Source code theft may blight BPO bubble

India is at present, a favoured haven for outsourcing. Whether it is data or software research, here brilliant minds come with a cheap price tag. This is where every foreign company wants to move its back office or its services end of their business to save on costs.

While everybody is celebrating India’s great outsourcing success, there is a darker side to this sunny, happy ever after picture. What do you do when the product you spent years and money researching on, is stolen and sold with effortless ease on the internet and having stolen your cyber - identity, the criminal roams free on the streets, while the law stands and gapes in amazement.

The Managing Director of Geometric Software Solutions, Manu Parpia said, "The source code is a readable blueprint copy of any software. Anyone who has access to the source code can alter the software dramatically and the dangers of it falling into the wrong hands are great."

A source code looks like a string of letters and numbers jumbled up. Get your hands on the code and you can easily make a lookalike copy of the Adobe Pagemaker software and print identity cards for high security firms. A source code holds the key to a product, that could give any software firm the upper hand in the market and change the security dynamics of a nation. Today, stealing these lines of code is also the latest buzzword in the world of computer crimes.

CNBC-TV18 reports on this darker side of the world of outsourcing. The seamier story of what sometimes occurs in swank looking buildings with their laptops and blinking monitors and as more and more international companies furiously outsource their core functions to India, along with critical products, India is also fast becoming a haven for source code theft.

In August 2002, a former employee of software firm Geometric Software Solutions Ltd, GSSL, was caught red-handed trying to sell a data source code. It was the property of GSSL’s American client Solidworks. The employee had demanded a price of $240,000 for the code. It was the first reported case of data source code theft in India.

During his tenure at GSSL, Ashok Mehta left to go home like his other colleagues. He was frisked by the security guards but no one noticed an innocent CD that he carried on his person. On that CD was the data source code, for a product that GSSL was developing for Solidworks. The product accounted for sales between $60 to $90 million.

Mehta left the company under mysterious circumstances but he was not finished yet. A a year later, in 2002, someone from India contacted a firm in the US, offering to sell the source code for a Solidwork product. With this, Mehta was back in business. The company got suspicious and informed Solidwork and GSSL. They got in touch with the Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI.

In August of that year, Mehta set up a rendezvous for a buyer at a five star hotel in New Delhi. No sooner was the transaction through, that the CBI moved in and arrested Mehta for attempting to sell the code. The buyer was an FBI agent Nanette Day. He had offered to sell the code for $200,000 to Nanette Day.

However, it was not the price that had GSSL worried. Says Manu Parpia, "I cannot say exactly what it was worth, but the product was getting Solidworks sales of around $90million every year at that time."

While the CBI and the FBI celebrated, Solidworks had more worries on their mind. While a case had been filed, the trial was nowhere in sight. It was a long wait. One that lasted two entire years and in the meantime Mehta was out on bail. All Solidworks could do was pray that there were no more copies available for prospective buyers.

Meanwhile, GSSL is still recovering from an immediate loss in business and probably loss in prospective clientele. Parpia said, "There were many American firms who were in touch with GSSL but after the incident, they vanished. I don’t know if it was the incident that scared them away but they never came back to India for any projects. I think GSSL and India lost a lot of business.

Then two months later, in November, the biggest hit-of-them all occurred. Cisco, admitted that they were looking into a source code theft. A group called the Source Code Club, SCC, claimed they had the code and demanded a price of $240,000 for it.

A Cisco employee on the condition of anonymity said, "My friend used to find means of cheating company security systems. He used to use his bluetooth enabled devices to upload the source code files to the internet, and then sell it to other companies or pretend it was his own work and get better jobs with other companies."

Sources say the Cisco code has allegedly been stolen by former employees based in India. If that is confirmed, then this would go down as the third high profile source code theft in the country to have been reported in the last two years, all within a span of four months.

Sources told CNBC-TV18 that after initial investigations were through, the leads are now pointing towards India. How groups like the SCC get their hands on a data source code is not so easy to trace but there are employees who are on the constant lookout for a buyer.

A huge faction of the foreign media and many American firms are now branding India as every outsourcers nightmare, in terms of security and the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, IPR.

Some players feel it is too early to call the thefts in India, a rising trend. What is worrying however is the way the Indian judiciary has responded to such cases and that is what differentiates the US from India.

Parpia added, "The essential difference is in the enforceability. In the US, people are more relaxed because they know the law will take its course. But the judiciary in India works on a precedent and there are none right now. The outcome of the GSSL case will be of great importance to the IT industry in India, in that sense."

Another situation which came to light is of Sandeep Jolly, the owner of Jolly Technologies. He was operating from San Carlos in the US. Then in 2004, he decided to cash in on the hottest outsourcing destination - India. He began research and development for his products in Mumbai, from an apartment in Powai. His products included identity cards for security firms in the United States including the US army.

He hired a group of young enthusiastic software engineers and began operations in March 2004. A few months into the operations, Jolly’s executives say they noticed one of their recruits spending a lot of time on the internet. Taking precautions, he moved her to a different department but according to him, the damage had already been done. His investigations revealed that the employee had been uploading several source codes to an unknown e-mail account. Gathering further evidence, Jolly and his employees restored deleted files. He took these to the cyber crime department, but he says they took no interest.

Sandeep said, "They (the police) were not of too much assistance. They told us that property enforcement rights are not there in India and they cannot do too much about it." He adds that the links in the case are details of the files that were uplinked by the employee to various mail IDs. He approached Yahoo for the details but was asked to get a letter from the local police. Jolly claims this has not been done yet.

While the police refused to comment officially, sources in the cyber-crime wing told us that they did not believe the Jolly case was genuine. The company had not kept records of computers on which their employees were working and as a result it could not be ascertained if there was source code theft or not.

Jolly Technologies has sued the Mumbai Police. But the police have their own version of this case. They say that the employee alleges that Sandeep Jolly sexually harassed her and persistently asked her out to movies and dinner. Apparently it was not anything overt but but there was something happening here, which has led the police to believe that Sandeep was making a preemptive move.

In a recent hearing, the high court has asked the Mumbai Police to file an affidavit of what actions they have taken so far. Jolly fears it may be too late. The FBI officials say that since the matter has already been reported to the local police, it would not be proper for them to investigate. Jolly has pulled out of its operations in Mumbai.

Those directly affected by such thefts, say that many major firms in the US are watching these cases and will act depending on the outcome of the trial.

Vice President of Zinnov Technology, Vamsee Tirukalla said, "Every client meeting I go to, they ask me what has happened in the GSSL case. Every major player in the US wants to know what the outcome of the case will be and here in India the case has only just gone to trial. I guess in the US, when someone is arrested for a source code theft, the organization knows the law will take its course. However in India, people think they can steal a source code and get away with it."

Analysts however say that the benefits of outsourcing are too many, for an international company to pull out of India entirely.

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Burnout: First sizzle and then fizzle out

A great career and having achieved everything early in life is a sure sign of success but it may come at a very high price. Burnout is evident, when too much is done at a breakneck pace. Stories abound of players in their teens who shone and had a lot of promise and then fizzled out in their early twenties. Hot shot popstars, sportspersons and movie stars are more prone than most to this phenomenon

Former cricketer, Javagal Srinath agrees, "It (burnout) is a real issue, if you see the demands on players these days, as well as the length of the season, these two factors definitely contribute to burnouts. And burnouts is just not for everyone, it’s for the people who have really achieved and the overly dedicated people.

Managing Director & CEO, Deutsche Bank India, Gunit Chadha told CNBC-TV18, "Even though one would argue that the longevity in the corporate world, of an average life span is much longer than in the cricketing world. But increasingly, I think a combination of peer pressure, of the reward which goes with success, is making a lot of young talent actually burn themselves out by the time they enter the late 30s or early 40s. So I think it is a real phenomenon, which has started to emerge in India."

Burnout - the very term connotes an ending. It may be true in extreme cases but most people mistake a slump for a permanent fizzling out. Even though retiring from centrestage for players may be due to their physical condition, psychological condition or motivatio levels. Ironically, these are the same factors that also characterise people who have burned out. Srinath prefers to call certain temporary down periods as a "slump or staleness."

Both the physical and emotional aspects affect a person's preformance. Srinath explained, "If your mind is really stressed, then obviously it reflects in your body and if your body is really tired then it reflects in you mind. So I think both equally contribute to the staleness or burnouts that we are talking about."

In the corporate scene, there are certain people with extreme perfectionist tendencies who are at a high risk of fading away at a younger age. The employee who spends 70-hours a week in office and does not take any vacations or it may be a person who is really a perfectionist and hugely competitive and is struggling under a lot of peer pressure.

Chadha said, "I think it’s a convergence of the the two. The two prototypes really become one prototype - aggressive, competitive - who wants to put in those extra hours, wants to have excellence plus be a perfectionist."

He added, "One thing is that I lead by example - I take my 3-4 vacations a year! So that’s a good start. But on a more serious note - at Deutsche Bank for instance, we have Friday dress downs, which again inculcates a little amount of relaxation in the office. We recently had a Deutsche Bank cricket tournament where we invited Deutsche Bank teams from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India and Singapore to come down and spent three days in celebration."

"We do a lot of Deutsche Bank off-sides. So in various respects, we try to make employees have fun, build team work and not let people become the victims of their own success. So I think leadership in an organisation has a lot to play in this as well." However, Srinath reiterated that spotting this tendency to overdo things is half the problem solved and is a great preventive measure.

Chadha opined, "I think most of it is because of the pressure that you put on yourself. As you build longevity in your career, you start judging yourself in your own mirror, in your own soul, within ourselves rather than in the eyes of the beholder. I think when you reach that realization, I think you can cut back the pressure because then you are not doing it for public opinion, you are doing it for yourself."

Corporates are taking the issue of burnouts seriously. But with corporates tightening their belts, "people are moving from 40-50 hours work weeks to 72-80 hours work weeks. The pressure on individuals is growing and burnouts are starting to increase. I think it’s a very clear phenomena in this century," says Chadha. The flipside is that managements are also encouraging the habit of burning the midnight oil by rewarding such hardworking employees with bonuses and thus perpetuating the vicious circle.

Chadha explained, "Very often what happens is when employees burn out, people make wrong judgments and rather than remodify the situation, the employee probably leaves the company or takes VRS or does something to that effect and that’s what the competitive pressure of life makes you do."

"But I think as employers start respecting talent more and creating preventive conditions in organisations that are more amenable to employees ie. creates balance between work and family, I think the problem will correct itself. Companies' responses would get more preventive driven, but at the the same time I think the social stigma, which is associated with burnouts and losing jobs will come down. People will just accept it as reality."

Written eons ago for my former employer www.moneycontrol.com but it's still valid today.

Cut the crap

Indians are travelling a lot these days, which is a good thing because travelling widens your horizons considerably. What I really enjoy hearing about is how amazed they all seem at the level of cleanliness and civic manners found there.

It’s such a pity that we need to go abroad to learn it ourselves. I have some questions to ask such globetrotters.

* Do you not know that defecating, urinating, spitting and worse in public is not exactly entertainment for others? These things are not done only by the lower class and illiterate people in India. A lot of educated people throw snack wrappers out of their cars or spit in public or get out of cars and water the plants, where they can find them!

* Do you know that your pampered pets called Frisky, Rhino, Cocoa etc are not allowed to poop in public? Since they don’t know that, you should be vigilant and pick up after them, the way you would be expected to do if you were walking your pet in New York, Sydney, London or Moscow. I’ve seen so many well-heeled pet owners – yes, the ones who look like they travel quite a bit – who look the other way while their pets are decorating places like Worli Seaface and Marine Drive. No wonder, pets are going to be banned from Marine Drive.

* You can bet some bleeding heart will object to this and it most likely will be a pet owner, who never picks up his/her doggy poo. Why should they? Aren’t they paying a poor BMC worker to do that?

Would they be using this line of argument with a US cop who would have fined them with a look of disgust on his face. The minute he said something like ‘Go back to India and do this because it’s not allowed here’, they would have gone crying to the media and claimed racial abuse. I, for one, would applaud the cop’s attitude. After all, he’s doing his job and maintaining law and order in his country, so obviously he’s not going to accept tourists and immigrants treating his country like a public toilet.

Foreign countries are clean and great places to visit because they are kept that way by their citizens. I don’t think they have started importing our poor BMC souls yet to clean up after them. We need to wake up and take responsibility for our (and our pets’) actions and not expect a ‘clean and green’ country to emerge like a miracle overnight. We need to make it happen.

The only constant thing is change and a drastic change in attitude would help. To start with, importing a desire to keep our country clean would be a great idea. Let’s live and learn the good stuff.

Written for www.dancewithshadows.com

A Sip Tip

 

Every other day or so, going to a coffee shop to unwind and enjoy rich, creamy coffees is what almost anyone can do these days. With Cafe Coffee Day, Barista, Starbucks, DiBella and Costa outlets present in every nook and corner, this is a convenience anyone can indulge in.

The teas and coffees are not 'cutting chai' rates obviously, but they are worth the bucks you pay for them. But I have actually noticed something at the Barista I go to often here in Mumbai and you need to watch out for this cheap little trick as well.

I once ordered Triple Sec, which is a mocha with an orange liqueur in it. I never add the sugar without taking a sip to see if it's needed or not because most often it's not really required and, I like the slightly dark and bitter tang of ground beans to hit my taste buds.

This is personal quirk and in this case it proved to be so right. That's because the Triple Sec drink came - and after a quick sip - I realised that something was off. No, they had not spiked it with anything fishy, but I didn't even get a whiff of oranges. So, I had some more of the coffee, and then asked the staff to add the liqueur in because I didn't feel they had put in any, in the first place. This way they had to even top up my coffee while adding in the liqueur, so I got a free refill as well. Also very clearly visible at the bottom of the glass, was a layer of orange liquid that I had not seen there before. Seeing is believing.

They had tried to fool me into paying them for something that they didn't include in my coffee despite them always asking customers, if they wanted any extras like toffee, hazelnut, Irish liqueur, chocolate sauce etc, and for which they charge anywhere between Rs 40 - Rs 50 extra.

So do what I did - take the sip test and make sure you get what you ordered because if it is not added in your coffee, it will be surely added in your bill.

100 best global brands: Indian brands absent

BusinessWeek put out a list of the 100 Best Global brands in 2009, compiled by the consultancy Interbrand. Some brands have prospered amid the hard times — or at least held their own. Others have slipped a number of places. However, the magazine's website also issued a disclaimer that, "The brand valuations draw upon publicly available information, which has not been independently investigated by Interbrand. Valuations do not represent a guarantee of future performance of the brands or companies."

Overall clothing brands like Gucci, H&M and Zara have risen on this list and so have producers of perishable consumer goods like Kellog’s, McDonald’s, Marlboro, Pepsi, Budweiser, Heinz and Nescafe. Coca-Cola reigned supreme for two years in a row (2008 and 09) – that’s probably because it’s the one thing that most people consume without too much thought given to it. What’s a few liquid calories - it’s not like you have hogged a cholesterol filled meal at McDonald’s, right?

Some electronic manufacturers who did better than their peers are: Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Apple, Samsung, Philips and Canon. Tried and trusted Sony and branded-assembled PC-maker Dell dropped down this list.

The brands who retained their last time’s position were IBM, Nokia, Microsoft, GE and Coca-Cola. While two software manufacturers – IBM and Microsoft – stayed true to their brand perception, Intel and Oracle actually fell down this ladder while SAP climbed up this beanstalk.

Car brands BMW, Toyota and Mercedes also slid down the list but Honda raced ahead. Ford remained at starting position – at No.49.

Bankers like American Express, HSBC and Citibank all fell in this ranking possibly because of all the scandals that continue to keep emerging about how over-extended most banks are in the US and how non productive some of their assets have turned out to be. If after analysing all the data and having all the best brains at your disposal, one can still make goof ups of such gigantic proportions, then some solid, plain ole common sense is the much required commodity now – not some more fancy and abstruse hedge fund. The ones who maintained their position but really lower down the list were JP Morgan (at 37) and Goldman Sachs (at 38).

Online brands, Google and Amazon moved up but eBay stayed stagnant at No.46.

The luxury brands Ikea ranked higher but Louis Vuitton stayed put at No.16.

News service provider Thomson Reuters climbed up this list to 40 from 44, as did advisory firm Accenture to 45 from 47.


The children’s entertainment segment was represented by Disney which dropped to No.10 (from 9) and Nintendo which crawled up to No.39 (from 40). So, what’s happening here - kids were bored with saccharine sweet princesses and were more interested in animated machismo?

What this list also shows is that not a single Indian brand made the cut. Where are all those loudly advertised, publicity hogging 'brands' created by fashion designers, architecture and interior design firms or manufacturers of leather products and furniture and car designers. Our car manufacturers didn't make it either. The reason could be that Indian brands have less recall than the people behind it - very much to their brand's detriment.

India doesn't have any Frank Wright, Philippe Starck, Roberto Cavalli, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson - no one who is globally recognisable and synonymous with either a particular brand or India. So, it's high time, India's businesses let their brand do the talking for them. Make it more about the product and less about the personality...especially if the personality is not going to be à la Richard Branson.

Data: Interbrand, BusinessWeek. To view the table, click here: http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/best_global_brands_2009/

Job hunting: What's the forecast?

More than any other crises, the only one people truly care about is whether or not they have a job. Everything else looks tolerable when you have steady income coming in and shoring up your bank account. With the plethora of job websites up, there are a lot of resumes that can be scanned and there are apparently a number of jobs available as well. These jobs ofcourse don’t fit every experience profile but that’s where head-hunters are expected to do their matchmaking – fixing up the right people to the correct jobs on offer.

Naukri.com has been coming out with a monthly report of what’s on offer with regard to jobs, salary and increment expectations, which sectors are hot and which are not etc. The report is a nice glimpse at what’s going on in the jobs scenario, especially when the hearsay is that recruitment is stagnating or the jobs on offer are not quite in keeping with a person’s experience or expectations.

The former may be a myth but the latter is true. I’ve personally got offers from just about anyone and everyone who wants to do something or anything with writing and editing. There is no saying how long those firms have been around and how long are they likely to last, if you went to work for them. So, I’ve not been tempted to apply for most of those job-alerts I keep receiving from the website. There may be many like me out there – eminently employable but just not eager to grab drab offers.

May be that is the reason why the naukri.com report JobSpeak states that: “Hiring activity dipped across all experience bands in December ’09 owing to the end-of-year holiday season, with the maximum decline of 6.7% in the 4 to 7 years experience buckets.”



Graphic source: Naukri.com JobSpeak Report

As the pie chart (from the JobSpeak report) shows, the number of people who fall in the 4-7 years job experience category is the largest at 36% followed by 31% who are in the 0-3 years category of experience and 22% who fall somewhere between these two – in the 8-12 years experience category.

Here are some other points to ponder from the Naukri Hiring Outlook Survey 2010 that the site has e-mailed with their routine report. Since this is going to be subjective and the nature of the questions require people to ‘project’ a picture, let’s hope that in actuality, things develop along these lines.

Recruiters say that:
- 72.3% of recruiters say that new jobs will be created.
- 24.2% say that replacement hiring will continue.
- 1.2% believe that layoff will happen.
- 2.3% of the population believe that no jobs will be created.

There’s a slight goof up with this one in the report. I’ve corrected it here. Most hiring to take place in the 1-3 years experience bands. So, this is not good news for people with more experience who don't want to do BPO kind of jobs.
- Fresher's- 9%
- 1-3 years- 42.1%
- 4-8 years- 40%
- Above 8 years- 9%

Recruiters say that:
- 43.6% say increments will range between 5% to 10%
- 40.7% recruiters expect it to range between 10% to 20%
- 8.9% expect above 20% increments
- Only 6.7% expect it to be less than 5%

There’s more easy-to-understand information in this 10 page survey report. Read it here: http://w10.naukri.com/mailers/recruiter/Hiring_Surve/Hiring_Outlook_Survey_jan10.pdf?othersrcp=10385&wExp=N

Who created the most wealth in India?

The global economy is dancing all over the scoreboard and the people who have to keep up with twinkle toes – stock brokers, bankers, economists, business-owners – all have their hands full. Everyone is coming out with a set of numbers and studying them for us - laypeople. Motilal Oswal has also done the same but they have come out with a wealth creation study which makes for interesting reading.

This report looks at the top 100 companies who have added atleast Rs 1 billion to their market capitalization over a period of 5 years – 2004-09 – that was reviewed. The report also aims to gauge by when India will hit the next trillion dollars (NTD) high note again after having done it for the first time in the financial year 2008. But the next NTD is predicted to be created a lot quicker – in the next 5-6 years - if India continues to grow nominally at 12%-15% per annum and at the current US$/INR rates.

In the run-up to this NTD era, the report sets down the criteria, by which Indian companies will be significantly adding to their bottomline as well as your portfolio, if you held on to or bought their stocks. These companies all enjoy three kinds of entry barriers and have great managers helming them:

1. Demand-side includes customer captivity due to a strongly differentiated product/brand, force of habit or high switching costs, including the difficulty of searching for substitutes. These brands enjoy strong distribution network. Demand-side entry barriers such as trusted brands are intangible and typically result in firms enjoying very high return on capital.

2. Supply-side entry barrier mainly arise from the company being the lowest
cost provider of goods/services in the category due to one or more of the following:
a. Patent protection for products and/or production processes; and
b. Privileged access to critical inputs (eg captive ore mines).

3. Economies of Scale

4. Great management

So, which companies made the grade based on the above selection process? Here they are:

- Hero Honda Motor because it’s a market leader.
- Maruti Suzuki because it has appropriate product mix with the widest distribution and service network.
- Mahindra & Mahindra because it’s a market leader in UVs and tractors with an excellent track record of innovations.
- BHEL because it enjoys near monopoly in thermal power plants.
- Larsen & Toubro because it’s the preferred engineering/construction company for complex projects.
- HDFC Bank (in private sector) because it’s a high brand equity with the most consistent performance track record.
- State Bank of India (public sector) because it’s the largest bank with the highest reach and which offers play on insurance as well.
- CRISIL because it is the No.1 in India and belongs to the group of global No.1, Standard & Poor.
- HDFC because it is the long-standing market leader with lowest processing costs.
- Dabur India because it enjoys strong positioning in the ayurveda / herbal products platform.
- Nestle India because it’s a near monopoly in instant noodles and infant nutrition.
- Mundra Port because it’s one of the largest ports on the Gujarat coas.
- Sun TV because it has dominant market share in South India.
- Pantaloon Retail because it is a market leader by far and enjoys significant early mover advantage.
- Bharti Airtel because it has the highest market share, lowest cost and is a well-recognized brand.

What also emerged in this study was that:
• Value migrates from basic spend to discretionary spend categories.
• Winner categories emerge when demand hits the J-curve – this means that when product prices match a large section of the customers’ affordability level.
• The categories which can become large in relation to the economy emerge winners.
• Consolidated categories will benefit more than fragmented ones.

Some 66 companies with entry barriers created Rs 8,314 billion between 2004-09. The remaining 34 companies with no or low entry barriers accounted for Rs 1,323 billion in the same timeframe.

Here are some of the other salient points:

• The sensex earning per share (EPS) will grow up to 29% in the early FY11. Beyond this period, it will revert to a median of 15%-20%.

• Interest rates may remain at the same level or may move higher.

• The highest wealth destroyer industries between 2004-09 were: Others – 24%, Oil & Gas – 17%, Banking & Finance – 16%, Auto – 13%, Pharma – 12%, IT – 11%, Metals – 6%.

• The highest wealth destroyer companies in the same time period (in the order mentioned) were: Ranbaxy, IOCL, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, HPCL, Satyam Computer, Oriental Bank, Tata Steel, Reliance Infrastructure and MTNL.

• Wealth creating companies were mostly new-blood firms that were around less than 40 years. For eg. There were 60 companies that had been around for only 40 years and they had created wealth amounting to Rs 6,700 billion. While the older firms of 50 years and above (there were 40 of them) had created only Rs 2,917 billion between 2004-09.

• 30 public sector units (PSUs) at one time were contributing almost 50.6% of the wealth between 2000-05. After the phased out divestment process, 16 PSUs contributed 27% between 2004-09.

• The best performing PSU sectors were mining & metals (37%), engineering (25%) followed by oil & gas (23%).

• 43 MNCs created a high of 50% of the wealth in the country between 1994-99 and it dropped to 2% (by 8 companies) between 1999-2004. From 2004-09, around 23 companies made 14% of the wealth.

• The best performing MNC sectors were FMCG (63%), Engineering (13%) and Automobiles (10%).

• The private sector created 73% of the wealth – by 84 companies in 2004-09.

The Fastest Wealth Creators were: Unitech, Areva T&D, BF Utilities, Opto Circuits, NMDC, Shri City Union, United Spirits, Jindal Steel, Sterling International and Chettinad Cement.

The Biggest Wealth Creators were: Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, BHEL, NMDC, ONGC, ITC, Infosys, Larsen & Toubro, SAIL and HDFC.

Consistent Wealth Creators - 2005 to 2009
Pharma
􀂄 Cipla (4)
􀂄 Dr Reddy's Lab (3)
􀂄 GSK Pharma (2)
􀂄 Piramal Health. (4)
􀂄 Ranbaxy Lab (4)
􀂄 Sun Pharma (2)
FMCG
􀂄 Asian Paints (3)
􀂄 ITC (5)
􀂄 Nestle India (1)
Others
􀂄 Hero Honda (5)
􀂄 HDFC (5)
􀂄 HDFC Bank (1)
IT
􀂄 Infosys (3)
􀂄 Wipro (3)
􀂄 Satyam (2)
Others
􀂄 Reliance Inds (2)
􀂄 Ambuja Cement (1)

Number in brackets shows how many times these companies appeared in the top 10 list.

For a more detailed study, take a look at the report here:
http://www.motilaloswal.com/MOSL/uploadedFiles/MOSL/Knowledge_Center/Wealth_Creation_Study/Download_Reports/14thWCS.pdf

Destination: Lush & Serene Kodaikanal

Take a holiday and journey through lush Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu via this photo essay.







Click on the images to read the text.

Written for Jetwings.

How business ideas are born

Making changes, as a precursor to moving on to better things is something that most evolving businesses should do intuitively. But waiting for the push comes to shove moment is not the right time to experiment with change but should rather come as a gradual phase and at a steady pace but these early signals should be picked up quickly.

Professor of marketing at Wharton School, Yoram Jerry Wind agrees, "You basically should have a system in place that allows you to continuously challenge your assumptions, challenge your mental models, look for early signals of change in the environment." He explained that's how Starbucks took off because some clever businessmen had the foresight to provide a service that was not there in the US.

Wind told CNBC-TV18, "Howard Schultz went on a trip to Italy and was sitting in a café and it suddenly dawned on him 'Why not create the American equivalent of the café' and that's what led to the creation of the Starbucks experience and the whole phenomenon of success of Starbucks."

He added, "You obviously need a visionary, a person with insight, instinct and the intuition, who says 'Wow this can be a great idea and push it'. At the same time you also want to have companies develop some processes and approaches that allows them to identify when their current model is no longer appropriate."

But all said and done, this kind of decision has to be informed and should not be made in haste. Wind elaborated, "First of all you mentioned competition and it is very important for us to realise that we have to look at competition from outside the industry. If we go back to the Starbucks example, then Maxwell House was a dominant brain at that time. They probably looked at other coffee manufacturers at that time. They never expected competition from a startup like Starbucks and look at the phenomenal success of Starbucks. So looking at the competition is definitely important but broaden your scope."

"There is no substitute for really understanding consumer behaviour. It's funny how consumers behave, even in small segments. That is where I mentioned the weak signals. Because if you look at the average or the big responses, you are missing the little trends and all new trends start with small things.

"In the US, we look at California. Californian consumers are different and very often they are indicative but you need to monitor this and not to discard this type of information. Then there are processes that you can use effectively to try to help you. For example, the process of trying to challenge your assumptions. Do something very simple, ask your manager to indicate what are the assumptions you make in your strategy and lets challenge each one of them."

Country manager, WPP, Ranjan Kapur gives by way of example what Unilever did when faced with competition from Nirma. He said, "I think Unilever has been reactive in the past. I mean what really happened was that they grew up in an era of shortages and brands are never built in era of shortages and their business model was really a distribution business model.

"When competition came up and the markets opened up and lots of people came in, I think they tried to expand their distribution, get into the rural market and cut costs. That was their model."

"It was only in 2001-02, I think, that they realised the power of branding. That's when they went into the power brand thing and in India I think they have 30 brands. And that's really - it was a reaction, the way they were chipped away by local players. I think they didn't even wake up the first time when the signal came from Nirma.

"Nirma produced the detergent in little pits and men and women used to sit there and stir the detergent with caustic soda. They put them in plastic bags, stapled them and sent it out.

"What he (Nirma) realised was that people were looking for cheap products rather than pay for packaging. Anyway, Nirma didn't distribute the product, distributors used to come to them. Nobody recognised that."

Apart from being able to spot the trends early on and challenging assumptions, there is another approach, what Wind calls a "kind of a very powerful approach called 'bring the radicals in'. A great example would be, if you think of IBM a few years back, the major threat for IBM was open source code and the initial reaction when you mentioned that to IBM was that they would immediately bring in all the lawyers and try to sue them. What the research group at IBM did was bring the major proponent of open source to talk with the research group. The result was that they (IBM) were able to change their mental models completely and they designed or brought open source and built over it proprietary products and services that they were selling. So bringing the radical in is a very powerful approach that one can use."

"Another process is a method called idealised design. Idealised design is a process started by Ross Ackoff. A process that primarily says that opposed to the tradition of planning that you have, is where we are now and where we want to go forth, it starts with a radical assumption, which says 'lets assume that our business was destroyed last night'. Now given everything we know today, no futuristic technology, but what we know today. How do we redesign this business without all the constraints and the typical baggage that most business have?"

Kapur explained, "I think if you look at it, there are many who sort of have ridden the wave. You take consumer durable companies, you take electronics. I think if you take MIRC electronics. Take ONIDA for example. All the Indian players were dying. That is the only Indian player which is still there in the top 3."

Moving with the times entails having to adopt new technology but doing it blindly without understanding how consumers are going to use the technology may be disastrous. As Wind puts it, "There is a danger of instead of technology helping to be on the leading edge, you could be on the bleeding edge, which is not good for the company in the long term."

The GEC story was a case in point. It is a very dramatic case of timing where it comes to swapping mental models. Wind agreed, "That is true. It is a great example. In 1996, George Simpson took over General Electric, UK, which is different from the US one. He inherited basically a very stodgy but a very profitable company. His predecessor Arnold Weinstock had a great management system, he ran about 180 companies based on a very strict ratios."

"He was in a less glamorous field. He was in power, he was in defense and electronics and Lord Simpson decided to bet the future on wireless technology and changed the name of the company to Marconi to try to indicate this.

He bet the whole farm on one major change and it did not work. The environment was against him, maybe it was the timing, but he basically went all out after a single vision and the results were disastrous.

And he did not have a portfolio of business protecting him in case the bet was not right, nor did he realise some of the early warning signals that were ready at that time with respect to this industry."

"The result was that a company having a share price of over 12 pounds went to 4 pence a few years later and from a huge cash surplus, when he took over to a huge debt. That is one of the sad stories in terms of an unsuccessful one and the lesson for companies is this - if you really have a bold new vision, first of all have enough safeguards around it and second, don't put all your eggs in one basket and experiment."

At the end of the day, though, it's not organisations but individuals who matter. Wind elaborated, "First of all you have to remember that corporations are made up of individuals and the reality is between 9 & 5 when you are a corporate person, you are still the same person before 9 and after 5, where now you are not a corporate person but an individual. So obviously we are dealing with individuals here. The idea is to try this type of collision and try to see how can we get a better balance between the two and how we can learn from one another."

Written for www.moneycontrol.com

Stylish & individualistic homes

Homes are an extension of your personality - believe it or not - which is why people do chose the best possible decor, art, furniture for their homes. So, whatever is your poison, the idea is to do it with some kind of restraint and taste.

This can be tricky especially of you have decided on your home should sport the 'kitchsy' look. That's what restaurateur AD Singh and his wife Sabina Singh seem to have chosen for themselves. This couple have a extremely colourful gola-gaadi in their living which doubles up as a table. Well, they also have revamped an autorickshaw - dumped the front half and the wheels to double up as a loveseat!


Sabina Singh told CNBC-TV18, "Kitsch has to be transcended from the gaudy and basic to something made interesting. So, that has always been my endeavour." She's been inspired by the biggest, kitchsy industry of them all - Bollywood. She's got coasters with Hindi film posters imprinted on them. She's got film posters blown up and decorated with sequins, which she purchased from an arist called Baba Anand.

Their home also has a lot of religious art, which AD Singh confesses he's not a big fan of but all the same, he's got his favourites as well. One is an Imitiaz Dharker painting and another is a bust of Tenzing Norgay (the mountaineer who climbed Everest with Edmund Hillary, which was made by his grandfather.

What's more, the kitchsy look is getting expensive as everyone seems to have cottoned onto the trend. Well, Sabina Singh was among the first, so her instincts may just prove to be right and very lucrative as well.

Italian Inspiration
If homes are meant to make style statements, then the Consulate General of Italy in India, Giuseppe Zaccagnino's home certainly does. This man's walls are covered with art and of the really top class variety. He has been collecting art going back 50 years and in just his living room, he has over 300 paintings!

He says, "This (art of collecting) is acquired by feel. You can not mix up all kind of art becuae then it looks like a gallery. So, this (living) room and the corridor has a theme of Italian brigands. Italian brigands were a kind of social phenomenon in Southern Italy in the beginning of the 19th century. What you see in my home is the traditional Italian iconography - they look like romantic heroes who are goodlooking, wear good costumes - but in reality they were much uglier!"

His collection of paintings have found their way into a coffee-table book, which includes some of his earlier acquisitions as well. But he's been able to bring only a part of his collection to India because as a diplomat, he's keeps moving around and is only able to carry a bit of his collection around the world. But he confesses that he's looking for buyers because this hobby of his is turning out to be quite a burden!

He explains more about his paintings and says, "There were lady brigands who were tough and terrible. Then I have a Middle East collection which I developed when I was posted in Morocco."

His dining room is huge and Giuseppe has made the most of it because he's got even more paintings on the wall here as well. The theme here is 'Fortune Teller'. Then he even has a table made in Morocco, from just the root of a tree called tuya. This is where he has placed his collection of Fatima's hands, most of which were made by the Berbers, who are local Moroccon artisans. Some of these Berbers are Jewish (not all are Muslim) and so they incorporate Jewish symbols like the Star of David, in their work.

If that's not all, Giuseppe has a collection of porcelain, 1970s Italian furniture, and silverware, which includes statues of Lord Krishna and Goddess Saraswati (his favourite) which have been painted over with....nail polish! He's not letting us know all of his secrets because he does use nail polish along with some other things and as he puts it, he's becoming sophisticated about it. But yes, it looks great and what a nice idea!

The Consul General is a collector of everything else as well. He's got thousands of CDs (he's a fan of Indian music like sitar music and not necessarily Bollywood!). He's also got over 600 ties and as many suits! Now this is one man, who knows that quantity is fine, if you have an eye for quality.

Written for moneycontrol.com

Shopping Catalogues: Just eyecandy?

Shopping can be therapeutic for some. So if there is some way to do this not only at your leisure but also by just scanning some beautifully designed catalogues and ordering through the phone, then that’s even better…right? Keeping this in mind, Hypercity had introduced a catalogue called Argos, which had a range of products lined up. The catalogue was printed and designed well and after all the money invested in starting this initiative, it still went belly-up.

When I contacted Hypercity, they didn’t divulge anything about what had gone wrong but I heard talk about how they just weren’t able to manage inventory well at all. Besides this, the India Consumer Complaints Forum has a complaint listed on their website regarding the poor quality of their service.

When it had just started, yet another site had an overall good review of Argos but the reviewer questioned Hypercity’s decision to sell their catalogues instead of handing it out free of cost. So, are malls and stores (or anyone else) looking to bring in customers through shopping catalogues paying attention to these reviews? My guess is, they are looking at only what they want to see.

Giving away catalogues for people to browse through, which cost them money to print, will be a great gesture on their part, if they do it cleverly. For instance, they could allow people to scan catalogues at a separate counter, where they can be served coffee and can put up their feet and take a look at what’s in between the pages. They pay for the coffee but still can walk away without buying the catalogue and if they have seen anything they would like to order, they can do it right there, while paying their bill. All they have to do is make a note of the merchandise code and tell the cashier. They can pay for it there itself and walk home with a receipt with the product being delivered to their doorstep.

If this was allowed, then you don’t have to print so many catalogues and only send them out on request (and then charge for it, if possible). Another Indian shopping catalogue is Elvy - a lifestyle catalogue - based in Delhi. You have to e-mail them a request for their catalogue and then they send it to you. Their catalogue is of excellent quality and they have products priced from Rs 395 to Rs 89,995 across 11 categories.

They have done some catalogues for ICICI, Bombay City Guide, Citibank and American Express in the past. Currently, if you fly Jet Airways, you’ll find they have done the JetMall catalogue. A quick glance shows you that they do have some gorgeous filigree-work candle-holders and good quality leather products. Even the outdoor Cheers tub drinks stand looks like a good conversation piece. When contacted, the Elvy spokesperson wouldn’t reveal how much business they are getting via their catalogue.

The reality is that in India, catalogues are picked up and junked because people still like to do their shopping by touch and feel. On a certain level, there is also distrust that they will not get exactly what is shown in the catalogue. Besides this, there is also quality-of-service issues which Argos faced.

Another big brand which came to India 15 years ago and which was an established name abroad, was Otto Burlington. Any guesses what happened to them? These were people who claimed to have made money in the West but if Indians were not ready to shop through catalogues back then, when it was an exciting new concept, are they ready to do so now? I remember my parents poring over the Otto Burlington catalogue and then I got my chance and I suggested to them that we get a huge set of silver cutlery, which came in a velvet lined box. We ordered that and a curd-maker. The cutlery is still going strong and is still being used but the curd-maker was a damp squib. The end result was that my parents wrote off ever shopping from a catalogue and most other people do exactly this.

Other stores who put out brochures from time-to-time, especially during the festive season are Vijay Sales and Croma. But these two don’t seem to concentrate too much of their marketing effort into their catalogues and it shows. The catalogues are designed to be handed out with newspapers, which is smart of them. It’s also something that people may overlook completely if it falls down behind a sofa, while you are reading your newspaper. What’s more, these brochures are merely to catch the eye about what’s new in their stores, so you can step in and see the things for yourself. It’s not as much about sitting back and ordering your Plasma TV on the phone.

There is an ‘all or nothing’ approach to shopping via catalogues that somehow doesn’t exist with physically shopping for something. I think the reason is very simple. If you see and touch something and then buy it and if it turns out to be a bad decision or a faulty item, then you know the shop’s not going to turn you away when you show up for a replacement. With a shopping catalogue, no matter how much they reassure you, you always remember somebody else’s awful experience of having lost their money completely.

Another reason is an unspoken one. People feel like they have been made a fool of by unseen ‘fraudsters’ where shopping catalogues are concerned. Whereas with a shop, you can always go there and create a scene and demand a refund or a replacement.

Abroad, catalogues might be minting money because the trust factor is high which is not the case in India. Their services are much better and is not as much of a hassle as it is here. So, catalogues that absolutely ape the Western model, might just make it here. Winning over trust is the big deal and if that occurs, the rest will follow. When I wrote to Elvy asking them to share any customer testimonials with me, their representative Anuradha Mishra did not get back to me.

In the West, it’s not only malls which print catalogues. I have a beautiful Christmas catalogue showcasing the collections of 5-6 British museums in the most innovative manner, where they have very cleverly printed say, paintings by Monet onto playing cards or superimposed Van Gogh’s works onto vases or Cezanne’s paintings onto dividing panels that can make for such a stunning and at the same time practical piece of furniture.

When will our museums wake up to such incredible possibilities? Let’s get inspired by the good deeds of the West, especially when you can land up making so much money in the bargain!

PS - Since writing this article, I've received a brochure showcasing 25 historic stamps from the archives of the National Philatelic Museum, New Delhi. The London-based Hallmark Group and the Authority of India Post are issuing a limited edition of these stamps in a uniquely memorable manner. They are engraved on solid silver ingots which are the same size as the stamps and will be layered with 24 carat gold to create a wonderful collectors showpiece. Only 7,500 sets will be produced worldwide.

This glittering collection will be sent to buyers along with a velvet-lined lacquered wood case, a special edition of the book 'Enchanting India, an album of educational Fact Cards, a Jeweller's Cloth and Gloves and an official Certificate of Authenticity, signed by the Swiss manufacturer guaranteeing the purity of the gold.

Fittingly, since this is the first time something of this magnitude has been produced for India and in the honour of famous Indians and their achievements which these stamps epitomise - this collection is called 'The Pride of India Collection'. Each gold plated stamp costs Rs 6,700 inclusive of all duties and taxes.

Go online to order at www.prideofindiacollection.com or call 011-26207151/52/53 or 011-41207151/52/53

Shopping Etiquette: A Code of Conduct

With so much shopping activity going on, there should be some kind of unspoken and unsaid but clearly understood Code of Conduct kind of thing in place for shoppers – especially the chronic and the cranky kind.

I mean who wants to grow old while waiting in a queue, for the people ahead of you to get done making their payment. It’s usually at this crucial moment that crisis hits and a lot of people realize that they don’t really have that much cash on them. So, then out comes the plastic. In one instance I know of (because I was right behind the woman), she was holding up a queue at the cashier's to argue with her husband because he had blocked her credit card. Well, this situation was humiliating for her and embarrassing for the rest of us who were forced to listen to the conversation.

Huzefa Tapia of Grids & Words Design, an advertising and event management firm says, “Talking of etiquette, some people really don't have it. They think that if they are carrying 4-5 pieces of plastic with them, they can hold anything up. The thing missing here is the common sense in them.”

He adds, “Well.. talking neutrally, one can make a mistake once about getting their credit card block limit wrong, but all the time... it seems weird. Yet, if you are a compulsive shopper, the smart thing is to carry cash on hand or very politely letting some stuff go and coming back another day for it. This surely will help you not create a scene at the cash counter, eventually helping the line to move faster.”

“Smart people also do not buy everything with one credit card. They would spread it out evenly with 2-3 cards depending on the buy. The simple conclusion is be smart and carry some on-hand cash.”

At yet another store, where I had stopped by their coffee shop for some downtime and good coffee, I found this woman shrieking for the manager because she had spotted a rat there. It’s not the kind of thing that anyone wants to see in any place that sells food but in this case, the staff were trying to keep her under control and pacify her but she worked herself up to such a pitch that she added to the headache I already had!

In this case, I don’t know what led to the matter to become such a big deal because I got there midway during her screaming session but I know that rats are not going to flee because they hear a woman yelling at the top of her voice!

True, the woman was calling attention to a serious hygiene deficiency but at what point, the discussion turned ugly is anyone’s guess. So, when the store management is trying to soothe ruffled feathers and say they will look into it and address the issue right away, they are in damage control mode and doing their best. How is humiliating the staff going to help?

What is one to do but be a mute spectator and enjoy the show? Or walk out because it’s just a waste of your time? I did the latter. Besides, I was there for the coffee and it didn’t seem to be the right place to have it just then!


Since shopping is by nature such a communal and social activity, I think a shopping code of conduct has now become a necessity or else like road rage, we have already started to see many displays of shopping schizophrenia – where perfectly respectable and normally well mannered people behave like hooligans.

So here is my Top 10 Commandments list for shoppers and anyone reading this article can feel free to contribute as well.

1. Don’t hold up the line at the cash counter to argue with spouses over the cellphone about a blocked credit card. Use another card or pay cash and then discretely deal with your problem.
2. Don’t hold up the line to argue with staff about issues unrelated to your bill. I think there are enough people scattered around a store to give you a patient hearing if you have complaints about service, merchandise, store décor or whatever. The person to see should be the store manager.
3. Don’t stand over people while they are eating, so that they swallow their food in a hurry to make way for you. It’s impolite and if you wanted that table so badly, you should have got there earlier. This is especially for the people who throng food courts with a vengeance on weekends despite knowing that there is going to be a large crowd.
4. Don’t park your shopping bags in all the free chairs for miles around you in the lounge area of malls and also don't block an aisle with your shopping cart.
5. Don’t jump the queue at any cost. You are not that important - either to the store per se and certainly not to the people who were waiting there before you showed up.
6. Don’t indulge your kids’ bad manners at the expense of other shoppers. Putting your foot down and saying ‘no’ will make them value the money you are spending on them. If they refuse to behave, then next time please leave them at home, so the rest of us can have an enjoyable and peaceful shopping experience.
7. Don’t go berserk at a sale and grab things out of people’s hands and step on their toes while doing it. You are asking for a black eye or verbal abuse and you just might get it…free of cost!
8. Don’t shoplift. Celebrities with money do it …and get caught. They can manage to convert kleptomania into a PR spectacle but can you?
9. Don’t be rude to the elderly, the handicapped and obese people. It reflects on your upbringing when you snigger at them. Not everyone has the body type of an anorexic teenager…or wants to have one in the first place. Some women still do value their curves.
10. Don’t treat staff at the stores like they are your servants. They are there to help and guide and get paid to do it. They don’t get paid to take abuse and condescension. If you feel you are not getting their attention, then bring it up firmly and politely.

At the same time, if you feel that someone has made shopping a pleasant experience for you, then take that staff personnel’s name and give him/her some credit in the visitor’s book - if the store maintains one. You never know - you might be unknowingly responsible for that person getting a raise. But that person will remember you and give you a warmer reception the next time you visit the store.

Write in to me at promos@seconddealnsteal.com with your own stories or add more rules of conduct to this list. I'll post it here as well as on my ezine called 'Website for Seconds' on Zimbio.com. You can view that e-magazine here: http://www.zimbio.com/Website+for+seconds+in+India

Discount the Talk

The pinnacle of the festival season – Diwali – is just a week away and there is a lot of discounts, exchange schemes out there trying to entice shoppers. It goes without saying that if they have managed to discount a washing machine (and pretty much everything else) for you, then the usual maximum retail price (MRP) is really about making money at a bigger margin, all at your expense.

The smart shoppers always come out in hordes around major festive seasons. In India, it roughly starts from the month of August and lasts until October. Abroad, the Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping binges are when the major sales happen. This period should be labeled the smart shopping season.

Ever wondered though, how some retailers in India might be undercutting brands? Let’s take the example of clothing brands like Barbie and Lilliput, which have dedicated stores in upscale malls like Atria (in Mumbai) and possibly elsewhere in India. I’ve noticed that some large supermarkets and hypermarkets that retail these brands will offer a discount to coincide with the single format stores and actually plug their sales as if it were something unique.

Seen those advertisements enticing you with ‘Up to 50% off on Barbie clothing’? Well, around the same time, the brand itself is having an up to 75% sale at their in-house store. But in the shopping frenzy of buying everything from groceries, toiletries, stationery and food, people tend to do their clothes shopping in the very same place for convenience sake. So, the bigger sale discount offer on at the other branded store is hardly ever noticed.

I’ve actually visited a supermarket chain and a single format brand store in the same week, during a sale period and witnessed the stark difference. One is empty with sales staff trying to summon up enthusiasm to work through the day and the other is doing roaring business with people stepping on each other’s toes, trying to grab at stuff. Guess which is the successful one and which just got stiffed?

After observing this for a while, I’ve often wondered if I could walk into the supermarket and buy a pair of Barbie jeans for my neighbour’s cute little girl and ask them to give me the original brand discount of “up to 75%” and then tack on what they are offering of “up to 50%” and walk off with a whopping 125% discount on those jeans?

Realistically, depending on what I buy, let’s say I get 50% off from the brand (instead of the entire mythical 75%) and an additional say 30% off (instead of the entire 50% that’s being touted by the supermarket), then I still should get 80% off right? Well, it’s elementary math but not cool marketing from the supermarket management’s perspective and they never pass on this discount that the brand is anyway offering in the first place.

Otherwise, I would pick up those jeans, if priced at Rs 2,000 MRP prior to the sale, with the cool 80% off (if given) I would pay only Rs 400! Without this grand discount, at the supermarket chain, I’m paying (at 30% off) Rs 1,400. Meanwhile, I stand to pay less at the luxury store selling this brand exclusively during the sale period because it works out to Rs 1,000 at the 50% discounted rate value.

Not many people realize this and if they do, they are not questioning the wisdom of the great discount talk that is happening in these places. I wonder why? It’s your money and your right to ask pertinent and relevant questions, especially if your kids insist on using only branded merchandise. Without knowing it, you might be actually helping in undercutting the brand’s snob value, for the very things you buy with so much pride…and at such expense.

Consumers & Products: Who failed whom?

 

Have products always failed consumers or have consumers sometimes failed products? How one super successful sitcom almost didn’t make it because of faulty feedback.

As consumers, we use so many products through our lifetime. There are some which just remain etched in our memory since childhood. For instance, I don’t think anyone has forgotten the Parle G Glucose biscuits with that cute chubby kid on the wrapper and she’s still very much around. Another brand which had a similar cute kid on its packaging was Amul’s Nutramul chocolate milk powder. Now they have a cartoon of a kid trying a karate kick, on it!

I decided to make a list of products and services that have failed to sustain the advantages they had enjoyed with consumers. Some of them have actually gone and ruined what was a winner in the name of making improvements and no amount of customer feedback forms that I’ve filled out, seems to wake up their woolly-headed back-office staff! So, these I have definitely rated as products having failed me. I’m wondering if this is some really bizarre strategy of getting people to notice them anyway?

It does give stores some talk-time. I came across this video where two citizen journalists (I think) in the US, called Gary and Crystal, talked about how they had gone to some mall in Chicago to be in time for a free coupon that was being given out to the first 400 shoppers who walked in. They walked in at 9.00 am and found the store empty and the store employees pretending they didn’t know some such offer was on! One guy told them, the coupons were all sold out. Another lady told them, the store had only seen about 80 people or so. Both Gary and Crystal then go on to talk about how badly the store is managed and how even the clothes are not displayed well. Crystal finds a top-end designer dress marked down but hidden – if you didn’t look hard enough, you would never find it. She actually says that, may be someone in the store was hoping that she didn’t find it! So, you see, ultimately the store does get talked about.

Meanwhile, there are some products/services which were good and have still disappeared from circulation. I’m wondering if I should have hoarded some of them since I can’t seem to find them anymore and maybe the big bosses who run these companies, will finally get the message? Have I failed these products in some way?

The fact is that sometimes, some products are only released to test market reactions and then withdrawn. But how many positive responses do these firms need for a product to get a green signal and then a more mass scale launch? Go to the ITC website and you’ll see a range called Superia which is not launched on a big scale – either the shampoos or the soaps. I think this range is meant for tier 2 cities and towns but why not the bigger cities? They do have a very good shampoo made of hibiscus extracts and when I tried it, it felt good on my hair. Ironically, it’s available in sachets at kiranas (mom-n-pop grocery stores) across Mumbai but not in the bigger shops. Lately, I’ve not even seen this hibiscus one even at those small stores.

A few who reached out to many

Making online buying and selling as common as talking on the phone or stepping out for groceries was something that Avnish Bajaj CEO of Baazee.com did well. His is a story dreams are made of. An Indian Institute of Technology-Harvard graduate with a stint at Goldman Sachs, a dotcom survivor with a $50 million deal under his belt. He is the man behind one of India's biggest online success stories -baazee.com.

The baazee.com story began in 2000, when Bajaj along with his Harvard mate Suvir Sujan set up India's largest online auction portal. Along the way they bought out competitor bidorbuyindia.com and in 2004 global giant eBay came calling.

But the dream run suddenly turned into a nightmare, when Bajaj found himself caught in the middle of the infamous MMS scandal and ended up in Tihar jail. The MMS clip brought notoriety to the site for allowing it to be put online for sale. But Bajaj had support coming from various quarters, including high profile Condoleezza Rice weighing in on his behalf. After all the noise and show, Bajaj was released on bail and is trying to move on and put this episode behind him.

Now, being part of the global Internet giant - ebay's family, baazee.com is being used as a platform to drive growth in a market with immense potential. With a subscriber base of 1 crore (10 million) users, baazee is betting on what it sees as the second Internet wave in the Indian market. With competitors jumping into the online auction space, this market leader is constantly innovating to stay ahead

He is a perfect power-dressing corporate honcho and that may give the impression that he doesn't seem the adventure sports type. But bungee jumping, scuba diving and river rafting are what he indulges in when he's not warming up with a good book, which is his first love. When he gets tired of driving baazee.com to greater heights, he hopes to move on to direct public policy.

Another career that's hot right now with a lot of outgoing, peppy youngsters who want to groove to good music at work and snap out some great lines over a microphone and get paid for it! Well, there VJs and DJs but RJs are having fun too.

Radio jockeys at 92.5 FM Tarana Raj Kapoor and Ashish Jagtiani have Mumbai eating out of their hands. Well not literally, but they are burning up Mumbai's airwaves and winning quite a fan base for themselves.

With completely contrasting styles, the one thing that Ashish and Tarana have in common is their ability to talk, unscripted, unrehearsed and unleashed on the city of Mumbai, every weekday morning.

It isn't only her voice that's her fortune. Tarana has an equally successful TV career in serials like Kasauti Zindagi Ki and Kabhi Haan, Kabhi Naa and also hosts live events and TV shows.

Ashish does more than mesmerise on air and also works in the family's machine tools business. The money he's making now with his two different careers is being used to fuel his other passion - to be a serious art collector.

Both are good friends even off air and one of their common interests is their love for reading. But while Tarana may pick up a Shashi Tharoor, Ashish would head towards the management books section. But that's just what makes for great chemistry on air.

Written for moneycontrol.com

Beat the Recession with some Smart Shopping Do's

Are you the kind who shops till you drop? Then this recent recession must have dampened your spirits quite a bit. But don't worry, hope is around the corner and the economy is picking up steam. Read on to find some practical do's and don'ts of spending.

Shopping is what fuels the economies of the world but the current recession is not a good time to be a spendthrift. So, what does one do? No...shoplifting is illegal:) Instead shop and spend wisely. Almost everyone has probably begun to carpool and learnt to take the bus instead of cabs but that’s not all. Spending on essentials is where the money is now disappearing and here’s how to do that smartly.

# Check soap packaging. A snazzier new package always means an additional Rs 3 – Rs 5 to your wallet. So if you buy a dozen of these soaps, one lands up paying anywhere between Rs 36 to Rs 60 more. All for the fact that Katrina Kaif might just be wearing a different coloured gown on the new soap wrapper! Take the slightly older stock if available. .after all, it isn’t a perishable item.

# Similarly with shampoos. Reach for the stock at the back of the shelf because often that is where the older stock gets pushed and which also has the lower price tag, A Dabur Black Olive Shine shampoo costs Rs 89 for a 200 ml bottle but there was a time when it did cost Rs 82 and that bottle might just be within your reach right now! Bend over and grab it. Chances are that it will be still within an expiry limit.

Even better, go for those dinky sachets. For an entire month, even if you need to wash your hair every day, at Rs 2 a sachet, even the best brands work out to a reasonable Rs 60 (30×2). At 5 ml a sachet…for 30 days, it still works out to 150 ml for Rs 60. Let’s take this math a little further: to make it an even 200 ml..another 10 sachets of 5 ml will cost Rs 20. So, add Rs 60 + Rs 20 = Rs 80. It still works out cheaper than Rs 89..doesn’t it?

Here again brands differ…most of them have introduced sachets ranging from 5 ml, 7.5 ml, 8 ml and 10 ml, so these work out as even more economical, at the usual price of Rs 2 a sachet.

Let’s do the math with Vivel. The 200 ml and 100 ml bottles and 8 ml sachets are priced at Rs 89, Rs 49 and Rs 2, respectively. So, for an entire month, 30 sachets works out to 240 ml at Rs 60 only.

# This is where a woman’s expenses just can not be cut back on. So, make the most of freebies. Kaya and VLCC are forever offering packages to make one look gorgeous. So, go for the free patch tests and sessions wherever possible. I went to two different Kaya clinics for their free underarm laser sessions. So, it saved my waxing bill by a bit for more than a month! I wish they start offering freebies for the legs as well!

# Food products also have variable price tags. Brands cost more while the lesser known variety can be just as good and cheaper as well. For instance: the Garden brand of chips may cost Rs 25 for 150-200 gms but a brand called Mari chips will sell its chips for Rs 32 for 250 gms. So, in this case paying a little extra works because do a little a math and see that for the same 250 gms of Garden chips, one would land up paying Rs 40 for it.

Here's another eg: Take another much consumed item like cheese and there are three major brands available - Amul, Britannia and now Govardhan (Go). These come in packets of 5 and 10 slices and Amul has introduced super saver packs of 20 slices (Rs 130) and mega saver packs of 50 slices (Rs 186).

Let's do the math now:

Brand Price
Amul (10 slices) Rs 73

Britannia (10 slices) Rs 88

Govardhan (12 slices)* Rs 100

*(This has been introduced in 1 packet with 6 slices costing Rs 50 as of now and for convenience I've added two packets and 12 slices to fit with the other two in this comparison).

Anyway, what looks cheaper is obviously Amul but for 10 slices it works out to Rs 7.30 per slice. So for two additional slices at Rs 7.30X2 is Rs 14.60 (round off to Rs 15). Keeping this logic in mind, you would land up paying Rs 88 (73+15). That's Britannia's current price point and it's really a good deal but the problem is Amul doesn't sell 6 slices in a pack anyway. So in this instance, it's really Go which is the wise choice.

The focus shouldn't be only on saving money, it should be on extracting maximum value out of it as well.

# Using pre-paid cards or even switching to a lower value plan will help with cellphone bills.

# Most petrol pumps have ATMs and some even have convenience stores attached to them. Do all your shopping and withdrawing of cash etc while getting your fuel tank filled. So, repeat trips in your car can be avoided.

# Some people actually go to buy vegetables and fruits later in the evening because they know that they will get them cheaper. The vendors are desperate to sell their remaining stock and are amenable to bargaining.

# Sign up to fun services like Mginger.com because for all the advertising SMSes you agree to receive, you get paid 35 paisa and over time, you could accumulate money without giving it too much thought or effort. What's more, you can actually redeem them for 10% off coupons on a variety of services - travel packages, discounts at restaurants, beauty salons, book and movie websites etc. I recently redeemed just 1 point out of my account and got 10% off at Kareem's at Carter Road, Bandra. So, when the bill came to around Rs 320, I paid only around Rs 285 for a meal for two. I didn't skimp on the meal either! I had their famous chicken biryani, shikampuri cutlets and a large Sprite. So, you can get quality and quantity for the right price, if you know how. So, hook up with me at http://mGinger.com/index.jsp?inviteId=april4 on Mginger and you could avail of their mcoupons as well.

With money being a metaphor for power and protection, it is important to know the power of a few rupees saved - or for that matter spent wisely. I live with this motto: If you don't put money to good use - then it's of no use. You can borrow it as well!