How I got my mobile back

One doesn’t realize how valuable something is until it is lost. In my case, I realized this about my mobile phone - the C100- when I lost it in a cab in October last year. After it happened, I acted swiftly – got my SIM card blocked so the person who found my phone wouldn’t misuse it. What I didn’t do was – I didn’t file a complaint with the police. But then who does, these days?

Everyone knows, your cellphone is as good as irretrievably lost once you misplaced it or have been robbed of it. And the police are not of much use in finding it, which is why they told me I was very lucky to have got mine back at all!

Apparently, two men spotted it lying on the road, not far from where I had got down from the cab and had taken it to the Dadar police station because one of the guys claimed it was his. The other guy said he didn’t think so, and took the phone to the police. The guy who claimed it was his, was a chartered accountant and the really honest man was a BEST supervisor! So much for stereotypes.

Anyway, it took the cops a month to track me down. Well, I’m grateful they found me eventually but with my Dad’s number in my address book - very clearly mentioning ‘DAD’ - they could have found me sooner, couldn’t they? But the actual running around began only once they contatced him.

The cops had recorded the phone as an “unknown person’s property" in their diary and now wanted me to “claim” it back from them. So after verifying me as the owner, they wanted me to prove to them, that I really owned the phone and that it just didn’t have my SIM card inside it! I know it sounds so ludicrous but that’s how the police system works. At some point, I thought they were making rules on the spur of the moment, just to harass the hell out of me. But no - apparently, it is required of owners of cellphones to hang on to their bills for dear life or at least jot down the IMEI number of the handset somewhere, so you can prove to the cops that the handset does, in fact, belong to you. The IMEI number is found where the SIM card is inserted.

You have the benefit of this information -- I didn’t -- and that led to me being called repeatedly to the police station and that’s apart from the phone calls I made to have the phone released. I had to call my dealer who sold me the phone over two and a half years ago, and who didn’t keep bills that old. And obviously, he had not kept IMEI numbers of all the handsets he sold.

The cops wanted him to give the IMEI number on his letterhead, but my dealer couldn’t help. Then, a constable told me to forget about the phone but take SIM card, if I wanted it because I could prove the SIM belonged to me, with the help of a copy of a BPL bill.

So that took another round of phone calls. Then I admit, I got my dad to pull some strings and he spoke to the ACP of Dadar police station, who said the matter was a minor one and that he would tell them to release the phone, since for all practical purposes, I was the rightful owner of the phone.

He did say that since, a case ‘diary’ was made, it was a matter of routine that they had to ask for all that paperwork or else they could have just handed over the phone to me, once they tracked me down. So guys, if you’ve lost your phone, for once you’ll wish the cops are not as “thorough” as this!

My dealer also gave me the same bit of news, so I was slightly relieved to know it was standard procedure being followed and not harassment. Anyway, even after the ACP’s help, the phone was handed over to me two days after I gave in a formal statement/application, stating on which day, I had lost the phone, where I had lost it, colour/model/cellphone number etc.

So in all, it took me four trips to the police station in a week and twice as many phone calls to recover what was genuinely mine.

Like I said, I’m glad to have got my phone back but all the time I was running around to get back the phone from the police, I kept wishing that the people who had originally found it, had thought to get in touch with me rather than hand it over to the cops.

It would have saved me a world of trouble and of course the suppressed rage, that goes along with playing according to the rules – cops' rules – valid, but foolish nonetheless!

Safety steps
1. Keep the phone’s bill safely or jot the IMEI number down.
2. Remember the exact day you lost the phone. Don’t be vague about this because it helps prove the phone is yours
3. Pull strings if you can. Then hand in a statement like mentioned earlier.
4. Keep calling till they ask you to come and collect the phone from them. It’s just a phone to them, they have rapes and murders to take care of. It’s more important to you than to them.
5. If you find a lost cellphone, try and trace the owners and expect a justified reward, rather than taking it to the cops.

Written for www.dancewithshadows.com

Make work a fun place & you'll profit from it!

Kevin Freiberg, the acclaimed author of Nuts and Guts has been giving us some breathtaking insights into contemporary management practices and in the last part of the series, he speaks about how a leader can inspire those who follow him, to be better than him.

He says it is important to get to the heart of what motivates people and he believes this is across cultures and not specific to the US, Europe Japan or South East Asia. He explains how Southwest Airlines is empowering its employees to be more than just drones working for an airline company. They take it as a personal cause to make sure their flights are on time and tickets are reasonably priced, so that grandparents can travel to meet family or just for fun, without it becoming to expensive for them.

Peter Drucker did say that the "leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell and the leader of the future will be the person who knows how to ask." Freiberg believes this is true. He told CNBC-TV18, "It maybe hidden in some and I think the way we awaken that in people, is to give them a voice. So, you got to give the people freedom, to think and act like owners of the business and secondly, you have got to equip them to think and act like owners of the business."

"Now when I talk about ownership, I am not talking about the stock options and profit sharing, I think those things are critical but I am talking about the mentality which says if I see a problem I will own it. And really, when you think about ownership, ownership is about finding the gaps in any business and stepping into the breach to fill in those gaps, whether it's with a customer or whether it's with a co-worker."

The quiet heroism of 9/11
"Mid morning, on 9/11, the air traffic control system in the Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, had shut the air traffic control system down. Southwest Airlines had accounted for all of its 350 plus aircraft except for one. It's mid morning on 9/11, you cannot find a plane, so what do you think? It may have been hijacked. But fortunately, the plane had diverted to Grand Rapids, Michigan where Southwest Airlines doesn't have a presence. They got down on the ground, the ground staff plugged into the airplane and said we are so thankful you are down, you are one of the last aircraft and the system is down.

"On the parking lot, they had 40 aircraft waiting and they were told, it's going to be five hours before we can take your passengers off the plane and the pilot looked out the cockpit window and said there is an empty belt loader over there, that's isn't being used. So he asked the airport's staff to get it to the plane's front door. They brought the belt loader to the front door, the pilots and the flight attendants gingerly escorted all 137 passengers down the belt ladder."

"Then the pilot called the rental car agency and said can we use your shuttles to get out passengers to Amtrak (which is America's train system). The flight attendants and pilots swiped their own credit card to buy tickets for the passengers, who couldn't afford it and within 48 hours of that incident, everyone of those passengers were in their homes with their loved ones."

This is one committed team that made that scary day, a little more comfortable for the people who flew their airline. People who loved doing their jobs so much ,that they found a way for their customers to be satisfied.

Leadership counts
He believes that if people are failing to find joy in their jobs, then it has to do with "one of two reasons, either you are not a good coach or they are in the wrong job - they are not in the sweet spot, where there is a fit. Where is the responsibility? On you - the leader. Who assumes ownership? You, the leader, because when you really think about it, leadership is about serving."

"I mean the only reason to be in leadership is because you think you have the capability to serve other people and the great leader is always the one who looks in the mirror first and says what about me needs to change. So if you have somebody who is not creating, I think you've got to look in the mirror and say what are we doing to create an environment that drives the best out of this individual."

At the end of the day, it's always a people business. And, people are the most complex thing you lead and you manage. At the end of day, the great leaders are the people who understand that if you can get people caught up in a cause, that's worthy of everything that they have got, that makes some feel heroic about what they do. At the end of the day, people want to come and be a part of something special."

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Mark Mobius: Godfather of emerging markets

He is considered 'the Guru' to emulate, when spotting emerging markets and everyone wants to know how Templeton Emerging Markets Fund picks stocks to invest in. Looking up to him and learning from him is what most rookie analysts and investment bankers do. That's Mark Mobius for you - the Godfather of investing in emerging economies.

Mark Mobius is the son of a German father and a Puerto Rican mother and he says that he had exposure to very different cultures, which really helped him. One of his brothers, Schroeder, thought he would be a pianist because as Mark told CNBC-TV18, "My parents really forced us into music, in my case the piano and my brothers - the cello and the violin. Ofcourse, I still love the piano but I don't have much chance to play."

He also loved theatre and films and got his undergraduation degree in Fine Arts. From here he moved to psychology and from there he moved onto economics. Then it was consumer behaviour which grabbed his attention - which was a amalgamation of economics and psychology. He explains, "I did a lot of work on consumer surveys with international research associations." So, he studied social psychology and also briefly did clinical psychology from the University of New Mexico.

Interestingly, Mark was intrigued by stocks when he did his PhD thesis on communication satellites! It was around the time that President Kennedy was in office (early 1960s) and there were decisions to be made about whether Americans needed to stick with AT&T or whether something independent would be done.

The Kennedy administration and the Congress decided to do things independently and started the Comsat Corporation. It was listed on the NYSE and Mark invested in the stock after doing his research. It goes without saying that he made a lot of money. So, that's how the story of Mark Mobius's stint with investing began.

Also at the point, Japan was a sort of emerging market and he began to take an interest in it. But otherwise, 'emerging markets' were not words that had yet been coined back then in the 1970s. It was when the IFC and the World Bank decided to fund development in the underdeveloped countries, that the term 'emerging markets' came up.

Mark says that Sir John Templeton had the sense to invest in such markets before anyone else thought of doing so. He was in Mexico and Japan before the others and he "had the ability to condense things in a very nice way. He was able to summarise a idea very nicely and he said, 'If you want to get the best bargains, you've got to look globally'." So Templeton was really the real reason for the existence of the Toyotas and the Datsuns of the world.

The big charm of these new markets were, as Mark recalls, "The stocks and the P/Es were cheap. There were a lot of undiscovered companies and no one ever believed that Japan would be where they are today."

In all this time, Mark Mobius still didn't know whether he wanted to be in the business of stocks. He worked with Monsanto and wrote a book called 'Trading with China' and also was eager to see the world, especially Asia. So he went to Japan, Korea, Thailand and Taiwan, mostly on work. It was in Taiwan, where he was on the board of the International Investment Trust, and after a board member who was running the trust left, Mark took over. So, that's when he got his first taste of investing and managing a portfolio.

So despite Wall Street's siren call, Mark Mobius continued with his exploration of the Asian markets and was well positioned to take advantage, when globally, emerging markets in Latin America and Eastern Europe were opened to the world.

So in 1987, Mark Mobius was handpicked by Sir John Templeton to head Templeton Emerging Markets and till date, Mark is unaware of why he was picked! He hazards a guess though and says, "The fact that I was out here (in Asia) and seemed to be knowledgeable about what was happening in Asia and was enthusiastic about it."

They started out with $100 million and with only one analyst and himself as the only 'team' in place! The only countries, he could invest in, in those days were six in all - five in Asia and one in Latin America. Today, the statistical projections he made in his book on China, seems like one of Nostradamus's predictions but back in the 1970s, he wasn't believed at all!

While investing in stocks in emerging markets, he uses the same system that Sir Templeton used. He explains, "His belief was that you got to pick stocks that in five years, according to your projections, will be inexpensive." Mark does his homework as well. He looks at profit & loss statements, cashflows, balancesheets in detail and visits factories. Corporate governance is also a big issue he looks at.

Today, Mark Mobius is sitting on an incredible emerging markets database. Templeton analysts can access data from the Oracle based system that has now been installed and share information with one another, across the world. He elaborates, "We started out with a list of 17,000 companies and we sifted through that. Now we have 900 companies in our database." But they are constantly adding to this "action list" and subtracting from it.

The criteria used to eliminate companies were size, liquidity, other problems like remittances out of the country or poor corporate governance norms, were also taken into account. Currencies are also evaluated with relation to the dollar or the euro and then the impact on a company is studied. So an undervalued local currency will help exporting companies, which makes their stocks attractive.

When it comes to the stocks of the 900 companies that are on his database, they keep their eyes on the ball, at all times. Mark Mobius elaborates, "We have a target buying price and a target selling price." He cites a study that Templeton did, where it seemed they were leaving stocks a little too early, so now they keep moving the limit up with a moving stop loss.

So, how does a Templeton analyst make a stock pick? He analyses a stock, then it is reviewed by a peer team of six people, which also includes the sector expert. They agree among themselves on buy and sell limits. If there is a disagreement, then Mark steps in. Otherwise, the process moves on and a team of allocators comes in and allocates these stocks into the portfolios.

At the end of the day, though, Mark says that "You should stick to your convictions if you have done your research. Process is key and you should stick to your stocks, otherwise, you are really in trouble."

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Engage in active experimentation: Wind

A changing environment is important to continuously experiment as sticking with the same thing will not be beneficial in the long run. Professor of Marketing, Wharton School, Yoram Jerry Wind told CNBC-TV18, "We have to experiment whether it is a planned experiment like it is in the sciences, whether it is an adaptive experiment, where we plan continuously to experiment or we learn from natural experiments, what's happening around us. But it is critical due to the changing environment that we continuously engage in active experimentation."

He explains, "Today's environment is different than yesterday's and I think every firm faces changes in consumer behaviour, changes in technology, changes in government regulation, changes in competitive activities and just to continue what they have been doing, relying on their own mental model will not allow them to succeed. So what they have to do is, they have to when dealing with natural experiments, observe what is happening around them and then say - 'How can I learn from this?"

"For example, the US army used to have a videogame for recruiting. Suddenly someone realized that there have been 10's of millions of games that have been played and said - why don't we analyze what all these recruits did in terms of the game and they got enormous amounts of insight into strategy - into what works, what doesn’t work based on mining this enormous amount of data."

"So the idea here is - not that always you have to design your own experiments, but in the natural experiments area you have to be open to the idea that if I have some opportunity for learning, what can I learn from the failure of the companies? What can I learn from the collapse of the dotcom bubble?"

"So the idea is - 'How can I continuously learn? Adaptive experimentation is critical. If I go with a single strategy, at the end of the year, I really don't know what I should do next because I don't know whether to stay with the same strategy, improve it, change it? I have not learnt much, but if I design my own strategy, it is an experiment. I am trying three different things in three different places. I can tell them, which of them works better and then I can modify my next year's strategy. I learn something during the year and that is the key'."

CEO of ITC's Agribusiness, S Sivakumar agrees with Wind. He said, "Unless you look at things very differently. If you continue doing things the same old way, there can be a whole lot of inefficiency in the way you are doing things. The basic reason to start something new could be reaction - it could be many other things also. But the very way you look at it differently means that it is not reactive thinking."

"For example in e-choupal, we were the buyer of commodities. If you have to reduce cost or improve quality, all that you could do, (if we were thinking in the old way) was appoint commission agents in the mandis who are better skilled or cut the transaction cost a little bit by improving transportation costs. But nobody really though for decades altogether that transactions outside of this market ever existed. If a farmer was very small, he had to go to the market, he had to sell because that is the only economic way of doing things. That was the traditional way of thinking. But when e-choupal started, we said - 'think of it very differently'."

When e-choupals was a mere thought in his mind, Sivakumar decided to go into uncharted waters. 'At one level, obviously when you say, I want to put internet in the village and the farmer will look at it and transact, and obviously the first reaction is - ok, can a farmer actually access the internet and we remember in 2000, even in urban India, telecom did not fully take shape.' Chairman, ITC, YC Deveshwar initially wanted to do a pilot but the moment it made enormous sense to him, he sanctioned Rs 10 crore to plunge right in and get the concept working.

Wind applauds the idea and says, 'I think what they have done is the right approach, especially when you are grappling with a radical idea. When you want to educate the people and tell them what it is, there was no way they could implement this unless they educate the farmers and his own people. But this is a perfect example of the importance of experimentation. Had he not experimented with this, he still would have been in the old trading business.' It also helped that the management was an enlightened one and they were able to carry the experiment to a successful fruition.

Next up was convincing the farmers to engage with the new model and learn to use a computer for information. Until then, farmers took their produce to mandis and there the agents would weigh the produce and then pay them. This method has endured for years but farmers were frequently cheated. Sivakumar elaborated, 'So proof of actual execution was always sought for and pestered for by the villagers until someone said, 'Here is someone who is doing it right, let's now adapt to it'. So this infrastructure was put into place to deliver information independent of transactions, so that agricultural commodity buying became more efficient.'

'We did realize that some fundamental issues of rural India are, fragmented farmers disbursed across 600,000 villages as well as the weak infrastructure. So we realised that the e-choupal system could be used for taking other goods and services back into the village, whether you are bundling information or knowledge together with transaction or you are separating it from transaction. So today, ITC's consumer goods are going back into villages, but a whole lot of other companies whether it is agricultural inputs, farm equipment, consumer goods, consumer durables, financial products are all going back into the villages, using the same infrastructure.'

He added, 'This also changes its own paradigm, in the sense that, when you looked at selling consumer goods to low income consumers, earlier the concern was, 'how do I cut costs, how do I cut the size of the pack so that I am able to give them value at that price and so on'. But the e-choupal also put more money in their (farmers) pocket so that they were able to spend more and improve the quality of their life. This has created a virtual cycle.' What's more, now other companies have begun to use the network and the system ITC has put in place, to supply goods into the village and not just to buy goods from the village.

As Wind puts it succintly, 'Change your thinking and you can transform your work and your life.'

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Maxim to stop men from moaning

Men have been moaning about not having anything worthwhile to read for a while now. Well, there are newspapers and newsmagazines, but that's not what they mean, do they? They mean stuff like Cosmopolitan and Elle. The glossy, catty magazines that give women advice on everything and more.

Men now have Maxim and the Indian edition is being edited by Sunil Mahra. This magazine has succeeded in tantalising generations of men abroad and now Indians will get their fill of gorgeous women and hot tips to woo them correctly and more importantly, keep them happy!

Ofcourse, women stand to gain in all this. If only Maxim is made mandatory reading for all men. But wishful thinking apart, the magazine is packed with entertainment, news, gossip, and yes, sex. Very candid Q&As on sex should have men fighting, to get their hands on this magazine.

One person, apart from Mahra, who has made this possible is 35-year-old Piyush Sharma. He is a science graduate with an MBA and now the CEO, of the newly launched men's magazine. Piyush's tryst with publishing happened by accident. He gave FMCG, IT, and the service industry a shot, before moving to Tehelka, where he was Vice President, in-charge of marketing for two years.

Having got a feel of the publishing business, he decided to be daringly different and brought UK's best selling men's magazine Maxim to India in 2006. Think global and act local, that's Piyush's editorial mantra. In fact, before the launch he spent one week in the UK, to understand what Maxim was all about. They also conducted a six-city survey, to understand what Indian men really want. The magazine relies heavily on Indian content, but about 30% is international news.

Barely two editions old, Maxim already has big boys like Samsung, Ford, Rayban, Hyundai, Toyota, Airtel and Nokia buying space. Being a men's magazine, Maxim has its priorities right. So there's plenty of glamorous women, gizmos, sports, funnies and fashion.

Its first edition was a complete sellout, with 75,000 copies being sold. Enthused by the response, Piyush is now planning to launch a product in the travel as well as the women's magazine space. Big plans, big ideas and a maxim to be a market leader, that's Piyush Sharma for you.

If despite all this PR, you need still more convincing to pick up a copy of this magazine, then check out their website. They are running a contest, where they are requesting people to send in the 'best' photos of women in their bedrooms. And yes, the good ones are being put online and the best one wins a prize.

This sure will give everyone, a reason to start clicking those naughty bedroom pictures! Man, won't you guys kill to be on Maxim's editorial staff - just imagine what is 'not' being published, out of concern for Indian values (and hypocrisy).

For more on Maxim: http://www.maximonline.com

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Pointers to buy a laptop & camera

Are you thinking of buying a laptop or a camera anytime soon? Then you want to get the best advice and not succumb to smooth sales talk and then walk out with something, you'll later regret buying. Everyone will tell you some great things about performance, where branded laptops or cameras are concerned. But that really is the last thing one should keep in mind.

A bigger priority should be the features that come with a laptop. For instance, things like the life of the battery. Any laptop one is thinking of buying should have a battery that has five hours of life in it.

Second thing to look out for is build quality. This will stand the buyer in good stead when travelling. Look at the hinges and taking out the drive trays would be a good idea. It will help to determine how loose or tight it is.

Thirdly, wireless connectivity is important and it has to be there in a laptop. There is just no compromising on this.

Lastly, buy something light and not a heavy model. Keeping this in mind, look at buying something weighing between 1-1.5 kgs and you will be good to go.

Recommended buys
ASUS M5A costs Rs 60,000, weighs 1.5 kgs, 2.5 cms thin, battery lasts for 7 hours and comes with a sturdy alloy cover.

Acer Ferrari 4000 costs Rs 1,00,000 plus taxes, 64 bit AMD processor and everything else is state of the art.

Fujitsu lightbook E40 tablet PC costs Rs 1,15,000, has all the gizmos and software including handwriting recognition and weighs under 2 kgs.

Editor of Chip magazine, Marco D'Souza told CNBC-TV18, "Laptops can be really cheap and as low as Rs 35,000 today. But they tend to scrounge on the build quality. The built should be good, it should feel sturdy. Also make sure, you have the operating system, OS, installed on the laptop because most people leave that out and expect you to install a pirated version."

Budget buys
Lenovo Thinkpad EQ3 costs Rs 40,000 including taxes, great security features including a airbag like hard disc lock for nasty falls and comes with Windows XP.

Compaq Presario M22O2DU costs Rs 33,000 including taxes, Linus OS, built-in speakers.

Candid camera Megapixels is not everything when it comes to buying a camera. But if you plan to print your family album, then buy a camera that is atleast 4 megapixels or more. Actually 8 or 9 megapixels is far too high and not required for family pictures.

Look at the optics of the camera, the lens should be really big and if one wants the zoom function, then it should have optical zoom and not digital zoom.

Budget buys
AIPTEK Pocketcam 4000 does not come with optical zoom but is a 4 megapixel camera and is priced at Rs 5,000. Kodak Easyshare V530 priced at less than Rs 16,000 and has a VX optical zoom, 5 megapixels, super speed and a great flash. There's no viewfinder and the LCD is a bit small.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

She made Playboy rock & roll!

She once told Malcolm Forbes that "you may be publishing the capitalist tool but I publish the capitalist carrot, as it makes it, worth all that hard work!" The lady who made this comment unapologetically is Playboy Enterprises Inc founder Hugh Hefner's daughter, Christie Hefner, who wanted to be a lawyer or a journalist when she grew up, and never thought she would be working at Playboy.

But today she confidently says, "I think we are going to be the pre-eminent entertainment brand for grownups, the way Disney is the pre-eminent brand for kids, says the CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Christy Hefner. So, when she never thought she would be working at Playboy neither did her father think she would be there too. He has a memory though, of her standing by a typewriter in his office, when he was putting out the first issue of the magazine in 1953 - so that should have been a sign of things to come!

Hugh Hefner's intentions were never naughty, or so he says! He says, he always wanted to put out a classy,lifestyle and entertainment magazine for men and he succeeded beyond his imagination. His first issue sold 50,000 copies and within seven years, his circulation had reached the 1 million mark. Today, it sells seven million copies.

So, Hefner had arrived at 27 with his first issue, which he put together on his kitchen table and after having mortgaged his furniture twice. He also did something else with his first issue - he put the reigning sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe on the cover and didn't put a date on the cover, so newsagents would sell more copies of it, rather than send it back as they would have, after the sell-by date was over. This was street smarts of the best kind!

After winning over a conservative 1950s audience, Hugh Hefner worked his charm on his daughter to see, if he could lure her to work at Playboy. Editor-in-Chief & Founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner says, "What she did when she joined the company was kind of move from one division to another and learn the business." And learn she did. She quickly gave up her plans for going to law school and this where she has been ever since. Today, she has made it $50 million company.

Chairman & CEO, Christie Hefner told Ingrid Vanderveldt's show American Made, shown on CNBC channel, "If I had made some of those big decisions that some big companies make which don't work out, we wouldn't be here. So, that's the hardest part, that we pretty much had to get everything right." But she was also aware that people would not give her credit for her accomplishments and would say she achieved it because she was Hugh Hefner's daughter.

But both father and daughter have seen their company through tough political times, like the Reagan era - of "political correctness and a very difficult time for Playboy." Hugh Hefner recalls, "I held the people who were running the business end of the company then, responsible for it and morale was low." On hindsight, Christie feels her father did not want to be heading a public company but "wound up inheriting a complicated business to run, when what he started off with was, a vision for a great magazine."

"There are to kinds of CEOs - those who make decisions and those who make speeches" -this was what a Playboy magazine article on business leaders said, and Christie obviously prefers to be the one who makes the decisions and she had to make some tough ones to pull her father's company out of the red. Hugh acknowledges this and says, "She was there to save my ass!"

The uncontrolled expansion needed to be curbed because Playboy was in various other businesses as well, like book publishing, had a book club, a movie business, a record company, a TV business, casinos, hotels, clubs, a modelling agency, a limousine agency and the Playboy merchandise. So, Christie took charge and told the head of finance that, they would manage the businesses with cash, divest businesses they couldn't turn around and allow business units to make decisions on corporate expenses. After this, came the fun part to figure out, how to grow the company.

That's when cable TV was exploited and the Playboy Channel was launched - which India is a long way away from getting in its bedrooms - because the company decided to "refocus on communications, which Playboy does well." Interestingly, this was something her father had also explored with two adult variety shows called 'After Dark' and 'Playboy's Penthouse' years earlier with top Hollywood stars like Sammy Davis Jr performing in them.

She and her father did disagree on whether or not they needed to shut down the Playboy clubs - which they later did along with the hotels. Christie says, she sees a certain beauty in the phrase "rationalising the lines of business", which see aptly paraphrases as "dumping the losers!"

Christie and her father had made another bold move. He had made his daughter the President of a company that was perceived as a "male chauvnist citadel", and she was one of the very few women in a top position of a NYSE listed company and that set tongues wagging. Back then, Christie had gone on record to say, "I had considered wearing nightgowns to work but thought that it would be distracting, so I opted for business clothes!" She was a novelty then. Today, ofcourse, there are many women in top positions and even the consumer profile of Playboy has changed. More women buy Playboy merchandise and more couples watch the Playboy channel - so it no longer remains a man's preserve.

She says, "I feel like I'm a steward for an extraordinary brand and an extraordinary set of assets. She also says that Playboy sells sexy and not sex per se because the magazine is a platform for romantic sexiness, even when there is lot of blatantly hardcore sexual content available out there - namely the internet. And she feels Playboy retains its marketshare because it provides a level of sophistication and style.

The reason that Playboy has been such a wild success in America, despite feminist and political protests, is because of the culture of freedom and the First Amendment. As Christie puts it, "No other company embodies the right to speak their mind, and has fought for that right, than Playboy."

Playboy: The Brand
Playboy licenses its trademark bunny for the worldwide manufacture and sale of its merchandise, which brings in half-a-billion in sales earnings. She obviously, does not want to lose control over such a valuable brand, so she remains a active marketing partner. She explains, "We have a top flight staff of designers who produce a style book every season with the colours, trends and uses fo all the Playboy iconography - whether that's the rabbit head or the Playboy playmate."

With the internet making Playboy images easily accessible, the brand is moving into the $10 billion gaming industry, with the adult game called Playboy The Mansion, where you get to play, party and make out with scantily clad bunnies, in a slick simulation of what really happens at Hugh Hefner's parties! Christie says, such multimedia platforms are great earning models for her company. Playboy also offers video clips on mobiles and saucy Playboy ringtones - basically women's dulcet voices urging you to answer your phone!

Today, Playboy has 25,000 retail stores globally and the magazine is produced in 20 countries and has a 50 million strong readership globally. All this plus Playboy Entertainment, manages 142 million cable and satellite feeds and operates 25 networks in more than 72 countries.

The founder of this empire, Hugh Hefner has some parting words of wisdom, "You are only here for a very short time and one should make the most of it - both in work and play. In a free society, if you are not free in the bedroom, then you are not free at all!"


Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Here's what women want from their careers

India has a uniquely dual attitude to women - on the one hand, Godesses like Lakshmi, Durga, Saraswati are venerated and yet, well into the 21st century, baby girls continue to be killed. Newspaper reports have pegged the figure as high as 10 million female foetuses, that have been aborted.

Among the women who are fortunate enough to be kept alive, fed, clothed and educated, there seems to be a burning desire to break new ground - almost as if making up for their fellow sisters, who never made it. In fact, research shows that Indian women are more career focused than their peers in Europe and the US.

The Shell Group recently surveyed 12,000 students and young professionals in 12 markets around the globe, including India, to gain a better understanding of the factors that candidates consider important, when making decisions about their prospective careers. The study found that although there are many similarities in what male and female candidates look for in a potential employer - there are still many significant differences.

Here is what the study highlighted about Indian women. According to the research, when it comes to career goals, Indian women are more career focused than their peers in Europe and the US. While in the US, 51% of women are more interested in keeping a balance between their personal life and career. They are also less interested in developing new products as compared to 41% of the men.

In India, the differences between men and women are small. When it comes to choosing the industry, 25% of the female respondents said that they prefer working in the automotive industry and 22% in aerospace as compared to 2% in consumer electronics, 6% in consumer goods, 5% in hotel restaurant, 5% in tourism, 18% in IT/telecommunications, 6% in management consulting and 4% in the oil and energy sectors and 0% in healthcare.

Meanwhile, Indian men are more interested in working in IT/telecommunications (25%), banking (22%), engineering and manufacturing (21%), engineering consulting and aerospace (20%), accounting/auditing, environmental conservation and government service (16%). Like their women, only 0% wanted to work in healthcare.

On the subject of what men perceived to be an attractive compensation package: 37% male respondents were more likely to consider performance-related bonuses, 30% considered company cars and 34% took profit-sharing to be important factors. Also 31% of the men found broad opportunities and 26% found an inspiring and innovative environment, as the most attractive factors.

So for men, it was all about the money, while not surprisingly, women went for a more holistic package. This could be because in India, men are expected to bring in more of the bacon, than their wives, and that shows up in the statistics. Also, women’s jobs are considered transient and dispensable, especially when children arrive on the scene. That’s exactly, when men are supposed to go into overdrive and be able to provide for more mouths. So, there is a certain logic that applies here.

When it comes to remuneration, the study showed that 26% women consider a potential employer's ability to provide childcare, 27% consider extra paid vacation/personal days and 21% take into account performance-related bonus, as important influencers in their decision-making process. When it comes to work quality, 32% women find flexible work hours, 37% consider good career reference and 33% considered varied assignments and responsibility, as the most attractive factors.

In fact, on a number of parameters with regard to what compensation package would make an employer more attractive to women – 34% Indian women thought that a company car provided to them would be a nice idea. The next 3 criteria they ranked highest were : 34% also thought profit sharing was a nice offer to make, 27% thought extra paid vacation/personal days off would be a generous offer, while 26% wanted childcare support at the workplace.

Now how do women abroad compare on similar concerns, as their Indian peers? Well, in the US, only 10% cared about having a company car, while in UK, 27% wanted the same. In Germany, 28% wanted a company car. This could be entirely due to the frustrating commute that people in India have to endure, as opposed to traffic that moves at an average of 80 kms an hour abroad. If anything is a wake up call to state governments about the infrastructure they are providing, then these numbers speak for themselves.

On extra paid vacations and time off, 48% of the women in the US wanted these holidays and 42% in the UK. These higher numbers probably prove that taking time out for yourself is not considered such a ‘woman thing to do’, while here in India, women are just slowly beginning to work towards the corner cubicle or toward a sense of job security, so demanding holidays may not be seen as the wise thing to do.

On childcare, 15% wanted it in UK, while 13% wanted it in the US. This also reflects the reality that, women in India have to depend on parents, in-laws, unauthorized crèches and trustworthy hired help to look after their children. While abroad, it is far easier to leave kids at regulated day care centres, where they know their children will be safe and taken care of. So, though, the wider parental support system may be missing, their society has provided an alternative.

In India, the need to rely on aging parents to look after grandchildren is a necessity and may be a trifle trying on the grandparents! But because it is family, it is understood and almost expected of them to be around to babysit the kids. So, if childcare is provided, it lifts a huge responsibility off their shoulders – and their working daughters realize that.

Now how does this compare with men and women globally? Well, a global average of 41% of female respondents, as compared to only 30% of males, said that their most important career goal was to achieve balance between their personal life and career. An average 54% of female respondents think it is very important, that their employer works actively with equality, against an average 33% of males.

While 55% of women consider it important to work with inspiring colleagues that treat them with respect against only 45% of men, who want this. When it comes to remuneration, the study shows that even at the beginning of their careers, 18% of women consider a potential employer's ability to provide childcare, 16% parental leave and 45% of women want healthcare benefits.

Whereas, 41% of the male respondents were more likely to consider performance-related bonuses, 30% wanted company cars and 33% wanted profit-sharing.

Indian girls with a graduation degree have higher goals in mind, than just getting married. Atleast, 44% said they wanted to tackle increasingly challenging tasks, as against 36% of their peers in UK and 32% in the US.

Also 36% of Indian women having careers want to reach the managerial level as against surprisingly, 30% in UK, 26% in the US and a low 21% in Germany. 35% of Indian women want to work globally as compared to 32% in UK and a low 16% in the US. Only Germany scores higher here, with 48% of their women hoping to work abroad.

So Indian women are getting adventurous enough to look at brighter futures for themselves on foreign shores, while women in the US are most likely, comfortable with their insular world. After all, they are working in the world’s largest and most powerful economy, so this may just be the reason for their unwillingness to consider jobs outside the US.

Source: Tables from Shell Group's study on gender equality and career aspirations

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Samsung's success story retold

In a recent study Samsung showed up as the 20th most valuable brand in the world. How did this South Korean brand manage to make its presence felt around the globe? This is one of the many ways it did that - at the Time Warner Center in the heart of New York is the 10,000 square feet Samsung Experience.

Here one can spend an entire day touching and getting a feel of Samsung's products. So, if you want to take out digital pictures of your family and shoot free photo, colour printouts while in the Big Apple, then you know where to go!

This is a Samsung Un store, that makes everything available to people but does not let you buy any of the stuff. So there are no price tags and no salesmen breathing down your neck. The idea is ofcourse, to showcase its entire product range and get people interested enough to buy it, at some point.

The attendants at the Samsung Experience are part-time artists, students or just geeks who easily explain technology and its usage to anyone who wants to know more, or learn for the very first time.

Senior Vice President, Consumer Electronics Business, Peter Weedfald told CNBC-TV18, "It's what we call a brand experential opportunity - to take all the assets of technology, engineering, design or images and build a emporium. A place for consumers to come to, that allows them to best understand the value of digital technology to enjoy a digital lifestyle."

And people who have visited Samsung Experience are clearly fans of Samsung products. Customer testimonials range from "their products are very fancy" to "their products show lots of innovation, so whoever does their product development, does a lot of research to "I may pick them over Motorola."

These are thriving on credit cards, high spending Americans doing the talking, so it goes without saying that North America is Samsung's top sixth strategic market. It also contributes nearly a fourth of the electronics division's annual turnover of over $55 billion.

Since customers want choice and will congregate around retail chains, Samsung is not planning any standalone stores. It is the global leader in computer chips and the No.2 player in the semiconductor business, while in the consumer business, it's their snazzy mobile phones which has given them brand equity in this market.

Weedfald acknowledges that and says, 'The mobile phone was one of our greatest brand drivers and contnues to be. There is a multitude of reasons why. Everyone has a certain personality and the cellphone is branding me 24 hours a day. Everytime, I'm ready to engage, it's a Samsung experience. It's is a very powerful orchestrator, navigator and articulator to proactively drive the brand.'

Samsung is going to take this much further by introducing the scent of Samsung which is basically a fragrance that will evoke the brand and will eventually find its way into product packages! So what does the fragrance smell like? First hand reports say, 'fresh, early morning and perhaps male.'

The idea behind this effort is, to consolidate the brand in the 52 countries it is already present in. Keeping this mind, at IFFA 2005 held in September in Berlin, Samsung displayed their products in one of the largest spaces. IFFA is a huge consumer electronics trade show.

Dealers from Europe, which accounts for 26% of Samsung's revenues were there. In the second quarter of FY05, Samsung placed first in TV sales beating compatriot LG and Europe's top ranker, Philips. In general, Samsung's sales was up 103% over a period of four years.

This kind of success wasn't always the case. About eight years ago, Samsung was an unknown brand and they tried to create awareness by branding luggage carts at airports. So people assumed they were the manufacturers of those carts! So, from not having any brand recall to being associated with wrong products, brand Samsung has been through it all.

This was also a result of changes being initiated right from the top. With the Chairman of Samsung, Kun-Hee Lee wanting quick results, it was imperative to start moving and making radical changes. It probably helped that he took a couple of the products and burnt them in a bonfire! President of Digital Media Business at Samsung Geesung Chol recalls, 'He (the chairman) urged us to change everything except our wife and children!'

With the intention of pushing the brand as a point of convergence for all of a customer's digital needs, Samsung has phased out its VCRs, analogue camcorders and all analogue-technology related products because that's no longer, where the company is headed. And India is a big part of this plan, even though it's lagging behind at the moment.

Deputy Managing Director of Samsung India, Ravinder Zutshi explains, 'The brand may be trailing in some respects but we are not trailing behind in the technology aspect.'

With regard to India Chol says, 'We used to be very good with IT products but we were a little bit late in home appliances and sometimes we didn't take certain decisions in some product areas. So, the company wants to grow and go to Indian consumers more quickly. We are hoping to win popularity with Indian customers.'

Another innovation that Samsung is counting on is anytime-anywhere TV. It has tied up with content providers like Discovery Channel for high definition TVs, HDTVs, and Microsoft's Xbox for its gaming console. Samsung is also investing in sports from sponsoring the Chelsea Football Club and the Winter Olympics 2006 or tailormaking the World Cybergames, it's doing a lot to become a well known entity.

So, Samsung has former Olympic skier Alberto Tomba as the brand's global athlete ambassador and he says the brand is popular in Europe in countries like France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany as well as in Japan.

But the real challenge for Samsung is to move up from being the 20th most valuable global brand to becoming the market leader, that's also an iconic brand.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

MAMI festival 2006: Movies, masti and magic

The Mumbai Academy of Moving Images festival 2006 better known as MAMI has around 100 films playing at IMAX Adlabs at Wadala and YB Chavan Auditorium in Colaba. With the festival starting on Friday. March 23, not everyone could be there on a work day. And as luck would have it, there were many good movies that opened the festival.

There was Dansh (Sting) starring Sonali Kulkarni and the crowd favourite Les Choristes (The Chorus), which was a French film directed by Christophe Barratier. Sonali Kulkarni was also there on Saturday (March 25) talking to the press about her experiences of shooting for an Italian movie, Fuoco Su Di Me (Fire At My Heart) directed by Lamberto Lambertini. She raved about Italy, the people and the food and said she was initially worried about learning Italian but she got a lot of support from her director and his team.

This movie was also shown at the festival. Other movies played on that day were Zoorek, Tapas, Forest of the Gods, Caribe among others. India was represented by Dansh, Kal (Yesterday & Tomorrow), Dhool Ka Phool, Darpan Ke Peeche, Antarmahal, The Film, Maine Gandhi Ko Nahi Maara, Vishwa Thulasi - a Tamil film, Achuvinte Amma - a Malayalam film and Marathi movies Maazi Ghosta and Dombivili Fast.

Actor Sandeep Kulkarni seems to be a regular at film festivals. He's in 'Dombivili Fast' and played the role of a doctor in last year's 'Shwaas'. 'Shwaas' was India's Oscar entry last year, in the foreign language category.

This year, the focus was on Spanish cinema but a package of Serbian and Palestinian films were also making their presence felt. Three global auteurs - one of them posthmously - were felicitated with a retrospective and tributes. They were Daniel Wachsmann, whose movies like Hamsin, Bar Mitzwa and Song of Galilee were shown here. And tributes were paid to Prithviraj Kapoor and Roberto Rossllini.

Also Yash Chopra got the Lifetime Achievement award, Anil Kapoor for his 25 years in showbusiness and Ashok Mehta for his cinematography were honoured.

Ofcourse, there was the MAMI centrepiece that everyone was eager to get a dekko at - Ismail Merchant's last movie 'The White Countess' was also screened at IMAX on Sunday. What is awaited and will be screened on the last day of the festival, March 30 is Deepa Mehta's 'Water'. At the YB Chavan, it is a strictly by invitation screening but the smarter people will be at IMAX Adlabs for the 9.30 pm viewing. I've immensely enjoyed watching Deepa Mehta's earlier movies 'Fire' and 'Earth' and will definitely see 'Water', which completes her elements trilogy.

But of the movies, I had been able to watch so far, 'The Ghost of Mae Nak' will stand out for the brilliant camerawork of the Mumbai-born director, Mark Duffield. He's done a great job of shooting Bangkok in all its glory and this won him the Best Cinemantography award at the 2003 Slamdunk Film Festival in the US. He's also scripted this Thai legendary ghost story in English, which was later translated into Thai. He had learnt of this legend from an earlier film called Nang Nak and his film sure had some gory scenes.

It also had all the classic Bollywood ingredients - only in Thai settings. There was the cute young couple, both well dressed and madly in love who marry (with parental consent) and then get pursued by a ghost, who wants to claim the man for herself. A romantic, horror story, which in India would be a complete family entertainer. And no sex to worry the parents and the prudes. Duffield sure does know his Indian and Asian audience.

A Hungarian film 'Dallas Among Us' was hard hitting and gritty. It showed the lives of gypsies who live in the margins of society in Romania. They go about their lives boozing, collecting rubbish from their surroundings and selling it to a goon from the city, who fleeces them out of their money everytime. Only one man has managed to escape from this dump heap and he's forced to return to bury his father. He's sees the harsh realities he's moved away from with fresh eyes and also finds true love waiting for him.

He wants to make a change in their lives but some people can't fight their destiny and he realises that, when he tragically loses his lover. The actors spent most of their time in a city's garbage dump and went without makeup. That's something you are not going to see Saif Ali Khan or Preity Zinta do in a hurry, any time soon. But the acting was outstanding nonetheless, especially Dorka Gryllus, who plays the lead's lover. She's the Romanian Salma Hayek - all brunette, smoldering sexiness.

'The Song of Galilee' was a Daniel Wachsmann documentary shot in real time with no editing. So, if he was threatened, it was on screen for the world to watch. When his car gets blown up and when he's almost shot dead - all that is also there for us to watch. He admits as much at the end of the film, that "if you are watching this, then you are helping to keep me alive."

The movie actually investigates the death of a part-time poet, philosopher and a full time nationalist, who advocates a separate Galilee. Yes, Saul Havilio wants a separate state away from Israel. He gets killed for his effort. Just before his death, he called up the director and wanted to meet him because he had heard that Daniel had wanted to make a documentary on the caves and caverns around Galilee. Shaul's death makes the director turn Sherlock Holmes. He goes in search of the people who were arrested in connection with his death and gets stonewalled and dire warnings.

But he eventually realises and almost finds proof of the fact that the legendary Temple treasure, which is a major Jewish myth, might still be hidden in Mount Merion, the highest mountain in Israel. He's able to show us the tunnels in the heart of the mountain where the treaure is hidden to this day but no one can get to it because the exit and entrance of those caverns are known only to one family for generations - the family of Shaul Havilio!

He leaves us with the tantalising thought that Shaul was shot dead because he had attempted to draw too much attention to himself and his family and when he got in touch with the director, they panicked and killed him. What's more, all the suspects are related to one another in some way and they conspire to keep their mouths shut about his death. They also are quiet about another bigger conspiracy - whether they are mounting a serious threat to Israel's sovereignity by starting a war for a free Galilee. This was investigative journalism at its best.


More on the MAMI festival: http://www.iffmumbai.org/

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Scrumptious dates are made of these!

Are you fond of dates - that is the eating kind? Well, then Bateel is where you should head if you want to enjoy a lavish assortment of premium quality dates, date truffles, cookies, pastries, biscuits, nutritious date bars and delightful date jams.

And there's more - you could wash it all down with some date champagne. These special dates are filled with lime and sugarcane juice or alternatively filled with almonds and cashew nuts.

Bateel is a company based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is one of the world’s main producers and exporters of dates and has franchises worldwide. The company takes its name from an Arabic word 'bateel' which refers to the offshoot from the date palm plant. The date palm tree is also known as the ‘tree of life’ and recognised as a national treasure in the UAE.

The Bateel farm produces 22 types of dates, which go through a rigorous ripening and sterilisation process before being displayed in temperature controlled boutiques. Besides dates, Bateel has developed many products related and derived from the fruit, including sparkling juice, nectar or ‘dhibs’ and date chocolates as well as gourmet chocolates.

The company also commissions French and Belgian chefs to develop new products, especially for Bateel’s date chocolate line. Each type of date chocolate (they have at least 14 varieties to date) is made up of at least four layers - for example, a fresh date wrapped in praline, coated with chocolate, and finally covered with powdered cocoa.

In India, this luxury brand is available at CR2 at Nariman Point in Mumbai. Here you will find around 11 types of cookies and about 25 types of dates and a box of chocolates will set you back only by a couple of thousand rupees. But that's peanuts, when you are confronted with such a mouthwatering feast for the tastebuds!

Written for www.moneycontrol.com