The Economic Times - September 24, 2012
The slowdown is a time for companies to rediscover their core strengths to win customers over from others With the first sign of a slowdown in sales growth, the auto industry has reportedly petitioned the government for relief in the form of some excise duty concessions. They are not alone in this kind of thinking. Business targets have for quite some time now been moved up or down, based on what the economy will or will not grow at and what the sector is projected to grow at, almost suggesting that the job of chief of sales and marketing is with the government of India, and the job of fulfilment or delivery is with the individual companies. The government, it is felt, is responsible for doing things that will make the tide rise, and it will lift everyone, in proportion to the type of ship they have built. When market […]
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Reforms 2020 - September - 2011
Integrity and intellect have been the cornerstones of Infosys’ journey as one of India’s most respected brands. BRANDS are often markers and symbols of major social transitions, and the Infosys brand is a multi-faceted one that encapsulates the transition from a socialist, closed India to a globally connected modern market economy. The Infosys brand is a representation of India’s journey from zero to hero on the global stage– from providing unskilled labour to the richer world to being a country of smart people who have higher order skills to service the IT needs of even the most advanced countries in the world. Just as the Apple brand is seen to represent the symbolic new frontiers of California and Silicon Valley, the Infosys brand represents the symbolic new frontiers of new India and the International Indian: A desi geek and not a westernized sophisticate, middle-class and understated not affluent and flamboyant; […]
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The Economic Times - July 15, 2012
What’s wrong with Infosys? But wait, that’s not the right question. What’s right with Infosys and what’s wrong with it that it can’t better communicate what’s right – those are the right questions. To see why these are the right questions for a blue-chip company under so much scrutiny, a broader perspective is useful. It is not hard to recall all the strident criticism of Indian IT majors from industry watchers. That they were not “going up the value chain”, they were merely doing application development and maintenance (ADM), they were not creating products or intellectual property, they were not integrating with their clients’ businesses, they were just a mega labour arbitraging machine. But despite all the criticism it was a machine that was throwing up large and ever increasing amounts of free cash, the darling of the stock market, the definitive gold standard for businesses in India to benchmark […]
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Reforms 2020 - September, 2011
Tanishq has not only revolutionized the way Indian women buy jewellery, it has also brought in a set of standards and ethical norms into the jewellery trade. Tanishq is not an iconic brand marking big national social and economic transitions like Big Bazaar or Infosys. But it is a very noteworthy brand because it is one of the few Indian examples of valuable businesses built on the foundation of a “brand platform”; and because it has accomplished the herculean task of building trust for a high value item like jewellery, which is loaded with all kinds of cultural meaning, and prying loose the dominating grip of the traditional jeweler with great customer relationships spanning generations of a family. It is an example of how one brand with grit can reprogramme how customers have thought and bought for ages. It is also the only national jewellery retail chain in a country […]
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The Financial Express - March 11, 2012
EXCERPTS from Rama Bijapurkar’s new book highlight a framework for integrating customer centricity into business strategy India Inc, since 1991, has operated with the implicit logic that “if you expand supply and manage operations skilfully, you are sure to win”. As is evident from revenue and profit growths over the past decade and a half, this logic has served it well. Consumption growth rose steadily year on year, riding on the back of significant increases in household income as a result of overall economic growth. Consequently, and understandably, the demand side of business did not occupy a prominent place in business-strategy development for India Inc. The strategic focus has almost entirely been to build an efficient and scalable supply machine that could make the maximum hay while the sun shone. Of course, over the past two decades, there have been several anxious moments when demand blips occurred due to environmental […]
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