Customer World

Capital One's Card Lab - Get your customized credit card

Capital One recently announced the launch of Card Lab.  Ron Shevlin writes about this:

Capital One launched Card Lab, which it claims is the first “do-it-yourself” credit card offer. It’s an interactive tool that lets prospective card applicants choose among a number of options to build their own card package. Not surprisingly, you can’t get a 25% annual bonus and 2 points per $1 charged and 1.25% back on purchases and….you get the picture (otherwise see below).

My take: Card Lab is a winner because it:

1) Builds up versus narrows down. Card Lab’s approach puts prospects in charge, and presents the options in such a way that they can easily see the tradeoffs they make when selecting certain options.

2) Engages with interactivity.Card Lab, on the other hand, is a great demonstration of the interactivity the channel is capable of delivering. Serious prospects can play what-if to their hearts’ content in order to understand the product features and tradeoffs available to them.

3) Yields actionable data.The web analytics folks at Cap One are going to have a field day with Card Lab. Analyzing the usage, trends, clickstream, etc. should help Cap One marketers get a really good understanding of who’s looking for cards online, what their preferences are, which features are most popular, and so on.

I agree with Ron completely. It's a great idea and extremely customer-focussed.But, CardLab sounds a little intimidating to me.Another key issue though is actually the process of accepting or rejecting applicants - that is, how customer-level data is connected real-time for approving and disapproving an application as credit cards are fraught with credit-risks. Am sure Capital One has the process taped-up for this.But, this is a key factor for positive customer experience and product adoption. 

Here's one more product that fits-in with all the advantages what Ron is talking about:

Closer home in India, my example is HDFC Bank's NetSafe card for customization,customer-centricity and the method to manage the process well. It's a lovely little product. In fact, it works on the fear of Net Security which is a primary concern for credit card customers using their cards online.

NetSafe, is a unique online payment solution that offers complete security while shopping on the Internet. With NetSafe, customers can shop online through a virtual credit card, without revealing their actual HDFC Bank Credit Card number. What's more,they can use the HDFC Bank Debit Card(Check Card) also for online purchases. Customers here choose their account limit for this specific card - Value of credit limit, date of expiry of the card etc.! Customer can create as many online credit cards as possible(subject to the overall accepted credit limit).

21st Century CEOs - The emerging specialist CEO

BusinessWeek has an interesting article on the challenges of finding the right CEOs for corporations. The article goes on to mention that it will soon be the age of specialist CEOs. Take a look:

James M. Citrin, corporate kingmaker, has long had a close-up view of the leadership demands of the world's most dynamic companies. As founder of Spencer Stuart's technology, communications, and media practice, the executive recruiter has placed 165 chief executives, chief financial officers, and directors since 1994.

Citrin expects five specialist CEO types to be in the greatest demand:

• THE BRAIN
  Whether they're algorithm geniuses, coding prodigies, or merely credentialed scientists or designers, CEOs in touch with their inner geeks will be a sought-after breed. As global competition intensifies the pressure for top-line growth, innovators-in-chief will be more clued in to the next breakthrough business. ARCHETYPE: Arthur D. Levinson, the CEO of Genentech. (DNA ) Levinson has a PhD in biochemistry and is known for sending out late night e-mails to his researchers on details in scientific papers.
• THE AMBASSADOR
  A two-year stint in London may have counted as enough international experience in the past, but that won't be the case much longer. "More and more of our CEO specs are calling for explicit business experience in emerging markets," Citrin says. Boards are looking for CEOs with passports showing frequent visits to China and India, along with Russia, Brazil, and Dubai.ARCHETYPE: Citrin points to News Corp. (NWS ) CEO Rupert Murdoch, who has long wooed Beijing officials and launched alliances with local companies. Another example, he says, is PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi, who was born in Chennai, India.
• THE DEALMAKER
  Citrin believes dealmaking specialists—those able to both sell off noncore assets and go toe-to-toe with private equity players on big acquisitions—will be in heavy demand.ARCHETYPE: Retired AT&T (T ) CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr., who turned SBC Communications (T ), once the smallest of the regional Bells, into a powerhouse with a market value of $242 billion.
• THE CONDUCTOR
  Corporations' walls are only going to get more permeable, as companies form alliances with outsiders and turn to networks of innovators for ideas to put into practice.ARCHETYPE: A.G. Lafley, who says half of all new Procter & Gamble (PG ) products should come from outside its R&D labs.
• THE CASTING AGENT
  If you think "people are our greatest asset" is an overused bromide today, just wait. The talent war is only expected to worsen as boomers begin retiring en masse and emerging-markets managers remain scarce.ARCHETYPE: Xerox (XRX ) CEO Anne M. Mulcahy, who named operating chief and heir apparent Ursula M. Burns to the president's role in April.

To me the most interesting point from this article is that company boards need to decide what kind of leadership do they need for their companies at the moment and well into future - say next 3 -5 years.There might well be good and brilliant CEO prospects to choose from but they might not fit the specific need keeping in mind the company's current plans and objectives in the near future. Therefore, it needs careful planning, thinking and then selection.

Getting into next gear

Sometime early last week, I announced my decision to quit iContract, one of India's leading one-to-one agencies.

It was a job that I had really loved to do for the entire part of the last 14 years of my working life -  building and growing iContract. iContract is a one-to-one division of Contract Advertising ( a subsidiary of JWT in India and also a part of WPP Group).

Over the years at iContract,there are a lot of people who made this happen. I must admit this is not an individual effort but it was a team effort. It was just people who made a big difference to iContract without whom this would not have been possible. The most important of them include Bimal Nair(Currently Executive Vice President, Rediffusion DY&R), Samir Shanbhag(Currently Group Account Director, BrandCom Middle East), Leroy Alvares(Currently Country Head, Tribal DDB), Harsh Grandhe( Currently Vice President, Rediffusion DY&R), Allwin, Vineet Kumar, Parag Sen and Nishad Ramachandran. They have been great colleagues, friends, evangelists and advisors for me at various points of time during my years there. Each of them gave more than 100% commitment when needed, carried the organization and its agenda as if it were their own and it was  great fun working with them. 

I am now in the midst of setting-up my own venture. Will let you know how things progress at my end.

Viewing Nation vs Reading Nation

NY Times has an article on how young adults in the US are givng scant notice to newspapers. The article reports that:

Thomas Patterson, a professor of government and the press at Harvard who conducted the survey, said that young people today do not make an appointment with news every day the way older adults do.

“We found that most young adults don’t have an ingrained news habit,” he said. “Most children today, when watching television, are not watching the same TV set that their parents are watching. So even if their parents are watching the news every day, the children are likely to be in another room watching something else and aren’t acquiring the news habit.”

“My sense is that newspapers in their traditional form are not going to be able to recapture this audience,” said Professor Patterson. “What’s happened over time is that we have become more of a viewing nation than a reading nation, and the Internet is a little of both. My sense is that, like it or not, the future of news is going to be in the electronic media, but we don’t really know what that form is going to look like.”

'Physical Size Does Not Guarantee Success; What Matters Is Mental Size'

Subroto Bagchi, COO of Mindtree Consulting makes some lovely points on what it takes to build an organization. Frankly in my view, it's the 'soul of the enterprise' that makes all the difference.Everything else is replacable. Business  will follow if you cultivate the right culture. Ask yourself this question- Does your enterprise have a soul? Surely, your customers will know it, everytime your employees interact with them. May be you can start by asking them first. Be ready for a lot of suprises!

If you then want to go back to the drawing board, you can start thinking with Subroto's advice:

• Being big is not about size, but about mindset - Let us imagine that you want to someday build a skyscraper. You have to pre-think what plumbing must go into the skyscraper. It cannot be an afterthought.So you have to pretend that, "I am a skyscraper." The inlet and outlet for the skyscraper is going to be very different. So pretending [or imagining] is a very, very important thing.
• Countries like Singapore, or Israel, or Finland, are world leaders in many ways. These are developed countries. These countries are at the top-end of GDP. But they are so tiny. They're microscopic when you compare them to countries like India or Pakistan. Many of the African countries are significantly larger. In today's world, physical size does not guarantee success. What is important is mental size. Nokia was created out of Finland. Singapore's GDP is way bigger than the GDP of India, and ... the population of Singapore is half the population of Bangalore.
• Process to Empathy Ratio(PE Ratio)- Process is not a substitute for building an emotionally rich organization. Process without emotion can quickly bring you down to the lowest common denominator.
• Inventive Thinking -When you look at building an organization, yes, the first idea is important, but an organization is built only as an idea of ideas. Sometimes people fail because they don't take a long view of time. Sometimes they fail because they do not adapt. I think adaptability is very important.
• Create the right organization infrastructure - An organization, an enterprise, is about infrastructure.We have to continuously build infrastructure.Many companies do a good job of building the physical infrastructure. Some companies even do a good job of building the intellectual infrastructure. But above these two layers is what I call the emotional infrastructure. This is the most difficult - the most difficult to build and the most difficult to sustain.In a hyper-competitive world, it is easiest to demolish a company at the physical layer. It's less easy to demolish a company at the intellectual layer. But it is the most difficult to break a company apart at the emotional layer.
• Have the right balance - Look at your enterprise as a three-legged stool. One is the employee, one is the customer and the third is the investor. The three have to be balanced at all times. If you try to deliver to the investor at the cost of the employee, or at the cost of the customer, this three-legged stool topples over. So we need to be careful.

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Networked Readiness Index

Economist has an interesting article on ranking of countries on Networked Readiness Index. US has lost its top place and has fallen to the seventh place. India is ranked 44th while China has been ranked 59th. About 122 countries have been ranked in the report.India has lost 4 places in the ranking since the last time this report was published. The reports ranks countries on 67 variables which includes parameters like regulatory environment, measures of technology infrastructure and usage.

India seems to have a long way to go if it needs to get to the top of the list. Being a preferred IT destination and projected to be a fast growing economy, it is important this gets the attention of the policy makers here in India.

Download rankings2007.pdf

Leveraging Mobile Marketing @ Mobile Monday, Mumbai

I spoke at Mobile Monday in Mumbai yesterday and shared my thoughts on how brands could leverage the power of mobile marketing. With over 2 billion mobile phones worldwide and 200 million mobile subscribers in India( and growing!), mobile as a marketing medium is reaching a tipping point. Marketers, publishers, aggregators, application providers, mobile operators and agencies have to unlearn a lot of old marketing principles and adopt new marketing rules for mobile marketing to gain widespread acceptance.

Why mobile advertising is different?

I have in the recent past seen a host of advertisers and mobile shortcode operators treat this medium the same way as many other mediums. Most of them are "text and response" campaigns. But, I certainly believe mobile offers greater opportunities and what is needed is a bit of imagination and forgetting what one has learnt from other media. Paul Golding makes an interesting point about this:

"...the ability to reach consumers at any time and in any place, with the added potential to know the user’s context (e.g. location) is potentially valuable to content and service providers. If they know how to monetise the “mobile attention” of the user, then let them pay to do so.The challenge is trying to normalize and define the economics of engagement.

The problem here is that the mobile world is not like the Internet. There are multiple ways of engaging with the users. Whereas those from the Internet world (e.g. Mads Moller from Google) were talking about banners and text ads, those from the messaging world, like Arie Baak from LogicaCMG, were talking about “in-service” ads like messages appended to top-up and voicemail alerts etc.

Understanding the context of the user was discussed a lot. Operators know a good deal about their customers. There’s a lot of information buried away in call records, texting profiles and other sources of context. Add location to this and the potential exists to track the intent of users in a powerfully unique way. Indeed, operators have access to a resource that is so powerful that it scares the likes of Google and other ad-brokers. An operator can track everything the user does (i.e. every site visited, every number called) whereas Google can only track your search habits. Even the most sophisticated web-tracking agencies can’t track every site visited (i.e. using cookies).

No doubt there is potential to exploit and monetize the rich assets available to operators. However, the question is how.

Rural India & Digital Era - Customization will help

In a digital era, how do rural and poor communities share stories with one another? By a Nokia mobile phone, with adapted software, if academics in London and campaigners here get positive results from their project.

Using mobile phones with simplified icons, which villagers would find easier to deal with, this British-linked project seeks to zero in on what kind of information local users find useful.

Ramnath Bhat, 25, working in communications-based NGO Voices, is part of the Story Bank project, in association with University of Surrey.It is part of a larger project called 'Bridging the Global Digital Divide' and is based in the rural area of Buddikote, in southern Karnataka's Kolar Gold Fields area. 'We've seen in a prior research that in a lot of cases, information and communication technologies, or ICTs, don't encourage communication among the poor.'

ICTs - primarily computers and electronic communications - imply centralisation, complicated methods of participation, language, and design issues.The project is quite exciting, says Bhat. It uses the Nokia N80 mobile phone, together with easier-to-use software for villagers, including Dalits, to create multimedia content.

'We're modifying the phone interface to make easy the process of creating content. It will be all done by using icons. We'll have separate icons for recording ambient sound, for voice and for clicking pictures or taking video,' he added.

A computer icon is a small pictogram, used to supplement the normal alphanumeric tools used to relate to the computer.With these buttons, an unlettered villager should be able to record small video clips with audio tracks. These digital stories will be then sent to a nearby central server, connected to a touch-screen.

The project aims at making it simple to create and access digital content. Voices also runs a project in the area, where radio-type programmes are put out to local houses.

'We've noticed that villagers cannot access our community centre, because timings don't match or because of their work. With a touch-screen device located outside, they could create and send stories here anytime,' argued Bhat.

What information do villagers seek, really?

'For men, their primary needs are info on governance, legal awareness, agricultural, health. For rural women in this area, it tends to be career information for their children, profiles of other self-help groups, and options for financial loans,' he says.

Children, meanwhile, wanted info on general knowledge, sports events, film stars, and themes science (including seemingly remote themes like dinosaurs or space).

The NGO is also linking the Internet with radio, by adopting the Sri Lankan idea of 'radio browsing'. Villagers ask for the information they need, someone in the NGO searches the Net for it and then reads it out over the local radio 'station'.

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Thumb-Print banking debuts in India

Wired reports on a new banking innovation that is taking place in India. Thumb-Print ATMs are being installed to take the power of 'anytime, anywhere' banking to rural India:

Banks and ATM machines are an unfamiliar sight in the rural countryside here, but the government hopes to change that with new technology that could ease the transition from cash to computers.

A pilot program will put 15 biometric ATMs at village kiosks in five districts across southern India. The machines are expected to serve about 100,000 workers who will use fingerprint scanners, rather than ATM cards and PINs, to obtain their funds.

Biometric ATMs are already in use in Colombia and a few locations in Japan, but haven't caught on in much of the rest of the world. As a result, biometrics companies are watching the experiment closely as a potential watershed for the industry.

Nagaraj Mylandla, managing director of Financial Software and Systems, which helped design security protocol for the new system, said there are 35,000 non-biometric ATMs in India today. In three years the number of machines is expected to triple to more than 100,000, leaving a window of opportunity for suppliers to make the new technology standard issue for all new machines.

The increase will mean that just about every rural village and outpost will have access to the world's financial backbone and, if the pilot program is successful, fingerprint identification could become standard, even for private bank transactions.

"Many banks here are keen on this idea of doing away with ATM cards," said Sunil Udupa, CEO of AGS Infotech, the company supplying the first batch of ATMs to the five districts in India. "Whether it is practically possible is a very different question, but the interest is huge."

120 million personal TVs in India

Imagine a day when 120 million Indians( and expected to reach 400 million in 2010) can have their own personal TVs on their mobile. The day does not seem to be far off.

Modeo has launched a beta of their version of mobile TV in the US. Services like Modeo can be soon expected to be launched in India.

Modeo is a digital television broadcast live to the one device you're never without—your mobile phone. Modeo is transparently high-tech, making mobile TV as familiar as the coffee table clicker. Modeo's content is provided by most distinguished entertainment brands in the business, airing today's hits and TV classics. One can watch top-rated sitcoms, dramas, news and sports. Also one can tune-in to music and talk radio. You could also download video podcasts, bite-sized episodes of your favorite shows and exclusive made-for-mobile content.

No wonder, London School of Economics has written that the future of TV is personal.

MobileTV has the potential to unleash a new revolution in the country. The telecom revolution has created a new wave of growth in India and if TV goes mobile, it can just mutiply the benefits of telecom revolution.

New marketing opportunities will surface:

• 5-sec TV Spots
• Interactive programming - Voting, Personalized programs, Channesl etc.
• User generated content
• May be one can start trading entertainment time with air time!
• M-wallets
• Product purchase requests from mobile etc.

It can also create new development opportunities like:

• e-learning can just become easy to implement
• The rural-urban information divide can be bridged very quickly

I can't wait to see TV go personal!

India internet usage - Some facts

Here are some facts about the status of India's internet penetration:

The number of users in small towns has increased over the past few years. Of all the cities mentioned, Pune has the highest cybercafe usage, which is not surprising: the report states that the youth use the Internet more than anyone else, and Pune is primarily a student town; many of the students stay in stay either in hostels, as paying guests or apartments. There was a time when Internet access in Pune was as little as Rs.10 an hour, and a cybercafe around every corner in certain areas. Read the full release, with graphs here.

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Chennai will be the first WiMax city in India

So after much speculation about which city would be WiMax’ed first - Pune or Bangalore, it seems Chennai has stolen the show: Aircel launched WiMAX and aims to make Chennai wire-free and provide coverage across the commercial areas of Chennai. They’ve used “802.16d standards at a speed range of 2 to 10 Mbps”. There are already ‘hotspots’ in other cities and Aircel plans to expand WiMax to 26 other cities, with complete coverage being achieved bit by bit. Payment systems will be enabled around hotspots via prepaid cards. No word on how much it’ll cost… Read more

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Indian consumers- A snapshot

Here are some interesting statistics on Indian consumers and households(according to the "Employment and Employment Situation in India, 2004-2005). 

• Women head about 11 per cent of the households in India. Comparatively, they have, on an average, a relatively smaller household size and a much higher sex ratio.
• In the rural areas, during 2004-05, about 64 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women were literate. In the urban areas, it was 81 per cent and 69 per cent respectively.
• The survey suggested that about 42 per cent of the population in the country was usually employed. The proportion was 44 per cent in the rural areas and 37 per cent in the urban.
• The gender differential in the worker population ratio (WPR) was distinct — 55 per cent for men and 33 per cent for women in the rural areas; 55 per cent for men and 17 per cent for women in the urban areas.
• In urban India, the "trade, hotel and restaurant" sector engaged about 28 per cent of men workers, while "manufacturing" and "services" sectors accounted for nearly 24 and 21 per cent, respectively, of the usually employed men.
• On the other hand, for urban women, the "services" sector accounted for the highest proportion (36 per cent) of the total usually employed, followed by "manufacturing" (28 per cent) and "agriculture" (18 per cent).

The 43-Hour Day!

Global families today are harnessing pervasive technology and media to help them manage busy households and achieve more balanced, satisfying lives, according to research released today by global Internet company Yahoo! Inc. and OMD, a worldwide media communications specialist.

The Yahoo!/OMD study shows the power of multi-tasking in extending the typical day's activities beyond 24 hours. In the U.S., respondents listed, on average, a total of more than 43 hours of daily activities, including time spent sleeping, working, commuting, as well as technology/media-based activities such as emailing, using an MP3 player, text messaging, and watching TV.

The research project combined results from polling more than 4,500 online families in 16 countries with in-home interviews and scrapbooks tracking media and technology usage by families in seven countries. Consistent themes include a resurgence in traditional values, and recognition that the "always on" nature of technology highlights the need to also focus on low-tech activities such as playing board games and dining together

• Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of families with children said it is important to eat dinner together each day.
• Eight out of 10 adults said they "enjoy spending time with their family." This number increases to nine out of 10 among those married with children.
• Average global family owns 11 technological devices (12 devices in the U.S.), creating concerns about information overload while enabling better communications
• 70 percent of global survey respondents agreed that technology allows them to stay in touch with family
• 29 percent of parents said that they use mobile phones to keep in touch with children throughout the day
• 25 percent of parents said instant messaging has helped improve relationships with their children.
• Only a third (31%) of U.S. parents believe their children fail to spend enough time outdoors or playing sports -- compared to 41% of parents in Taiwan, South Korea and India, and almost two thirds (63%) of parents in China.

Family 2.0

"Family 2.0 isn't the Cleavers of the 1950s or the futuristic Jetsons. Today's men cook, women work, and kids often are very tech-savvy," said Michele Madansky, vice president of sales research, Yahoo!. "Father doesn't always know best. He may not have a clue about what MP3 player is the best value, but daughter can be the expert because she has spent time online comparison shopping prices and features."

Matrimony brand launches relationship blog

They say marriages are made in heaven. In an information and networked era, the net seems to be place where it happens faster, I guess.

Bharat Matrimony is one of India's largest matrimony sites.  It's  a site where you can search, identify, know more, find your partner and ultimately get married, if you find your match. India being a multi-ethnic and diverse country with several castes & sub-sects, the net seems to be the ideal place where you can find the right match.

Matrimony sites are doing extremely well in India as they are a great destination where young people can  get to know each other and build new relationships. Also, it also has the potential to reach Indians across the world in a jiffy.

Perfect marriages start and end with great relationships. Therefore, it is not surprising to me that they have launched a relationship blog called matrimonyxpress.com. It is a place where there are experts and one can get advice from them. It's also has a forum to discuss  issues like being single, customs & rituals, jewellery  etc.

Sounds like a nice idea to me.

"Rich people love low prices, the poor need them."

In an interesting story - Why hypermarts are a hit in India- Indian customers are checking out everything in sight, visibly overwhelmed by the choiceand prices in hypermarkets.

Today, the country has barely 25 hypermarkets, but the belief is that India's 67-odd retail destinations can easily accommodate over 1,000 hypermarkets by 2010. No wonder the early birds are working overtime to keep the footfalls coming.

As Andrew Levermore, CEO, HyperCity Retail, says, "Rich people love low prices, the poor need them."

Says Levermore, "Today, there are too many middlemen. To be able to capture value, we need to be able to source directly from the farm-gate, bypassing intermediaries, so that both the farmer and we benefit."

After all, at an estimated $230 billion, the size of the entire Indian retail sector today is less than Wal-Mart's turnover: $285 billion. Of this, the organised sector accounts for just 3 per cent, or $7 billion. That's expected to grow by over 400 per cent to $30 billion by 2010, according to Ernst & Young.

I must admit, it is interesting days ahead for the Indian consumers and Indian retail!

The coming mobile advertising deluge

Informa reports:

The next 12 months will mark the start of a sharp upturn in mobile advertising spend as the proliferation of cheap, high-quality multimedia handsets and the widespread availability of high-speed mobile networks reaches a critical point, according to a major strategic report released today by Informa Telecoms & Media.

The study, entitled "Mobile Advertising Services: generating revenue through subsidised content" predicts that worldwide spend on mobile advertising will rise to US$11.35 billion within five years.

The potential economies of scale that the mobile channel offers advertisers will prove a powerful draw - Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that there will be over 2.1 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by the end of 2006, rising to nearly 4 billion in 2011. Issues that need addressing to enable advertisers to realise this reach however, include consumer acceptance, technology (screen size, available bandwidth, interoperability between operators and handsets) and industry regulation.

Major advertisers such as Coca-Cola, and car manufacturer Peugeot have been experimenting with SMS and WAP based advertising since 2002/3 and 2004 respectively. In 2007, mobile advertising spend will more than double from 2006 levels to over US$1.5bn.

Brands are clearly eager to take advantage of the intimacy of contact that mobile advertising promises; with information available to operators it is theoretically possible to create very targeted campaigns. The mobile is also a useful tool to track and measure the success of campaigns, with users texting, calling in or clicking on links all giving direct feedback on the effectiveness of a campaign. Gaining access to customer information from operator customer service records could prove complex however, both from a technical perspective and due to regulation governing the use of customer data.

ICICI Leadership Secrets

Here's a great interview with KV Kamath, CEO of ICICI Bank, India's second largest bank. He had given this interview to Wharton Leadership Digest.

I have often been in awe of the ability of this organization to have scaled-up in the such a short span of time.  The interview gives insights into the man, his beliefs, his innovative and sharp business mind( esp. when he speaks about the rural India model).  Here are some excerpts:

• So our challenge is to invent a new business model where we can create a distribution base effectively in 600,000 villages in India, and to learn to do that at one-tenth the cost of urban India. Just to put that into a scale that someone could understand, we believe that to succeed in urban India, we need to do be able to do business at one-tenth the cost of the west. The reason is that the ticket size of the banking product in India is one-tenth that in the west. If it is a deposit of $10,000 in the west, it will be $1,000 in urban India and $100 in rural India. Loans operate at a similar scale.   

• First, I look for intellect or a high level of competence. Second, I seek out entrepreneurial leaders who have the ability to pick the right people – that means looking at how the person has performed in other contexts to build teams. People who have the ability to build and manage teams are very valuable. Third, the person must have a can-do attitude. What sort of reaction do you get when you talk to him or her about a challenge? Will he go for it or is it a problem? Fourth, the right people have the ability to withstand shocks without getting flustered or losing direction. Finally, whether this is an entrepreneurial quality or not – I think it is an important quality that I look for in people whom we pick as leaders – it is the ability to focus, focus, focus without getting diverted from the core business.

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Fly for free - the new airline business model?

Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive of Ireland's Ryanair (Research), Europe's most profitable airline, wants to make air travel free. Not free as in free from regulation, but free as in zero cost. By the end of the decade, he promises, "more than half of our passengers will fly free."

The airline uses that traffic as a marketing tool for related services; each time a passenger books a rental car or a hotel room, Ryanair earns a percentage of the sale. Linking customers to such services brought in more than $100 million during 2005.

There are no free peanuts or beverages on Ryanair flights; 27 million passengers bought in-flight refreshments on the airline last year, generating sales of $61 million, or an average of $2.25 per person.

For passengers seeking distraction, Ryanair intends to offer in-flight gambling in 2007, with the airline earning a tiny cut off of each wager. O'Leary thinks gambling could double Ryanair's profits over the next decade, but he's not stopping there.

Indian low cost airlines - beware!

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How do you make India Customer Centric?

Just thought it will be a great idea to pick some tips  for India (from Paul Greenberg's post) from Singapore  Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong 's  call for National Commitment to service excellence:

1. Remaking Singapore includes remaking our mindsets. e.g. not being afraid to fail, being willing to try new things, giving people a second chance, adapting to changing job market, etc.
2. Focus on one mindset change - improving our service culture
3. This is the critical success factor in developing service industry
4. We do not have a natural service culture
5. Some Singapore organisations have excellent service standards
6. e.g. SIA, Changi Airport (e.g. ICA staff), also find them in the hotel, retail and F&B sectors
7. But Singapore has a long way to go
8. All three parties - companies, service staff and customers - have a role to play in improving service
9. Companies must show leadership and adopt service friendly policies, systems and processes
10. Emphasize service training for workers - not just for frontline, but also managers and supervisors. Management must walk the talk.
11. Service staff must acquire a service mindset
12. Service jobs are honourable and can serve with pride and professionalism e.g. Ritz Carlton's mission: Ladies and Gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen
13. Service and social skills - how to carry yourself and serve others with grace
14. Our people too can deliver good service, even as life in Singapore gets better
15. Just as important is customers' attitudes
16. Hard to serve with pride if customers treat service staff badly
17. Service is not servitude
18. Service staff are not our servants or slaves
19. Show appreciation for good service
20. Good customers get good service
21. Long-term, national effort
22. Government agencies will get together to promote good service.
23. Not just for tourists. More fundamentally, it is about what we are
24. Being a gracious society, courteous and respectful to one another
25. Recognising the dignity and contribution of each citizen
26. Each person doing his part, excelling in his own vocation, and serving with pride

Quite a bit of nice thoughts are there for the Indian Government, Politicians, Administrators, Indian Citizens and the like to pick-up and implement immediately.

India's demographic dividend

INDIA is indeed in the midst of a process where it faces the window of opportunity created by the demographic dividend.

Andy Mukherjee writes about the power of Indian consumer and how India needs to take advantage of this in the next decade or two.

Seventy percent of Indians will be of working age in 2025, up from 61 percent now. That means a typical Indian family will earn and save more, provided there are enough jobs going around. An average household will also have fewer dependents to provide for. The government will get more tax revenue, which it can invest in new roads and power stations.

Over the next two decades, the proportion of children younger than 15 will fall to 23 percent of India's total population from today's 34 percent, and the share of people older than 65, will increase to 7 percent from 5 percent....

C.P.Chandrasekhar writes

This demographic advantage or dividend to be derived from the age structure of the population is traced to the fact that India is (and will remain for some time) one of the youngest countries in the world. A third of India's population was below 15 years of age in 2000. In 2020, the average Indian will be only 29 years old, compared with 37 in China and the United States, 45 in Western Europe, and 48 in Japan. The demographic process this implies would create a large and growing labour force, which is expected to deliver unexpected spin-offs in terms of growth and prosperity.

I think this augurs well for brands and companies interested in taking a share of  this pie from the Indian consumer.

India fast becoming a wireless country

TRAI(Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) reports:

• Total number of mobile users in the country as of January 2006 is 80.61 million
• Gross telecom user base is around 130 million, so teledensity nears 12 per cent
• Over a 4.7 million customers went mobile in Jan 06!

Download indiamobilejan06.pdf

thro' contentsutra

Travel experience to India gets better with traveller collaboration

India resorts survey is the ultimate resource for holiday accomodation in India.

It has accurate & focused information about practically every holiday resort and leisure hotel in India - the database now has 1519 properties in it; from enchanting little home-stays to ancient palaces, from budget holiday properties to opulent five-star stays, from beachfront rooms to mountain nooks - you will find them all in the database.

Real-time opinion on each property, provided by actual travellers. Ratings collated from 4139 reviews received from actual travellers.

It claims to have over 50000 members. Here's the member break-up by city:

Members by Cities:
Mumbai	11003
Bangalore	10866
Delhi	7670
Chennai	3752
Hyderabad	2463
Pune	1960
Kolkata	1555
Ahmedabad	866
Cochin	559
Chandigarh	374
Other Cities	15105
Total	54374

Read some rating trends of over 789 resorts.

A tourist's experience in India could get better with this kind of information. They seem to have made a good start.

Marketing India at World Economic Forum - Creating an experience

NY times has this article on how India is marketing itself  at WEF( World Economic Forum) with some great  PR & customer experience strategies. The total budget for the "India Everywhere" campaign is $ 5 million. 

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Delhi swept into Davos on Wednesday, with an extravagant public relations campaign by India intended to promote the country as the world's next economic superstar, and as a democratic alternative to China for the affections of foreign investors.

There were few places one could go, on this first day of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting here, without seeing, hearing, drinking, or tasting something Indian. The organizers call the campaign "India Everywhere" and they appear to mean it literally.

Advertisements on buses here promote India as the world's "fastest-growing free-market democracy" — a not-so-subtle reference to China, which has done little to relax the grip of the Communist Party over society. India, by contrast, is a clamorous democracy, with 675 million eligible voters.

India has left little else to chance in its courting of people here. It has organized daily news conferences and happy hours, as well as an art exhibit. For the gala ball, which will have an Indian theme, it is flying in chefs from 14 Taj luxury hotels to whip up Indian cuisine.

In their hotel rooms on Wednesday, participants found tiny iPods with Indian music recorded on them, and Pashmina stoles, described as a "gift from the Himalayas to keep you warm in the Alps."

Serving customers in developing markets can help build competitive advantage

Here's a very interesting article from Business Week where C K Prahalad argues about the ingenuity of companies serving customers in developing economies and how they can eventually challenge global companies.

Here are some excerpts:

View those same streets through the eyes of C.K. Prahalad, however, and they become a beehive of entrepreneurialism and creativity. "I see the positives inside the muck," says Prahalad as he settles his stocky frame into the back of a hired Tata Indica sedan to conduct a quick tour of Bombay.

On every block he points out the intriguing enterprises tucked into the nooks and crannies. With the world's cheapest telecom rates, "all you need here is a phone and a $20 card to start a business," he explains in his measured baritone. He notices a busy closet-sized shop charging a few pennies per page to send faxes.

Street-smart innovation
Now one of the management world's most creative thinkers has an even more radical idea: He believes that the entrepreneurial ingenuity at work amid such poverty, where success depends on squeezing the most out of minimal resources to furnish quality products at rock-bottom prices, has cosmic implications for executives and consumers everywhere.

Prahalad thinks globalization also can help rein in America's soaring health-care costs. That's one reason he is studying Indian hospitals such as Narayana Hrudayalaya, founded by cardiac surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty. Some reasons for its low costs can't be easily replicated elsewhere. The land was owned by Shetty's family. The hospital's 25 foreign-trained surgeons earn half what they could in the U.S. Outsize malpractice awards are rare in India, so insurance costs are low. But the hospital also operates for free on anyone who cannot pay and on any infant younger than one month. For the rural poor, it runs 39 remote clinics and mobile-testing labs with satellite links that so far have treated 17,000 patients.

Read More

Women exclusive two wheeler showroom from Honda

Honda Motor Ltd. on Friday announced the launch of its scooter model `Pleasure' and inaugurated its first exclusive showroom for women customers branded as `Just4her' here (in India).

The showroom would be run entirely by women to make women customers feel at ease when they shop for scooters.

"Women customers need to be handled more delicately. That is why we are making special efforts to ensure that they feel comfortable visiting our showrooms both during the purchase process and thereafter.'' (as quoted by Pawan Munjal)

thro' the hindu

Infotronics - The future of automobile customer experience

The Economic Times writes:

Get set for the drive of your life for 21st century cars are going to be as intelligent as human beings!

The technology that is going to rule the automotive creations in the 21st century would have senses, similar to human beings. "It will have emotions, intelligence and specific designs for consumer experience," according to group and technical leader of Ford Motor Company K Venkatesh Prasad.

The future vehicles will not need a key as the automotive will be able to recognise its owner.With biometrics and intelligent components, the vehicle could be able to respond to ensure safety, help maintain safe distance from the fore-running vehicle, ensure fuel efficiency and communicate status of vehicle and potential preventive options to the driver, Prasad said

Am I on a clinical trial?

I read this absolutely shocking article in Wired where it talks about India's poor consumers and how she is a low cost destination for doing clinical trials. It also goes on to mention  how Indian legal systems are lax and that pharma companies even take advantage, if tests fail(read people dying!!) due to lack of proper legal processes!

Here are some excerpts from the article:

By 2010, total spending on outsourcing clinical trials to India could top $2 billion, according to Ashish Singh, vice president of Bain & Co., a consulting firm that reports on the health-care industry.

According to a 2004 study by Rabo India Finance, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Rabo Bank, clinical trials account for more than 40 percent of drug-development costs. The study also found that performing the studies in India can bring the price down by about 60 percent.

In 2004, two India-based pharmaceutical companies, Shantha Biotech in Hyderabad and Biocon in Bangalore, came under scrutiny for conducting illegal clinical trials that led to eight deaths.

In another incident, Sun Pharmaceuticals convinced doctors to prescribe Letrozole, a breast cancer drug, to more than 400 women as a fertility treatment in a covert clinical trial -- and used the results to promote the drug for the unapproved use. Pfizer, Eli Lily, Novo Nordisk, Glaxo Smithkline have been conducting clinical trials in India for many years ....

I have always felt the medical systems in India are never above board. Patient ignorance is always taken for granted and abused by doctors. Many a times, I have felt that I am being asked to take tests when it is not needed or am given a prescription which includes certain drugs or tablets which may not be necessary. I normally don't trust these doctors, as I am left with a feeling that they are working hand-in-glove with pharma companies or pathology clinics. It is a well-known fact that these companies use PR, doctors and the goverments to manipulate healthcare.  Hospitals too, have joined the bandwagon and some of the well-known hospital groups don't have any ethical standards.The consumers are left suffering in the bargain.

So, when I see a marketing initiative by pharma companies, I rarely trust them at all. Today, we have a heart day, diabetic day, cancer day to name a few in India. The pharma companies have a lot to do, to gain the trust of consumers. I think the doctor-pharma companies nexus needs to be broken. We need to have a second-opinion physicians network , who can help consumers analyse whether their doctors are doing the right thing and then get into treatment. This must become mandatory. A new company neutral advisory platform is necessary. May be an equivalent of wiki for medical advice is needed.

Else, I will always feel, am on a clinical trial!

Retailing set to change the shopping experience in India

It is increasingly becoming apparent that Indian consumers are wanting international shopping experience and service.  And the retail market in India is growing at a hectic pace. International retailers are waiting in a queue to take a share of this pie.  AT Kearney has released a Global Retail Development Index(GRDI) report and India tops that list. Here are some highlights of the report :

India tops a list of 30 new markets attracting global retailers, according to a study by the consulting firm A.T. Kearney.India has steadily risen on the GRDI, with its underserved $330 billion retail market growing by 10 percent on average per year over the past five years. "This market is among the most fragmented in the world; the combined market share of the top five retailers totals less than two percent," the report notes.India's retailing landscape has more than 12 million mom-and-pop stores that are not likely to idly watch their businesses erode as foreign companies encroach on their territory. But gaining early-mover advantage could make tackling all of these issues worthwhile.

thro ET

Microsoft's talent hunt in India - Ready to code for Bill?

Microsoft is scouting around for technical talent in India. And they are competing with the Infosys, Wipro, TCS and the Accentures of the world to get the best Indian software minds.  What do you do then to attract the best talent and beat competition?

Microsoft has resorted to what it does best - great marketing!  There can be nothing more exciting for a programmer - writing a piece of code for Bill Gates! They have launched a contest called code4bill.  The contest aims to find the best technical students in India and give them an opportunity to do an internship at Microsoft. One winner - Grand Champion, will work with Bill Gates Technical Assistants team in Redmond, USA for a period of one year( Does something like that exist? I am not sure).

I went thro' the website and I see it as a good recruitment drive. Nothing more. But, what Microsoft folks have done is to take advantage of Bill's visit to India and have created an event out of it for their software development centre in India. I am sure none of the interns are going to directly code for Bill.  But, there are thousands of Indian engineering students who will fall for it! It's better than releasing a recruitment ad, I guess.  In India with thousands of students applying for a software job, the tests are routine. So, what's the big deal  for students in taking one more test and interview? They will be more than ready to take on the challenge. This is just packaged in a different way.

Can the experience post the recruitment let them down?

"Welcome" - Digital TV in India

The television sets in India will soon double up as internet access devices if TRAI( Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) plans go on track.

ContentSutra writes:

To start with, digital television will be introduced in metros from April.

The TRAI has asked the information and broadcasting ministry to ensure introduction of digital television across the country by 2010, when Commonwealth Games are to be organised in Delhi.

But it is the technology that the ministry is going to recommend, is keeping the industry guessing. ..there are two technologies available in the market. One is MPeg-II, which will mean increase in the number of channels available in digital mode. From the present 96 channels available, the number can go up to 300 in MPeg-II. The other system is MPeg-IV, which is interactive, and offers Internet-propelled television, Internet connection through television, video on demand facility and interactive television mode.

If it is MPeg IV, it can truly change television programming in India from what little I can see, as it seems to provide  interactivity,  video on-demand mode etc. Mobiles ushered a revolution in the Indian telecom sector, will digital TV do it for internet and television?

Disrupting the digital divide - A free pc that will be given away!

Can this strategy work? A free PC that is to be given away by a Hong Kong based technology company Asiatotal.net in developing countries like Brazil, Mexico, India, Argentina etc. I wonder though, what is the business model and how will they scale-up to give away millions of PCs. Nevertheless, the idea is innovative and powerful.

iT( as this PC is being called) units will be distributed free of charge to qualifying individuals and small businesses around the world. This is made possible by the participation of sponsors and partners.

The Hindu, has an interesting article on this:

Asiatotal's president and CEO Judy Chen said the company took seven years and six possible prototypes before it homed in on `iT' as the ideal device to empower the world's underprivileged people.

The machine has been manufactured by the Taiwan-based PC maker Biostar, which is geared to produce three million units a month, is currently rolling out the first two lakhs for giving away in Brazil. The machine can be localised to any language and the stripped-down version of the Windows operating system is the same that runs on smart phones and hand-helds.

The `free' computer will be globally launched next week at the U.N.-sponsored World Summit of the Information Society in Tunisia, where AsiaTotal hopes to interest sponsors in all major developing regions.

If one goes back to history, advertising was the key driver in making media consumption affordable. It made email ids available for free. It then made search( and therefore information) affordable & free.

Will it also make the PC affordable/free in the near future?

thro' The Hindu

Customer Conversations - How are Indian Brands doing?

What if you had lovely tool to track if your brands are having a buzz amongst customers on the web? Some of the questions that marketers might want to know:

•    Is my brand being talked about?
•    How is my brand doing vis-a-vis my nearest competitor? etc.

I believe it can be a key measure that might have a direct co-relation to top-of-mind recall, market share, brand preference  etc. Blogs build conversations amongst customers and here is a tracking tool for th