Showing posts with label IIPM Management Institute. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM Management Institute. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 05, 2012

Could technology be weakening the ability of our minds to learn?

The counter point is that the Internet makes us smarter. Using Google Search to find details or look-up phone numbers on your phone is no different from visiting the library or checking the telephone directory – in effect, these are our ‘extended minds’. This concept was introduced in 1998 by Prof. Andy Clark (University of Edinburgh) and Prof. David Chalmers (Australian National University). Prof. Chalmers provided B&E with an example, “My iPhone is not my tool, or at least it is not wholly my tool. Parts of it have become parts of me. This is the thesis of the extended mind: when parts of the environment are coupled to the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind.”

A 2008 UCLA survey of adults aged 55 -78 found that just a week of Internet experience enhances brain activity patterns and cognition. Further study shows that Internet research boosts the ability to process information and make decisions. Explains Dr. Teena Moody, of Center for Cognitive Neurosciences at UCLA, “The potential upside, is that even older people can benefit by learning to recruit additional regions of their brains after “Googling” the Internet for a short period of time. Many companies are beginning to exploit this opportunity by developing games to enhance specific aspects of learning.

”It seems the ball is in each of our courts to make the best use of the wealth of information that technology has to offer. Google may happily do the hard work for us, but its value will depend on what we as individuals can bring to the table.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face




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Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Forced to go in for C-section deliveries by doctors, women are finding it safer to give birth at home...

Forced to go in for C-section deliveries by doctors, women are finding it safer to give birth at home...

Guneet was lucky to have no complications with her pregnancy, hers was a normal case. She had anticipated a normal delivery, but was in for a rude shock when in the early stages of labour, her doctor told her to go for a Cesarean. She was not even given the chance to attempt giving birth the natural way. Her child is a year old now, but she still experiences pain in her lower abdomen. “I would have preferred to have a normal delivery, but my doctor decided against it,” she whines. For many women like Guneet, the doctor has, unfortunately, had the last word.

Sadly nowadays, most of the hospitals are misleading women to believe that they must undergo a Cesarean surgery regardless of whether there is a medical need for it or not. Statistics highlight the increase in the number of such deliveries. A recent survey revealed that one in three babies in the US are delivered by C-section; it is one in five deliveries in India. Cited among the reasons for this alarming rise is the delay in childbearing by ladies and also increased obesity in moms-to-be. Induced labour is among the main causes of trouble as pointed out by the study. Ladies who delivered via C-section were twice as likely to be among those opting for induced labour, for this is sometimes performed before the cervical dilation progresses to 6 centimeters in diameter. While clinical impatience may be blamed in the above case, several people are also forming the opinion that the surge in C-sections might just be caused by people in the medical profession in a rush to make some easy money.

Unlike any other surgery, in a Cesarean there are chances of the mother contracting infections; healing takes much longer and the surgery could also put her at risk of other long term health hazards. So could hospitals indeed be looking at financial gains by unscrupulously carrying out Cesarean deliveries, even in cases when it is not required?


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Monday, August 27, 2012

MF INDUSTRY: CHALLENGES & FUTURE OUTLOOK

Leave aside regulatory changes, the Indian mutual fund industry today faces a number of issues which are characterized by lack of investor awareness, low penetration levels, high dependence on corporate sector and spiraling cost of operations. Structural changes in business models are what AMCs now require if they want to sustain profitability by Mona Mehta

Further, the dependence on the corporate sector is still pretty pronounced at 51% when compared with economies like US & China where investments channelised through corporates, comprise only around 15% & 30% of the AUM, respectively. This under volatile market conditions, sound a note of caution for the industry, as high dependence on the corporate sector may result in the fund houses being prone to unexpected redemption pressures. Considering the untapped potential, competition too is all set to gain momentum in the Indian MF industry, which is making dominant desire to progress, a reality, through wealth creation.

In fact, the moot point here is amidst the new transparencies that will be introduced in the system meant to boost investors confidence and ensure fair competition in the industry, it is equally important for AMCs to understand how critical is it for them to collectively work towards facilitating more innovation, financial inclusion, cost management, increased investment in technology to support distribution network, with the support from channel partners and regulators alike.

Ramdeo Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Director – Finance, Motilal Oswal Financial Services too feels that in India, creation of the fund is not coming from the strength, in sync with the trend existing in other parts of the world. For instance, in US, founders of fund create fund based on certain insights and convictions for the benefit of customers post which the funds are traded to get the asset, say, may be worth Rs.1 trillion. Hence, Indian asset management companies (AMCs) now need to work on developing new USPs in handling people’s saving.

“The financial inclusion category today has the most competitive and cost efficient structure in place, which we believe is extremely favourable for the final investor. MFs have been extremely transparent with high disclosure standards which help investors in their process of due diligence. With increase in category awareness and enhanced brand connect, AMCs have been able to reach out to the customer more effectively,” Nipun Kaushal, Head – Marketing, ICICI Prudential AMC tells B&E. However, Kaushal refuses to divulge details of the product innovations that he is planning to come up with due to competitive strategies.

Even the regulator now seems to be paying heed to ensure that MF industry sustains its profitability. In fact, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has recently issued directions for the mutual fund industry stating that no business houses without five-year financial services experience will be permitted to own stake in an AMC, with an aim to enable only the serious investors to get into the business. “As MF business has a long gestation period, therefore the regulator is now looking for shareholders who can stay for long and are experienced in the industry,” spokesperson of Edelweiss AMC tells B&E.


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Monday, August 20, 2012

THE BIG FIVE: ECONOMY

The IIPM Think Tank analyses the five largest economies (excl. China) – US, Japan, Germany, France, UK

European economies have given mixed results. Even though the German economy shrank last year by 5%, experts predict a growth of 1.5% this year (that means an absolute positive shift of 6.5%). Five leading think tanks commissioned by the government provided the silver lining with facts like growth in industrial orders, recovering exports, rise in business confidence, reduced layoffs and unemployment level being at par with the fall of 2008. Unemployment level is expected to dip slightly next year to 7.9% from 8.1% this year, compared to 8.2% in 2009.

Britain’s economy grew by a weaker than expected 0.2% in the first quarter of 2010, a rise of 0.4% over the previous one. Its GDP also shrivelled by 0.3% in the first quarter. France’s GDP dipped by a negative 2.1%, with unemployment at 10.1%.

Although the second largest global economy Japan’s real GDP in 2009 fell by 5%, its GDP actually grew by 4.6% in the last quarter of 2009, which is better than projected by the government’s preliminary report. It has been augmented by export rise in Asia and increased domestic demand supported by government’s incentives. In the third quarter last year, Japan’s economy expanded by 1.1% in absolute terms, which beat the average forecasts of 0.9% quarterly rise, according to Kyodo News survey. This quarter also witnessed a rise in consumer spending to the tune of 0.7%, the highest in last 7 quarters. In December, even though the industrial production grew by 2.2% and capital spending by 1.0%, public investment declined by 1.6%.

With oil prices hovering peacefully around $80 per barrel, with US and Japan leading the way in turning around, EU showing latent promise for the current year, and with the BRIC economies steaming ahead in their growth ambitions, it can be safely said that although pristine recession is over, the effects of the same will continue lingering across economies for the next six quarters at least.


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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Will they ever find a medicine to cure this limping cousin?

With legislations hampering the flow of capital into the Food Processing sector, it’s time for an overarching law to save agriculture’s closest cousin. Many hurdles, one goal – make the Food Processing sector shine!

India basks in the glory of diversity and proudly boasts of being a smoothly run sovereign democracy (Naxalism and Kashmir can be relegated to the footnotes for the sake of argument). Today, we sit on our laurels won in IT services and Pharmaceuticals and steadily, every other sector in services is being opened up to allow foreign participation, thereby create greater competencies and economies of scale. However, an interesting characteristic surfaces the moment we delve into the economics of liberalisation since 1991 – the opening up of all sectors to private and foreign investment, over time, have happened during a time when there were very few lives dependent on them for livelihood. Automobiles, telecom, banking, insurance IT, and pharma all were in their nascent stages and driven primarily by educated Indians. But with private money flowing in, a few million white collar jobs have been created and today, the services sector has scampered far ahead of manufacturing in the country. Sadly however, at the same time, the per capita food intake for the country has fallen below many sub-Saharan nations. Disguised employment in agriculture continues to run the vicious cycle of low capital investment, poor quality, fragmented markets negligible profits and again low investment. Amazingly, food processing, the next in the food value chain (post harvest) has borne the brunt of not only being the industry to absorb the massive numbers from agriculture, but also to create many new jobs related to technology and supply chain. But, the legacy of a socialist ideology and the commitments of coalition politics have made the sector languish till date in the dungeon of low scales, low investment and outdated technology.

Firstly, just for a start, the unorganised segment in food processing, will require an investment of about $23 billion over the next ten years (estimated on the basis of output ratio as 2:1 and capital intensity ratio as 5:1 of organised and unorganised sector). But on the credit side, there’s no dearth of roadblocks. According to the The Cooperative Act, cooperatives in the country, are restricted to borrowing only from Cooperative banks, DCCBs and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs), thus resulting in only a few (and narrow) pipelines of credit available for food cooperatives to start processing operations. Similarly, the private banks are still prohibited to lend to State warehousing corporations which form the bulk of storage for all food products in India. There has been a constant rhetoric to allow the use of warehouse receipts as collateral for attainig credit from banks, however, till date, there has been no resonating tone from the government on the same.


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Monday, July 30, 2012

Hicks was Right; They are Wrong!

Rising Interest rates are Massacring The Automobile industry but players are hoping that the upcoming Festive Season will reverse the sluggish trend. Well, will it?

In the end, the ISLM model won. What were they thinking? That auto demand in India will keep rising irrespective of interest rate spikes? Well, John Hicks (who propounded the ISLM theory) might have had to pawn his Nobel if that had happened. While the going was good, the automobile industry in India was on a roll. Car sales put up a scorching pace; FY2010-11 wound up with a mind-boggling growth of 26.17%. The launch of new products and growth in rural areas fuelled the boom, stoking the ambitions of automakers to make India overtake Brazil and become the sixth-largest automobile market by next year. Had it come to pass, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers’ (SIAM) forecasts – of India finding a place amongst the world’s top six carmakers by 2015 – might have even cut much ice with us; well, despite the rising interest rates, some industry experts claimed that even the forecasts of 12-15% growth for the current fiscal were pretty low. Quite a few were willing to wager that auto growth would surpass the 20% mark as Indian consumers did not care about interest rates. Well, our experts forgot three words – macroeconomics, macroeconomics and macroeconomics.

When numbers arrived for the first quarter of this fiscal, the cookie was already crumbling. As per SIAM, the passenger vehicle industry managed a growth of 8.77% in the first three months of this fiscal (April-June). In terms of number of cars sold, the figure stood at 601,547 units. If 8.77% looked deceptively fulsome, the news waiting around the corner for the month of July was shocking. Out of the 19 automakers in the country, 12 posted a sales decline of 10.56% during the month. Unit sales stood at 1,73,615 units as compared to 1,94,122 units sold during the same period last year. The worst hit were India’s big three automakers – Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors – whose sales dropped by 26%, 11% and 38% respectively. Market leader Maruti Suzuki, which has over 42% market share in the domestic market, sold 66,504 units in July 2011 as against 90,114 units in the same period last year. Tata Motors, at the other end, once again took a big hit as unit sales for the world’s cheapest car, Tata Nano, fell precipitously to 3,260 units. The slide sent Nano’s sale into negative territory, a fall of 64% over the same period last year. It’s quite surprising then that SIAM last month claimed that the passenger car sector will still grow by 10-12% in 2011-2012.

For SIAM, even this 10-12% growth forecast admittance is a huge ego hit, as it comes after a growth forecast claim by SIAM of 18% just three months back. Clearly, rising interest costs and spikes in fuel prices have pushed the industry into a spot which seems worse than even the slowdown era. The question is, will the upcoming festive season lift the gloom that the industry is currently facing? Can the ‘spirit’ of purchasing overcome the shadow that the oversized Hicksian spanner is casting? More importantly, does the Indian consumer really have it, to provide the kind of growth that the auto sector expects?

By the look of the super-sized investments that many auto majors have chalked up for India, faith and confidence in the Indian market looks as strong as ever. New entrants like Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan have already invested Rs.38 billion and Rs.45 billion respectively in India. Another heavyweight, Ford, has recently announced an additional investment of Rs.40 billion for setting up a new plant in Gujarat. Even though India will continue to remain a small-car market in the years to come, the low penetration level in the passenger car industry is the reason why players are drooling over the Indian market. Currently, only 11 out of 1,000 Indians own a passenger car as compared to over 900 people in the US. According to JD Power and Associates, 11 million cars will be sold in India annually by 2020, making it the third-largest market for automobiles and only behind China and the US. But that much is already known.

But then, did these investments and forecasts mentioned above take into account the interest rate vagaries in India? Over the past 15 months, lending rates have risen 11 times, which has translated into a hike of 300 basis points on auto loans. “Though customer enquiries have increased, the conversion rate has slowed down due to the increase in fuel price and interest rates,” rues Arvind Saxena, Director - Marketing & Sales, Hyundai Motor India to B&E. Ajay Seth, CFO, Maruti Suzuki, tells us that “the silver lining is that incomes are still rising.” Unfortunately, the real incomes are actually falling as the inflation is rising faster than the income growth.




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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

IN THE 21ST CENTURY, INDIA’S TRUE WORTH LIES IN ITS ENTREPRENEURS 2010- 11

Indeed, the maiden decade of this century was a decade of sweeping acquisitions by the Indian players, and Indians on the street revelled at the manner in which the Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and Mittals (in telecom and steel) went reversing the not so good ol’ status quo; just as they revelled in India’s T20 World Cup triumph. Everyone seemed to agree that size was just about all that mattered! But India’s future cannot be about these large conglomerates and business houses alone, for there are a number of weaknesses in this kind of a structure, even though there are exceptions to the rule. We need competitive markets like telecom. We need businesses that do not shy away from competing globally. We need businesses that can innovate and create new value. We need businesses that do not return to the government for one or the other concession every now and then, or oppose every possible move that can lead to a more dynamic marketplace. In short, we need wave after wave of entrepreneurial energy sweeping across, which can generate new ideas and solutions for the problems we face, and also create unbeatable competitive advantage for the India of the future.



In this decade’s closing issue, B&E salutes India’s greatest 1st generation Wealth Creators and the companies they lead, taken from the BSE 500. The basic criterion (and the difference from normal definitions of what constitutes ‘first generation’) was that any of the founder members or first generation kin should still be in-charge of the company, the company should be listed and it should have attained a particular size in terms of annual revenue (base set at Rs.5 billion). We then calculated the final value of the remaining companies in terms of their mcap growth between January 1, 2010 and December 1, 2010 and employment growth during the financial year 2010, with equal weightage being given to both the parameters. The rationale behind giving equal weightage was that while mcap represents the company’s wealth creation for its shareholders, its employment generation represents the company’s contribution towards the supreme stakeholder, the country.

The final list of 40 top wealth creators was then prepared based on the final value calculated. Some of them, like Bharat Forge, Hero Honda, Infosys, Jet Airways and HCL Technologies, are still creating a momentous difference despite the disadvantage of the base effect. Then there are rising stars like IndusInd Bank, M&M Financial, Yes Bank, Amara Raja Batteries and Radico Khaitan that are achieving critical mass and on their way to set new benchmarks. And there are those like Spanco Ltd., Stride Arcolabs, Jayant Agro Jay Bharat Maruti and Surya Roshni, which have received tremendous encouragement from the markets this year, but would realise that they still have many miles to go. Nevertheless, they are all beacons of hope for an the industry that aspires to reach and create new global benchmarks, and one can only hope that they and their ilk keep growing.



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Monday, July 16, 2012

Can we at least rescue growth?

A decade down the road, instant historians will perhaps marvel at this paradox: how a bunch of absolutely true blue brilliant people managed to destroy growth prospects for India. Just look and marvel at the names: Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, Jairam Ramesh, P. Chidambaram, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Kaushik Basu, D. Subbarao…. Each name is brilliance personified. And yet collectively, these pilots of the Indian economy are failing to prevent a crash landing of growth.

The automobile industry is a reliable indicator of what exactly is happening with the economy. And the message from this bellwether sector is stark and ominous: growth prospects are tanking. For three months in a row, sales of cars have been lower than last year. The industry clocked a growth rate of about 30% in 2010-11. In the first six months of the current fiscal, the growth rate is just about 1%. Auto companies have slashed growth forecast from 20% and more, to less than 2% this year. Worse, there is now a dramatic slowdown in the sales growth of commercial vehicles, including auto rickshaws. Even a child can tell you that the RBI decision to raise interest rates 12 times in less than two years is responsible for this calamity. Sales of two wheelers – which are not so dependent on auto loans, have maintained a healthy growth rate. It is only the growth in four wheelers that has crashed. Don’t forget, each automobile sold generates many jobs that range from garage mechanics, workers in tyre factories, workers in accessory plants, attendants in petrol pumps to financial sector executives who process auto loans. So such a drastic slowdown in the auto industry is not hitting just the rich and the middle class, it is deeply hurting the lower middle class and the poor who depend on this industry for jobs.

As worrisome as the astonishing decline in growth of the auto industry is the fact that excise duty collections in September this year have been lower than last year. Many economists are suggesting that this could be an aberration. But I don’t think so. There have been clear indications since January this year that economic activity and sentiments are being adversely affected. No one is now talking about a GDP growth rate of 8%; most will be relieved and happy if GDP growth rate in the current year manages to reach even 7.5%. The opportunities lost for India because of this avoidable tragedy are huge. Better managed, the Indian economy, like the Chinese economy, should grow at at least 10% a year. What does this unrealised 2.5% mean. In purely statistical terms, it means the economy is losing about $75 billion each year. In human terms, the tragedy is even more painful because this failure means persistence of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and worse.


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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The journey has surely been very exciting so far, but going forward, the times may turn challenging. Amit Nandi, Head - Probiking, Bajaj Auto shares

Are you also planning to take the format overseas also?
As of now, there are no plans to take the format overseas. We will be limiting ourselves into the Indian market only.

With the KTM bikes making their inroads into the Indian market in the coming time, how will you be able to make the showroom as a distinctive place for the three – Bajaj, Kawasaki and KTMs?
The KTMs will be available in the Indian market by next year. In fact, all the bikes that are meant for performance from Bajaj will find a place in the Bajaj’s Probiking showrooms. We will have a separate section for Bajaj products as well as the Kawasakis and KTMs.

How different will be the marketing strategy in the case of the Kawasaki products?
In case of premium bikes, the marketing strategy focuses more on interacting with the consumers and to give him an experience wherein he gets to touch feel and ride the product. That’s how the prospective consumer converts into a loyal consumer.

What are the other plans for the format in the current year?
According to the plan outlined, we shall be standing at 35-40 Probiking showrooms wherein the figure currently stands at 32 showrooms.

How has the role changed for the Probiking showrooms after the launch of Kawasaki products in the Indian market?
The importance has certainly gone up as now we have almost 80-90% market share in the above 250cc market and there is a market for superbikes that will grow with the time.


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.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
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Monday, November 15, 2010

THE (DIS)LOYALTY MARKET UNVEILED

The need for a greater customer intimacy is getting amplified by the changing trends in consumer behaviour

The need for a greater customer intimacy is further getting amplified by the changing trends in consumer behaviour, which are engineering a shift from Customer Relationship Management to Customer Managed Relationships, where customers want organisations to be more transparent with the information they have on them and give them the choice to define how that information should be used to make the consumption of products and services more convenient for them. Organisations need to start thinking on these lines and ready themselves for this shift in the balance of power or they will find themselves increasingly irrelevant to their customers. Perhaps its not too late for everyone to consider seriously what Robert Lauterborn proposed (in as early as 1990) to do away with the product oriented 4Ps of marketing, which was the bedrock of all marketing strategies for several decades, to the customer oriented 4Cs – Consumer wants and needs, Cost to satisfy, Convenience to buy & Communication for our times.

Loyalty practitioners have hailed this approach all along and brought to market many strategies that resulted in organisations coming closer to their customers. The early adopters – airlines, hotels & retail companies have led from the front and now almost every business is thinking about it to build sustainable & profitable relationships with customers. It therefore comes as no major surprise that all forms of loyalty marketing have seen an unprecedented growth in the last decade. An estimate on the spending through loyalty marketing in India is an impressive Rs.3,500-4,000 crore, and with the advent of technology in mobile marketing & social networking giving marketers the power to reach & build a relationship with every customer, the marketing budget will continue to split in favour of such programs. Ultimately, the consumer marketer relationship will have to tread on carefully with its ear to the ground in these times where change is the only constant but for the fact that the consumer is driving it.


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.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website
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