact is that Sun Pharma has often appeared to be making seat-of-the-pants decisions in the most critical area of inorganic growth, namely M&As – over the past 14 years, Sun has acquired 14 distressed assets. But there is another side to the story as many of these buyouts have come at “low prices” – as Uday defends – therefore renovating them into profit-churning assets proved less challenging. And if fortune has to favour the brave – at a time when other Indian generic giants are facing the heat and are selling-off their crown jewels – Sun’s acquisitions have actually started bearing fruits, key elements powering its financial vehicle even during a downturn!

At the same time, Sun has always been open to diversifications into the right business lanes. When it laid hands on Dadha Pharma & Milmet Labs, it entered the oncological & opthalmological spaces respectively. And if its $454 million Taro deal comes through (“The deal is still on, with some court decisions awaited,” – Uday), it will get an entry into the dermatological market. Thanks to those cheap buyouts, it’s 2009 now, and Sun’s gross profit margins, which for FY2008-09 stood at an extremely high of 79.9%, have never ever looked better!

There is also the fact that Sun has always remained a cost leader in the generics drugs platform. Sun’s net operating margin is a tremendous (43%) as compared to a modest 10% for the other top ten pharma players. Has it simply a play on the raw material sourcing or is there some critical strategic intent in this situation? Sun claims that this has been because of their focus on costs, which has been the biggest priority for them; and the claim does not come without empirical evidence.

For example R&D! Sun also doesn’t believe in over-investing in R&D. Its R&D budget allocation ratio is only 0.5% of its revenues (for FY2008-09), while that figure for the industry stands at a much higher 14-15%! As per a report by E&Y, “Only 2% percent of projects in the pre-clinical phase are expected to make it to Phase I testing and, of these, only one in five are likely to be approved.” So what’s the average success rate of your primary compound finding a place as a pill in the market? A tiny 0.4%! Rahul Sehgal, President, Nestor Pharmaceuticals also propounds how Sun is taking the right route in this regard as he states, “The R&D which are required, involves a lot of cost. There was never much point in Indian manufacturers spending too much on R&D. R&D spending should now be ratcheted up – significantly and rapidly.”

Surely, Sun seems to have fared better at maintaining the balance between costs and returns during the past year; however the question stands – will this sun continue to shine even in the current year?

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Friday, February 19, 2010

Fairness considerations on firm behaviour do matter!

NOBEL LAUREATE DANIEL KAHNEMAN explains how a firm’s pricing decisions have implications for the fairness perception in the minds of its customers. AND WHY firms have to be very careful with these decisions.

In customer market, it is acceptable for a firm to raise prices (or cut wages) when profits are threatened and to maintain prices when costs diminish. It is unfair to exploit shifts in demand by raising prices or cutting wages. Just as it is often useful to neglect friction in elementary mechanics, there may be good reasons to assume that firms seek their maximal profit as if they were subject only to legal and budgetary constraints. However, the patterns of sluggish or incomplete adjustment often observed in markets suggest that some additional constraints are operative. Several authors have used a notion of fairness to explain why many employers do not cut wages during periods of high unemployment (George Akerlof, 1979; Robert Solow, 1980). Arthur Okun (1981) went further in arguing that fairness also alters the outcomes in what he called customer markets characterised by suppliers who are perceived as making their own pricing decisions, have some monopoly power (if only because search is costly), and often have repeat business with their clientele.

Okun explained these observations by the hostile reaction of customers to price increases that are not justified by increased costs and are therefore viewed as unfair. He also noted that customers appear willing to accept “fair” price increases even when demand is slack The argument used by these authors to account for apparent deviations from the simple model of a profit-maximizing firm is that fair behavior is instrumental to the maximisation of long-run profits. In Okun’s model, customers who suspect that a supplier treats them unfairly are likely to start searching for alternatives; Akerlof (1980, 1982) suggested that firms invest in their reputation to produce goodwill among their customers and high morale among their employees; and trusted suppliers may be able to operate in markets otherwise devastated by the lemons problem (Akerlof, 1970; Kenneth Arrow, 1973). In these approaches, the rules of fairness define the terms of an enforceable implicit contract: Firms that behave unfairly are punished in the long run.

A more radical assumption is that some firms apply fair policies even in situations that preclude enforcement – this is the view of the lay public. If considerations of fairness do restrict the actions of profit-seeking firms, economic models might be enriched by a more detailed analysis of this constraint. Specifically, the rules that govern public perceptions of fairness should identify situations in which some firms will fail to exploit apparent opportunities to increase their profits. Following are four propositions about the effects of fairness considerations on the behavior of firms in customer markets.

PROPOSITION 1: When excess demand in a customer market is unaccompanied by increases in suppliers’ costs, the market will fail to clear in the short run. Evidence supporting this proposition was described by Phillip Cagan (1979), who concluded from a review of the behavior of prices that, “Empirical studies have long found that short-run shifts in demand have small and often insignificant effects [on prices]”. Other consistent evidence comes from studies of disasters, where prices are often maintained at their reference levels, although supplies are short (Douglas Dacy and Howard Kunreuther, 1969). A particularly well-documented illustration of the behaviour predicted in proposition 1 is provided by Alan Olmstead and Paul Rhode (1985). During the spring and summer of 1920, there was a severe gasoline shortage in the US West Coast where Standard Oil of California (SOCal) was the dominant supplier. There were no government-imposed price controls, nor was there any threat of such controls; yet SOCal reacted by imposing allocation and rationing schemes while maintaining prices. Prices were actually higher in the East in the absence of any shortage. Significantly, Olmstead and Rhode note that the eastern firms had to purchase crude at higher prices while SOCal, being vertically integrated, had no such excuse for raising price. They conclude from confidential SOCal documents that SOCal officers “...were clearly concerned with their public image and tried to maintain the appearance of being ‘fair”’.

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

NMDC has some of the most mineral rich mines of india

After deposit 14 was commissioned in 1968, this remote and inaccessible area gradually sprung in to life. Over the last four decades, both Kirandul and Bacheli have transformed themselves from colonies of temporary houses (with a small number of employees) in the multitudes of tribal villages to full-fledged townships. O. P. Jha, who has been working at Kirandul since the late 1970s and is about to retire next month, tells me, “This township has given us everything. It sets high standards of life. It has provided the best of the educational platform to my children and now my son is at a good post in Ranchi.”

Both Kirandul and Bacheli have four schools each starting from Kendriya Vidyalaya, DAV to their own project school catering to various educational boards and suitable for people from different economic strata. Despite being situated far from inhabitation, these schools are no less than any modern school present in Delhi or Mumbai. KV Bacheli, which has 818 students, has all its departments connected through LAN, has a modern computer lab with all possible facilities. And students passing out from these schools have proved themselves to be equally competitive, if not better, as compared to students anywhere; when it comes to securing berths in IITs or finding a job in US. And that’s not the best part of it. Both the townships have educational facilities till 12th grade. So students have to go outside for higher studies. To overcome the problem, NMDC provides scholarships towards both educational expenses and hostel expenses irrespective of the working parent’s position in the company. Rajesh Sandhu, Secretary of Sanyukt Khadan Majdoor Sangh, Kirandul puts it thus, “This is perhaps one such place where even the son of a workman can become a doctor and get a job abroad.”

Sports is another avenue where the township has shown excdeptional performance. Though NMDC has not given an entry in sports quota for quite some time now, these townships have become a breeding ground for young sportsmen, especially footballers. In the last few years, nearly half a dozen players like Suraj Mandal and Dev Kumar Alam have represented the state in the Santosh Trophy. They feel that “availability of proper grounds, related facilities and a great support from the people of the townships have made them move ahead.” However, they also feel that better and more sportsmen can come forward if the company also starts providing players the facilities that they could have got anywhere else under the sports quota.

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A case of mistaken identity

Don't get surprised if RBI's anti-inflationary measure while addressing one problem aggravates another, says Manish K. Pandey

As per onlookers, Duvvuri Subbarao, Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), seemed little nervous while announcing the Q3 Monetary Policy Review last week on January 29, 2010. And why not? After all, he had a challenging task at hand – to tame price instability without jeopardising the country’s economic growth. Although he hiked the cash reserve ratio (CRR) of banks to 5.75 per cent from 5 per cent (this was higher than market expectations of a 50 bps hike on the CRR), and left the repo, reverse repo and bank rates unchanged at 4.75 per cent, 3.25 per cent and 6 per cent respectively, but then by doing so, was he really able to achieve what he wanted?

If one looks at the overnight money market rates, they have been close to the lower band (3.25 per cent) of the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) for quite some time now, reflecting the huge liquidity bulge. In fact, the banking system has been depositing over Rs.1 trillion on a daily basis under the LAF window of the Central Bank during the current fiscal.

Considering this, the two-phased hike in CRR (RBI plans to implement the CRR hike in two stages – a 50 bps increase on February 13 and the remaining 25 bps increase on February 27), which is expected to squeeze out Rs.360 billion of liquidity from the system, is certainly not going to make much of a difference to the ongoing supply-demand imbalance. Further, an immediate hike in interest rates is also an unlikely phenomenon (most bankers have already pointed this out). So the moot question is: Did Subbarao make a right choice by just increasing the CRR for now? Should he have raised the key policy rates as well? ... Or rather left the both untouched?

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Monday, February 15, 2010

The big debate

Between a pocket-size princess and a fat-alicious diva, what do you think is ideal? Anu Gulmohar urges all to stop the mockery and harassment of fat people and think again if people the size of matchsticks are really hot or just a health hazard for the world

Twenty-four-year-old Miss Elsie Scheel of Brooklyn, New York, stood five feet seven inches tall, and weighed about 77 kilos. Her favourite food was beefsteak. Her vital statistics were 35-30-40 and out of 400 ladies she was judged as the “most nearly perfect specimen of womanhood”. That was 1912. In 2010, Miss Scheel’s pear-shaped body would be ridiculed at, the BMI index would place her in the overweight category, she would constantly be harried to give up beefsteaks and to join a gym.

Standards of beauty have been a changin’ in the last century and it has left very few untouched. Television and films show barely-there women as the beau ideal and doctors and quacks are laughing their way to the bank by counselling women and men about ‘wise’ diets and exercises, or worse, advising various surgical methods of removing the ‘fat’. Ladies and gentlemen, there is an epidemic in the world, and I’m not talking about swine flu. It is making people starve themselves, denying their bodies even the basic nutrition. With every morsel they refuse, the phobia of becoming ‘fat’ is eating away into their soul…

Susie Orbach, author and convenor of the organisation Anybody, believes that such behaviour equates to violence against our bodies. But now more and more people are refusing to let the world dictate the parameters their bodies must fit into and bloggers over the ‘fat-o-sphere’ are boldly voicing their indignation. Like racism evoked a civil rights movement, full-bodied men and women in the US, who face discrimination every day are now crying hoarse for their dignity to be restored. Lakhs of people in India would easily relate with their cause.

lakhs Shikha Sharma, who promotes a thriving chain of wellness centres, says, “In India every girl of marriageable age is discriminated against if she’s overweight… the reason why girls actually come to lose weight is because they see discrimination happening in their lives. Even boys in colleges, though they may not admit that they discriminate, but they do.”

“Global studies point to women’s growing dissatisfaction with their bodies. As we export the current western aesthetic for tall and skinny women, which causes so much anguish and body hatred, it’s now being absorbed all over the world, and this includes women in the developing economies who feel that attaining this ‘westernised’ body is part of becoming more mod,” says Susie Orbach. An Indian Council for Market Research (ICMR) study mentioned that 68 percent of people in the metros believe they are fat while 71 percent of the respondents remembered being made to feel uneasy about their weight. And another 63 percent had tried various diets! “I believe that what we are seeing now with the relentless attack on women’s bodies, which is disguised as ‘taking care of yourself’ with this product or that diet, or ‘empowering yourself’ with this or that procedure, is a form of violence. We just don’t notice it but when we look back we can see that foot binding was a form of submission and this is a version of it except that girls are willingly limiting their appetites and buying products in the belief that they are doing good,” she added. India has been aping the West in several ways, and with malls and fast food joints dotting most of urban India, most of us have been committing the same mistakes that America has made in the last few decades. “Five years ago, I would talk about anorexia and everyone would just laugh at me and say there is no anorexia in India. But today it's a huge issue,” notes singer and former VJ Sophie Chaudhary.

A small section of the American society has been urging people to move on to the next stage – fat acceptance. They believe that diet does more damage than good and the fitness mantra for everybody should be HAES – Health at Every Size. HAES is based upon three tenets – Self Acceptance, Physical Activity which is pleasurable and enjoyable, and Normalised Eating that emphasises upon intuitive eating i.e. “learning to recognise hunger and also physical satisfaction,” says Susan, and adds, “…that is what babies do naturally and that is the way to eat.” Author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, Linda Bacon explains, “HAES encourages people to eat attentively, respecting your body signals. It’s not about giving up; it’s about moving on so you can make better choices. Trust yourself! You’re the best judge of what food is best for you and in what amount.”

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Friday, February 12, 2010

General gets lost in electoral labyrinth

Though the wily politician has outsmarted the war horse in the battle of democracy, rajapaksa has to handle acute ethnic polarisation. Saurabh Kumar Shahi explores other probable fallouts of the sri lankan polls from Colombo.

Sympathy and an army general do not cut a very feasible combination. However, you can not actually help but sympathise with General Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka. Imagine his plight. Less than six months ago, he was riding on the euphoric wave that erupted following the annihilation of LTTE. He was venerated along with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The then Indian NSA, in one of those moments where Indians are known to let their tongue and not the mind do the talking, proclaimed he was the best army general operating in the Milky Way. Then Fonseka did what many, who don’t know how to handle veneration, do; he decided to take on the President and his political family in hubris.

Six months later, filing my story from the media centre at the Department of Information Building in Colombo, I can’t help but extend my sympathy. He has lost the election, the veneration and much of his face all in one go. On the sites displaying minute by minute results, comments are pouring in. One T P Ranadheera writes from Pennsylvania, “You lost everything General: serves you right. Come to Pennsylvania with your Green Card; I might help you land a job at some filling station.” Ouch. That should hurt.

The final results are out and the incumbent Rajapaksa has scored a landslide victory, garnering 57.88 per cent of the votes polled. The General has tallied 40.15 per cent. As expected, the incumbent has done marvellously in South and Central South areas where most of his constituent — Sinhalese rural and semi-urban class — resides. Similarly, as expected, Tamils, Muslims and Christians; as well as the urban middle and upper middle class among Sinhalese have solidly been behind Fonseka. The General has won the Northern districts of Jaffna and Vanni as well as Tamil and Muslim-dominated Trincomalee & Batticaloa in the east. He has also managed to win in Mannar, again Muslim-dominated, and Nuwara-Eliya, which has a sizable population of Plantation Tamils (different from Jaffna Tamils).

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

The Sunday Indian:- B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Doubts persist

What is most shocking is the astonishing network of interests that Dr Pachauri has built around the world (see info-graphic). He is on the boards of various companies, NGOs, institutions and banks. As a chairman of IPCC, this certainly creates conflicts of interest. He had been member of the Board of Directors of IOC, ONGC and power company NTPC, which are India’s largest public sector companies. They contribute to the increasing carbon footprint of the country. Pachauri-led TERI also floated OTBL (an ONGC-TERI joint venture company). Pachauri said, “I have made my position very clear already. The decision was taken at the behest of ONGC itself. I wasn’t even present in the board meeting in which this decision was taken.”

Pachauri has interests in several companies and organisations that either benefit from the global scramble to counter climate change or are actively involved in businesses that have giant carbon footprints. He established an oil company in the US, GloriOil, which is in the business of exploiting fossil fuels for profit.

Moreover, Pachauri never divulges anything about the Tata group’s role in TERI. In fact, TERI says through a press release that Tata group has no relationship with it. This disregards the fact that TERI was known as Tata Energy Research Institute till sometime back. And of course, TERI was founded by Tata chemicals – this is a fact TERI now accepts.

Former minister for petroleum and natural gas Santosh Gangwar had complained in writing about TERI getting into a joint venture with ONGC even when Pachauri was on the board of the public sector company.

TERI was the preferred bidder for Kuwaiti contracts to clean up the mess left behind by Saddam Hussein in the country’s oilfields. The $3 billion contracts were awarded by the UN. Pachauri has also been appointed the head of Yale University’s Climate and Energy Institute, which receives millions of dollars in US state and corporate funding. Interestingly, none of these organisations publish data related to remunerations paid to Pachauri.

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Read these article :-

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Big stars + Small screen + Side shows = Mega bucks!

With Abhishek Bachchan’s television show “Bingo” debuting this week, Monojit Lahiri focuses on the amazing, new wave of revenue-generation streams that have suddenly gripped Bollywood!

Once upon a time, not long ago, stars dazzled bright only on the skies – and our B-town stars, only on the silver screen. They were our gods and goddesses, luminous deities who mesmerised, transfixed and transported us to a never-never land of happy-ever-after! In the troubled, busy and confusing times we live in, these stars, with their spectacular and larger-than-life glamour and feel-good quotient, showed us the light, inspired hope, consistently – in their own filmy way – demonstrated virtues victory over evil and generally distracted us, entertained us, gifted us an alternative reality that engaged, enchanted… even empowered! In the India we live in, entertainment is Bollywood and Bollywood is stars; creatures who are elusive, whom you see but can’t touch or connect with; dudes and dolls you read about, gossip about, fantasise… Their charm lay in the fact that they were out of bounds, inaccessible, off-limits to the howling mobs.

Suddenly, in recent times, this concept has taken a U-turn! The big, sexy, glamorous, unattainable movie star defined by magic and mystique now comes to entertain you, every night, free of charge, on… the idiot box! From Big B, SRK, Salman Khan to Akshay, Ajay Devgan & Kajol, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee, Urmila Matondkar, Raveena Tandon, Sushmita Sen, Sonali Bendre, Malaika Arora, Rakhi Sawant… they are all hitting the TV screens in droves! Why? In Hollywood (a place the complex-ridden Bollywood is constantly yakking about) – neither TV endorsements, TV anchoring or ‘special’ (insanely lucrative) appearances at product launches, event openings, concerts or big-ticket weddings happen. So what’s going on? Why this desperate sell out? Aren’t they scared that this insane and all-pervasive exposure will hurt their brand equity as stars?

Longtime film tracker, Ashish Paul laughs away these contentions. “Film stars of yesteryears – 50s, 60s, even 70s – resided in a different world. Commercialism, consumerism and media-driven activities didn’t exist. It was a sweet, cosy, protected space with very high comfort levels. The advent of TV, but more critically the opening up of markets post ’91, changed all that. This coincided with Bollywood getting bigger and more powerful as an undisputable pan-India – even global – brand. Very soon, along with cricket, it became the new religion, the great leveler, a seductive common factor that – despite caste, creed, language, colour, religion, region, culture, even country – bound all! It’s natural, hence, that today’s star kids (smart ‘n’ savvy that they are) will participate, even drive this new revenue generation stream. As for compromising on their ‘exclusive’ tag, I don’t think they give a damn! The amount of money they earn in these shows against the time spent, makes it a delectable fast buck option! Victor Banerjee (of “A Passage to India” fame), however, doesn’t agree totally. He believes that traditionally, there has always been a distinct divide between TV stars and movie stars, each ruling their own defined space. “Hollywood still maintains it and apart from the odd exception doesn’t dream of indulging in any of the crazy trade-offs that blitz the scene here. For a very long time I resisted TV work. It’s only when nothing worthwhile was coming my way in the movies that I started doing TV serials. Ads, anchoring or special appearances remain – mostly – a no-no! There’s a limit to commodification! Everything in my life is not up for sale!”

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Friday, February 05, 2010

Cavo Tagoo Hotel, Mykonos

Make your trip to Mykonos even more memorable with your stay at the Cavo Tagoo hotel. A unique luxury hotel, Cavo Tagoo sits pretty on an impressive cliffside, near the town of Chora, overlooking the Aegean Sea. Unparalleled hospitality, state-of-the-art facilities, and an ideal location is what sets the Cavo Tagoo apart in comparison to the other hotels in its league. The hotel lives up to its reputation as the Top Resort hotel, earning 1st Prize of Applied Architecture in the Aegean Sea Region, and is also the winner of 10th International America Award for Quality 1998. Pamper yourself at the hotel’s spa centre or burn that flab away at the hotel’s fitness centre. Indulge in the delicacies served by the Tagoo restaurant or revitalise yourself with a swim in the indoor swimming pool. With all this and more, Cavo Tagoo is unarguably ‘The hotel’ to be in.

The view : Enjoy a quiet evening gazing across the breathtaking panoramic view offered by the hotel and enjoy the jet-setting vibes of Mykonos.

Archi type : Cavo Tagoo exhibits a blend of Mykonian architecture with a contemporary flourish. The hotel has an exquisite setting of whitewashed walls, blending effortlessly with its Cycladic surroundings, sleek lines and imposing designer urns in shades of the Aegean.

Bon appétit : Enjoy spectacular sunsets from the pool-side restaurant while you savour the delicacies on a platter. The restaurant serves a distinct Mediterranean cuisine, Greek specialities and also has a sushi bar.

Around the corner : The hotel is ideally located at a stone’s throw distance from the Mykonos town. The retreat proves to be an ideal base for shopping, beach visits and the town's famous nightlife.

From under the carpet : Since the hotel is located between the old port and the new port, where cruise ships anchor, the noise levels in and around the hotel can be a bit of botheration.

In essence : The hotel combines state-of-the-art facilities with versatile service in a caring environment... truly an exotic experience for its guests.

For Complete I I P M Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Monday, February 01, 2010

Can India be Mine?

Global leaders have somehow found it difficult to crack the indian market. can the 'quality' icon find a way to emerge as a powerhouse in one of the fastest growing auto markets? By pawan chabra

When the going gets tough, the tough gets quirky! Don’t believe us? Check out the New ‘special red’ colour of the Toyota FT-86 coupe. It is a special red, called shoujyouhi red, and is inspired by the traditional red colour of a Japanese monkey’s… err... backside!

With General Motors filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and registering falling sales numbers month after month, it paved the road for Toyota Motor Corporation to become the world’s largest automaker. But humbling Detroit is passé. In the midst of recession, Toyota itself is looking for a generous dose of inspiration. It’s new President Akio Toyoda has in fact been extremely self critical of the manner in which his company seemed to have lost its ability to put some excitement into its products. He even went on record to state, “It is us – the automakers – who have abandoned our passion for cars (refusing to blame the customers for the decline in sales and profitability in US).” The FT-86 coupe perhaps is an interesting effort in terms of re-igniting that passion!

Year 2008 saw major ups and downs in the global standings of automotive companies. In fact, the year gone by saw many giants literally on their knees. Be it GM, Chrysler or Ford, all three Detroit leaders drove through the bumpy road with a lot of hiccups. However, the scenario was equally bad at Toyota, Japan as the company was also moving forward in a state of discomfort; accounting for negative growth month after month on a yoy comparison. In fact, the company has already forecasted a net loss of $5 billion (Rs.232.5 billion) for the year ending March 2010 after it posted a loss of $4.4 billion in 2008-09, its first in 71 years. Nevertheless, experts still swear by the company’s quality standards and its ability to fight back.

Besides re-igniting a passion for great cars, Toyota seriously needs to re-ignite its passion for futuristic markets like India. The company’s Indian arm, Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM) is the most trusted brand for quality in the Indian automotive industry.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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