It becomes paramount to go beyond contract alone and family-run organisations...

That’s simply because family-run businesses have more continuity and stability at the top level since key decision makers do not change frequently. This continuity and stability at the top sends out a very powerful message to the outside world and with people who are dealing with the organisation. In my humble opinion, this stability at the top gives tremendous satisfaction to the employees, shareholders as well as to the customers. In fact, the customers, especially distant customers, are very keen to work on supply contracts as a lot of technology flows through. It becomes paramount to go beyond contract alone and family-run organisations and businesses offer unique advantages in this sphere. It is this continuity and stability that has helped us at the Hero Group become globally competitive. For example, in a short span of just 2 years, Hero Motors, the front-end engineering outsourcing company of Hero Group, has been able to negotiate contracts worth Rs.6.5 billion for supply to prominent companies like BRP, Austria/Canada. For more information on IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...,

Source: IIPM, 4Ps, B&E

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• IIPM Publications
• Business & Economy
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The Publisher & Editor of Jammag Magazine, Rashmi Bansal could not be traced at her office at Prabhadevi or her residence at Navi Mumbai, for more information please click on the following links:

• Hindustan Times Article - Publisher goes underground
• Rashmi Bansal (Editor of JAMMAG) eats humble pie; felicitates IIPM as being the top institute
• Rashmi Bansal (Publisher of JAMMAG) Arrested
• Jammag's apology

Kotak Life to spread more

One of the major private players in the Indian life insurance sector, Kotak Life has announced plans to expand its presence to 90 new cities in the country and grow its agency force to 50,000 from the existing 18,000, with special focus on markets of Gujarat, Punjab, Kerala & Maharastra. This move has come in anticipation to grow above 100% in the future. Kotak Life, which has recorded first year premium of Rs.1.64 billion for the first half of the current financial year, has now launched a head start child plan that would provide long term capital growth along with protection of capital under volatile market conditions.

To read more on IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...,

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Source: IIPM, 4Ps, B&E

Loot, plunder, pillage... and do it online!

There's tremendous amount of 'real' money at work in the 'virtual' world of gaming

Once upon a time, when I was but a green soft ware engineer at Novell and the Internet was young and browsers were not yet an idea in Tim Berners-Lee’s mind, I played video games on an 800x600 resolution monitor. The games were controlled by graphics hardware & soft ware that are to the current generation of graphics technology as 3.5" floppy diskettes are to 1 TB USB 2.0 disks. And a weekend excursion to play Pong at a local business establishment with a Pong console was really super! Can you hear the snickers and derisive laughter from today’s gamers? Video game hardware has evolved into Xboxes and Sony PlayStations while the games themselves have evolved into a dizzying variety of genres & titles like adventure, role-playing, first-person shooter (FPS), third-person shooter, sports, racing, puzzles, turn-based strategy (TBS), real time strategy (RTS), action adventure, massively multi-player online games (MMOG), et al. Let’s look at game economics. You will be surprised... For more information on IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...,

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• Business & Economy
  

Source: IIPM, B&E

We spent around Rs.200 million for the promotional campaign of Rang De Basanti

But, to get the audiences to watch their films on the first three days is a tricky job. And that’s where marketing comes to play. While the year 2005 saw innovative promotional campaigns of movies like Hum Tum (cartoons in TOI, Saif appearing in Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, and an MTV song) and Bunty & Babli (Abhishek and Rani appearing as two newsreaders on a leading news channel, apart from acting in MTV Bakra) becoming milestones, the year 2006 went many steps further, especially in terms of marketing budgets. “Every film we produce has a unique marketing proposition. And the marketing budget is 75-100% of the production budget,” acknowledges Pritish Nandy, Chairman, Pritish Nandy Communications. Reveals Siddharth Kapoor, VP (marketing & Communications), UTV, “We spent around Rs.200 million for the promotional campaign of Rang De Basanti.” TV, billboards, radio, publications, roadshows, promotional campaigns, hiring PR firms, you name it, and production houses are following the strategies on a warpath. For more information on IIPM Articles, please click here... , Also visit: Arindam Chaudhuri Initiative

Source: B&E and IIPM Publications

The Million Dollar Lure: 46,456,174 INR (IIPM Publication)

Fishing is for grandpas… And in this case disgustingly rich grandpas!! This fishing lure (to catch what – a gold shark?) is encrusted with 1.36 kgs of 18-karat & 14-karat gold and platinum, 4,753 diamonds and rubies of 100 carats and measures around upto 12 inches. Retailed by MacDaddy, it sure wants you to put yourself up for adoption for this big (read rich) daddy.


For complete IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...

Editor: Arindam Chaudhuri

Source: IIPM Publication

HPCL (4Ps Publication, IIPM)

“All that glitters is not gold.” That axiom should be given a new spin by putting it as, “All gold does not glitter,” for there is also the small matter of black gold – or oil – to think about. And if one award were to go for innovation in contribution to environment & health, the winner, by miles, would be Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), the Rs.646.89 billion oil mammoth, which has been awarded the honor of being ‘India’s most preferred Auto Fuel’, an award conferred by Awaaz Consumer Awards 2006. And not without good reason either. A corporate entity is always a part of the larger scheme of things (read, the society it exists in). To prove the statement true, the Mumbai refinery of HPCL went ahead and snared the “Golden Peacock Global Award for Environmental Leadership” for the year 2006 in Refinery Sectors, an award that would do Greenpeace proud; all this while its Santacruz ASF bagged the “Golden Peacock Environment Management Award” for the 2nd consecutive year for undertaking a gamut of Safety, Health and Environment Initiatives. Setup in 1991, these awards are now deemed the holy grail of corporate excellence and encompasses, among other disciplines, innovation as well. For records, HPCL has already won 9 “Greentech Gold Safety Awards” for the year 2005-06 for Outstanding Achievement in Safety, Health & Environment. Very rarely has India seen a leading corporation, which – while having no dying need to society that it cares – goes way out to invest in innovative measures that actually eat away into its profits; all of this to implement one measure that is most ethical... contributions to society. HPCL remains our favourite!


For complete IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...

Editor: Arindam Chaudhuri

Source: IIPM Publication

Reynolds: Racer Gel, Waterproof (IIPM: 4Ps Article)

BRAND : Reynolds

AGENCY : JWT

BASELINE : Reynold’s Racer Gel, Waterproof

DESCRIPTION : A few kids are playing cricket when they see Sachin Tendulkar. They rush to him for autographs. One of the boys pushes a fat guy while he is running towards the Little Master, and the fat guy falls down. The other boy gets Tendulkar’s autograph signed with a Reynold’s pen. The fat kid, meanwhile, wants to get even, so he takes a pipe and showers the boy with water, and the piece of paper with the autograph gets wet. But all’s well, because Sachin used the waterproof Reynold’s!

4Ps TAKE: The brand communication is about the product benefit, the ‘waterproof’ element. The power idea is to position the pen as one which remains unaffected come rain, hail or storm! With kids being used in the medium, this is a fresh way of putting the message across. And of course there’s Sachin Tendulkar as the brand ambassador: when he bats for your product, you don’t need anything else.

For complete IIPM Editorial Article, please click here...

Source: IIPM Publication, Editor: Arindam Chaudhuri