It’s always an experience to meet new people. You always get something new from people…but then ever so in a while, you get these googlies…

When in the US a few years back, I used to get accosted by desis on the street. They would make very polite conversation for a few minutes, boost my ego to the stratosphere (lots of energy, charisma..blah blah) and then the innocous remark…

‘I have this business activity that I am involved in addition to my job. I have become pretty successful and I am looking for spreading this amongst more people.’..the first time I got conned into thinking this was something interesting. After a couple of meetings is when the dreaded word ‘Amway’(now known as Quixstar in the US) comes out..

The thing about it is all these folks who do this business are trained in exactly the same manner. By now, probably everyone has been approached at least once. Get it guys, you are either interested the first time or never.

In the last 2 weeks, I have been approached by 2 people. I didnt know this was catching up so much in India. By now, I have become so used to the drill that when they use the word ‘part time and business proposition’ together, I ask them directly ‘Is it Amway?’…unlucky that I couldn’t see the expression on the face through the phone.I was almost rude to these guys…

But I guess, the one thing, the company needs to realize is,they are not going to score brownie points by doing what I can only term ‘an attempt at deception’.
Guys, get a life!!! Don’t trouble me with your fake attempt at polite talk!!

After a long time, I travelled by Air Deccan. There seems to be something happening over there. It almost seems like Capt. Gopinath got up one day and said ‘I am sick and tired of people cursing my company. My employees are all becoming demotivated having been shouted at so many times.’

Let me run a market research to do a perception map for Air Deccan. So now we have the dear Captain making enough announcements about how they are making it on time 88% of the time and we are only late 12% of the time.

So he gives all of his employees this bright yellow T-shirt asking his customers to give Air Deccan a second chance. It’s an interesting exercise to change the negative perception of the public.

In many ways, this is an important exercise for the company. They need to boost up their sagging stock, their customer satisfaction scores and their employee morale.

Let’s see if the captain manages to pull this off too…

ps:Btw, captain, it is perfectly legal to provide some directions to passengers when and where the flight is going to take off from at least 30 min before departure

This is definitely a question that I have thought of on multiple occasions. What makes a company diversify into a totally unrelated field, burn up their own cash cow and finally sell the business to focus on their ‘core areas’ after a few years at a loss?

I liked this article by Guy Kawasaki. I think it is a nice way to put things in perspective..

Of course, I like point 5 best…

5. Restrict the use of experts to narrow areas. Never use experts to create your product roadmap or marketing plans unless you want MBAs who have never run anything larger than a school snack bar to decide your fate.

Ms.Bansal has also talked about the yuppie MBA. Looks like we are not a very well-liked group not withstanding the so-called money (havent seen it yet myself though…but i guess hope is the way to the future)

Infy is on a roll again. If there needed to be one example of using the media to the best of its advantage, look no further than Infy.

We have had so many firms in the country who have passed the 25 yrs. We have quite a number of firms that are more than $2 billion in size. We have TCS, the grand daddy of Indian IT doing a lot of things. But yet, no one remembers them as much as Infy.

The Infy way of media management probably had different agendas at different points of time. When Infy was this new kid on the block, they stayed low profile. Then they embarked on this strategy of under promising every quarter and then over shooting it always thus becoming the darling of the shareholders. That got it the visibility it desired in the markets.

Then came the days of the Global Branding. They did Nasdaq and did a lot of road shows in the US. By the time, the competitors had wisened up and the war for talent had become hot. Then Infy did that big $1 billion bash again telling the world, we love our employees ensuring that there are enough people still wanting to get into Infosys.

Now if you need to get into consulting, you need to again build that kind of visibility. To align with the international vision, they started the first ever widely publicized Global Internship program to brand themselves in campuses abroad.

Again the 25 yr bash and the 126 crores are all part of ‘we love our employees’ message. Today Infy realizes that the biggest challenge is again talent. So here you have all the directors of Infy sitting for television and talking in their own inimitable style again putting the desire in so many more young people to want to join Infosys.

But make no mistake. I dont think Infy is any evil corporation. In fact I think this media management is itself worth a case study…the changing faces of Infosys. I think Infy’s success has been that they have been doing this before anyone even realized that you had to manage the media.

Satyam Cinemas in Chennai are bringing for the first time in India a ‘Blind Movie’. This is a concept where you go into the hall not knowing the movie name. I think this is the first time I have heard this implemented in India.

I was a very regular follower of this concept when I was in Munich. There it was called ‘Sneak Preview’. The only thing we knew was that it would be a new movie premiered for the first time.

I guess I have had 75% success in this way. 25% of the movies have been real rotten. But it is a real cool thing to do. The anticipation of knowing what movie it is, is something really cool.

I dont think any of the Bangalore theatres have started this concept. I think given the number of vela people in Bangalore, I am sure this will find enough takers.

Is anyone listening???

Last weekend, I had been to this swanky hair saloon in Velachery Chennai. Though I have seen a lot of these on TV and movies, I have personally never believed in shelling out huge amounts of money for cutting hair. Gimme the 15 rupee cut anyday.

Anyway so dad, my brother and I went for this joint cutting session. I noticed that there is a very neat menu card (not a shady paper stuck on the wall) with prices starting from Rs.60 for a haircut to something like Rs.600 for a hair spa session. Given the prices, the number of people waiting was quite large. People were also shelling out amounts like Rs.1600 for a session. (didnt know Chennai folk were so extravagant) I almost felt nostalgic for our friendly neighbourhood barber with a shady bench and people sitting and discussing politics like they were actually running the government back home in Kerala.

Now that I have been running all around, let me come to the actual reason for this post. So while studying the menu, I noticed that this was a chain of saloons run by Cavinkare, the company that is giving the headaches to the HLLs and the P&Gs in the south. On paper, at least, it looks like a smart move. By getting into the ’service’ part of the cosmetics business, they are now starting to reach the elite public in India who are becoming more and more comfortable with the act of grooming. Also, if they play their cards well, they can actually change their image to that of a classy company. Let’s see how this story develops…

Anyway, so while we were waiting, my father makes the comment that even hair cutting is becoming such a sophisticated business (no offence meant to the barber community). So they will now expand rapidly into 10 saloons. Then they will require a corporate office and setup a HQ setup. And then……………they will go recruit the MBAs from IIMB (my alma mater)!!! I couldnt argue with that logic however condescending it might sound, really because that is when the whole MBA thing comes in. This actually goes back to a post of mine where I mentioned that MBAs are being taught to think in such a structured manner that they become so risk-averse.

Cant wait for the day when XXXXXXXX Hair Cutting Saloon gets a Day 1 slot in campus!!

Two corporate earnings reports caught my attention over the last couple of days. Apple reported that their revenues were 70% up Y-o-Y. Infosys reported that their revenues were up 50% Y-o-Y. By any standards, both outstanding results.

Yet Apple shares lost close to 9% value, Infy close to 5%. As a result, both Wall Street and Dalal Street took a beating. The reason:both of these companies gave conservative guidances for the next quarter. It almost seems shareholder expectations are reaching ridiculous levels. Corporates just have no breathing space with every 90 days bringing an hour of reckoning. The ‘American’ way is so all pervasive now that no public firm can escape this scrutiny.

I guess all of this pressure will finally translate to the employees working in all of these firms. Already I can see most of the tech firms still trying to find innovative ways of cost cutting so that they can still hold on to their margins. Of course, many of these are directly linked to employee benefits.

The question is where will this stop? I guess companies will need to find a balance amongst employee well-being, looking after shareholder interests, finding new growth engines & a whole bunch of other objectives.

We haveYet Another Low Cost Airline coming up. Companies are being started in quick succession with not so much of a thought to the real business model. As on today, the market is booming & large. So it probably still has the bandwidth to accomodate many more players. I wonder how Jet is going to respond to these low-cost guys mushrooming.

Hey, make the money while the sun shines…would like to really see how many of these guys are going to be still there 5 yrs down the line.

But I guess, while the party lasts, the consumer is the winner.

The Cycle of Competition is such an interesting one especially in the Tech sector. This post is sparked off by 2 events that happened.

Y’day Yahoo bought Flickr. Today HP buys Snapfish both of them online photo sharing business.

But Yahoo & HP are not in this business and were not really true competition to each other until now. But we have got enough names to reckon with.

Kodak is already into this space. Sony has its Imagestation. Kodak is also getting into printing including photo quality paper which is HP turf. HP is going strong on digital cameras which is Sony territory which, by the way, was initially Canon/Nikon zone. Oh!! it’s a coincidence Canon makes printers too which brings us back to HP….

I could go on for ever this way….I mean, is there a differentiation between markets, manufacturers, service providers too?

Everybody is trying to be everybody offering everything….It’s an exciting time, I think….but I wonder who will come out on tops at the end of it all….the focused or the diversified….