Friday, November 30, 2012

100th year of Mills & Boon

The 100th year of Mills & Boon brings more spiced-up sweet nothings!

I was almost able to foretell the developments in the plot… the thoughts that would pace in the minds of the protagonists during their first meeting; I could anticipate a conflict and would also know when they would lock lips and make up.

This sense of predictability gradually made me drift away from M&Bs, which brings me to the question – do these novels only appeal to girls of a particular age group? “Well, there might be a possibility,” says Sakshi, who is 27 but still hasn’t shed the M&B fixation. “During my teens M&B was perpetually the topic of discussion. Although I graduated to other kinds of reading but I don’t think I can give up M&B. I still have a few of them by my bedside and I just don’t mind escaping from reality and visiting that dream world whenever I have the time.” And on enquiring about the reaction that she invites on revealing that she still is a die hard M&Bs fan, Sakshi concedes, “You know, there will always be those who would denigrate these novels and you would always get criticism from them. It’s true that M&Bs are popular only among a certain age group but I’m also sure that there will always be those who enjoy it, regardless of their age.”

On the completion of its 100th year, with its sales figures assuring the presence of plentiful readers, Mills & Boon promises to transform and bring to you more spice and sparks within those pages. So women, those intense intimate moments which would end with a sensual kiss and perhaps a little more, would now transcend to the next level… So, till you pick up the next series of the new Mills & Boon, let me just leave it for your imagination to take over!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Thursday, November 29, 2012

A piece on Israeli grandmothers!

And on why mothers and grandmothers of this great nation play a critical role in the Israeli-Russia spar

Since August 28, 2008, almost all western media in some or the other form, are criticising Russia’s decision of recognising the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia [once considered part of Georgian influence] by considering it Russian-occupied territories. Not only have both Fortune and Economist featured Russia’s growing influence on their cover stories in the last few weeks, even global leaders have suddenly started recognising that Russia still exists. In sarcastic criticism, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expectably showed her support to Georgia and warned Russia, “In contrast to Georgia’s position, Russia’s international standing is worse now than at any time since 1991...” How interesting dear Ms.Rice that you use that year as an example, for we believe that for the first time since 1991, Russia is finally regaining its rightful position on the world platform. And please Ms.Rice, neither you nor your favourite ‘Kiss Army’, of whom you are a self-confessed die-hard fan, are even an iota interested in what happens in Georgia, are you ma’am?

But what we wish to impetuously implicate out here, and what has been missed out by a majority of media in the process has been the emergence of a strange spar between Israel and Russia over the Georgian war! Analysts and experts in both Israel and Russia are bombarding each other with anti-Russian and anti-Israel statements respectively. Even in the media, while on one hand, Israeli press is accusing Russia of increasing its arm trade with the Middle East, on the other hand, the Russian media is leaving no stone unturned to prove the presence of arms and Israeli training hubs in Georgian land. And now, gravely serious political leaders allege that Russia’s nuclear fuel supply to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant is an initiative against Israel and Georgia. The question is, why is Israel suddenly getting into the benign act of protecting Georgia?


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

General in the cop’s seat

Odierno needs to smartly balance policing with pacification

So the war that began on the pretext of denuclearising the Iraqi arsenal and dethroning a warmonger has now toned down to policing Al Qaeda. The recent change of guard in the coalition forces saw one learned General handing over the command to the other. With Saddam out of the picture and forces loyal to him either obliterated or incorporated into the Iraqi Army, General Raymond T. Odierno has responsibilities that befit a police chief. Analysts emphasise that as the Commanding General of Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF-I), Odierno’s primary responsibility is to tackle Al Qaeda gangs.

“It’s Al Qaeda in Anbar province that Odierno will be dealing with,” affirmed Theodore Karasik, the director (research and development) at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA), Dubai. Odierno lacks the brilliant academic credentials of General David Howell Petreaus but has a career replete with pragmatic accomplishments. As the commander of 4th Infantry Division, he quelled violence in the non-complying Sunni strongholds where Saddam drew his closest Baathist comrades from. His troops captured Saddam Hussein. He was called in to crush violence whenever and wherever it surged in the country.

Former ISI chief Assad Durrani had told this journalist earlier that Al Qaeda is an invisible force and is not tangible. If it’s a force, it’s a dreaded one. It has the shrewdness to elicit violent reprisals from the Shia community and maturity to understand that killing its own cadres only fulfills its objective. It has struck missiles in Iraq's neighbouring Hashemite Kingdom and has the potential to direct them to the richer Gulf Emirates.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Monday, November 26, 2012

The red letter day

Privatisation will benefit India Post and also uplift the rural economy

Change is the only thing constant in the world. Ironically though, we have a natural tendency to fear it. The same is true for India Post. Economic liberalisation and the resulting competition has blessed many industries by pummelling the domestic players into shape. However, India Post remains a stark exception to this trend, and there is no doubt that this anomaly has to change very soon. It has become imperative for Indian Post to exploit fully within its limited resources. We proceed to analyse how reforms in Indian Post can bring a paradigm shift in India. Consider this: India’s largest commercial bank, the State Bank of India (SBI) achieved a total turnover of approximately Rs.9 trillion (over $200 billion) with only 10,000 branches and the largest private commercial bank ICICI, with a mere 1308 branches, exceeded the total turnover of Rs.12.10 billion in 2007, whereas Indian Post, with over 1,55,000 branches, remains one of the biggest loss makers among state run giants. Instead of being a pride for the nation, it remains more of a predicament for the country.

The concept of postal services was posted in India as early as 1884, but even after over a century of trials and tribulations, Indian Post is still waiting to take off. Since its inception, Indian Post has launched a variety of services from mail handling to banking, insurance, small savings and remittances and has been of great service to the nation, but in none of these fields has it succeeded as expected. Instead, Indian Post is just another example of the stark failure of some of India’s legacy state-run corporations.

India Post comes under the Department of Post, which is a part of the Ministry of telecommunications and Information Technology. With the economic liberalisation, the Indian telecom sector, which also comes under the same umbrella (under the same Ministry), has seen robust growth thanks to privatisation, while India Post is yet to fire. Thus the IIPM Think Tank proposes that the government corporatise, deregulate, and bring more public-private partnerships into India Post to make it a success.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Good business plan in India

B&E’s Savreen Gadhoke argues why manufacturing cars for the fairer sex does not make for a good business plan in India... [and the lady is serious!]
 
In India, still, experts comment and research agencies like HighBeam concur that at the lower level, women make up 10% of the total sales of even top mass market brands. Though India comprises a 200 million strong middle class, for whom a car is even now more of a luxury, which is bought after great discussions and compromises and generally driven by the man of the house, introducing a car exclusively for a woman belonging to this segment of society is just not a viable proposition.
 
Vivek Srivastava, Joint MD, Innocean Worldwide states, “Specific models being offered to the female buyers as a practice or an approach to market segmentation is not a wide-spread practice.” However, by mapping the needs of the middle class, manufacturers have launched 2-wheelers like Hero Honda Pleasure, TVS Scooty Pep, Kinetic Flyte, et al, which have been received well by females from this strata of the society and have performed well in tier-2 & tier-3 cities, mainly because of poor conditions of the public transport & low cost of ownership. Harshul Verma, Automobile Analyst, Khandwala Securities asserts, “Females generally prefer compact cars over bulky vehicles.” Would that make Tata’s Nano more a woman’s car than the people’s car? Comparing with the western world, in USA & UK, bulky vehicles like Volvo S40, Mazda 3 & Volkswagen Jetta are the first preferences of female drivers.

Indian automobile manufacturers are just not ready to take the risk of launching cars targeted exclusively at women. The foremost reason for this is that they do not wish to restrict their target audience. And as the well publicised Experian August 2008 research shows, men are better and more regular ‘re-buyers’ and repeat customers than women. Well, though my lady-like composure permits not, I have to accept, women are worse when it comes to the market place! 
 


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC: CRISIS & RESCUE

...and teach all Fed officials to do just that. Your ‘proactive’ revival might just work for sometime, but it isn’t enough to clean-off the mortgage mess! Right, Henry?!

So how serious is this twin-corp (Fannie & Freddie) issue? Imagine this – the duo control over $5.2 trillion worth of the US’ mortgage market; a thundering 43.3% of the total pie! Imagine them crashing!!! The Q1 FY 2008 net loss for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pegged at $4.3 billion & $151 million respectively. So what’s the credit influx needed? As per Lehman Brothers, Fannie needs $46 billion while Freddie needs $29 billion! The eroding residential mortgage quality, alarmingly high debt-equity ratio (as high as 75 times!) and investor panic, all indicate that this downturn is likely to be prolonged & severe; and that companies would have greater capital needs as Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody’s asserts, “Fannie and Freddie require some support from the Federal Government to shore up their liquidity positions...” The Fed has consistently been ‘reactive’ in its response to earlier crises but plans to swallow the ‘proactive’ pill this time with Henry Paulson on-board the Fed as it Chief Treasurer. However, the Fed should look for a more mid-term policy rather than adopting short-term strategies, which would only double its deficit and cause a further collapse of the dollar. Sadly, this intervention will only postpone the bottoming of the housing downturn and delay recovery. Worst, there will have to be many more outflows from Fed’s pockets, and at regular intervals. Watch out for this space! 


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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Thursday, November 22, 2012

Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd. writes...

Prashant Agarwal, Vice President, Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd. writes...

There is a need to create large capacities and invest big in this industry to be able to produce and achieve the targets set by Government and industry, if we don’t have capacities we can’t expect to achieve the targets. Big players in the industry have to invest in a big way to create capacities and then go to large scale acquisitions of brands and manufacturing capacities in innovative product and design in Europe or US. It is important that the players are present in a complete value chain to avoid huge price pressure of sudden change in raw material prices or other costs.

Buyers are looking to source from India in a big way with long term perspective but they don’t find the capacities to cater to their requirements. The mantra is to have a perfect balance between scale of operations and product differentiation. This will help cater to buyer’s requirements like quick turn around time, assistance in product development, better quality and most importantly a long term strategic relationship. The service levels have to increase to an extent that the buyers do not have option to go to other vendors. Business should be based on the long term factors like scale of operation, buyer satisfaction, product differentiation, R&D, innovation not on short term factors like variation in raw material prices, currency fluctuation and other input costs. To get ahead of the others, we need to define a clear mission and vision, create our own niche and product differentiation, work towards better operational efficiency and capacity utilisation, provide best customer service, look towards complete value chain and believe in our country’s competitiveness.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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