What does the CEO expect from HR?

It is the most buzzing question echoing in HR leaders’ minds today. As they are nearing excellence in their core functions, there is certainly a growing need to reflect their contribution to the P&L statement. The Human Factor converges the C-suite expectations from HR. Read more...

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HR Guru

Connecting several thousand professionals across the globe, HR Guru aims to bring them together on a common platform and provide a forum for discussing persistent problems and finding solutions to their queries. HR Guru seeks to provide guidance to budding professionals in dealing with their daily work demands and providing a third party perspective to their situations and issues.

Job seekers can look for their dream jobs through the platform HR Guru provides and employers will find the right talent that they seek. The HR Guru page on Facebook also provides a medium for job hunters and employers alike, where the twain can meet and fulfill each other’s needs.

HR Guru, through its team of high calibre professionals and experts also provides valuable insights into the industry trends and recent researches, and keeps professionals abreast with the best practices in the corporate world.

Giving valuable inputs on people skills and providing the right guidance to professionals across the world, HR Guru is the voice of the people in the corporate world. Click here to Read full Interview...

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Sangeeth Varghese

Sangeeth Varghese, who was nominated for the Young Leader Award at the World Economic Forum was the guest keynote speaker at Bengaluru. Verghese is an expert from LSE and the founder of LeadCap Ventures. The event progressed, and a session on global market research turned into an engrossing storytelling session as Verghese quoted both from The New York Times’ Adam Bryant’s “passionate curiosity” and Frans Johansson’s classic The Medici Effect. He masterfully linked it with the need for HR practitioners to learn from other disciplines like sales.

Then came the sales expert Bob Urichuck who enlightened the audience across both cities. As HR is always expected to understand, appreciate, and even learn from other functions, it was an opportunity to learn a few insights and important tools of the “people” function. “It is not the price that closes the sale. You will make the sale when your prospect feels certain that he/she is getting the best value for his/her money. Over 60 per cent of the salespeople are not using this simple strategy to succeed,” said Bob.

The programme had discussions on the lines of behavioural approach. Some of the topics that covered in the discussion were: Only person who can motivate you is yourself; work for your dream, work for your dream; success is the progressive realisation of goals; etc. Click here to read more...

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Apple shifts: Businesses, too, have eyes for ipads, iphones

Steve Jobs never cared much for selling Apple products to big businesses. A funny thing has happened, though, in the last few years. Big companies have started buying Apple products – a lot of them – for their employees

The late Apple chief executive so disliked the process of catering to the needs of business, rather than those of consumers, that he called chief information officers in corporations “orifices” at a conference in 2005. “There are 500 men and women in the Fortune 500 – CIOs – that you have to go through,” Jobs said then.

A funny thing happened, though, in the last few years. Big companies started buying Apple products – a lot of them – for their employees. The iPad and iPhone have given the Apple symbol a presence in workplaces that Apple never enjoyed when it was strictly focused on selling Macintosh computers.

While corporate technology buyers say Apple does not try to hide the fact that consumers are still its top priority, they note that the company has gotten easier to work with in recent years, adding features to its devices that make them more palatable to business. It also doesn’t hurt that Apple’s new chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, is known to be far more at ease meeting with the CIOs Jobs once so memorably disparaged.

“What they’ve done in the past few years is really started thinking in a deeper way what the enterprise needs,” said Rich Adduci, chief information officer of Boston Scientific, a medical device manufacturer that has distributed about 3,000 iPads to its field sales people and expects to buy 1,500 more by the end of the year.

Apple, which declined to comment for this article, has begun to drop hints that it sees the corporate market as a big growth opportunity. During recent earnings calls with Wall Street analysts, Apple executives have boasted about the portion of Fortune 500 companies testing or deploying iPads and iPhones – 92% and 93%, respectively, Apple said in October.

“You never heard those stats before,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. “The reason why is they struggled for decades, and finally they have a story to tell in the enterprise.”Among the big customers Apple has won recently is the home improvement retailer Lowe’s, which said it bought about 42,000 iPhones to be used by employees on store floors. Instead of having to find a computer, the employees can use the devices in store aisles to check inventory, pull up how-to videos and help customers estimate costs for painting, flooring and other projects.

Airlines have begun to use iPads to replace the printed aircraft flight manuals, navigation charts and other material that pilots are required to bring on board. The binders holding those manuals typically had to be popped open every few weeks by pilots so they could replace pages with updated information. With iPads, the updating occurs electronically.

All of Alaska Airlines’ more than 1,400 pilots now have iPads, and United and Continental Airlines, which have merged, started giving iPads to all 11,000 of its pilots in August.

“We’ve shown we can retrieve an electronic page faster than we can retrieve a printed manual,” said Captain Joe Burns, a United pilot and managing director of technology and flight tests for the airline.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

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10 steps to build a successful Asian brand

Building a brand is an overwhelming task. Here’s a quick ‘how to’ guide for asian companies to build great brands and get the best out of the process

The orientation of brand management has gone through substantial changes over the last few decades, and has evolved as a more integrated and visible part of the overall corporate strategy. The evolution of the brand equity concept during the 1990s, development of advanced financial brand valuation models and its adoption by advisors and their clients, and emergence of better brand tracking tools, have all facilitated the elevation of the branding discipline beyond the middle management and into the boardroom.

Asian boardrooms generally lag behind this trend and tend to manage brand marketing from a bottom-up perspective instead of a top-down perspective. There are a couple of reasons for this. As marketing and brand decisions traditionally have been managed in mid-level marketing departments among most Asian companies, a large emphasis has been placed on tactical marketing activities as opposed to strategic branding approaches led by corporate management. Branding has been widely perceived as advertising and promotions.

But several indications show rapid progression in the right direction for select Asian companies where branding as a strategic tool has become more recognised and accepted within their boardrooms. This is also driven by the increasing attention on branding and its value-driving capability among stakeholders, media and opinion leaders across Asia. To achieve these objectives successfully, Asian companies must follow a comprehensive brand strategy framework supported by a systematic process throughout the organisation.

There are 10 crucial steps to building a successful branding strategy and manage its implementation. The steps enable Asian boardroom to focus their attention on the required areas, and serve as check-points which can be tailored to the individual company’s specific needs and requirements.

1. The CEO needs to lead the brand strategy

The starting point for branding must be the boardroom, which also serves as the most important check-point during the project. The CEO must be personally involved in the brand strategy, and he must be passionate. Fully buying into the idea of branding is necessary. To ensure success despite the stressful routine which entails various duties, the CEO must be backed by a strong brand management team of senior contributors, who can facilitate continuous development and integration of the new strategy.

2. One size doesn’t fit all: Build your own model

All companies have their own specific requirements, set of business values and a unique way of approaching business functions. Therefore, even the best and most comprehensive branding models have to be tailored to these needs and requirements. Often, only a few but important adjustments are needed to align them with other similar business models and strategies in the company to create a simplified toolbox. Remember that branding is the face of a business strategy, so these two areas must go hand in hand.

3. Involve your stakeholders including the customers too

Who knows more about your company than the customers, employees and many other stakeholders? This is common sense, but many companies forget these simple and easily accessible sources of valuable information for adding value to the branding strategy. A simple rule is to use 5% of the marketing budget on research and at least obtain a fair picture of the current business landscape including the perceived brand image among stakeholders along with the brand’s positioning.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

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“Most people are sincere”

Customer and dealer centricity in tandem have been key to the success of JK Tyre in the Indian market according to A. S. Mehta

For A. S. Mehta, a career spanning 25 years in JK Tyre has been professionally and personally fulfilling. From starting as a CA, Mehta took up additional roles in the company before becoming Marketing Director in 2007. In this interaction with amir moin, he talks about his personal and professional journey & success mantras:

What is your leadership style? What are the factors that have contributed to your success?
Since the last 25 years, I have always believed that most of the people are sincere and committed. They have the passion to succeed and aspiration to move upward. My efforts have always been to channelise their passion and their competencies to excel in their respective fields. I have followed the inspirational style of leadership rather than the hierarchy-based style. Highest degree of integrity, very focused approach for any assignment, quick decision making, easy access to members of the team, coverage of connection, process driven and systematic style of functioning have been the attributes to whatever I have done for JK Tyre.

What would you regard as the key milestones in your journey to this position?
I must say that success is a journey where the destination is not defined. It is always a moving destination because once you reach one destination you have the next destination in your mind. Hence, there have been many milestones. Keeping the sales force united and motivated was the first milestone and thereafter, there were several milestones like leadership in the truck radial market, introduction of CRM, introduction of fleet management and introduction of dealer relationship management et al.

What are the unique strategies that you have undertaken for the Indian market and what is the outlook at the moment?
We have been a prominent player in the commercial tyres, OTR and car tyres. For commercial tyres, our strategies have been two pronged; one on the customer front and the other one for channel partners. In the Indian market, the dealer is the most influencing factor and we have been very strong in our relationship with channel partners. On the consumer front, our Fleet Management and Customer Relationship Management have been the best initiatives in the tyre industry.

How do you spend your free time? Which is your favourite vacation getaway?
I am very religious person at heart and family man. Whenever I get some free time, I like reading on religion, philosophy and spend time with family and relatives at religious places. I’m also very close to my brothers, their children and even other distant relations. It has been an inner urge to do whatever I can do for them. For vacations, the best place I could think of is Udaipur.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

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“Security threats have grown more complex”

Pradeep Nair, Director, Software Group, IBM India/South Asia discusses the security market, client expectations and ibm’s competitive edge

Security is a big concern for business in today’s time. Which industries are the most concerned about security issues?
When we look at the Indian market, we have BFSI, telco, retail, organisations in the government space; we have a number of sectors which basically are large. Who would be concerned about security? Typically they would be organisations that need to protect their brand & reputation in the market or have a mandatory regulatory compliance requirement. So when I look at it from a prioritisation perspective, I think BFSI is one of the key adopters from a regulatory compliance perspective, or from the perspective of data protection; ensuring there is no risk of data loss, unauthorised entry or unauthorised access into their systems. A lot of organisations have adopted such solutions. The next set of customers is from the telecom base. With the kind of massive inroads into technology, giving access, going ahead and working with clients, having huge amount of customer information are areas that organisations wish to protect. You would have heard in the news about breaches that led to degradation of an organisation’s brand value. The ITeS and BPO sector are also very stringent from a security perspective. Efforts from NASSCOM and the industry have been made to ensure that once companies from outside India outsource their infrastructure and data & applications, it is maintained and operated in the most secure environment. These companies are most concerned and want to adopt the best security infrastructure. We are also working with regular enterprises that could be across manufacturing retail, healthcare and even in the SME space.

Despite innovations, security threats persist in today’s organisations. How are the threats different today, say, with respect to around a decade back?
Firstly when you look at threats, they can be in the form of worms and viruses; unauthorised access into your network infrastructure; access of privileged users to information that they are not supposed to see; when you are looking at a global mobile workforce and you open up your access to infrastructure for productivity, security gets compromised et al. The threats have only gone more complex and with the greater penetration of IT, they are growing. Worms and viruses that harm infrastructure and productivity are there today as before. IBM has a solution called endpoint security that ensures that your patch management and virus updates are in place. For external threats, there are intrusion prevention and protection systems so that the threat is mitigated. Threats haven’t changed, they are only evolving. For instance, seven to eight years back, there was no phishing like, say, sending e-mails posing as banks and asking for your details. I think those are increasing now. Around 2-3 years back, the banking system got vulnerable in the face of these attacks.

There has been a spate of recent attacks on organisations and even government infrastructure. So does that mean organisations are not really as prepared for security breaches as they look?
You are as secure as you think you are. You think you are secure and when there is an attack, you realise that you are not. IBM has brought out a security framework that is a combination of our capability around software, hardware and services – a complete framework. It has three tenets. The first is around security governance – rules and policies that organisations lay down and ensure that they are followed. There should be a security governance leader who ensures that the rules are followed and there is a right monitoring capability in the organisation. The second tenet relates to risk management. What is your approach to managing risk? What is the analysis that you are doing on the risks faced day in day out by the organization? How do you really manage current and future threats? And what is the best way to manage security exposure? For instance, how do you really correlate that the incident that happened was due to a vulnerability in the firewall or was an unauthorised access? The third tenet is compliance. Companies must ensure that the current security infrastructure meets compliance requirements and established guidelines.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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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JWT Meet the Icons!

Call it luck, Call it anything, but ‘Vispy’ and ‘Debu’ were destined to meet and create wonder together

One is extremely funny. The other is no less in terms of wit too. We tag them as the most effervescent duo (not literally!) of the Indian ad industry. Meet Vistasp Hodiwala (Vispy), VP & Senior CD and Debu Purkayastha, VP & CD, JWT, who believe that finding the right creative partner is 90% your luck and 10% your partner’s. Here are the iconic Lead India campaign creators!

How did you two pair up as a team?
VH: It was in 2007, when I was looking for a change after a rigorous stint at McCann Erickson. At that time, JWT had just acquired Agnello Dias and was looking for fresh talent to supplement their talented core. Aggie called me and requested me to meet Debu. I didn’t think twice.

DP: Senthil and I were a team. After he left for Bangalore, I was looking for someone to partner me. I met a few, but nothing fructified until I met Vispy. There was an instant connection as he was quite honest and spoke from his heart. Plus, he was bawa and I love bawas!

You two had struggled with your first campaign as a team. How was your experience working on that?
VH: Our first piece of work did not see the light of the day. It was for The Times of India, and it got shelved. It was like hitting the ground running because with TOI you have to be on the ball as soon as the brief is delivered. And then, there’s Aggie’s breathlessly healthy competition to contend with. However, our first proper work together which broke in the media was the incredibly awarded Lead India campaign. Needless to say, it won us the first ever Grand Prix for Indian Advertising and the First Integrated Lion at Cannes.

How was your industry experience before you two paired up successfully?
DP: I started as a Jr. Visualiser in Triton in 1992. A year later, I moved to Bangalore HTA. But soon returned to Bombay and joined Saatchi & Saatchi. Some crazy bug bit me there and I teamed up with a friend to start Digital Nirvana, a digital multimedia design studio way ahead of its time, just to call it quits soon. Then, in short stints, I worked with RK Swamy BBDO, Channel V, STAR TV, Hongkong, till 9/11 happened and I decided to come back to India. I stayed undecided for a few days trying out art direction for TVCs, direct marketing, CRM and web designing. Finally, advertising beckoned again and I walked into JWT.

VH: Materials Management, the subject I specialised in, wasn’t exactly getting my life’s juices flowing smoothly. And one fine day, when yet another corrupt supplier’s charms got too much for me to resist, I wrote out in longhand an application (nah, a plea) to the head of an agency, which was growing at a breathtaking 236%, to hire me as a trainee writer. It was 1994 and I started my advertising carrier in Percept. Then I worked with many mavericks like Murzban Shroff and Mohandas KK. Later I worked with Prasoon Joshi and Agnello Dias; two immensely successful creative directors, who couldn’t be more dissimilar in their approaches.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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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The true Indian! On camera!

The man shares with Amir Moin & Neha Saraiya his career journey, the past, present and future of Fujifilm India, and why he loves India considerably

Kenichi Tanaka
MD, Fujifilm India

As we step into the plush interiors of Fujifim India’s office in Gurgaon, we contemplate how our delay in reaching this MD’s office – owing to the record rainfall in Delhi NCR – would affect the quality of our discussion. Much expecting to see a miffed Japanese face as we scamper through the corridor leading up to his office, what comes next is much pleasantly surprising. Sitting comfortably in his plush office, Kenichi Tanaka’s face splits into a smile on seeing us. Even before the ceremonial introductions, he confides to us the fact that the vagaries of Delhi’s rain and traffic delays are very well known to him. It hits us then that Kenichi Tanaka, MD of Fujifilm India, is perhaps more accepting of the Indian-way of functioning, than we ourselves. Here was a true blue global citizen! That said, despite being a globetrotter, Tanaka still deeply respects Japanese culture and values; something that keeps him rooted.

Tanaka started his corporate journey in 1978, when he joined Fujifilm. 32 years onwards, and Tanaka is one of the most respected multinational leaders in Fujifilm history. The respect bestowed upon him by his colleagues and peers for expanding Fujifilm in seemingly difficult geographies, is legendary. When Fujifilm decided to set up a wholly owned subsidiary in India 2 years ago, Tanaka was the man of arms that the Fuji top brass chose. The market was replete with top of the mind recall for arch rivals Canon, Sony, Nikon and Olympus. But Tanaka had this great self belief that their products could be targeted at the mid range consumer segment. He excitingly shares, “Sony and Canon are considered as premium while Olympus and Nikon market cameras with value for money. We saw a market in between – the mid range segment – and concluded that our high quality offerings and a reasonable pricing would make for a potent combination to tap this market.”

It was tough going for the first two years. Tanaka confesses that the situation was tough as consumers were not even award of their brand. The first hurdle therefore was to make consumers aware of brand Fujifilm. Dealers and retailers were not willing to budge an inch. However, thanks to extensive investments in training and development of sales force, Fujifilm soon established its own fraternity among the dealers. “We overcame the initial challenge of establishing our products with the retailers and dealers. But still, we have the task of replicating the same with our customers. To make sure this happens, our company is in the process of conducting training sessions round the year wherein, we train our sales force to handle both the customers as well as retailers and dealers,” says Tanaka.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM Best B School India
Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri-The New Age Woman
IIPM's Management Consulting Arm-Planman Consulting
IIPM in sync with the best of the business world.......
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IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

Makings of a great marketing escape!

Vivek Nayer hopped on to M&M after a vast experience in FMCG & consumer durables. And auto has been immensely exciting as well, as he discusses with Pawan Chabra of 4Ps B&M

Vivek Nayer
Executive Senior Vice President – Marketing (Automotive sector), Mahindra & Mahindra

It had been just a few days since the Marketing team of the automotive division at M&M was shifted to the Kandivali office at the Western Express highway from the Worli office when we landed for the interview with Vivek Nayer, Senior Vice President – Marketing (Automotive sector), M&M. However, even on a normal Wednesday afternoon, while the refreshing environment at the lush green facility was not matching with the usual scenario that one finds at the offices in the financial capital, the work was going in full flow.

Prior to this assignment, he was working with Reckitt Benckiser back in the UK, certainly one of the best names in the FMCG business. The decision to relocate to India was because of the India growth story. In fact, Nayer still misses his BMW 5-Series and the kind of Lebanese food he used to relish in London. He didn’t come into the automotive sector by design. The first offer that came to him was from M&M and he joined the company in 2005 to give it a shot for six months but comments, “Here I am five years hence, which clearly means that I am enjoying it a lot.” The kind of portfolio that Mahindra has is quite unique even compared to other players in the industry. However, he feels that the marketing foundations to engage with consumers remain largely the same.

Words like tough, rugged and solid are almost synonymous to the Scorpio, Xylo and Bolero models that Mahindra offers to Indian consumers. And that’s not all. The marketing philosophy that M&M follows in terms of advertising and positioning its brands is very different to what the rest of the industry follows. Be it the recent commercial featuring the ace photographer Atul Kasbekar for Xylo or the earlier campaigns, it has often followed the road less taken. “At Mahindra, we focus on the product and its positioning rather than the brand ambassador; unlike the case where the consumer has a recalls for the brand ambassador but not the products that he endorses,” avers Nayer. In fact, Nayer considers the success of Xylo without any cannibalisation in the Mahindra portfolio as one of the major successes that he has had so far in his M&M stint.

Nayer stepped into the corporate world after finishing his Master in Management Studies from the University of Mumbai back in 1987. After six years at Voltas, Nayer stepped into Reckitt’s premises in 1993 and was there for over a decade handling different brands and divisions. “But I was one of the lucky ones to handle Dettol in Reckitt,” recalls Nayer. He admits, “FMCG is one sector where one gets a clear understanding of marketing and sales concepts. Perhaps that’s why you see people with marketing and sales background in FMCG moving to the other sectors and not the other way round.”

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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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WILL THE CONCEPT OF MOMICS WORK? (WE SAY “YES”!)

Mobile Comics are back again. The last time they appeared, they slipped back into coma. Will this time be any different or will we witness a repeat?

If the mauling of Romans by Asterix and Obelix fascinates many, the idiosyncratic gestures of Suppandi in Tinkle or the audacious exploration of Tintin make hours on a weekend seem like minutes for the young-minded readers. But call it either a germination from the various Earth-saving movements or an intervention of the technology gods, the paper back craze is now going mobile too! Teenagers today are catching up with their favourite comic characters on their cellphones and sharing it with their friends. Welcome to the world of mobile comics; call them ‘Momics’!

So what’s this latest fad? To put it simply, it’s nothing never heard of before. Historically, Nazara (a gaming portal) first experimented with the Archie momics in 2005. The concept bombed. This time apparently is the second coming for momics, with many telecom operators, content providers, advertisers and of course comic players betting big on this medium.

Opines Rajesh Razdan, Co-founder & Director – Sales and Marketing, mCarbon (a telecom VAS provider, which also develops mobile applications and tools), “Various reports in the media value the comics market anywhere between `100 crore to `400 crore. Approximately 10 million comics are sold every year in the traditional manner. And with the digital/mobile media augmenting the personalisation and outreach in all respects, the comic book market should witness at least a 50% appreciation in market size over the next three or four years.” To this, Gaurav Luthra, Head – Content, Mogaé Digital (a mobile advertising player), adds, “With some innovations, more smartphones and 3G on the horizon, the market for momics is set to increase manifold. The market at present is estimated at about 25% of the current 600 million telecom subscribers. It’s a big audience.” Currently, many experts opine that Mogaé Digital is the largest player in this segment today, with close to over 100 titles across various genres like folklore, mythology, history, fiction et al. Some of its famous momics strips include Tenali Rama, Akbar Birbal and Bal Hanuman.

Typically, the momics category has three entities in its ecosystem:

(a) Content Providers, that range from established print comic book publishers like Diamond comics, Raj comics et al to TV channels like Cartoon Network to independent content providers like Mogae Digital, ZealCity et al. They create the content which then is distributed by the telecom operators directly or through the portals of Mobile VAS players;

(b) Mobile VAS Players/Technology providers (like Rediff, mCarbon et al), that act as aggregators for content. Users access the portals of these VAS players and then subscribe to the content which is delivered through the telecom operators or companies like ZeroSum, which act as application providers to the telecom operators;

(c) Telecom operators (Airtel, Vodafone, Tata DoCoMo et al), who have billing relations with the users. The users can subscribe to momics directly through a telecom operator or through a mobile VAS provider’s portal.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

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

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