It’s time to unveil the Hero @ Honda!

The Ex- Gillette and HUL Veteran, Anil Dua has been an important pillar in the Hero Honda growth story. Dua takes Pawan Chabra through many personal and professional chapters of his life

Anil Dua
Senior Vice President-Sales, Marketing and Customer Care, Hero Honda

When Anil Dua, Senior Vice President – Sales, Marketing and Customer Care, Hero Honda decided to move from the FMCG industry to the automotive industry, he had already realised the fact that while it will be a shift from the industry that he works in, the business and marketing principles will still be the same. He candidly accepts in a chat with us in Hero Honda’s Gurgaon plant in the state of Haryana, “I have been able to adapt to the FMCG environment and apply it to the automotive industry.” For the records, Dua moved to Hero Honda in 2006 after spending a valuable span of 16 years with Hindustan Unilever. It is to be mentioned here that Anil Dua entered the Hero Honda family at a time when its arch rival, Bajaj Auto was very close to overtaking it as the largest player in the Indian two-wheeler industry. Dua recollects, “As we decided to focus on the top-lines rather than bottom-lines, the strategy paid off in no time.”

While the formula to success was to chase revenues and the assumption was that profits will follow suit, the company has been able to get its cards right and Dua has played a vital role in this whole exercise. He says, “My leadership style is in a way inspired from Bhagavad-Gita as it teaches to focus on the means by which the ends will take care of themselves.” Clearly, Hero Honda has also followed a similar path over the past few years. Dua ensured that despite the fact that Hero Honda launched close to 15-16 models in a total in its 20 years of existence, since 2006, it has been able to launch 9-10 new models or variants every year for the past four years now. But the success story goes beyond the aggressive launches that have been made by the company. Be it the network expansion plan under which the company has taken its touch points figure from the year 2000 mark in 2006 to more than 4500 recently or the aggressive advertising that the company has been doing for the past few years, it has surely been hitting the sweet spot of the Indian consumer. “We were already standing on a firm wicket and with a brand that has been nurtured with utmost care for many years, what we have done is we have touched new heights standing on that firm wicket in the last four years,” says Dua.

Dua as a person has always been on his toes to ensure that the company and his brand are on the top of the mind of the Indian consumer. When asked on how he maintains a healthy work-life balance, Dua answers in a flash, “The biggest personal accomplishment has been that me along with other members of the management have been able to convince the company to move to a five days a week format rather than the earlier six days a week and we have been working 5 days a week since April 13, 2009.” In fact, Dua ensures that he does not take his work home even if it demands spending a few more hours in office to ensure that he spends quality time with his family on weekends. “I do not carry a laptop to home and carry it back. Although, BlackBerry makes up for it but I ensure that I give time to my wife and my two boys,” shares Dua. On a usual weekend, apart from spending time on common hobbies like crosswords, cricket, tennis and movies with his family, Dua likes meeting friends and visiting his parents often. Hero Honda, as a company, on the other end also provides a couple of opportunities where families can be involved within the work frame. Be it the family day that the company hosts once a year or the hockey and cricket matches that the company participates in, it surely is a support to its employees to ensure that they devote time to their families as well. “The Hero Honda family day is a great platform where all the families get together and quickly get to know each other. It kind of gives a moral support that everyone is sailing in the same boat and are equally busy,” adds Dua.

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 Proves Its Mettle Once Again.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

The man who made India love Ronald

For the first time in a long time, Vikram Bakshi shares his personal experiences on how McDonald’s rejected him... and then accepted him. By Angshuman Paul

Vikram Bakshi
JV Partner, McDonald’s India (North & East)

Jack Trout in his book The Battle for Your Mind talked about how companies can target customers in a crowded market by focusing on ‘positioning’ rather than simply selling their products. That was the year 1981. It was also the year when a young entrepreneur from India was planning to target Indian consumers with various imported products. In his frequent visits to the West, he had noticed how Western goods attracted the Indian masses, simply because they were, well, Western. Interestingly, during this man’s various sojourns to Europe, his one stop solution for food was McDonald’s. And every time he entered a McDonald’s outlet, his only thought was about replicating the concept in India. Over time, the idea gained structure in his mind. Vikram Bakshi tells us today how he wrote at least ten times to McDonald’s head offices in the USA proposing a business venture; and how he never managed to receive a positive response.

Vikram Bakshi apparently was too headstrong to give up. And finally the day arrived, much after liberalisation had set into the country’s economy. The era was 1990s and the Narsimha Rao-led Congress government had opened its gates for foreign players to enter India. Recalls Vikram, “Things had started changing dramatically in the Indian corporate world, and I was continuing with my overseas export business.” This was the time when Big Mac was all set to foray into the Indian soil. And Vikram got to know about it from the most unexpected source, his neighbour, who turned out to be noted hotelier Madhusudhan Thakkar (he has many restaurants in 5 star hotels to his credit) who was keen on taking the franchisee of McDonald’s. Eventually, Madhusudhan backed out, and Vikram decided to move ahead. Vikram found some more help from unexpected quarters. Pramod Bhasin, the President and CEO of Genpact, helped Vikram draft the initial offer letter and even Vikram’s resume. The underlying challenge was to convince the brass at McDonald’s that Vikram had the wherewithal to take up the national franchise. And one day, Jim Gemher – VP for franchisee operations at McDonald’s set up a meeting with him. In the ensuing three-hour conversation, Jim extracted every possible piece of information from Vikram. “The very next day, I was called for another meeting,” says Vikram, “but there were other bidders here including big players like Ansals, Modis, Mahindras and several others too. All my confidence died down and I thought I would lose the contract. Even then, I just repeated whatever I had said to Jim the previous evening.”

Despite all the biggies bidding, Jim chose Vikram (he revealed later that Vikram had been chosen right after the first meeting itself). Today, Vikram Bakshi is the MD and JV Partner of McDonald’s for the northern and eastern regions in India, and has made McDonald’s a brand that has been able to consistently provide Indians with classic as well as contemporary value-for-money quick service products. It is also the only QSR in the country that sources 90% of the products from within the country. Interestingly, Vikram has not just roped in the best of the Indian suppliers, but he has also introduced them to its global buyers. As a result, not a single supplier has left Big Mac since the very beginning of its journey in India. And it’s the sturdy supply chain that has helped Vikram, therefore McDonald’s, to reduce the raw material cost and eventually become an affordable brand.

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 B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

“Ooh Ads need to reach Non-Urban India”

With ever increasing clutter in traditional media, out-of-home media is regaining relevance in India. Romeer Sen, Executive Director, katha mediamix explains ooh nuances

How much importance is given to OOH media in the media planning stage of a company or brand?
The common objective of the business concerned and advertising is winning consumer confidence, and support. Out of home is where the maximum population at the same time can witness the brand communication and therefore every media strategist needs to incorporate OOH as an inseparable media vehicle in its planning. Human vision is prone to watch anything colourful in nature (whether a poster or billboard) for which outdoor ads serve the purpose and is interesting too. Advertising and marketing have grown and matured over the years. The idea has become more than clear that sticking on to traditional media or at the same time, pushing the new age media to ‘purely sell’ is not going to get the marketer even an ounce of value addition or brand equity. Instead of just observing the brand communication, consumers today prefer to be more opinionated with the kind of consumerism around each one of us. Every consumer today needs to relate with a communication and get involved in the entire process rather than feel isolated.

But there’re major changes in OOH...
Today the world is on the move and the target group literally is traveling extensively and has very little time to get hooked to other forms of media. Out-of-home in different forms reaches the target group at places where other media is still fighting to reach. We ourselves are pioneering innovative ways of advertising in OOH. Presently, even we have introduced this new OOH concept in Mumbai’s Sahara Star, wherein we have identified unique places for advertising and branding. It’s a concept which will be a breakthrough in advertising in India.

How is the Indian OOH media different from the western world?
In India, media-spend in OOH is only 6% but the industry has shown promising growth. The reach of outdoor advertising needs more penetration and customisation to other non-urban places in the country. In the West, OOH media means interaction, making consumers almost feel the brand while they see it. There, marketers don’t cluster the market with too many hoardings but distribute it systematically so that every brand can be seen by the consumer. I strongly feel that the disparity and gap between both the worlds has considerably decreased with an eye towards innovation and developing new properties for brand communication.

What all accounts are you currently handling and what activities are you doing for the same?
Currently, we are handling OOH accounts for Amby Valley, Sahara Star, ICEX, MCX, Essar Group, Gujarat Cement, Mainland China, UB Group. For all the major clients we currently look into conventional outdoor properties like billboards, bus shelters, public utilities, kiosks, bus panels, taxis etc.

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 B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again.....
IIPM Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri on Internet Hooliganism
Arindam Chaudhuri: We need Hazare's leadership
Professor Arindam Chaudhuri - A Man For The Society....
IIPM: Indian Institute of Planning and Management

TAKING ON COMPETITION, ONE ‘CHOP’ AT A TIME!

In the midst of recession, indian it firms made radical transformations in their business models. now it’s time to do the same for their brands

By the time you read this, the chop shop fiasco and the resulting outrage would probably have sobered down. But reasons to doubt American intentions on being a responsible trade partner with India have only become stronger. A well chosen terminology and a smartly chosen target (if Infosys is a chop shop, it essentially can be interpreted to mean the entire Indian IT industry) has given Senator Charles Schumer the ‘15 minutes of fame’ he was looking for.

Such statements have more to do with American frustration over their current situation rather than the Indian IT sector’s credentials. But from the perspective of Indian companies, improving brand image and value proposition is definitely an issue for introspection. This is not about making the Schumers eat their words, scoring points, or ‘15 minutes of fame’. As discussed in a previous issue of 4Ps B&M, the cost competitiveness factor in the global IT sector is fast getting elusive with rapid commoditisation, and it would take some doing to ensure that these companies get back to the growth rates they once enjoyed.

Firstly, it makes sense to analyse the vantage point on which the ‘Made in India’ brand stands today. Nitin Khanapurkar, Executive Director, KPMG Advisory Services, comments, “They are no longer just low cost service providers or support functions. They are perceived to manage IT effectively and allowing businesses to concentrate on their core strengths.” Over time, these companies have moved from being application developers to developing strong vertical expertise, efficient India-centric delivery systems and of course low cost. More importantly, these companies have stood tall on standards of transparency, ethics and credibility, apart from the Satyam debacle.

Sreedhar Ramanujam, CEO, brand-comm, particularly admires how Infosys took that leap, “Infosys and its founder NR Narayana Murthy in particular kept talking about “ethics” and the way they handled the sexual harassment case gave credence to that.” Besides, Infosys led the way in showing that PR was more effective as compared to advertising. JP Singh, former MD, Bausch & Lomb India & now management consultant, comments, “PR can have high sanctity. User testimonials & key messages through PR can provide a complementary ‘surround’ effect.”

It was expected that the recession would seriously challenge the Indian IT players and expose the chinks in their armour; particularly the dependence on verticals and geographies. Indeed, when you look at the figures, the industry aggregated $73.1 billion in 2009-10., growing by 5.3% yoy (NASSCOM). This is quite subdued in comparison to a growth rate of 30.1% in FY 2007-08 (and NASSCOM also includes Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies like IBM, Accenture, et al). And yet, India remains an integral part of the offshoring strategy for around 51% of the addressable global market and plans to hire 90,000 more people in this year. Their approach to the recessionary phase has been to better serve their clients by improving operational flexibility, adopting radical pricing models, deepening client relationships and building new ones as well as getting adept at delivery through emerging technologies like cloud computing, virtualization and Service Oriented Architecture. Dinesh Sampath Rangaraj, Head, Business Marketing, MindTree Limited (which relied on traditional business models earlier), comments to 4Ps B&M on the shift, “Now, we’re creating business value through market-ready products, services and solutions with a non-linear business model (FP, risk-reward, based on output rather than input).”

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 B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....

Cover Feature - 4Ps Business & Marketing

A study conducted by Interbrand also shows that a strong corporate brand could add 5-7% to a company’s stock price in a bull market, and mitigate losses in a down market. Debashish Mitra, Head-Marketing, Mercedes-Benz India gives us a similar view when he talks to 4Ps B&M, “Investing in a firm from just financials point-of-view is nothing but looking for short-to-mid term gains. It’s always the brand that is the long term asset for a company and subsequently for an investor,” he tells 4Ps B&M. His industry colleague, Sandeep Singh, Deputy MD, Toyota Kiloskar agrees with him and feels that brand reputation and market returns go hand-in-hand. According to him, if there is a hit on the brand, a company could lose grip on the market and vice-versa. He recalls when Toyota posted a loss in the last fiscal, its share prices too went down at the bourses. But it was brand Toyota that quickly managed to regain the lost investor sentiment.

At the same time, a research done by Corporate Branding Partnership LLC, a UK-based consulting firm, during the two-day stock market crash in the US in October 1997, revealed that while companies with strong brands regained their losses in just two days, companies with weaker brands failed to recover. Thomas J. Madden (from University of South Carolina), Frank Fehle (from Barclays Global Investors) and Susan Fournier (from Boston University) did a similar study (Brands Matter: An Empirical Demonstration of the Creation of Shareholder Value through Branding) in 2006 and found that if one had invested $1,000 in August 1994 in the 111 strong-brand companies (as per the Interbrand World’s Most Valuable Brands), this investment would have more than quadrupled into $4,525 by December 2000. The same $1,000 investment in the overall stock market would have turned into $3,195 by end of the year 2000.

“Therefore, when making investment decisions, it would be completely irrational for shareholders to ignore what has an effect on the value of their investments,” says Hubert Gatignon Professor of Marketing, INSEAD.

Certainly, a company which has strong brands in its product portfolio is usually more resistant to economic stress and as such can provide a more reliable and stable forecasting in terms of revenues and profits. Given this, brands are increasingly treated as any other asset producing demonstrable results for shareholders. “One of the main pillars of a company is its brand value. Most investors while doing valuation keep it in mind. Because the higher the brand value, potentially higher is chance to book profits. It becomes even more critical in a wired world, when, one wrong report in the social media, and your brand’s value might plummet. Along with your profits,” agrees Anindya Banerjee, Senior Creative Director, Publicis India.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

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.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website

IIPM B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

Extra Activity - A Landmark Felicitation Ceremony

National Award winning film and stage actor Soumitra Chatterjee was awarded for his contribution to immortalise Tagore-created characters and poems through his acting and recitation respectively. Due to some personal engagements, he couldn’t attend the ceremony, but film director Anjan Das received the award on his behalf. Each of these awardees received Rs. 1,00,000 in prize money each, including a gold medal and a citation. Along with these awards, IIPM also announced the institution of three foundations (worth Rs. 10,00,000 each) in the memory of four legendary contributors, namely Shambhu Mitra (theatre), Satyajit Ray (film), Nandalal Bose & Ramkinker Baij (fine arts). The earnings from each of these funds will be utilised to honour and nurture the talents in these three fields. The ceremony ended with an expectedly inspiring speech of the Honorary Dean of IIPM, Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri. In his uniquely majestic deportment, Prof Chaudhuri took us down the memory lane of his childhood and spoke about his love for Tagore. He said, “Tagore’s vision of equitable society is still prevalent. We haven’t yet been completely successful to craft a society where humanistic values like ‘survival of the weakest’ will be a common practice. We need to imbibe Tagore’s philosophy and make our society a better place to live for the future generations.”

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

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.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website

IIPM B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

India needs to be abreast of the global environment in the banking arena;

While that may be simply, banks in today’s scenario have to manage a suite of products, which makes consistent quality of service delivery extremely critical. Hence, the measurement of service quality is an important ‘health’ vector for a bank. While we might think this is critical in consumer banking, this is as critical for corporate customers as well. The vectors that one measures and monitors might vary across customer groups but the importance of it does not.

The rural markets are not left behind in service innovation. With the quantum of market share resting in the rural areas, these segments cannot be ignored and hence both the government and banks are taking ample initiatives to cater to the rural segment. Be it biometric ATMs or prepaid cards, now even the rural customer is kept in mind while developing the products to meet his requirement. Truly, banks are coming up with innovative products and services purely with rural customers in mind.

We are seeing that regulators are playing a critical role ensuring customers do get value for money and get delivery as per banks’ promises. At the bank’s level, this is done by creating bodies like a Banking Ombudsman wherein customers can approach in case of mis-sell or delivery issues. This gets the banks to proactively measure service delivery. This is evident on the assets side as well – be it credit cards or home loan offerings to customers.

With the suite of products that banks are offering and the ever increasing competitive environment, the sector is trying to enhance tools to cater to the customer through his life cycle and hence ensuring a larger share of wallet from the customer.

Like I said already, the key to that is banks being innovative, preempting the requirements and offering products, which are better than those in the open market and ensuring smooth delivery. Well, what else could a customer ask for!

Vandana Alagh Khanna, Head – Service Assurance, IndusInd Bank

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

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.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM ranked No 1 B-School in India
domain-b.com : IIPM ranked ahead of IIMs
IIPM: Management Education India
Prof. Rajita Chaudhuri's Website