IIPM Beyond Imagination: February 2013

Saturday, February 9, 2013

“Business of Content”

Sanjiv Kainth, Country Manager, IRDETO

B&E: What have been the highlights of the DTH-Satellite Pay-TV growth story in India?
SK: The highlight has been the tremendous volumes that the Indian DTH market has generated. There are many reasons for this but primarily due to the following: It is cheap, probably the cheapest DTH service in the world; the consumer finally gets a choice other than the LCO; and consumers in the non-cable or remote areas finally get access to good quality TV programming.

B&E: How important is content for the DTH players to differentiate with the rising competition?
SK: This business is all about selling content. There has to be a certain amount of exclusivity of content allowed to fuel competition and differentiate product offerings of the various operators. With all operators offering the same content it will be difficult for the ARPUs to increase.

B&E: What new technology trends can the industry expect?
SK: The immediate technology trends that are visible in the market are the PVR & HD services. The Indian market will need sometime for these to be accepted by the market and as the market evolves, more innovative middleware applications. Push VOD and increased interactivity are bound to be offered by the operators to make the viewer’s experience richer.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

2012 : DNA National B-School Survey 2012
Ranked 1st in International Exposure (ahead of all the IIMs)
Ranked 6th Overall
Zee Business Best B-School Survey 2012
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri’s Session at IMA Indore
IIPM IN FINANCIAL TIMES, UK. FEATURE OF THE WEEK
IIPM strong hold on Placement : 10000 Students Placed in last 5 year
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri – A Man For The Society….
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management
IIPM makes business education truly global
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM B-School Facebook Page
IIPM Global Exposure
IIPM Best B School India
IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM Links
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Fac

Friday, February 8, 2013

ONE YEAR AFTER LTTE

One year after the Tigers were silenced, the victorious Mahinda Rajapakse is stronger than ever. But as the Tamil Diaspora nurtures the dream of a Tamil Eelam, N. Asokan finds that only a meaningful political solution can bring permanent peace

The Fourth Eelam War in Sri Lanka finally came to an end on May 17, 2009, with the LTTE international relations head, K.P. alias Selvarajha Padmanathan, announcing that “The LTTE have decided to silence the guns.” Over 25,000 Tamils died in the final three months of the Fourth Eelam War which started in 2006. LTTE had waged armed struggle against marginalisation of minority Tamils in the island nation for almost three decades. From a position of controlling over 15,000 square kilometer, they were pushed to 2 square kilometer at the end of the War, with scores of Tamil civilians moving along with them. The end of LTTE came when its supremo Veluppilai Prabhakaran’s body was identified from the Nandhikadal lagoon.

Selevaraja Padmanathan, who was trying to revive the struggle with support from the Tamil Diaspora, was also arrested in Malaysia and brought to Colombo. As the first anniversary of the end of the war passes, the island nation has witnessed a series of important events in the last one year. In the political front, riding over the euphoria of triumph, Mahinda Rajapakse secured a massive victory in the presidential elections, he arrested war hero-turned political opponent Sarath Fonseka. Rajapakse’s party also secured a massive victory in the parliamentary elections. Rajapakse and his brothers have brilliantly strengthened their individual positions in no time.

But what has happened to the Tamils battered by the war? As the war progressed, LTTE was continuously on the run in the northern areas. It had already withdrawn from the east as their renegade ‘Col Karuna’ teamed up with Colombo. As a strategic move, it took three lakh Tamils along with it when it withdrew from its operational headquarters at Kilinochi. For three months, all these men, women and children were continuously on the run. These civilians became sitting ducks for the Lankan forces’ heavy artillery and planes. Everyday, scores of people died. When it was all but obvious that the LTTE would be defeated, they escaped the clutches of the Tigers and came to the side of the Lankan army. The strategy of the Tigers had been to get international involvement to force a ceasefire and simultaneously trying to bring about a possible turnaround in the fate of the war. It did not follow the script. Even the emotions whipped up in the state of Tamil Nadu in the run-up to the parliamentary elections did not yield the desired results. The octogenerian leader, M. Karunanidhi, addressed Tamil sentiments by taking part in a three-hour fast.

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Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Small in size, but huge in possibilities

Global fashion and lifestyle brands have suddenly started betting big on tier 2 cities of India. But why? B&E tries to find some answers to this and many such questions that came along its way when it visited one such city centre in the north-eastern part of the country.

A walk down the Deorali Street of Gangtok and apart from Dodrul Chorten, Sikkim’s most revered Buddhist shrine, one thing that is most likely to catch your attention is a huge Tommy Hilfiger store situated in the midst of this busy street bustling with small shops on both sides. Wondering what this $3 billion ritzy global apparel retail brand is doing in a North-East hill station that has somehow been able to save itself from the perils of urbanisation till now. Me too?! Until I met Shailesh Chaturvedi, CEO & Director, Tommy Hilfiger Apparels India, the next day.

“We would now be expanding more in tier 2 cities,’ he told B&E while revealing his company’s latest strategy to augment its presence in India. The company aims at becoming a pan-India luxury brand by 2010 and for this it has already planned to come up with similar stores in other tier 2 cities of the country that include Ahmedabad, Pune, Ludhiana, et al.

Interestingly, Tommy Hilfiger is not alone. Other lifestyle brands like United Colors of Benetton (UCB), Hidesign and Zara have suddenly developed a fondness for tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India. While UCB already has a two storey store in Siliguri (a tier 2 city in West Bengal) and is planning a few more in other small cities; home grown Hidesign too is going great guns and has just established a flagship store in Jaipur. Even Tag Heuer, the Swiss luxury brand, is gearing up to launch its stores in tier 2 cities in the near future. So, what is it that has caught the fancy of global retailers, who, till now, had restricted themselves to metros? Why are they betting big on tier 2 cities?

“With booming Internet and cosmopolitan culture there’s a group of consumers in tier 2 cities of India that wants to own lifestyle brands. In fact, the group always had the purchasing power to own such brands, what it lacked was there easy availability,” reasons Chaturvedi. According to Luxury Market Council of India, 9% of India’s affluent class puts up in tier 2 cities, which says it all about the potential that these beta (tier 2) cities have in store for global retailers. Further, with developed markets in the West reaching a saturation point, leading luxury players across the globe are now concentrating on India. As per Luxurion World 2009, India’s first Ultra Luxury Lifestyle Event held in Mumbai last year, the Indian luxury market is growing at 25% and is expected to maintain this growth rate for at least next 10 years. And the most of it would come from non-metros.

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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Intel outside, Qualcomm Inside!

Suddenly, a half-sized enemy known as Qualcomm, has stepped into the ring as a challenger to Intel’s heavyweight tech-title. How many rounds will this bout last? B&E’s Steven Philip Warner answers

One fine October afternoon, Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, stepped up to the microphone in a five-star hotel ballroom down the street from Intel’s Santa Clara headquarters, to address about 300 top managers from the world of technology and media. Just two minutes back, Intel’s CMO Eric Kim had outlined how Intel must “clear out the cobwebs” and put to rest many Grove-era philosophies! A deafening silence followed. For Grove, it meant giving his sanctified official approbation in his Hungarian-accent, to Otellini’s plans of jettisoning the old Grove formula of remaining cock-eyed on microprocessors for PCs, thereby pushing ahead Intel into more than half-a dozen segments, including wireless technology. And he did just that, that fine October afternoon of 2005, a day in the life of Intel, which was supposed to change its future forever... which it has, at least till date!

In the four years that have followed, Intel has not been able to return revenues higher than the $38.83 billion it had recorded in FY 2005! To imagine that this followed a consistent 13% y-o-y increase in annual revenues till 2005 isn’t quite the painful ordeal, for here comes the bombshell – when Grove relinquished his CEO title in May 1998, he had presided over a 4,825% growth in Intel’s Mcap (that touched $197 billion). But since Otellini took charge in May 2005, the company has shed 30% of its value (that fell to $107 billion as on January 31, 2010). Clearly, Otellini, despite his ‘timely’ move into mobile devices, failed to factor-in threats from worthy opponents, who have over time, chiselled away Intel’s market dominance. And the most dangerous amongst the challengers is the $66 billion Qualcomm, as Tom Halfhill, Senior Analyst, In-Stat Reed Business Information US tells B&E, “Qualcomm’s strength is low-power ARM-based system-on-chips. It will take a while for Intel to match its top rival’s low-power & high-scale of integration.”

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Monday, February 4, 2013

Plastered to the Wal!

Walmart has failed to replicate success everywhere

They say ‘once bitten, twice shy’; unfortunately Wal-Mart didn’t learn even after a dozen bites!!! Its failure saga began in Germany, where it couldn’t adapt to the German consumers’ culture of hunting for the cheapest products in multiple stores and their resistance to hypermarkets. Finally after incurring losses of $1 billion, Wal-Mart was compelled to sell its 85 stores in 2006 to rival Metro AG. There are also other incidents in other countries which prove how Walmart’s international plans have been smashed to smithereens. It had to invest £337 million to get a grip on its suffering business in Japan (2005), sold-off 16 stores in South Korea (2006), found existence literally impossible in Brazil and Mexico (where sluggish gains and dreadful public relations marred it all). Even Prof. Alan Rugman of Indiana University comments, “Wal-Mart is not competing globally... The first and foremost duty of any retail chain before going global is to gather local knowledge...”

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