Enterprisers.in

“Have Breakfast… or… Be Breakfast!”

Support — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:37:23 +0000

“Have Breakfast… or… Be Breakfast!”

By Y. L. R. MOORTHI

[Management Views from IIMB is an exclusive column written every two weeks for india.wsj.com by faculty members of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.]

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel’s parent) are breathing easy you can’t be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple’s Iphone and Google’s Android can make life difficult in future.

But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The “Mahabharat” (the great Indian epic battle) is about “what is tomorrow’s personal digital device”? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question – “who is my competitor?”

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says “What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?” The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won’t compete on pure audio? “Elementary Watson”. So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as “digital.”

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question “who is my competitor for tomorrow?” The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared “internet is a fad!” and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape.

The point is not who is today’s competitor.

Today’s competitor is obvious. Tomorrow’s is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no.

Remember, if there is one place where Newton’s law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC’s price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film’s competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour “tamasha” (entertainment) . Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is “I don’t remember!” For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is “alarm clock.” The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called “alarms.” What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary!

The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said “Have breakfast …or…. be breakfast”!

That sums it up rather neatly.

—Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore.

Courtesy : Khushnood Viccaji

Online Resources for Entrepreneurs

yazdi — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:31:29 +0000

Gone are the days when you had to run from pillar to post to figure out the most efficient ways to fire up your business. While starting a venture is still far from being “just a click away” the internet has certainly ensured that you literally do have enough information at your fingertips and that once you’ve sorted regulatory issues out, you can tap into several online resources to get yourself up an running. DARE takes a look at some of the best online resources, including some India-specific ones, that budding entrepreneurs can tap into.

Click Here for the full Article

Service Tax Online

yazdi — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:42:48 +0000

Grid Seminars

yazdi — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:04:09 +0000

Greetings from Grid Consultants !

Encouraged by the good response to our Leadership Grid seminars in the Leadership Development year 2010 , we are extremely happy to announce the following two seminars in February 2010

The Solution Selling Grid Seminar for Sales Personnel & Management Students - Date: 18^th-19^th February 2010

The Grid Works Seminar for Officers, Supervisors & Management Students – Date: 25^th-26^th February 2010

Venue ; Dr.P.N.Singh Centre for HRD , 502 – 505, 5th Floor, Sai Chambers, Near BEST Bus Depot, Opp. Railway Stn, Santacruz (E).Mumbai – 400 055

These seminars are for young potential leaders below the age of 35 years

The plan is to give them scholarships so that they could attend the world famous Grid Seminars which may be otherwise out of reach for them because of the cost. These Grid seminars are conducted in 40 countries of the world.

In India itself we have conducted over 500 seminars.

We would like to offer 2 such scholarships each to your organisation

The scholarship will get adjusted against the fee.

Please find attached herewith Brochures with all details like fee etc

Hope that you will make use of this golden oppurtunity and we assure you that this investment made in Human resources will give excellent results to your organisation

Kindly send us the nominations at the earliest, so that we could send the study material for pre-work which has to be completed before the seminar.

With warm regards,

Dr.P.N.Singh

Chairman

Mobile : 9867922228

http://www.grid-india.com/gridindia.asp

Clusters for SME growth

yazdi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:22:08 +0000

Jagat Shah - Chief Mentor

“A cluster is a geographically proximate group of companies and associated
institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities “

Cluster Pulse , an ISO certified economic development agency is a professionally managed, self-sustaining, autonomous institution with excellence in implementation of Cluster Development initiatives as its main objective through the twin approach of market intervention & technology upgradation in SME’s.It has worked in 82 clusters in partnership with GTZ, UNIDO, USAID, IFC, World Bank, The commonwealth secretariat, Govt. of Canada, Govt. of Brunei, Government of India – Ministry Of Textiles, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of IT & communications & State Govt. all over India & in 10 other countries including USA, Canada, Brazil, Sweden, UK, Croatia, South Africa, Oman, Brunei, Turkey & Afghanistan. We have worked in 80 industry vertical like Textiles, agro, engineering, pharma, consumer goods, ICT etc.

Click Here for more information for SME training, marketing and growth

Tips for All

yazdi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:05:32 +0000

Tips.net is a great resource for quick helpful tips on a variety of topics. Whether you are looking for household tips, cooking tips or computer tips – its all there on this comprehensive and useful resource.

Many topics which demand detailed explanations have sub-sites of their own. So we have excel.tips.net for tips on Microsoft Excel, health.tips.net for Health Tips, home.tips.net for Home Improvement Tips that you can use, and cooking.tips.net to cook up a storm !

A nifty feature is that several tips are also accompanied by videos on How To, which become very valuable when we are looking at Fixing Scratches in CDs and DVDs, Using Hair Removal Creams or even Washing Your Sneakers

We all seem to love our cars. We spend a good part of each day either driving or being driven in cars, and that is no accident. We seem to grow more attached to our cars each day. Because cars are such a big part of our lives, doesn’t it make sense to learn all you can about how to better get along with your car? You can find the tips and techniques to do just that at Car.Tips.Net.

From now on, if you are surrounded by clutter, just look up organizing.tips.net and if you love your pet and looking for ways to help – you have pet.tips.net. And, of course, we all love our families – so if you are looking for Behavioral Tips, Marriage, Parenting, Parties and Safety tips, just connect to family.tips.net

So just go ahead have a “tip-sy” day !

Logo Contest – UIDAI

yazdi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:54:46 +0000

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been established by the Government of India to assign unique numbers to all residents of India. The role that the UIDAI envisions is to issue a unique identification number (UID) that can be verified and authenticated in an online, cost-effective manner, and that is robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities.

The UIDAI invites proposals from the public for the logo. If a particular logo is found appropriate and selected by the UIDAI, it would carry a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh to the sender of the logo. Consolation prizes of Rs.10, 000 would also be provided.

Click here for the Contest Guidelines

Tenders Information System

yazdi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 10:44:16 +0000

This Indian Government Tenders Information System is the Central Source for Government and Public Sector Procurement / Tenders/ Notifications issued by the Central and State Governments and other public bodies across India for goods, services and works.

Tenders based on specific Product/Service category to which your business can respond

Civil Works, Equipment, Machineries, Support Services…

View all Tenders floated by a certain Government of India entity

Central Govt. Min. / Dept.

Tender notifications by the Tender Category, namely

Click Here for this storehouse of the latest Tenders by the Government of India

Startup Advice in 3 Words

yazdi — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:51:20 +0000

Dharmesh Shah is the co-founder and CTO of Hubspot. Dharmesh has held a number of technology management and development positions. In this very interesting piece, he gives brief, focused and extremely valuable advice to startups which can be practically used in all situations. He calls them triplets ! Some Samples :

1. Watch your cash.

2. Pick founders carefully.

3. Hire generalists early.

10. Never fudge numbers.

11. Encourage diverse thinking.

Click Here for the full article

The Future of Credit Card Swiping is SQUARE

yazdi — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:33:53 +0000

more about "Square payment system for iPhone demo…", posted with vodpod