Great

Eternal words that make you feel cherished!

I got a card from CaratLane with these lines...they were lovely enough to share.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Sinful bakes to end a year & start a new one!

Ever been undecided about where to pick up a cake from, for a birthday or a party? This simple decision could just get a lot more confusing because of even more choice being available in a glutted market. In Mumbai, we have chains like Monginis, Birdys and standalone ones like Theobroma, Ovenfresh, Gaylord or La Patisserie - the Taj Cake shop - just to name a few, who bake drool-worthy cakes to suit every budget.

Now crowding this space are coffee bars like Cafe Coffee Day (CCD) and Barista. They have both decided to sell entire cakes rather than just slices of it. So, while a 1 kg Chocolate Fantasy or the scrumptious Chocolate Blackforest at CCD is priced at Rs 498 with taxes (and a Rs 50 rebate it was offering a while ago), it works out to Rs 448 only.

Barista has followed CCD by introducing a range of cakes for sale as well, with a pre-tax price of Rs 449, which when I enquired, will work out to over Rs 500, for a 1 kg cake. So, obviously CCD works out cheaper but at the moment, there are only three kinds of cakes you can order from them - Chocolate Fantasy, Choco Blackforest and Mystery Mousse.

Barista seems to have taken a jolt of their Lavazza espresso and woken up to see what more they can do, to keep caffeine-lovers coming back to their coffeeshops. Their eats still languish till the end of the day, while CCD's brownies, muffins and chicken sandwiches often is sold out. That's people's taste buds voting for where the foodstuff is better!

Barista has a tendency to do things by fits and starts, so there are times when they have introduced a really good pastry - and given us a taste of it - then they have inexplicably withdrawn it after a few months. You won't see the Coffee Almond pastry anymore - that's because it's now become a 1 kg cake, that you have to order, in order to enjoy it.

Similarly, there was a Chocolate Cheese Marbled cake pastry, which was the only thing I liked at Barista, apart from the Coffee Almond delicacy, and even this they have discontinued. They seem to like removing things from their menu, that I particularly like.

Cafe Coffee Day is far less annoying and their standards keep improving. Their staff are also far more interested in their customers being satisfied, with the quality of service provided, than is the case with Barista.

I've always been a CCD addict (and well, Moshe's!) and I'm looking forward to the new lounges that are being opened soon. The first one has just opened in Bangalore. I'm sure, the eats and the treats will be something to look forward to - along with me being able to 'craft their menu' as their website states. I think this means, a customised experience altogether.

Besides with names like Black Woods, Apple Paradiso, Sinner's Heaven and French Cheesecake for their desserts and Strawberry Fields, Caribbean Heaven and Choco Decks for their sundaes, they just can't miss.

The other cake shops all have their specials. So at Gaylord, I would recommend the Biscuit cake, which is such a deep, dark chocolate cake, that it takes time for people to recover from it! With the 'with-egg' one costing Rs 478 and an eggless one costing an odd Rs 501 - it is worth digging into.

Everything I've ever tried from the Taj cake shop has been amazing - their cakes and their Christmas puddings. But at Rs 750 a kg, they are worth the price but may not fit everyone's budget. Moshe's is another hi-end option to try, if you are in the mood to be a spendthrift for a special occasion. Their L'orange and Philadelphia Baked Cheesecake are finger-licking good. The cakes here are priced higher than at CCD, Barista, Gaylord, Birdys and Monginis but I've bought a three-dimensional 'Landscape' cake - complete with a house, flower garden and little toy cars on it - for Rs 1,500 - from Desserts R Us. It was for a special birthday.

Birdys and Ovenfresh are great as well. Ovenfresh bakes them fresh on-location and through the day and their Royal Mousse cake or their Fresh Fruit Overload sells like hot cakes..literally. Their 1 kg cakes are priced between Rs 310 to Rs 800 depending on what you buy. The Fruit Overload costs Rs 310 for a kg while the 'Desire', which has three layers of Belgian chocolate, white chocolate and dark chocolate with raspberry flavouring on top because of which it gets a scrumptious maroon colour, is priced at Rs 800 for a 1 kg cake.

This is the only place in Mumbai that I know of, which makes pastry like the Chocolate Cheesecake Brownie, which is a gooey generous layer of cheese within two thick layers of Belgium chocolate brownie. Got to try it to know what you are missing. Besides, Ovenfresh is also creative with the names of its pastries - like 'Mandarin', 'Charlotte', 'Banoffee' and 'Desire', which do fulfill desires!

Both Birdys and Monginis sell more affordable cakes. Here the house specialities - at Birdys is a Mango Torte priced at Rs 500 a kg. This is a scrumptious mango cake with chocolate layer dripping all over it. Their blueberry cheesecake is also worth a try. The only drawback is that, Birdys tends to stick to baking the same things forever.

In contrast, Monginis tries variations all the time, and they have cakes to suit all tastes and budgets. The interesting ones are a Caramel cake which has loads of fresh cream and caramel topping, priced at Rs 650 for a 1 kg cake. Another unique looking cake to show up at a party with, is the Blue Grape cake, which has blue grape pulp filling inside as well as a blue coloured syrup, as frosting, on top of the cake.

So go right ahead and try out some of these sinful delights. I think even the Gods envy us when we do.

(Pictures are from the brands' sites and from burrp.com)

Tuesday, December 06, 2011

A daily deal offer: Was it worth it?

My own experience with a daily deal site has been funny. In India, Groupon has taken some stake in a site called SoSasta and in April, they ran a deal for a books website called nbcindia, with 50% off on any title. The site had discounted the books anyway but once I used the coupon..they validated it by giving me 50% off on the listed price and not on the offer price.

Anyway, it worked out cheaper for me one way or the other. But, that books site has yet to deliver my books as of today. After I wrote to SoSasta-Groupon, they told me I would have to follow up with the vendor.

So more than the structure of the deals, I think customer service is often left to the customers! Beware of such unspoken and unclear terms and conditions, even though SoSasta's support staff has written to me to say that this problem is being looked into and will be resolved. But their intervention, if any, has not helped at all. The books site then offered to refund my money, 'after' which I got a call from SoSasta's customer service, asking me for details! I had to do all the follow-up for the refund from the bookseller.


Meanwhile, in an earlier post, I had mentioned a discount card that was launched by Snapdeal called Moneysaver Prime. I tried using it at Bollywood Cafe at Phoenix Mills, which didn't accept it and then downloaded a coupon for Cafe Coffee Day: Promo code - 9441474049210 - from their site, which was also not valid. 

When I wrote to their customer support, they then told me: "This is to inform you that the tie-up with this outlet is no longer available with MoneySaver Prime." If that is so, then they should not have it up on their site in the first place, and this is something I've emailed them about.

While the card is a good idea, they paint an unduly optimistic picture and do not update the offers which are not valid anymore. Tip: Call the outlet wherever possible before stepping out with this piece of plastic. And no..they don't make it easy by providing phone numbers on the site! 

Thursday, November 10, 2011

CEOs need to innovate to survive: Report

A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) survey on innovation highlights the most common myths that hamper organisations and CEOs, from taking that leap of faith and trying out new ideas. The report 'Demystifying Innovation: Take down the barriers to New Growth' states that "43% of CEOs in the pharmaceuticals, and entertainment and media sectors, believe their greatest opportunities for growth this year lie in new products and services, against 29% of all CEOs (across sectors)."

But all of these bigshots know they can't go it alone because "a majority of entertainment and media CEOs (57%), for example, expect their company's innovations will be co-developed with outside partners. 41% of pharmaceuticals and life sciences CEOs expect the majority of their innovations will be developed in markets outside the country where they are based."

So though the survey does show that CEOs are aware that their organisations will have to innovate to survive, or they will get left behind in the rat race for marketshare and consumer mindspace, they still hesitate to take action. With almost a billion new consumers beginning to spend in the emerging economies of the world, the brands/organisations that don't adapt to these markets and their requirements will wither and die.

So CEOs need to be wary of the following misconceptions that the report points out, and take measures to overcome them.


Click on the images to enlarge it

The myths hampering innovative behaviour are:

1. Innovation can be delegated. Ans: No
2. Senior and mid-level managers are natural allies of innovation. Ans: No
3. Innovative talent works for the money. Ans: No
4. Innovation results from lucky accidents. Ans: Very rarely
5. The more open the innovation process, the less disciplined. Ans: No
6. Businesses know how much innovation they need. Ans: No
7. Innovation can't be measured. Ans: Yes, it can be.

The graphic below shows how you can keep track of your innovative team and their progress on that new big fat idea.


The report is a good read for all those who want to figure out ways to speed up the innovation mindset in their organisations, and to cut loose the deadwood who act like bottlenecks.

Tables are from the report. Read the report here: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/corporate-strategy-services/assets/ceosurvey-innovation.pdf

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Decoding what makes some startups successful

Ever wanted to know how some startups thrive and become successful and others struggle along, even if they do have good products and/or ideas? A report called the Startup Genome has made an attempt to figure this out. They studied data gathered from 600 startups who chose to fill up their rather lengthy survey (I got to the 75% mark and lost my patience!).

Anyway, they have divided the startups (only internet-based ones) along a development timeline - ie. the stages that all startups have to go through to become a full-fledged profitable player in the market. These stages were: Discovery, Validation, Efficiency and Scale. The report states that by the time a startup moves from the Validation to the Efficiency stage, they should be aware of a single fact - whether 40% of their customers can live without them, and if the answer is 'No', then that is great news!

The report then goes on to divide startups based on the service they provide and the market segment they are targeting. Here they are:

The Automizer
Common characteristics: Self-service customer acquisition, consumer focused, product-centric, fast execution, often automate a manual process.
Examples: Google, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Slideshare, Mint, Groupon, Pandora, Kickstarter, Zynga, Playdom, Modcloth, Chegg, Powerset, Box.net, Basecamp, Hipmunk, OpenTable etc.

The Social Transformer
Common characteristics: Self service customer acquisition, critical mass, runaway user growth, winner take all markets, complex user experience, network effects, typically create new ways for people to interact.
Examples: Ebay, OkCupid, Skype, Airbnb, Craigslist, Etsy, IMVU, Flickr, LinkedIn, Yelp, Aardvark, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Youtube, Dailybooth, Mechanical Turk, MyYearbook, Prosper, Paypal, Quora, Hunch etc.


Click on the tables to view them better.

The Integrator
Common characteristics: Lead generation with inside sales reps, high certainty, product-centric, early monetization, SME focused, smaller markets, often take innovations from consumer internet and rebuild it for smaller enterprises.
Examples: PBworks, Uservoice, Kissmetrics, Mixpanel, Dimdim, HubSpot, Marketo Xignite, Zendesk, GetSatisfaction, Flowtown etc.

The Challenger
Common characteristics: Enterprise sales, high customer dependency, complex and rigid markets, repeatable sales process.
Examples: Oracle, Salesforce, MySQL, Redhat, Jive, Ariba, Rapleaf, Involver, BazaarVoice, Atlassian, BuddyMedia, Palantir, Netsuite, Passkey, WorkDay, Apptio,Zuora, Cloudera, Splunk, SuccessFactor, Yammer, Postini etc


Each of these types have their own challenges to overcome in each stage, as the table above shows, and the below table shows that once the startup reaches scale, some forms of revenue generation does not rake in as much money as it did earlier.


The report states, "Subscription and Transaction Fees are by far the most common type of revenue streams. It’s interesting to see what revenue streams startups think will work in stage 2 but have considerable drop off with startups that have actually made it to stage 4. Virtual Goods, Advertising and Data all have major drop offs."

After Page 30, the report has pie-charts which show answers graphically, to questions like these:
-Which experts (Paul Graham, Guy Kawasaki, Steve Blank, Eric Ries etc) were most looked up to.
-Did entrepreneurs start up ventures for money, self-growth or to change the world.
-Whether startups with mentors or without one, succeed in raising capital. The answer is obviously 'with mentors' but the numbers are there to back it up. (For answers to the first two questions, take a look at the report!). But the one main reason it gave, for so many startups failing was due to 'premature scaling'. So startups that did not do each stage properly, did many more 'pivots' (switches/turnarounds) and usually had to go back a step...to learn their lessons again.

The report is a good first attempt and the founders of the Startup Genome Project are looking to drill deeper into the statistics, and give more answers in their future reports.

Tables are taken from the report. Read the full report here:
http://xrl.us/bkqc2d

Saturday, October 01, 2011

New waves of growth: Report

An Accenture report highlights the key areas where growth will occur in the near future and how much it will improve the gross domestic product (GDP) of each economy. The report looked at four economies - the UK, US, Germany and India and pointed out how much each of them will stand to benefit if certain parameters were met to ensure this growth happened.

These are the future growth areas to concentrate on:
1. The silver economy
2. The resource economy
3. The multi-technology future
4. The emerging-markets surge

The western economies stand to gain a lot from harnessing the skills of their aging population, so that is one area that India can choose to ignore for the time being. But not for too long either because we will soon have the same problem of retired people who need to be looked after, and we don't have an extensive government funded social security net in place, to do it on our behalf. The three other countries mentioned in the study, do have their governments looking after the welfare of their elderly population.

So if and when India decided to harness this untapped manpower, the report suggests putting steps in place. Such as these:

• Widening the net by retaining older workers in the workforce.
• Ensuring future supply of “hands and minds”.
• Promoting the productive capacity of older workers.

The report further suggests how organisations can help with this.
• Age-proof your human capital by adapting the workplace environment.
• Recycle and diffuse the critical expertise of older workers.
• Develop your silver radar to capture marketshare.

When it comes to the resource economy and the jobs that can be created in this sector, these were the success-making conditions required on a government level.
• Building the skills needed for a green economy, such as technical, engineering and
“green collar” skills.
• Enabling complementary infrastructure to support new technologies and energy solutions.

Meanwhile, organisations needed to ensure the following:
• Develop new products and services to serve the resource economy.
• Integrate a carbon price into business units to identify carbon hotspots.
• Turn scarcity into abundance by transforming waste into assets.

India stands to add Rs 458 billion to the 2020 GDP, 0.3% above the current trajectory. This will add 8,21,000 jobs.

Similarly with technology being used more extensively and adopted in more sectors, India will add Rs 4 trillion to 2020 GDP, which is 2.8% above the current trajectory. This will add 10.8 million jobs. For this to happen, the report suggests:
• Honing digital literacy and skills through technology-enabled learning and tri-sector cooperation.
• Building the technological arteries by extending high-speed Internet access.
• Setting smart regulatory standards to spur adoption and investment in new technologies.

Meanwhile organisations can get started by:
• Embrace cloud computing for savings and flexibility.
• Use technology to pursue polycentric innovation.
• Create open innovation networks to harness the power of customers and stakeholders.

The last area where India stands to reap benefits is as an emerging market. India will see Rs 7 trillion added to its 2020 GDP - 4.9% above the current trajectory and it will add 28.2 million jobs. To get to these numbers, we will need to do the following:
• Build new bridges through trade liberalization, economic diplomacy, new
technologies and collaborative partners.
• Uncover and strengthen comparative advantage and unleashing domestic excellence on to world markets.

While organisations can start on the following to get the same results:
• Create geographic options for inputs and customer markets.
• Be authentically local to tailor marketing and innovation toward emerging markets.
• Design a flexible international operating model to benefit from scale and standardization.

So with this roadmap laid out for India, is someone out there going to pay heed to it?

Read the report in detail here: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture_Institute_High_Performance_New_Waves_of_Growth_Executive%20Summary.pdf

Sunday, September 18, 2011

'Legal eagles need new skills to work in LPOs'

Ganesh Natarajan has been instrumental in the growth of Mindcrest, a premier legal outsourcing company (LPO) based in India that provides services to firms in the US, Europe and Australia.

The genesis of this LPO was as a result of Natarajan spotting an opportunity in the nick of time. “I was a partner at a large law firm in Chicago doing international mergers and acquisitions work. In the course of my career, I saw many opportunities where lawyers in India could be leveraged to perform services to US and UK clients. That was the genesis of Mindcrest,” said the LPO’s co-founder, president and CEO.

Natarajan is a Bombay University alumni with a management degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, and an MBA from Brigham Young University in Utah. He also has a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Washington University in St Louis. He has been a consultant for several Fortune 500 companies over issues such as market-entry strategies, capital raising activities, joint venture arrangements, strategic alliances and various commercial arrangements, including mergers and acquisitions.

He has done all of this over 20 years, but explains that it’s not necessary for young lawyers to cut their teeth in a routine law firm or a corporate legal division to work at an LPO, or may be even start one. “There is no real need for a young lawyer to get experience with a legal firm or a corporation. Subject to their meeting our requirements, we will train them to be effective in their work. This means that a lawyer at an LPO has to develop the rigor to ask the right questions and demonstrate the initiative to understand and resolve issues from the client’s perspective,” he explained.

“They also need to embrace new skills, such as project management, teamwork and technology, and to improve existing skills such as written and oral communication, analytics and attention to detail,” he added.

Natarajan has also worked at the Indian division of McGuire Woods LLP, an international law firm. It was here that he met George Hefferan, and together they teamed up with Rohan Dalal and Teju Deshpande and founded Mindcrest.

On the current LPO scenario in India, he said: “In the wake of the global economic downturn the amount of legal work has significantly increased in several areas of the law. Yet, legal budgets remain frozen or have shrunk.”

“The trend that we observe is that buyers of legal services, whether corporations or law firms, are keen on forging strategic partnerships with LPO providers. Such partnerships typically contemplate engaging a single preferred provider for a variety of legal services that derive significant value with scale and over multi-year relationships. Also, there are numerous LPOs in India today but I expect the number to reduce in the wake of consolidations that might happen,” he said.

Though Natarajan does have all this varied experience, which has enabled him to become a visible figure in the international legal industry, he admits to not understanding new-fangled social media and crowdsourcing strategies, and he does not feel they are an important criteria to run an LPO. He creates brand awareness the slightly old-fashioned way — by addressing many industry forums, bar associations and lecturing at international law schools.

Natarajan and a couple of friends got together to start Mindcrest, but he says self motivation and a strong independent streak are big factors in getting started. Other requirements that come in handy are “common sense, a feel for people and the ability to convince others of your vision. Having domain knowledge of the law business was very helpful as well."

Written for India Syndicate

Thursday, September 01, 2011

'Fortune 700 cos will need more financial planning services'

Milind Godbole, President, Asia Pacific, Aditya Birla Minacs Worldwide, opens up about the future of the financial accounting outsourcing (FAO) sector and his company’s expertise in the field.

What is the current market scenario for the FAO?
With regard to Fortune 700 companies, FAO has attained market maturity and has become a highly commoditized business. The key differentiating factors among service providers in this space is their existing capability, size of operations, ability to scale and reference-ability from current customers. However, mid-market customers continue to wait and watch and are yet to demystify the FAO value proposition. The competition in this space is limited due to various reasons; the service providers are trying to offer the traditional Accounts Payable (AP) outsourcing in a commoditized manner but are developing niche vertical specific FAO offerings which will redefine this space over next 24 months.

What are the services areas that you are expecting growth in FAO?
Financial Planning and Analysis services for the Fortune 700 will gather further momentum. Additionally large companies will look upon their BPO partner to provide an integrated Procure to Pay (P2P) service offering to infuse additional efficiency in the system. All FAO service areas in the mid-market space provide an excellent growth opportunity.

Industry specific bespoke solutions that address CFO painpoints or provide disruptive value proposition are poised for growth. Unique yet scalable solutions offerings focused on niche areas such as federal government contractors or restaurant and franchisee business accounting have immense growth opportunities.

What are the business drivers that are driving the growth in this segment? Financial Planning and Analysis: FAO’s focus so far has been on efficiency. In order to create self-differentiation service providers are keen on impacting customer effectiveness. FP&A allows service providers to deliver additional value as it impacts the balance-sheet of the customer.

Procure To Pay (P2P): FAO providers have the opportunity to mine their AP customers and offer a combination of efficiency and effectiveness in form of procurement. Transactional Procurement services integrated with AP help enable higher compliance and end customer/supplier satisfaction. Additionally since FAO providers have access to AP database they can maintain an evergreen spend cube which can enable ongoing spend analysis leading to spend reduction.

Mid-market offers a vast opportunity to service providers as this a segment which has a large size and is relatively new to FAO.

Bespoke solutions are innovative solutions being developed by service providers in order to create self differentiation in an otherwise commoditized market. Such solutions offer a great opportunity because as on date, such solutions aren’t being offered in the market place.

What are Minacs offerings and expertise in FAO?
- Purchase and accounts payable: including purchase order processing, vendor bill and employee claim booking, payment processing, reconciliation.

- Billing and accounts receivable: including sales order processing, invoice processing, remittance posting, debit/ credit note processing and reconciliation.

- General ledger accounting: including ledger scrutiny, accrual entries, schedule preparation, book closure and audit coordination, reconciliation.

- Fixed asset accounting: including capitalization, depreciation runs, fixed assets register maintenance.
- Taxation compliance
- Statutory internal MIS and audit
- Restaurant & Franchisee Business Accounting
- Real Estate Fund & Property Management Accounting

We also provide specialty FAO solutions such as US federal compliance, including government cost proposals, incurred cost submissions, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and Cost/ Schedule Summary Report (C/SSR).

What business value does your FAO service bring to your clients?
Since 1999 we have partnered with our mid-market & SMB clients in delivering higher-end, more complex, knowledge-intensive F&A processes. Besides supporting traditionally outsourced finance activities, we also provide services much higher up the “value chain” as a “complete package”.

Many of our clients outsource all of their finance activities below the CFO level to MinacsHence, our teams play a crucial role in supporting the more complex finance and controlling requirements of our clients – providing end to end services, such as information for internal auditors, in helping produce the statutory accounts, providing the necessary support and information for the year-end audit process, delivering the month end accounts and commentaries to show performance of the enterprise in key areas, and most critically, in providing the deep insight and analysis that organizations increasingly require in their complex operating environment to take key decisions.

Written for India Syndicate

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Smart saving-n-earning movement is on

The wave of smart spending and earning habits is spreading across the globe and here are some facts to prove it.

In India, we have a culture of accumulating things just as people in the West do - and we either give it away or prefer to exchange them for newer things at exchange fests. The results of a poll that I requested AZ Research - a marketing research firm - to put up on their Facebook page, gave some fresh answers. The question asked was 'How do you like to sell/dispose of your seconds?

The answers are in the below graphic, but a third option that people are looking to explore now are - selling their seconds through a site. So selling through sites, will bring in money for well maintained possessions - and that is an income stream that has not been explored in depth, nor has its potential been understood as yet.


Click to enlarge the image

But my own preferences apart, abroad as well, people are cutting down on frills since last year. Also more people were going online to find bargain deals - this is in fact their prime reason for being online, as suggested in this Comet Technology Census, done by polling 2,600 Britons.

This poll reveals that "Comet’s technology-centric count found that 84% of people use the net at home to search for deals, pushing online banking into second slot and scouring the news into third place. Social networking, despite the hype, made it only to seventh most popular web activity."

Monday, August 01, 2011

Analytics & consulting services to boom

There is a huge demand domestically for IT applications services as it is the backbone of delivery for any business, says Vertex India CEO Keshav Gaur.

“The right quality focus and access to global expertise aid companies align delivery and support IT solutions that help clients achieve high performance. In these fast-changing times, analytics and consulting services are also becoming essential to develop the predictive capabilities and to achieve operational excellence. These services are now gaining magnitude in utilities, telecom, financial services and the public sectors,” says Gaur.

Vertex is one of the many new-wave business process outsourcing (BPO) entities looking to make a mark in India since 2002, “when the Vertex Group acquired the UK contact centre operator 7C and the shareholding of 7C India”, he asserts.

With Vertex offering a bouquet of services, among them consulting, IT applications and analytics, they are seeing their business grow to a point where in September 2010 they signed a joint venture deal with Shell Transource.

“This joint venture creates one of India’s largest integrated end-to-end solution providers in the customer management outsourcing industry. Today, we have over 5,000 employees in India. We principally provide a range of voice and non-voice services and fulfillment solutions for international and domestic clients and a number of key support services to the Vertex business,” he explains.

With multi-lingual capabilities and in-depth understanding of rural markets and Tier II and Tier III cities, they have customers from over 350 locations in India, especially in these above-mentioned markets.

The joint venture has ensured that Vertex has “a broad client base across financial services (banking & insurance), public sector, aviation, BFSI, telecom, utilities, KPO and media sectors, and our sales pipeline is strong and continues to grow”, assures Gaur.

Vertex also has expertise in delivering advanced analytics and marketing research driven management consulting services to many companies in sectors like banking, telecom, FMCG, energy, transportation, retail, pharma, BPOs and others.

It also delivers IT-enabled business intelligence solutions using advanced state-of-the-art software tools such as SAS, WPS, R, Stata, Qlikview, Cognos, Informatica, and Business Object and applies advanced research methods and state-of-the-art models to meet clients’ strategic and operational decision needs.

What’s more, the organization is also building on its Decision Sciences capability in India. It is looking to leverage all of these business solutions in their portfolio, over a range of sectors - like retail, financial services, travel, utilities, media and telecom, public services and logistics and transportation.

When asked which of these sectors seem more promising to Vertex, Gaur said, "Our industry focus is utilities, public sector, financial services, telecommunications, media & entertainment and retail/distribution industries where we provide rewarding customer experiences and valuable client outcomes in the areas of Customer Management Outsourcing, IT Applications and Services, Consulting and Transformation and Decision Sciences. Sectors with maximum potential and immediate addressable opportunities are banking and insurance, telecom, retail, travel and the public sector."

With their core belief being that they are on the ‘same side of the table’, which means that they share risks and rewards, which in turn gives them a stake in helping their clients’ achieve success, they are well placed to understand their clients’ needs. This insight allows Vertex to shape the development of new strategies, techniques and technologies.

Written for India Syndicate

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Antiques: Art & Science of shopping for Timeless Treasures

This is why you should be spotting treasures from other people’s discarded items or having the good sense of collecting them in the first place. Some of them become valuable after a couple of years like rare stamps or first edition comics and books written by the great wordsmiths of our times or even an earlier era.

Here is what a website reported would have happened if you had held on to your first edition Superman comic - you would have made one million dollars today. (Read The-superman-asset-bubble-is-here.) Besides, it’s not only kids who love hanging on to comics, even older people have their quirks and obsessions. One such adult, who is a comic lover and collector, is actor Nicholas Cage. He auctioned off a portion of his collection – about 140 lots for $1.68 million. This might be small change for a Hollywood actor, but put yourself in his shoes – wouldn’t this kind of money mean something to you?

Meanwhile, auction house Christie's is auctioning of an original copy of American writer Edgar Allan Poe's ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems’. It was expected to fetch $500,000 to $700,000. What is surprising is not the amount of money it is expected to fetch but the actual condition of the book. It looks like something rescued from a trash can but that’s precisely the whole point of a seconds market or website – it’s supposed to help people discover hidden gems like this one.

One person who has actually found an alternative hobby while maintaining his model car collection, is now finding fame on the web because he’s done a brilliant job of showcasing his cars against a backdrop of a 1960s fictional town called Elgin Park that he has created. Yes, he’s made scale models of an entire town with such attention to detail that it looks like a real place. This model town flaunts his priced car collection to perfection. (Read about Michael Paul Smith here: Showcase Collectible Cars.)

If you are a Dan Brown fan, then you’ll know that the professorial hero of his three books (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol) – Robert Langdon - is never caught at the scene of his numerous adventures without his favourite Mickey Mouse collector’s edition watch. Another author named Clive Cussler, who writes such fast-paced thrillers, that his novels' protagonists make James Bond look like he should retire into the sunset gracefully - anyway, this writer is an avid collector of vintage cars and locomotives. Even his fictional alter ego - Dirk Pitt - displays the same taste.

In India as well, there are many vintage car lovers - some well known and the others not so much. They often flaunt their babies at car rallies across the country. But one man in India, has got vintage cars and an entire train parked in his garden, which he has painstakingly restored and now uses to entertain his guests in. (Read more about Tarun Thakral here - http://writtenpath.blogspot.com/2007/07/journey-of-lifetime.html)

Moving on to celebrities, Amitabh Bachchan has a fetish for pens and everyone is aware of Elizabeth Taylor’s love of jewellery. Marilyn Monroe loved Manolo Blahnik shoes. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino’s movies drip blood and expletives but he’s not the one who collects knives (Angelina Jolie does that) – he collects staid board games. George Clooney collects motorcycles, Jamie Lee Curtis collects photographs, billionaire Malcolm Forbes collected Faberge eggs and toy soldiers, Freddie Mercury collected stamps, Demi Moore collects vintage clothing and dolls and Nicholas Cage also collects European sports cars along with comics. Johnny Depp’s collection ranges from the intellectual to natural - he collects both rare books and insects and even Dolly Parton collects rare butterflies. (For more details, read this: Famous Collectors & their Collections.)

All of these people can afford to indulge their tastes and pursue serious collecting as a hobby but that shouldn’t stop the rest of us to keep looking and cultivating an eye for fascinating, beautiful and tasteful things. Treasures can and are found in unexpected places – an old trunk in your grandparents home may have vintage clothes and dolls that you might be able to sell to Demi Moore some day! What’s more, collections are and can be started with what interests you – so people are collecting Disney memorabilia, Hot Wheels cars, Beanie babies, Barbie dolls and other items like these which you thought you had outgrown. You could possibly find such people online and swap your children or grandchildren’s toys with them.

Abroad, the collecting instinct is well entrenched and there are many stores that people-in-the-know visit to scout for the latest bargains. For instance, the next time you visit the UK, here is a list of great antiques stores, you could browse in: The 50 Best Antiques Shops in Britain. Some of the shops actually stock furniture, which look a lot like what we would find being neglected in our grandparents home in India.

So, once you realise the actual value, you could fly back and take care of it well, if you already own it, or offer to buy it from them before they unwittingly sell it to a neighbour or relatives. Another store in Britain called Deddington Antiques Centre lets you trade in your antiques for something else from their stock! That is such a fun way to keep people interested.

Abroad, collectors have many options as the art of collecting is well and truly alive, as it reflects well on their level of refinement, if they can flaunt beautiful things in their homes. You only have to look at that list of the best antiques stores given above, to see that some of those stores look like upscale country homes, that you would like to holiday in. The fact that those store owners can afford and maintain such properties mean that they are doing very well.

Collectibles come up for sale in odd places like garage sales, thrift stores apart from art and photography galleries and auctions. One such treasure up for sale at a photography gallery in Vienna is a 170-year old wooden sliding box camera, which was made in Paris in 1839 by Alphonse Giroux and designed by Jacques Daguerre – it also has Daguerre’s signature on it - thereby making it an authentic item. This vintage camera is up for sale at a starting price of Rs 1.25 crore – the price of a pricey apartment in Mumbai. In 2007, an ‘unbranded’ old camera was sold at the same venue, for Rs 3.59 crore. So the ‘signed’ model is expected to fetch a much higher price.

In India, at the moment, Saffronart is having an online auction of jewellery that you might want to take a look at. These are specially designed period pieces and they are expecting more than 700 people to flock in, like they did last time, to bid for them. Not everyone can begin hunting with the big game right away, so begin small with some auction websites like Saffronart and AstraGuru and you might in time, build a collection that could drive everyone else green with envy. Other options that you could try is, use a metal detector and comb beaches for coins, trinkets, souvenirs and relics on your next seaside vacation. You might just strike pay dirt.

In India, Christie’s website is a good place to start if you have the inclination to know what’s happening in the collecting business. They have sections like watches, prints, jewellery, glassware, photographs, furniture, porcelain, musical instruments, books and manuscripts, armour, lighting and a host of other things. Take a look at the list and also see how one can customise it to your wallet. Look for the ‘Create your Wishlist’ kind of element on the Christie’s site: http://www.christies.com/

On the other hand, if history and archaeology in particular, is of interest to you, then keep track of what’s happening in that field – sometimes treasures are recovered and not everything makes its way to the museums of a country. There have been cases where things have been smuggled away and, hidden yet again only to surface years later in some billionaire’s private collection. Ironically, sometimes such items that were acquired on the black market is auctioned off in a public manner. If you keep yourself updated on such matters, then some day, you might spot something that you know is valuable in an really unexpected place.

The best method is to keep your eyes open and train it to spot treasures. So begin a collection and try and spot your diamonds in other people’s coal bins!

I contacted Christie’s India Representative and Vice President, Menaka Kumari Shah and asked her a few questions on the art of collecting.

1. Have you had any private collections come up for auction in India?
A: Christie's does not hold auctions in India, but we do hold auctions of art from South Asia in New York, London and Hong Kong. Many international private collections are offered in a wide range of categories, for instance contemporary art (film director Michael Crichton's collection) or Impressionist/Modern art (the collection of Mrs Sidney Brody) etc.

2. How do you start the collecting habit? I mean apart from having the money to do it and the taste for say, collecting vintage wine bottles...how do you know what one is collecting will turn out to be valuable some day?
A: We suggest would-be collectors do their homework - study auction categories, auction results, visit galleries, museums, read journals etc. Auction houses - large and small - cover a myriad of categories, but it is up to the person on what is of interest to him/her. We always advice people to start collecting what they are passionate about.

3. Are there some categories that are going to be hot from a collectors viewpoint? How do these collections do as against other investments in terms of capital gain?
A: There is indeed a lot of cash looking for a home at the moment. Fear of inflation but also very low interest rates have driven many individuals to diversify their assets and acquire works of art.
·On Jewellery: High quality diamonds will get more and more difficult to locate due to the scarcity of rough material as will important rubies and natural pearls. The market will gain strength from a buyer's perspective due to the emergence of new markets in China, Russia and India and as seen through the ages, jewellery will continue to be an alternative form of investment when money fluctuates a lot. Buying activity will be governed by the exceptional demand for important diamonds, gemstones, and vintage jewels, which are keenly sought after by private clients and the trade who buy for stock and, on some occasions, on behalf of a client.
·On Wine: When considering a bottle to add to your collection, one must consider rarity, provenance, condition and its source of creation. Typically, the best-produced wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy are among the most exclusive in the world and among the most established fields for collection. Other important collectible areas in France include Champagne and Rhone wines. Beyond France, the wines from Spain, Italy, California and Australia regularly appear at auctions. We encourage buyers to bid on wine to enjoy them and not primarily to buy to invest. Although it is true that returns on some blue-chip wines over the past few years have been very positive, we encourage any buyer who is interested in wine investment to seek professional advice, and of course Christie's specialists are on hand to answer questions.
·On Art: Statistics track a fast growing segment of affluent Asians, including Indians. We can foresee this trend continuing to gain momentum over the next decade. I think that after houses, cars and education, people look to art as a celebration of their status and as an expression of pride in cultural heritage.

Collectors from this region have a wide range of tastes and collecting habits. Usually our specialists always advise our clients or would-be collectors to start with what they like or are passionate about - this should take precedent over pure investment value. Of course there have been many instances where art acquired many years back is now being sold many times its original price, as we can see from works by Indian artists such as Souza, Raza, Hussain, Kallat and others.

4. Who are the famous collectors in India and what do they collect? If you have an idea of how much their collection is valued at, then do add that information here even as an approx figure.
A: Christie's does not comment on clients.

Places to buy antiques in Mumbai

Philips Antiques
Indian Mercantile Mansion,
Opposite Regal Cinema,
Madame Cama Road,
Colaba – 400001
Mumbai
Tel no – 022 22885115
Site: http://www.phillipsantiques.com/

White Rose
F-72, Oberoi Towers,
Nariman Point - 400021
Mumbai
Tel no – 022 22025757

Natesan’s Antiquarts Pvt Ltd
Jehangir Art Gallery,
Kala Ghoda, MG Road,
Mumbai – 400023
Tel no – 022 22852700

E.A. Merchant
Hasham Building,
Mohammed Ali Road,
Mumbai – 400003
Tel no – 022 23424610

Chor Bazaar
Near Nal Bazaar,
Close to JJ Hospital,
Opposite Mirza Ghalib Market,
Mumbai - 400003

Outside Maharashtra, Jew Town in Kochi, Kerala and Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu are good places to shop for antiques.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Celeb Seconds: When Used Stuff is Valuable

Want to know when the odds turn even with used seconds? When they belong to celebrities and the goodies are being auctioned off at twice or thrice their value, especially if the celebrity is dead. Recently, some old photographs of Marilyn Monroe surfaced and people (who can afford to buy it) went crazy bidding for it. This has been the case for every dead celebrity – and pretty soon you’ll see something belonging to Michael Jackson being sold at Christie’s or Sotheby – may be his mask or his trademark glove.

An Indian connection is that Mahatma Gandhi’s belongings were auctioned recently in New York - 248 art items, 2,947 letters, 1,583 pictures, 31 cartoons, 407 documents and 513 publications - and some of it was acquired by Vijay Mallya.

He also recently acquired Tipu Sultan’s sword, which was a very patriotic gesture on his part to keep some of India’s artifacts within the country itself, instead of it all being bought for some private collection abroad.

Abroad celebrity auctions are much more common and a huge industry. Some of the people are so celeb obsessed and who constantly monitor them via their blogs and the various social networking websites, are now hawking their discarded clothes, shoes, jewellery and other assorted items like autographed bottles of wine etc on websites.

Sometimes, movie stars and sports stars hawk off stuff to benefit their favourite charities or when there is a crisis of some sort on a national or international scale like hurricane relief or war relief work. Then they volunteer to give their time at shelters and man the helplines but this kind of stuff rarely brings the recipients of their charity anything more substantial than their good cheer and goodwill. They certainly won’t be auctioning of their used stuff at a time like this.

But stars have auctioned off more than old things that they have used. They have auctioned off kisses – George Clooney did this and Charlize Theron kissed a woman who bid the highest, for this privilege. Actor Will Ferrell auctioned off a role in a movie! In India, Sachin Tendulkar auctioned off a cricket bat for a charity called Apnalaya. When Michael Jackson came to India during his ‘Dangerous’ tour and stayed at the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai, he left behind a pillowcase on which he had scribbled a few lines and a lot of people were eager to get their hands on it.

Sometimes, things that are up for sale are just bizarre items, such as Scarlett Johansson’s used tissue! Why would even a wealthy lunatic be interested in something like this is beyond reasoning.

On the other hand, there are some celebrities whose worldly goods were auctioned off when they were alive and the proceeds were given to charity. Princess Diana gave away some of her gorgeous clothes at her elder son Prince William’s suggestion, when she was alive. I’ve read her butler Paul Burrell’s memoir ‘A Royal Duty’, where he claims that she wanted to sell her wedding dress as well but after her death, her brother Earl Charles Spencer has not honoured this wish. Instead, that famous gown is in a museum (dedicated to her) on their ancestral estate, Althorp. Since she’s buried there, the place gets a lot of tourist traffic who drop by to pay their homage to her, so Burrell alleged that the Earl has made money out of displaying it there. Anyway, such is the power of celebrity seconds!

In fact, her clothes (the ones that were not sold) have even travelled about as a moving exhibit around the US, where people have viewed them. A portion of the proceeds of the exhibit went directly to her foundation, which services the individual charities she worked for.

Other well known celebrities whose belongings were auctioned after their death were Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her first husband President John F. Kennedy. This couple's belongings have been put on sale by their daughter, Caroline, and even the most mundane things are grabbed by souvenir hunters for surreal prices. Read more details on the sale here - The Kennedy Tag Sale

In fact, anyone who watched ‘Seinfeld’, must have seen that episode where Elaine Benice goes to the auction and bids for Kennedy’s golf clubs on behalf of her boss…and pays twice the amount he actually suggests he wants to pay. What’s more, she leaves it in Jerry Seinfeld’s car, which in turn gets ‘stolen’ by his irate garage mechanic! You’ve got to see this episode if you haven’t but mainly because such an expensive old and used merchandise is taken around for a joyride – in this case literally.

Actress and diva Elizabeth Taylor is famous for her violet eyes, eight marriages and her fabulous jewellery collection, which she got from her husbands, especially Richard Burton. One pear shaped 68.09 carat Cartier diamond called the Burton-Taylor diamond was auctioned off by her, to help build a hospital in Botswana. After her death, she wants her remaining jewellery to be sold off to people, who will love it and care for it as much as she did.

Yet another category of celebrity is the one who may be facing a temporary financial crunch and wants to tide over it by selling jewellery. In this case, actress Ellen Barkin may have just been getting rid of some heavyweight baggage from a failed marriage to billionaire Ronald Perelman – he owns Revlon and Marvel Comics among other things. She sold over 100 pieces of jewellery he had gifted her when she was going through a messy divorce. She has been considered astute for doing this because she netted a nice sum of money (over and above her alimony or prenup) for all that blinky stuff, that she was probably anyway tired of flaunting, in the first place. Besides she can always buy herself new stuff.

Here is an excerpt about her jewellery from the prospectus put out by Christie’s:

Among the highlights are four “thread” rings set with magnificent diamonds. Leading this group is a ring set with an elegant elongated D color (the best), oval-cut diamond of 22.76 carats, within a pavé-set diamond two-tiered threadwork gallery (estimate: $800,000-1,200,000) and a thread ring set with a cushion-shaped fancy deep orangey-brown “apricot” diamond of 31.85 carats (estimate: $600,000-800,000).

A pair of oriental pearl and diamond ear pendants each suspending a drop-shaped natural pearl, capped with an antique Indian bead cluster, is an example of the jeweler’s taste for lavish and subtle detail (image left, estimate: $350,000-500,000).

Other highlights include a spectacular diamond “Gardenia” ring sculpted as a natural flower blossom, made of diamonds (estimate: $100,000-150,000), a pair of charming cushion-cut faint pink and D color Golconda diamond bangles of 5.15 and 4.46 carats, respectively (estimate: $350,000-500,000), and a colored diamond “bonnet” ring centering upon a pear-shaped brownish pink diamond of 2.94 carats (estimate: $70,000-100,000). Read more here: Celeb seconds: Ellen Barkin's bling & baubles.
Just judging from the ‘estimated’ price, one can imagine what the value of this collection must have been. So, who said seconds were boring? If you’ve got the money, then you can actually buy a piece of history and glamour. What’s more, such second hand items make for great deals for your descendants. They will be just sitting on a goldmine of sorts. Ofcourse, not everyone can buy such second hand products, but those who can afford it, should go out and find such deals.

Move over art and gold. Here is another great form of investment.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

'Buyology' reveals all the tricks of the ad biz

I have just read Martin Lindstrom's book 'Buyology' with a tagline that says 'How Everything we Believe about Why we Buy is Wrong'. The book is a fascinating read about how much our emotions are blackmailed and our intelligence is manipulated by 'subliminal messaging' and 'neuromarketing.' The book gives a wonderful peak at what canny advertisers do to lure us into spending more than we intend to.

It also has interesting research and mentions experiments that were conducted into what excites, motivates and hooks people into splurging. One such experiment involved 600 women, who were invited into a room. He hooked them up to monitors and then brought out a bunch of the famous blue colour Tiffany jewellery boxes. That's all it took for the women’s heart rates to immediately jump by 20%!

As an anti-climax, those boxes were all empty. But that didn’t matter because Tiffany’s has done such a great job of branding, that women immediately associate a Tiffany box with engagement, marriage and family.


This is true of all the major brands as well, which have word associations that go hand-in-hand with their products. For eg. Johnson & Johnson and Pampers will make people instantly think of happy new moms and their adorable plump babies.

This book is worth reading because it has been endorsed by another marketing guru, Paco Underhill, who admits to having "a fundamental distrust of the twentieth-century fascination with branding." He says, "I don't own shirts with alligators or polo players on them and I rip the labels off the outside of my jeans. In fact, I think companies should pay me for the privilege of putting their logo on my chest and not the other way around!"

Underhill goes on to praise this book because he knows Lindstrom is passionate about advertising being a "virtuous endeavor and not just a necessary evil." The one thing they both have in common is "the belief that the tools for understanding why we do what we do, whether it is in hotels, airports, or online, need to be reinvented. This book is about the new confluence of medical knowledge and technology and marketing, where we add the ability to scan the brain as a way of understanding brain stimulations", and how it makes us do things - like shop till we drop - without knowing why we are doing it.

Grab this book now and get enlightened.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A second hand home fits old is gold adage

When you hear the words ‘second hand’, the first thing that comes to mind is that it’s been used and/or owned by someone else before, so how can I buy it? This is, however, not a consideration at all for many looking to buy a resale property rather than a brand new construction. Here the rules change when it comes to a second sale and many actually seek it. Sometimes old homes/properties have been given a new lease of life giving the concept of second hand a twist, when it comes to real estate.

A lot of old properties – palaces and havelis - have been restored around India and converted into hotels. The Neemrana Hotels Group has been at the forefront of this movement and have won awards and appreciation for restoring these defunct and in some cases, decrepit buildings to their former glory and also putting it to good use. The Taj Group and the Oberoi Group of hotels have also been putting the same principle to work for years now - of using princely properties to lure in business. These business houses have taken over larger properties while Neemrana has taken over the smaller ones.

In Kerala, the CGH Earth Group has restored old therawads or family homes for the enjoyment of the contemporary traveller. I’ve stayed at their properties called Coconut Lagoon as well as Brunton Boatyard and the experience was wonderful. They have plucked the essence of rural Kerala by recreating the cottages in the very manner of those you would see if you sail down the backwaters in a houseboat or in a hotel launch. The carved wood furniture and the Corinthian pillars with embellishment near the eaves and at the base, which have been picked up intact in some cases, from some home about to be torn down, and reused on their property.

All this was done with help from the local craftspeople who “were invited to restore the work of their forefathers and create an experience of ecological living that was shot through with the spirit of ancient Malabar”, as their website eloquently and aptly puts it.

Brunton Boatyard, another CGH property is actually a 750 year old boatyard, once owned by a Dutchman called Paul Brunton (hence the name) is located at a prime seafront location. This hotel also has kept a lot of the look-n-feel of a boatyard intact while managing to give visitors a five-star experience to savour.

But there are others who have used old-world homes as a showcase of our heritage - like DakshinaChitra. The concept for DakshinaChitra was created by the green-architect Laurie Baker. Deborah Thiagarajan who founded the Madras Craft Foundation which includes DakshinaChitra said, “The implementation was done by Laurie Baker in the beginning and then by his erstwhile student, Benny Kuriakose."

She adds, "The traditional buildings were constructed by teams of craftspeople from the region, from which they were procured. The costs are difficult to give but a ballpark figure for the entire center, all costs included, would be about Rs 5 - Rs 6 crore at the actual prices - from the days (when it was constructed) between 1991 -1999.”

Another really good example of a heritage property being acquired and used as a home is actor Shahrukh Khan’s sea-facing home, Mannat, which he has had to restore keeping in mind the fact that he has bought a piece of Mumbai’s brick and mortar history.

The actor has not done many interior modifications to the house because he can not tear down walls at will but the interiors - which consists large four-bedrooms - reflects the best that a lot of money can buy – Italian marble, Spanish furniture, the large bathrooms have jacuzzis installed et all. This reputedly cost him in the range of Rs 5-Rs 7.5 crore over and above the cost of acquiring the property. In 2007, this property was valued between Rs 70-Rs 100 crore, according to a real estate website www.indiaproperty.com.

Celina Jaitley is another star who has a quaint 150 years-old bungalow in Moira village in Goa called Casa de Francis Celina. Another celebrity who is said to have acquired a heritage property in Mumbai is cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. He’s only just acquired the property in 2009 and renovation work has yet to begin.

Some wealthy people who are not in the public eye have also restored crumbling old mansions set in their own gardens, which in itself is quite a luxury these days, where every available square feet of space is converted into parking space or space to be rented out for commercial business. So, some family friends of mine who have the Mercedes and Ford dealerships in Pune and the Porsche and Audi one in Mumbai (so can afford to) live in a heritage home in Pune, which once belonged to a Parsi family.

They took pains to rebuild this property keeping in mind the original architecture and décor of the house. So, even though all the art and showpieces that are so painstakingly bought and lovingly arranged around the home belongs to them - the façade, the intricate mosaic tiles, the plaster-of-paris false ceiling and the trellis-work windows have all been kept the same as the original. Everything obviously needed to be spruced up and that cost them quite a lot of pennies! In fact, their architect went to the original source for more of the mosaic tiles because many of them were cracked and chipped and had to be removed. He went all the way to Iran for this! Not surprising since Parsis originate from that country – from a location called Paras in southern Iran, so it’s possible that the original owners had quite a lot of stuff imported to build their home away from home.

Yet another decrepit property that I saw years ago in Pune called the Jeejeebhoy Mansion, was ripe for the picking because it was also a big old house set in a huge garden but I think, it might have been under dispute back then. Such properties are worth crores today and Parsis had the foresight to buy real estate in some plumb locations all across India at a time when such properties were neither valued or hoarded. In Mumbai, they have housing societies in places like Colaba, Dadar, Hughes Road etc which is today prime commercial and residential space with ease of access to schools, hospitals, shopping, recreation and the entertainment district.

Anyway, what real caught my eye when I went to look at the Jeejeebhoy property years ago was the beautiful replica of a Rodin sculpture in marble, of the ‘Wrestler’ also called 'Nude Balzac' because its muse was apparently the French writer Honore Balzac. (The Greeks have an assortment of such sculptures, but I'm assuming this is by Rodin because of it's similarity in form and grace to his more famous 'The Kiss' sculpture.) This abandoned sculpture reflected the despair, over the neglect of what at one time must have been a vibrant and wealthy home. The overgrown garden added to the Neverland-like atmosphere of the place.

It is true that the rest of us can’t hope to step into such expensive homes – heritage or not – but sometimes the saying ‘old is gold’ holds good. In this case, second hand is very uber cool.

QUESTION THE EXPERTS

Here are the most common questions on most people's mind regarding owning an old or heritage home. I asked architect Brinda Gaitonde, who conducts heritage walks around Mumbai with fellow architect Abha Bahl, to clarify these issues. She has experienced the thrill of restoring vintage homes and explains what goes into making them liveable again. To know more about the heritage walks, click here: http://www.bombayheritagewalks.com/index.php

1. Are old homes bought and restored frequently or is the cost so prohibitive that it's not feasible?
A: It is not common for old homes to be bought and restored frequently. Usually they are bought up to be redeveloped and not necessarily for restoration. Yes the actual cost might make it out of reach, plus the added cost of repairs, which most of these old houses need.

2. If done...how much does it cost to do such projects?
A: It varies on the condition of the house, the location etc.

3. How close to the original do you aim to keep the restoration keeping modern utilities etc in mind?
A: Restoring an old house to the original, contrary to popular belief, can offer a lot of flexibility for planning and incorporation of utlitilies. It would require adept organisation and understanding of the construction methodology of the property.

4. Have you had difficulty in sourcing any material to restore such properties?
A: Not really, there is no major difficulty in sourcing information. Sometimes we do run across some problems to source material such as for e.g. encaustic tiles, stained glass etc. But these can be incorporated within modern materials to give a period, and at the same time contemporary look.

5. Have you done any work like this and would you like to share some anecdotes.
A: When I worked with ANL Associates at Botawala building, one of the eight buildings at Horniman Circle (in Mumbai), we wanted to restore some of the replaced modern aluminum sliding windows back to the original. So at a general body meeting an old gentleman came up and said he had managed to salvage some window frames from demolished historic homes. Cannot forget the day that I went to his workshop to see these original frames as I was literally window-shopping! He had about 20 different kind!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A wireless headphone that makes me sing!

Since I've signed up with mGinger - the SMS marketing service - for quite some time now and they usually have offers up on their website, that can be used if you want to redeem any points you have accumulated. 

Recently though, they have taken to sending me e-mailers with deals in them. Like the recent one that I took advantage of - a Mitashi wireless headphone and transmitter for Rs 549 only. I checked out this offer on other sites and everywhere else it was priced much higher.

Even Mitashi's own site was selling it for Rs 699 (marked down from Rs 799), and the lowest price offered was Rs 595 on another site that I scanned while surfing. In comparison, the Sony and Philips ones were over Rs 1,000. When I finally bought it - the price on the box was Rs 775. 

What's more, the online reviews praised the acoustics and so far, I agree with them. I get all the FM stations, and the clarity is great once the signals catch, which they do easily. I've worn this headphone around the house, and even when I'm nowhere near the transmitter, the sound quality remains good.

The quality of the product is great as well - especially the two-tone effect of black and a deep burgundy finish to it. So, if you still think that cheap equals bad quality, then you may have to reconsider that attitude. This headphone makes me sing aloud - and for all the right reasons!

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Corp sites should aim for this honour list

Ever wanted to know which corporate websites make the cut? The main criteria is whether it sends across a positive message about the company through the design, construction, functionality built into it, or not. But it's also a lot about attracting the attention of investors, customers, the media and jobseekers - or else why put up a website in the first place?

Bowen Craggs, are UK-based web effectiveness experts - with a classy but a tad spare looking site of their own. They have compiled a list of 75 companies' sites that are worth looking at, from around the globe. Their initial parameter was just taking into consideration the market capitalisation of the firm but they have ranked these sites under other categories as well, such as: site construction, on whether it is serving the media, serving investors, serving jobseekers, serving society, serving customers etc.

For instance: The top sites that improved their construction were BP, Procter & Gamble, Sanofi-Aventis, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, Intel, Novartis, WalMart Stores, British American Tobacco and GlaxoSmithKline. (See table below)

The Top 10 sites according to some of the Bowen Craggs metrics


Click on the image to enlarge it

On whether these sites have embraced social media in a big way, this is what the report said: "We classified 22 of the Index’s 75 sites as ‘social media friendly’. IT companies have a natural community of experts, so can easily exploit the social side –see Cisco’s Newsroom for how far that can go. Elsewhere, most companies limit themselves to displays of networking and bookmarking icons plus, perhaps, some Twitter feeds.

Deeper integration of site and social media is concentrated in careers, where Facebook’s demographic makes it a no-brainer. Otherwise, spot Siemens’ brave decision to show how many social media comments have been posted about its home page videos and Walmart Stores’ coverage of social media channels by its search engine. This last may be the most significant sign of all – let’s see if others follow."

So, does your business site send out the right message, and does it reflect well on your skills - social media and otherwise? The sad fact is that, the only Indian site to get on this list is Reliance Industries - and it is dragging along in the bottom five of the list, on all the criteria taken into consideration.

Besides Reliance Industries, there are any number of Indian corporates whose websites could do with a makeover. Read this report to begin to know how to do it right.

Click here for the entire list in detail: http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex/indices

Read the full report here: http://bowencraggs.com/downloads/ft/BC_FTIndex_2011_booklet.pdf

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Corporate lobbying: To do or not to do?

Corporate lobbying has got so much face-time because of the Niira Radia tapes that people were talking about it on the street, along with the price of vegetables and the ‘Munni’ and ‘Sheila ki Jawani’ item numbers. For the people in the know, it always existed in the shadows, and was never really brought up for public scrutiny. That is the real difference this time around – i.e. the public has caught them at it.

Since the tapes were leaked and uploaded on Outlook’s site and portions of them were transcribed and published in both Outlook and Open magazines, the furore has been about the big names being bandied about, by a non-entity whom no one had heard of in the past. What was meant to be an investigation into her tax evasion affair has turned into a full-blown circus.

Radia calls and talks a lot – to a lot of people. I actually heard three of the tapes and didn’t have the curiosity to listen to the entire lot put up on Outlook’s site. The ones which I heard were – Vir Sanghvi calling her up and actually telling her of how he slanted the tone of one of his columns to suit her convenience.

The other is of Barkha Dutt talking to her about political give-n-take, which Dutt has gone on air at NDTV and defended furiously, by saying that it is part of journalism to follow up on tips but she acknowledged that in hindsight, she should have been more careful of dealing with Niira Radia. She did not answer Open editor, Manu Joseph’s question, to his satisfaction, over why NDTV had not reported the fact that a corporate lobbyist had so many of her fingers in so many pies. All Dutt had to say was that, it was a judgment call made by NDTV, not to do this aspect as a story by itself.

The third tape was of her talking to Ratan Tata, where she goes on and on, while he listens to her and asks her a question here or there. Honestly, everyone should hear this tape and not read it – you get the impression that she really is trying hard to impress and swing deals for her clients. So, why is any of this so surprising? Were we Indians, really so incredulous that we did not know that lobbying happens when huge amounts of money is involved, or favours are required to be done?

The big reason why people have objections to Niira Radia’s profession/tapes, is that the social media ecosphere just exploded over her phone conversations. But these are conversations that could be had by any two people discussing deals and current affairs of the day, with no repercussions, if the conversations were private and both parties are not making use of any information to further an agenda. That is precisely what Radia was doing – pursuing goals – but isn’t that precisely what she was hired to do by Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani?

Ironically, this woman has been brought down by hubris, even though she did do her corporate PR-lobbying job very well. She may have assumed that having access to all those big-shots would protect her, when she was evading tax payments, and that was her undoing.

In the process, she has taken everyone else down with her as well. Don’t blame lobbying, which is considered a legitimate way to do business these days in the US, where corporates lobby to put a favoured senator or judge in the right position of power.

Google, RIM and Microsoft, among others, have dedicated lobbyists who espouse their causes in Washington DC. Why else would Hillary Clinton try to sweet-talk to Saudi Arabia and the UAE on behalf of RIM, when these two countries were threatening to ban BlackBerry usage? It was hardly a matter of state, but it was a matter of business interests for sure. After all, politicians are meant to look out for the best interests of their citizens and their country’s corporate enterprises.

India’s first public taste of corporate lobbying has been unseemly to say the least, but now keeping things in some sort of perspective is important. These tapes have made everyone wary, with people like Deepak Parikh, chairman of HDFC, going on record to say that leaking of private conversations has hurt industry morale. Notice that he is not pointing fingers at any of the people involved or even the conversations per se, but just the fact that, one person’s tapped phone entrapped so many others needlessly.

Meanwhile, in a more proactive and sensible manner, Corporate Affairs minister, Salman Khurshid has said on the sidelines of a FICCI seminar ‘Corporate Sustainability and Driver of Innovation’, that the government is looking for a way to regulate corporate lobbying. This is the right way forward, since the cat is anyway out of the bag.

Written for The Viewspaper

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

E-waste: A problem that will haunt us in future

Where does your discarded music system, iPod, PC, laptop and other such gadgets and electronic white consumer goods end up, after it has ended its built-in lifespan? In a landfill. This is where the rag pickers and garbage sorters scavenge for those motherboards and other assorted components, for that little precious amount of gold that they can pry out of them. Since no one has kept accurate count, it is estimated that globally, eWaste amounts to 40 million tonnes annually.

That is a lot of waste to sift through for meagre quantities of gold and other valuable metals such as palladium, silver and copper. But to separate them from the junked heaps of metal is a cumbersome task at the best of times. In India, this is done in a crude manner – by either burning or leaching the component. Needless to say, that such an ad-hoc process leaves toxins behind in the environment, and noxious smoke comprising elements from harmful metals like cadmium, lead and mercury within human lungs.

In Japan, this process is done in a more clinical, safer and cost-effective manner and it is being called ‘urban mining’. This fancy term explains what Japan is trying to mine from eWaste – some of it that they actually import to meet recycling costs – rare earths or rare minerals, which they have been importing from China so far. Their recent political tussle with China and with China holding back rare earth exports, has made the Japanese realize their vulnerable position. So they have reopened mining plants for recycling purposes.

There is an imperative to get a National eWaste Strategy in place that works without fear or favour, for the good of the environment and the people involved in the recycling ecosphere. Such a policy needs to be put in place by the Ministry of Environment, which is seeing a proactive incumbent in the shape of Jairam Ramesh. This IIT-MIT educated minister is leading the charge and pulling up delinquent companies, like Vedanta. Putting together a hefty penalizing system, will help India Inc realize that their e-waste can not be left for other people and generations to pick up after them.

This can be done broadly with the relevant industry heads sitting down with a government authority, and hammering out the issues of legislation, studying data, skills and technology needed to dispose of this e-waste in a holistic and clean manner. The awareness campaigns need to reach down to the grassroot workers, who actually power most of this informal recycling industry in India. There are websites and NGOs like Greenpeace that bring up the problem of eWaste regularly through their ‘Guide to Greener Electronics’, which does a good job of castigating and praising the top global electronic brands, whose products end up as electronic waste.

In India, eWaste management is a nascent concern at best and if any move is being made to make this into a full-fledged, skillful, license-based activity, then it’s so far shrouded in secrecy. There are no programmes, except one-off initiatives such as an online eWaste Guide, which is an Indian-Swiss-German joint effort to tackle this problem. What words of wisdom from this Guide, has percolated down to the local junk-dealer, garbage sorter and indigenous recycler is debatable.

So, this is where electronic manufacturers should step in and start spreading the word through their own corporate communications team, advertising agencies and via tie-ups with retailers who stock their merchandise. Any steps taken should involve the man/woman-on-the-street who actually do the work of going door-to-door to pick up the used stuff. Incentives offered to them should look at what would really benefit them.

The urbanised population can look to alternatives like trading-in or selling stuff through seconds websites. The better the condition of the product, the better resale value it is likely to fetch, and this fact should act like an incentive to get retailers to encourage people to use such sites as well. The reason is simple – Old stuff out the door means people will go to the retailers to buy new stuff. This is the very rationale behind e-cycle – which is US retail chain Best Buy’s strategy. They look competent and eco-conscious while getting people to send in their old electronics…and hopefully buy that new iPad or iPhone 4 from them.

Electrolux has gone one step further and created a line of vacuum cleaners that have debris from the oceans incorporated into their product design, as a style statement. These vacuum cleaners are called ‘Vac from the Sea’, and they are such wonderful looking conversation pieces. What’s more, there is a customized one for each ocean and major seas!

India’s manufacturers and retailers need to play catch up – both, on the product innovation front and the recycling front – and taking things easy is not a luxury they can enjoy because climate change concerns are rapidly becoming an everyday talking point. What is a talking point today will soon become finger pointing tomorrow, and eWaste producers better have some answers, if not solutions, ready by then.

Written for The Viewspaper

Friday, April 01, 2011

Being happy trumps making money and babies!

What are people looking for in their lives? Well, the short and sweet answer is happiness. This state of being has been long sought after, since the time human beings were able to sense, feel and think about things that earlier was considered beyond their abilities.

With increased abilities come doubts and more questions. Happiness is one subject that both men and women seek in equal measure but it was always assumed that men were happiest making money and women were happiest making babies. But this report done by Euro RSCG called 'Gender Shift: Are Women the New Men?' has stated that, "When we look at love and friendship combined, those selections tower over the percentages that chose the options of “freedom,” “money,” and “power.” That’s an important shift: It appears men and women are moving away from what have long been considered the coveted prizes at the end of the rat race – namely, money and power – in favor of love and friendship, which perhaps earlier generations took for granted."

This report is based on a survey done with 600 adults in China, France, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The sample in each market was made up of 500 millennials (aged 18 to 25) and 100 Gen Xers/baby boomers (aged 40 to 55), for a total of 3,000 respondents. (This report only covers responses from the west. India and China will be done in a separate report. I'll upload a link to that report as well at the end of this post, if I get my hands on it.)

Ironically, in a reversal of priorities, the millennials, who despite all the social networking are the ones who want love and friendship more than ever, which is something their mothers took for granted, as the very fabric of their life - not something to be yearned for. They were also less likely to feel the pinch of work, societal or cultural restrictions than their mothers' generation did. The result is that they are 'less' likely to take up causes as a group but protest loudly for themselves alone.

Both male and female millennials had one great fear - that of being alone. The report says, "By far the greatest fear afflicting both males and females is being alone. That fear trumped being sick, poor, homeless, unsuccessful, or bored." But these fears have always been there and now men have to really gear up to face a new reality - that women employees will be preferred in the future and men may not have jobs.

The report explains why: "In most of the Western world, the Great Recession has served to further exacerbate men’s decline. Of the 11 million U.S. jobs destroyed since December 2007, 66 percent were held by men. Moreover, men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade. In all likelihood, a growing number of men will be obliged to stay at home and count on their wives to support them and their children.

To some extent, women have become the new men – and vice versa. In an article in The Atlantic entitled “The End of Men,” journalist Hanna Rosin reminds us that “man has been the dominant sex since the dawn of mankind,” before adding that “for the first time in human history, that is changing – and with shocking speed.” The primary reason? “The global economy is evolving in a way that is eroding the historical preference for male children, worldwide.

Rosin posits that women’s increased economic power has led many would-be parents to believe a daughter would have a better life than a son. When couples look at society, they see a virtuous circle for girls (more successful education, more stable employment, more opportunities, staying closer to parents/family), while, for boys, they see a vicious circle marked by lesser academic and career achievement, more drugs and/or alcoholism, and perhaps even criminal activity.

As a consequence, more parents, if allowed to choose the sex of their child, would choose a girl. This shift (in attitude) is now beginning in other rapidly industrializing countries, including China and India."

As a woman - I can only say that it's about time that this happened. But how are you men going to deal with this? The prefabricated existence that made you so happy - at a great cost to women sometimes - is about to unravel. So are you prepared for this tectonic change in the balance between the sexes, that will occur in the future? If your ego gets in the way of acceptance of this cultural shift, then happiness is not going to be available as and when you want it.

You have to anyway seek it within yourselves - and women can only help you with this fulfilling search, if you continue to be meaningful to us, in our lives.


PS: Graphics are taken from the report. To read the entire report, click here - http://www.prosumer-report.com/gender/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/GenderShift_Final.pdf