Royal Enfield Classic

The legend is back: Royal Enfield made a lot of news in 2009 with the launch of the much-awaited Classic series. The single spring saddle seat and body coloured bumpers are the main attraction of this offering giving a classic biking experience of the pre-independence era to the rider. The bike, which comes in two variants – Classic 500 and Classic 350 currently, has around 3-6 weeks waiting on an average. While the Classic 500 has a twin-spark fuel injection engine, the 350 carries a carburetor engine. The design for this product has been crafted keeping in mind the looks of the cruisers that ruled the market in the 1950s, but it still has a timeless look and has a loyal set of consumers in the country. The Classic series has been accepted by the consumers with open arms and is expected to create another niche under the Royal Enfield’s umbrella in the long-run.

Pawan Chabra

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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Despite being offered as a freebie, mobile banking has been unable to make inroads into India’s huge urban subscriber base of over 170 million.

Now banks have once-again woken up to its potential. What’s the fresh brouhaha over this service that has actually had few takers in India? Manish k. Pandey on a fact finding mission...

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Atul Pathak, a 36-year-old who works as senior marketing manager with a leading telecom service provider, boasts of being a part of that rare breed of professionals (of course, in his age group) who have always acted as vanguards when it comes to the use of technological innovations. In fact, he says it has almost been two years now since he last visited his bank for a financial transaction. Thanks to features like internet banking, he’s been able to save himself from the ritual of queuing up at banks apart from other banking hassles.

So, when mobile banking was launched in India a couple of years back, he was among the first few enthusiasts to take it up with a smile. But, his smooth smile vanished soon enough thanks to an over dose of effort on his part to get a hang of this two-year-old offering by his bank, which appears just as alien to him. “I am still ambiguous about this new channel, its service offerings and smooth processing,” says a visibly confused Pathak.

Even Akanksha Roy, a new-age advertising professional who too is a technology freak like Pathak, is not much of a mobile banking enthusiast. However, her reasons for not being one are little different from that of Pathak’s. “I am still not comfortable with the idea of paying my bills through mobile as I feel these transactions are more vulnerable to frauds,” she tells 4Ps B&M. No doubt, tech-freaks like Atul and Akanksha, or for that matter most of them, have found themselves facing a similar predicament at some point of time when it comes to the use of mobile banking channel. Be it ambiguity towards the service offering or the confusion regarding security threats, most of these tech-savvy consumers still find themselves in the same shoe.

Perhaps, this is the reason why despite being offered as a freebee, mobile banking has not really taken off among the huge urban mobile subscriber base of over 170 million in the country. “The registered user base for mobile banking is approximately 25 million or 7% of total subscriber base in India. In fact, the active user base for such service is as low as 10% of total registered base, which is a negligible number when compared to the huge Indian mobile subscriber base,” agrees Prathima Rajan, Analyst, Celent.

So, what is it that has prompted banks to suddenly go gung ho over a service offering that actually has few takers? Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about mobile banking, which offers twin promises of ubiquity and low cost. Apart from this, mobile banking is being considered as the service of the future, as such it becomes all the more important for banks, technology service providers, application providers, et al, to work together to develop a healthy mobile banking ecosystem in the country. “Phone banking is a very common phenomenon in the global banking world and in India bankers who are not providing such facilities are actually depriving consumers of technological advancements,” avers Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES Bank, which has recently launched mobile banking services in association with Obopay.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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After a short stint with the oldies, Red FM is once again setting its eye on Gen-X.

But, will it succeed in becoming aaj ke zamaane ka radio station? Finds Pawan Chabra...

It was almost a decade back when the Radio industry in India witnessed privatisation, thanks to the government that finally waved its magic wand over this dying industry and paved the way in for private players. Not many, for sure, would have then known that this humble ‘restart’ would one day lead the industry towards an era where it would find itself loaded with scores of buzzing activities.

Cut to today, and the situation is such that the players in the industry are taking various initiatives to break the already cluttered space to make their presence felt. The players are not only trying hard to beat the competition heat, but are also resorting to various marketing strategies to stay relevant in an industry that has huge potential.

So, when now everyone is talking about ‘youth’, ‘the young’ and ‘Gen-X’, it’s 93.5 Red FM that is among the first few that seems to have identified the need of the hour. In fact, it has been busy revamping its sound and feel for the past one month now. The channel is repositioning itself as ‘aaj ke zamaane ka radio station and not baap ke zamaane ka’ and promises to play songs that are released post 2000 with an aim to become a youth centric channel. Apart from repositioning, Red FM made news a couple of months back (in August) when the company rebranded all its 38 SFM stations under a single Red FM’s umbrella. “Over the last few months, we had introduced songs belonging to a slightly older era since they tested well with our TG. But, we realised that while these songs were popular, by airing them we were confusing our target audience who had come to expect only the latest superhits on Red FM. Thus, the rationale behind the move is to go back to our roots,” explains Anuj Singh, National Marketing Head, Red FM.

However, so far, the repositioning initiatives have been limited to Delhi. “Radio is a local medium and audiences in different parts of the country. For instance, the difference between the audience in North East India and the audience in Andhra Pradesh is same as the difference between chalk and cheese. So while the repositioning will work with listeners in Delhi, it may not achieve the same amount of success in other markets. As of now, we don’t have any plans of extending it to other regions, however if our research leads us to believe that such a repositioning may work in other markets we may revisit our strategy in the future,” Singh reasons the move.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here

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The Discovery of ‘Rural’ India

It’s the microfinance institutions that make millions step into consumerism each year, graduating from the economics of necessity to the economics of gratification

India has one of the largest networks of bank branches in the world, but the hundreds of millions of poor in the country are largely out of it. With 52,000 commercial bank branches, 14,522 branches of regional rural banks, 100,000 cooperative bank branches and growing, the country is teeming with institutions that should be able to meet the credit needs of the people who are starved of formal credit. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) came as godsend to try and transform themselves into successful mini-entrepreneurs, which in turn is pushing consumerism in rural India.

Rural India stands a testimony to the growing consumerism. India’s 700 million villagers now account for the majority of consumer spending in the country, more than $100 billion a year. Millions step into consumerism each year, graduating from the economics of necessity to the economics of gratification, buying themselves motorcycles, televisions, transistor radios, et al. As per NCAER, rural households form 71.7% of the total households in India. Spending in this segment is growing rapidly and consumption patterns are closing in on those of urban India. According to MART, rural India buys 46% of all soft drinks sold, 49% of motorcycles and 59% of cigarettes. In fact, this trend is not limited to utilitarian products: 11% of rural women use lipstick. No wonder then that a leading mobile company recently announced plans to roll out a micro-financing offer in 12 states to make mobility more accessible to rural markets and notably, to the female population in rural India. Conducted across over 2,500 villages, the microfinance scheme of the mobile company allows easy payment scheme on handsets to women consumers at a weekly installment of Rs.100 over 25 weeks. Although the level of affordability in rural India is low, MFIs are creating a virtuous circle of higher income, higher productivity & higher consumption.

India, home to 25% of the world’s poor, holds great potential for microcredit. There has been an explosion of MFIs, usually set up by NGOs. A decade ago, India had only 400 MFIs with 200,000 customers between them. Today, we have around a thousand such institutions. Commercial banks, too, have started participating in the movement and the result is that microfinance now serves around 17 million people. This is narrowing the chasm between India’s flourishing cities and rural hinterland.

Spread across 650,000 villages, with an average population of 1,100, rural villagers were long imagined by city dwellers as primitive, impoverished and irrelevant, something to drive past on the way to something else. Millions of poor women are today using small loans to rewrite their present and future. The movement has made them more confident than ever helping them to explore new horizons, new dreams. The most active states are Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Other states where such self-help groups are making a dramatic difference are Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. But poor women, who are in the forefront of the micro credit movement, use the small loans to jumpstart a long chain of economic activity from this small beginning.

Corporate India has carefully timed the announcement of the discovery of the rural Indian market. For the last quarter of the FY09, the country’s business and financial press has run a number of articles to explain how rural markets for consumer products are doing very well, how companies which have products for hinterland have done their balance sheets much good, and how the economic slowdown can be successfully beaten by selling to the rural India. A FMCG company realised the power of rural India. Project Shakti was born out of this realisation, and it has become a case study for business schools and evolved beyond its original goals.

Certainly, the opening of this new frontier of consumer demand from 700 million people could tip India’s role in the global economy from seller to buyer, from a vendor of outsourced skills to a source of consumers for the world’s wares. And that’s the reason why MNCs, from Coca-Cola to Nokia, appear increasingly keen to understand Indian villagers!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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HIP N’ HOT: GANDHI ROCKS

India’s first family + their heritage = power brand #1

Forget blue-blooded marketers, most Indians these days – whether Gandhi family supporters or not – vouch for the enormous equity that the name ‘Gandhi’ enjoys in India’s socio-political fabric. And while the present credit for the same may go to Sonia and her brood, like most corporate brands with a 100 year legacy, brand Gandhi’s present-day charisma cannot be comprehended completely without taking into account the political legacies of Nehru, Indira and Rajiv. Says sociologist Dipankar Gupta: “The Nehru-Gandhi brand is the only one political brand around that can attract mass voters.”

As a metaphor, ‘Gandhi’ evokes all positive associations with the birth and formative years of India as a modern nation state. And the troika of Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka enjoy all these positive brand associations by virtue of their familial connection. Sonia wins points for first being written off as an Italian Roman-Catholic, unfit to lead a Hindu-nation, and then praised for resurrecting the Congress. Rahul Gandhi, with his brand of youthful politics has more recently brought in the relevant youth connect to Congress’ traditional ardour. And Priyanka Vadra is reputed to be the silent force behind the popularity of her mother and brother (she was Sonia’s campaign manager in the 2004 General Elections, and also supervised Rahul’s campaign). Sonia, Rahul & Priyanka – India’s first family is what we call them; brand Gandhi is how we buy their political commodity!

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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