Back in August 2008 when Anand Mahindra, MD, Mahindra & Mahindra got his hands on Kinetic Motors’ assets to pave way for the Group’s entry into the two-wheeler segment, critics cautioned that the buy may prove to be a costly affair as M&M had no expertise in the two-wheeler industry. However, Mahindra stood his ground on the decision and proved everyone wrong by selling one lakh units in just 10 months from the day he launched the first model.

Cut to September 2010, M&M is again the talk of the town with the launch of Mojo (a 300cc motorcycle) and Stallio (a 110cc motorcycle), which mark its foray into the motorcycle segment. Without a miss critics are back in job too questioning whether Mahindra will be able to replicate the same success that it achieved with scooters. However, a visibly confident Anand Mahindra says, “We are geared up to redefine the biking experience in India with the Stallio and the Mojo, which are a potent blend of global technology and innovation.”

But then, with players like Hero Honda, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motors already bubbling in the industry with their huge portfolios, one cannot deny the fact that it will not be a cake walk for Mahindra this time. Going by the experts’ views, a lot will depend on how M&M positions its bikes in front of the already established players. On that note, while the recently launched Stallio is an out and out competitor to Hero Honda’s Splendor (India’s largest selling motorcycle), Mojo is the first 300cc bike in the country, which aims at establishing brand Mahindra in the segment by carving a niche for itself. Explains Devendra Shinde, Vice President – Marketing, Mahindra 2 Wheelers, “Stallio will be a volume puller for us, while Mojo, which is a sports cruiser, will establish Mahindra as a brand in the motorcycle segment.” Adds Anoop Mathur, President, 2 Wheeler Sector and Member of the Group Executive Board, M&M, “These world class bikes are worthy additions to the Mahindra’s product portfolio and are part of our commitment to establish an end-to-end two wheeler business in every segment of the industry.”
 
The company seems to be very particular about how the bikes are to be positioned. So, even before the bikes were launched, the company released a teaser campaign, depicting itself as a technologically ahead bike-maker. And if Shinde’s words are to be believed, then consumers will get to see a lot of it in the upcoming communications.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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
IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

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It’s the 21th largest oil company in the world with over 8,900 km of pipeline. It’s one of India’s most valuable brands.
 
Talk about oil, and adjectives that come to mind are – slippery, dense, dirty. Famed and respected? Not sure?! But when the Incas called it ‘liquid gold’, they certainly understood the power it could generate. And going by the fact that Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) garnered revenues and profits to the tune of $54.28 billion and $2.25 billion respectively during FY10 alone, the corporation seems to have long understood why the Incas were known for their prosperity!

In fact, the value of the IndianOil brand is not just limited to its commercial role as an energy provider but straddles the entire gamut of exploration & production, refining, transportation & marketing, petrochemicals & natural gas and downstream marketing. It’s a brand that generates immediate trust in minds of Indians! And why not? Battling against odds in a challenging business environment (thanks to last year’s slowdown), India’s No.1 commercial enterprise and flagship oil major, IndianOil notched up another year of sterling performance for FY2009-10. It not only once again outperformed other Indian corporates to lead the pack (followed by biggies like RIL, SBI, BPCL, HPCL, Tata Steel, ONGC and Tata Motors) in Fortune ‘Global 500’ listing of the world’s largest companies by sales for the year 2010, but also got listed as India’s ‘Most Trusted Brand’ in the ‘Gasoline’ category in a Readers’ Digest-AC Nielsen Survey. What’s more? Ranked at 125, IndianOil emerged as the 21st largest petroleum company in the world in the Fortune’s list. In fact, the brand has steadfastly climbed from 226 in the year 2002 to 191 in 2003, 189 in 2004 to 170 in 2005, 153 in 2006, 135 in 2007, 116 in 2008 and 105 in 2009 in the Fortune ‘Global 500’ club.

This all has been possible because it dared to get into brand differentiation of petroleum and oil. Petroleum was an unglamorous business, a commodity arena where brands had no role to play, at least in India. But IOCL changed that paradigm through its continuous efforts at building its brand and establishing itself as a trusted name. The ever popular ‘Servo’ brand of lubes is one such example (leave aside brands like Indane LPG, XtraPremium petrol, XtraMile diesel) of how sound investment in branding and an unflinching focus on the customer can create marketing magic. “There are two aspects to our promotion to promote brands which need support by way of ads and through brand building strategies,” an IndianOil official tells 4Ps B&M. The approach, besides the run-of-the-mill dealer incentives and on-field activities, involves agreements with other trusted brands like Citibank and Coca Cola, which further helps IOCL leverage its brand image.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

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Three years back, whenever Ratan Tata spoke about his Nano dream, you would have heard people classify the star-gazer’s project, a quixotic pipe-dream. It seemed an impossible peak to conquer. Then the slowdown marred 2008 occured. It was a time when the world weathered the worst phase that macroeconomics had to offer since World War II. To make matters worse, repayment problems (to both creditors & suppliers) became the impedimenta for the group’s two flagship brands – Tata Steel & Tata Motors. The situation had worsened to such an extent that Tata had to seek financial help (amounting to £1 billion) from the UK government to save the Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) brands. Ratan Tata’s inorganic aspitations had started looking more like an ignis fatuus. The Tata brand was under threat. But amidst this turmoil, a shrinking global economy, Ratan Tata stood tall. He showed no fear. When UK’s most renowned agency Brand Finance came out with its annual valuation of the world’s top 100 brands in 2009, it showed how the second half of 2008 had played havoc on the best of global brands; some of them had lost almost 60% of their value in a matter of a year. In all, the top 100 had lost 24% of their value (y-o-y). Tata, the only Indian brand that made the list, had only lost a lesser 16% and had actually moved up the ranking, with a brand value of $9.92 billion. A year later, it is still India’s most valuable brand on Brand finance’s list, having appreciated by 13% (y-o-y) to touch $11.21 billion. The ICMR-4Ps B&M ranking proves the same.

The past year has seen brand Tata grow in leaps, be it either the deliveries of the much-awaited Nano (which boosted Tata Motors’ equity by making it the second-largest seller of passenger vehicles in the Indian market) or the inorganic moves of Tata, which finally started showing promise during 2009. Of course, many buy the fact that it is the calculative Tata management’s inorganic strategies have made a huge contribution to building the goodwill that won this brand the 2010 Most Valuable brand crown. [It was #2 last year.] Says Prof. Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge (UK), “In going global, various details are important to note, like the right time to venture and the choice of target. I think the Tatas do this sort of homework very well, which help its brand appreciate in value. For instance, when they acquired Daewoo, it was a loss-making company, but had the potential to make inroads for Tata into markets like Korea. And that’s exactly what has happened.”

So what are the key forces that gave the brand the desired torque? Recent quarters have seen a revival in the financials of Tata Steel’s Corus subsidiary, with the company reporting a consolidated bottomline of `1,825 crore in Q2, FY2010 – a happier tale than the loss of `2,209 crore that it posted in Q2, FY2009. The reason for this is obvious. With the revival of European market’s economic engine (fuelled by the automotive, construction, engineering and aerospace businesses), Tata Steel’s UK entity is finally up and running. All this, after a painstaking integration process, lasting three years. The company has even managed to lighten its interest liabilities by 32% (y-o-y) to Rs.597 crore as of date.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

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The top man takes us through harlequin mills & boon’s strategy for india
 
Teenage girls, middle-aged women or grannies in India – all have grown up reading Mills & Boon and swooning over the ‘tall, dark & handsome’ prince charming. Manish Singh, Country Head, Harlequin Mills & Boon India shares with 4Ps B&M his company’s India strategy

Mills & Boon has always had a cult following among readers and generations after generations girls have been obsessed with the talk, dark & handsome princes featured in your books who come as the night in shining armours and save the poor girl. In today’s modern era is the audience still looking for these saviours or has the book lovers appetite changed?
Mills and Boon heroes still play a very pivotal role in the plot. He must be charismatic and supremely attractive, often wealthy and powerful. But the heroine herself has changed. Our heroines are now modern women with a career and a mind of their own and are looking for an enduring romantic relationship on their terms. So naturally the prince charming had to do more now than to just look good.

How big is the Indian market for you considering Harlequin Mills & Boon books are sold in over 25 languages in over 100 countries on 6 continents?
The Indian market is growing very fast and the English language market is also growing at 10% per annum. Then here 60% of the population is youth and unlike in the past they make their own decisions. So there’s a great potential and we think we have a lot of options to explore in the market. If we take the global sales, I think in case of India, we are close to 10% and in the last few years we have almost doubled our sales in India.

What is the TG that you are catering to in India?
We have readership from the age of 16 to 60 years. We have different product offerings for different age groups. Like Modern is a series that talks about international affairs, while Desire is all about seduction and passion. Romance series talk about romance and emotion, and then we have Special Moments that emphasises on relationships.

Any plans of launching books in Hindi or any other regional language in the near future?
We are already publishing in 26 languages. Our research shows that there is a very small market for Hindi readers, but we are open for the future because it is a promising market.

What is your distribution strategy in India?
We’ve a unique distribution model in India and worldwide. We have exclusive distribution arrangements with Living Media Pvt. Ltd., which is part of the India Today group. Our distribution strategy is unique because we follow the magazine kind of a model, wherein new titles are introduced every month and the old ones are recollected. This model gives viewers a new product every time. We follow the cascading distribution model. The Indian operations are responsible for the whole of south Asia. Books are also sold to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and the books that are recollected are not sold back in India.

Is your pricing strategy for selling in India the same as in other parts of the world?
Yes, the strategy in India is the same as around the world. Habitual consumers indicate multiple purchasing habits, so we need to make the books affordable because nobody reads one and nobody reads for one month. The books were costlier earlier because then we were exporting books but now they are much cheaper. Previously they were being sold at `250 and now they are sold for `99 only.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

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In an exclusive conversation with 4Ps B&M, Sanjay Gupta, VP - General Merchandise, Spencer’s Retail, talks about how they plan to grab a bigger market share through private labels
 
Which are the core markets that Spencer’s has focused on since it moved out of the joint venture with Dairy Farm International Holdings in 2006?
During the time of joint venture with Food World, we were just a Chennai centric brand. But, after the split we have become popular in other states as well, which includes West Bengal, Eastern UP, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. In fact, today we are present in more than 16 cities and are planning to increase that number by the end of this fiscal.

You have been focusing a lot on creating private labels. Isn’t it difficult to make your presence felt in categories where an external established brand is already present?
In a marketplace there are both national as well as regional brands. And I think this is where the private labels come into picture. They fill in the gap between the two. While they offer a better quality than the regional brands, the price at which they come is much lower that what national brands charge. Though the challenge to establish a private label is always there, branding it solves that problem. In fact, our first private label, Smart Choice, is very popular among customers today. Further, we are in the process of creating more brands which include Tasty Wonder, Brooms, Living Smart, et al, in categories that range from corn flakes to laptop bags.

Don’t you think you have missed out big time in cities like Delhi?
The pre-slowdown era was a time when every retailer expanded aggressively and we too were no exception. However, we learnt few lessons during the process when we had to pay huge rental cost with the rise in real-estate prices. In fact, our stores in Delhi where not able to cope up with it and as such post-recession we thought it’s feasible to invest in core-geographical areas where we can easily reach the breakeven.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

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After Kerala Tourism hiring seven ad agencies, Himachal Tourism followed suit by hiring six creative agencies after a month long multi agency pitch, which included names like Percept and Lowe Lintas. It’s apparently the new mantra for success for state tourism departments to help expand states’ tourist footfalls. Himachal attracted more than 1.1 million tourists in 2009. Kerala District Tourism Development Officer, Kamal Chand says, “This step was essential as we want more and more people to come. We have hired the best for our promotions to help boost arrivals and create awareness about the destination.” Regional tourism is evolving in India; yet, India is far from being rated amongst the top global tourist attractions of the world – leave of course exceptional destinations like Goa.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet.....
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Mayur Sahni, Senior Market Analyst, IDC Asia/Pacific
 
Last Thursday, Democrat Senator of New York Charles E Schumer equated Infosys, and thereby Indian IT companies at large, to being a ‘chop-shop’, ‘that outsource good, high-paying American technology jobs to lower wage, temporary immigrant workers from other countries’. Leading on, it wasn’t surprising to note the proposed increase in levies for H1-B visas but more importantly it resonated the branding of Indian IT companies in US and global markets. While Schumer’s views may not reflect a globally consistent perception, they do reflect the brand perception of Indian IT companies as low-cost, off-shore, companies.

The quintessential question is - Have Indian IT companies made the transition to global brands? During a lecture at MIT, Thomas L Friedman (author of the New York Time bestseller, World is Flat), described Infosys as a “Premier Indian High-tech company’ and herein resonates the issue - ‘Indian’ high-tech company VS ‘Global’ high-tech Company. We live in a global economy and more importantly a flat economy where businesses operate across disparate environments, source globally, and deliver globally. Indian IT companies provide solutions and services to global companies for requirements that are geographically diverse by leveraging resources that are globally distributed. Yet, their perception is unchanged.

The issue really is at the core of the messaging approach. A quick browsing action though the “About Us” link on corporate websites of many Indian IT company will reveal that most of them do not position themselves as a ‘global’ player in the first paragraph; and even if they do it is prefixed with a superlative which could be unsubstantiated. First, we need to move from a superlative based messaging process to a value-based marketing model. Most Indian IT companies’ position their marketing budgets towards focused customer messaging based on building market credibility. While this gives them a focused and controlled messaging opportunity, there remains the gap of setting a media platform which has a global audience. Secondly, firms must consider dropping clichéd tags such as ‘largest’, ‘biggest’, ‘fastest’, ‘strongest’ which are self-laudatory, and rather focus on the value they bring to clients. Hence, they need to build a sustainable marketing model. Yet, not many IT firms have ‘brand’ managers, rather marketing mangers that carry sales targets!

Bringing these elements together will form the basis of a global brand identity that’s consistent, sustainable and aligned to the company’s’ long-term vision and core values. In the new economy, market dynamics will require IT companies to consistently innovate and up the ante in brand image. A key potential facilitator will be innovation in its true sense and not tweaking of delivery models, technology frameworks but creating something new ground-up. Web 2.0, cloud computing, intelligent infrastructure were not recent technology areas where Indian firms have had to play catch-up to industry peers.

It’s evident that Indian IT companies have what it takes to create strong global brands and there’ve been significant efforts undertaken by some. Yet the underlying focus on sales & profitability, stock & stake-holder value has made most of them focus on short-term benefits. The larger picture does remain unaddressed. So while there will be growth in business the essence of creating a truly global brand may be missed.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
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MD PRABHU S HAS TAKEN ON THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED BY TAKING ON THE LOW MARGIN SEGMENT OF IT SERVICES TO SMES/MSMES YET IN A CANDID TETE-A-TETE WITH 4PS B&M, FEELS HAS ALL IT TAKES TO SUCCEED
 
Cindrel Infotech, quite unlike following the path of providing BPO services and then moving on to providing IT solutions to devloped country clients, has turned the other way to cater to the SME/MSME segments in the country. With developing products to help small businesses understand and analyze basic financial numbers and make timely decisions, Cindrel might just prove to be one of the harbingers of change to transform the SME/MSME businesses in India.

IT solutions is a domain where there are many players ranging from biggies like Infosys to smaller outfits. Amidst so much clutter, how do you differentiate yourself?
We focus on adding value to the Indian SME customers by providing them decision support systems to improve the profitability of their business. Most of the IT players are busy in serving the corporate customers of the world. Our focus is to empower the SME / MSME customers with accurate and timely information in their hands.

When did you start operations and what were the initial challenges?
We started operations a couple of years back. It took us nearly an year and a half to develop a product that the market needed. Today, our flagship product adds a lot of value to many customers in India. The first challenge we faced was in understanding the real needs of the customer and developing a solution that actually works for the customer. The next big challenge that we faced was in getting the SME customers to manage data efficiently and providing them with simple solutions that work.

How has the journey turned out to be so far?
So, far the journey has been fantastic and thrilling . We have customers who vouch for us today. However, looking ahead, there is a long way to go…

You have a solution called eyeTprofit. What is special about this product and what was the rationale behind launching it?
EyeTprofit (EYE THE PROFIT) is a unique product in the market place. It is more of a decision support system that the top management can use to understand their current position and take steps to improvise their business. The speciality of the product is that it coexists with other system(s) (that the customer may have) and aggregate information from these system(s) to empower the management users with accurate and timely information to take decisions. Today, it has support for most of the RDBMS, the ubiquitous Tally application, DBMS like Foxpro, Access etc and even excel sheets. Features like conditional business alerts make our product unique. We noticed that most of the SME customers were struggling with excel sheets to provide useful information to the management. Most often, the information was prone to human errors or was not provided to the management on-time. We realized that most of the SMEs had a latent demand for this kind of a solution.

What are your views on the competition in this sector?
Any sector will invariably have competition. Competition is definitely needed to evolve the market. Having been a pioneer in this segment, we feel we would have an edge over others.

What is your leadership style. How does it work for you?
I believe in a participative leadership style. I give complete freedom to my team and have a open, collaborative culture at office. I consider all my associates as part of the business and we all work as a big family.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
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GHOUISE MOHIUDDIN TALKS TO 4PS B&M ABOUT HIS DREAMS TO BECOME THE NEW BEVERAGE KING
 
When was the last time you came across a vending machine that proudly bore the logo of Nestle or even that of Georgia (from the house of Coca-Cola)? Perhaps, recently. But think about this – when was the last time you caught sight of a coffee vending machine whose trademark read Cafe Desire? Hard to recollect, isn’t it? But all that is set to change, with Cafe Desire (a brand of Radiant Consumer Appliances Pvt. Ltd.) determined to change the way vending machines treat consumers. It offers state-of-the-art vending machines and the products too – from tea and coffee to health beverages. And the brand has managed to run quite a distance over a decade. But that doesn’t satisfy Ghouise Mohiuddin, MD of Hyderabad-based Radiant Consumer Appliances Pvt. Ltd., who believes that much work remains to be completed, before Cafe Desire’s competitors really start feeling the heat.

How has the journey for Cafe Desire been so far?
It has been both an interesting and a challenging journey so far. We started with a simple idea that has developed over time. When I started offering hot beverage solutions, I had hoped that it becomes a success – all I needed to do was to empathise with our potential customers, address their wants and solve the problem with some simple offerings. Our business is straight and simple – it’s all about offering hot and cold beverage solutions (primarily tea and coffee) at the work place through our range of vending machines. We realised that there was a huge demand for uninterrupted supply of tea and coffee in many offices. Product quality and superior service is what the employees desired the most. And that was precisely the gap, which we went about filling. Honestly, we thought if we could solve this issue, we had a big market potential to address. We invested all our energies to become the most trusted vendor-company in the country. And looking back at the past few years, I can produly state this the rest is history. Our efforts worked wonders.

Cafe Desire is one of the fastest growing companies, with high customer retention levels, providing unmatched and proven services. But there is no denying that you had to convince the customers that your brand was far more reliable than the Nestles and the Coca-colas of the world in terms of hot and cold beverages. How big was this a challenge?
Honestly, the biggest challenge we faced was to break the mind-set of customers. We had to prove to them that we were superior to the big multinational brands like Nestle, Unilever, Coca-cola’s Georgia and others. Somehow, there was no room for any small new company, because all the corporates and even individuals obviously preferred to invest in some multinational brand. For this, what we did is that we tool trial contracts and proved ourselves first to our potential customers. Only then did we sign a final contract. Yes, it was indeed a risky and a tedious process, but what makes me most happy is that we became successful at the end of the day and started growing an extremely rapid pace.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
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PHANI N. RAJ, FOUNDER AND MD, EYANTRA INDUSTRIES IN CONVERSATION WITH 4PS B&M
 
Starting from scratch to merchandising 12,000 products, the journey has been challenging as well exhilarating for him. As he had not chosen a conventional business to enter into, there were no benchmarks or industry standards which he could look up to. Every step was a learning and every initiative was a discovery, says Phani N. Raj, Founder and MD of eYantra Industries as he shares his journey of turning a small idea into one of India’s leading brand merchandising and corporate gifting solutions company. Excerpts:

You claim to be the one-stop shop for ideation, designing and execution. What were the challenges in achieving that?
The biggest challenge was to bring together these three critical aspects on to a common platform. Neither clients nor vendors were used to this one platform business ideology, which we had pioneered in the country. Each of these activities was done by different entities and there was no fusion of thought and action, leading to client unhappiness. We mapped the entire set of activities and designed this unique business model where we bring together a set of creative, planning and execution skills to help clients achieve their business objective, which meant that eYantra had to invest in competent and qualified segment-wise professionals to set up this initiative. We also had to invest in a robust technology framework to implement this plan, which today is recognised as an industry-first initiative.

So, any first mover advantages?
Yes, there were several advantages. I did not have any legacy issue to tackle and had taken a whiteboard approach. This enabled me to script the entire business plan and execute it comfortably. Since eYantra pioneered many initiatives in its segment, therefore the recall for the brand was pretty high.

How has the business arena changed in the last 10 years for your brand?
From multiple vendors to single vendor. From orderbook platform to ideas platform. From FOS (Feet on Street) to online sales. From being seen as a supplier to being seen as a strategic partner. There has been a paradigm shift in the way the business has operated in the last decade. Thanks to the Internet and the technology evolution, the gifting and promotional merchandise business is being innovated in a completely new way. As the first organised player in the industry, we were able to implement technology solutions very early and have become the brand leader in online stores, e-commerce reward stores and for using state-of-the-art technology in retail stores.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of dealing in merchandising industry at present?
The benefits are that the industry is coming of age in India and many students are taking up merchandising as a course discipline. Even more and more companies are now learning the importance of BTL activities, which is at the top of the table in merchandising business. It’s slowly being recognised as the most effective and low cost medium to promote a brand. The disadvantage is the eco system around merchandising is still to develop and the adaptation in the industry is still a small base though it’s growing at a rapid pace.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....
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