My Own Money... First Professional Year !!

2 A.M. , 25 July 1986, I opened my eys and saw this universe for the first time..

There was so much of light and happiness around, and with this Light, started my learning's of life, The Pursuit of Happiness and Satisfaction in Life ...
First two and a half years of life spent in mom's arms, feeling the warmth of family and learning about life from their perspective........ And now, the 'sapling' is ready to learn about life and society through Letters - Alphabets - Words - Sentences - Digits - Decimales - Numbers and initiate the formation of his own views and perspectives of the dynamic world.
It is important to be educated, to have a a sound personality, to understand the complex world around..BUT what is the ultimate aim of 80* humans through Education ??

It is to 'Earn' a Living, to 'Contribute' to the society, to become a 'Change' !!

Change is the only constant in life, and by becoming one, you gain, in its true sense, Stability in your Life...

Starting from the 3rd year of my existence, 21 years of Institutional Learning and growing with it, 16th April'2010, I finally reached the start of my Professional Life !!

A Life which was duly awaited and it started with Tata Steel, Steel - 'The Fabric of Progress'. It is often said, that Time, be it in seconds, minutes or years, often passes by with a blink of an eye, and life just moves on..... But today, completing 1 year in the corporate limelight and complexities, i somewhere feel that, " I have actually lived, felt and experienced my First Professional year !!

During this year, I have come to see many aspects of life and society, which i had only heard about. The first time i have actually experienced the thrill and essence of 'My Own Money', the money that I earned, the man hours that i put in for it. The 1st of every month was never so awaited as it is now...
During this year, I saw myself graduating from a young B-school pass out, fresh into corporate, getting hassled by every small scolding from 'Bosses' ( A concept which everyone has to learn here, get alligned with its implementation and try to be on the right side of the opinion makers in the initial stages of corporate experience), having a belief of being able to bring sky and ground closer within a night time, into a more rational and a practical person, understanding the weightage and importance of owning responsibilities and delivering in this competitive world, in order to justify the investment that this corporate world is doing in us...

Facing the pressures of professional life, turbulence in the personal Life and the complexities of people around, I have ended my First Professional year as a more Mature, Realistic and a Happy Person...

"And the Profession Continues........... !!

MDI: A wish to relive that one precious day !!

16^th June’08 was the day I entered into this institute, with all the highs of cracking the CAT exam and entering into one of the premier B-school. Eyes were filled with expectations, dreams and excitement about the upcoming 2 years of MDI !!

Today 26^th Feb’10 is the day when I sit, recollecting my thoughts about the two years that I have spent in the institute. Having flashes of the past 2 years in this institute, I see a blend of up’s and low’s describing my stay as a Mandevian.

Whenever we are sitting and thinking about our past, we always try to think and pick out that one particular day, that we might want to relive: so am I. that day might be remembered for the sake of improvements, some losses, some gains or may be just to relive some cherish able moments of life that have the capacity to rejuvenate you whenever you recollect the thoughts or the visions of that very day of your life.

Thinking about each and every memory that I have of me as a Mandevian, thinking about that one particular day that stands out for me out of the rest 730 days, I can only think of one single day.

14^th Feb’09 was the day I took the most important step of my life. i chose the person with whom I wanted to spend my entire life with. It was this day that I officially admitted in front of that person that how much has she affected my life, and how complete do I feel as a person with her. The luck was on my side that day, and she understood my emotions and said yes to live her life with me. The amount of happiness received that day, is unmatchable.

Everyone says that behind every successful Man, there is always a woman. “And that day, I had found my woman”. Thinking about the day, I always thank God that he gave me an opportunity to share my time, my life moments and my feelings with such a pure hearted, innocent person whom I loved from the bottom of my heart, and who till date has become an integral part of my personality and my Life.

Today, when my life is in a turbulent state, a time when I am realizing a lot of shortcomings in my attitude, my behavior and my definition of life, I look back and think of that day in a hope that it might give me another chance to redeem my life. Experiencing growth as a person, just beyond numbers, is what I am right now, but I just pray to God Almighty that it is not too late.

I hope everyone has that one precious day, that might define their entire stay at MDI !!!

“That day (14^th Feb’09) for me is and will be, the most precious day of my life”

No Money Marketing..!

The customers of the modern world are becoming more and more demanding with the tick of the clock. The company’s have to be really vigilant to the happenings in the market and be proactive in their decision making process. Hence there is a great challenge today to keep up with the consumer requirements and to communicate the value proposition of your services and products.

It is not difficult for the big corporations to invest in heavy marketing campaigns in order to create visibility for themselves, but the challenge is for the startups, small companies and the companies in a bad financial state to compete with the big marketing budgets of the large competitors, in order to competitive and retain the customer base. Hence for such a condition is the origin of the concept of “No Money Marketing”

Marketing of ideas with the minimal of the budgets and resources could result in the survival of competition in the industry segments in the current times. The marketing managers of the firm need to control the maximum number of communication variables to the maximum possible extent, that too in the most frugal way- this is what the “No Money marketing ideology” refers to. Generally No Money marketing strategy is preferred by upstart brands that prepare to challenge the existing big brands, new business model challengers and old model but new market challengers.

In the current world, it is really important to leverage the advantages of the flat world (the world of digitization-people buying things without even seeing them, people connected electronically-every person is an opinion maker, small market-sometimes target segment of 1 person). The flat world encourages the two way interaction, free interconnections and feedbacks. In the flat world the marketing is not only about ads, brochures and PR, but there are various other creative techniques that can be used to promote the idea. Innovation is basically the core of the marketing excellence. The flat world gives an opportunity to all the competitors to compete on a level field, with the ability to be heard and distribute from anywhere across the planet, hence increasing the possibility for an upstart brand to succeed. In the flat world there are no bindings on either the supplier or the consumer in order to contact the other party, as the means of communication have brought all together. In the changing times, the marketing world has seen a shift towards the reduction in the total cost of building a global brand, but the ways of building a brand have become complicated. There is a need to focus on mapping initially and then influence the eco-system. The eco-system is defined as the universe of people and the media that could potentially impact the decision maker. Some of the parameters that are responsible for the success of the branding and can be altered in order to suit the budget are pricing, the executive branding, the manufacturing facilities, the environmental friendliness (sustainability) and the operational channel (distribution and promotional mediums).

Basically in this age of cutthroat competition, in where every company is trying to eat into the market share of the competitor, there is a need of clear positioning and innovative marketing especially for the Indian firms who dream about being recognized on the global front. No money marketing is really useful as a concept for especially the start-ups who want to build their brands with the limited amount of budget that they have, and also could be useful for the firms who are trying to restructure their operational models in order to deal with the contingencies. There have been various examples in the industry where the no money marketing or marketing with a frugal budget concept has shown results. Like Infosys and Wipro, well known companies today, initially marketed their services and products with a very low spend on the marketing and it was their shear product and service strength that gave them the success. Between Infosys and Wipro, we are talking about a market cap of about $40 billion built on the back of little or no advertising. This speaks volume for the concept itself. Hence with the prevailing examples in the industry it can be said with due conviction that it is not just the money spend that matters but the quality of the product/service being offered, the suppliers confidence in them and the choice of the right medium in order to market the underlying concept and to communicate the value is important in order to be successful and to build a brand name in the industry with the customer loyalty.

No Money Marketing is a great concept for the upstart companies to build their success platform on, but also is a new insight for the big multinationals at a time when the internet and globalization are putting big cracks in the traditional marketing orthodoxy.

“No Money Marketing” is not compromising on marketing, but it is doing marketing in a different innovative way

Social Cause Marketing

There is a basic concept of “figure and ground” that every marketer considers while developing an ad for his brand. Social cause marketing is all about giving equal importance and visibility to both the figure (brand) and the ground (social issue) in their advertisement and communication to the consumers. The companies investing and taking the route of social cause marketing(SCM), will be able to differentiate their brands from competitors in consumers’ minds, which could increase the efficiency of their other marketing efforts, greater brand loyalty and increased market share.

Social cause marketing should be done with the prime motive of societal benefit and not for gaining public image for profits. In current time’s the point of parity between different brands in the Indian market is very high, hence there needs to be a serious thought given on the reasons for the customer to recall your brand. In this scenario the importance of “good will” associated with a brand comes in. exposure to any type of well conceived promotional initiative for a brand leads to more positive feelings about the brand in a consumer’s mind, and the consumer starts treating the social initiative as a brand’s style of marketing as an important attribute of the brand. This gives the “brand loyalty” and “top of the mind recall” to the brand. There might not be an immediate effect of this kind of an initiative on the top/bottom line of the brand but the perspective has to be a long term one, and the prime outcome is the brand loyalty that the brand receives out of this SCM initiative. Social cause marketing initiative has to be a continuous one that can result in better business and “brand equity”.

Social issues are really critical and closely associated with the lives of people; hence the company should handle it in a very delicate manner. The branding effect of the SCM initiative largely depends on factors like the coherence between the brand and the social issue, the social awareness of the public and their sensitivity to the issues and also the brand reputation of the company. The company reaps the maximum branding advantage out of the SCM initiative if there is an exact fit between the company brand and the social issue it is targeting (in some cases it could be opposite too), because then the consumers will be able to directly associate the issue with the brand image and the reputation of the brand could be enhanced (E.g. a health drink company taking up the issue of malnourishment of kids). Similarly the high social awareness and the high reputation of the brand are the ideal recipe for the success of the SCM initiative.

Another very important branding that SCM does is that gives the confidence to the employees that they are working in a right organization, it helps in retaining and engaging talented employees as everyone likes to work in a socially responsible organization.

The positive intentions of any brand if communicated in a right manner will never go un-noticed, the profits would be the side effects, but the ultimate prize would be the brand loyalty and top of the mind recall of the brand.

** Just keep the intentions clean, the money will follow***

Indian Media goes Hysterical...

"Slum Dog-Millionaire"
The Oscars have been won as expected!! and it was a pleasure to give Hollywood a lesson or two about Indian philosophy. It was also great to see A.R Rahman, finally been awarded what he deserved for so long...(actually it was inevitable) !!!
The sad part is that all of them have been awarded the Oscars for a movie that was made clearly with one callow intention in mind-to draw up a caricature of every possible negative side prevailing in India,for the soul viewing pleasure of western India.

By no means am i trying to take away the credit from the achievers of the movie. It really is a nicely made movie, and all deserve all the accolades. But i am shocked at the shameful euphoria created by the half-educated Indian media that tagged the movie as "Indian Pride". Nothing could anything be further from the truth than this.
while a considerable no. of people say that it is just a creative and movie and should be left alone, but the fact is that it happens to be a movie made to show only the things that cud be wrong with India- much to the delight of west coz "porn and poverty" sells in west.

Yes , the movie has got the "Feel good film" of the year award but it is the most negative feel-good movie i have ever seen. I don't think the movie delves on any issue but shows poverty in most depoliticised manner. Every scene in the movie along with the characters seems to be dilettante effort to show India in an abrogating manner. Even the NGO's have vouched that they have never seen maiming of children for begging.

Despite showing poverty,i don't think there has been any effort of showing the pains of poverty. The movie has only served the purpose of giving west another opportunity to look down on India,especially when they themselves are reeling under recession an India is growing healthy!!!!
Globalisation backfired on the west and took away their jobs, so why wouldn't they enjoy watching India in such a state and heartily award it as well !!!!!!

India had an image of - "Land of elephants and snake charmers", and this image was changing very fast in the eyes of west by recent developments , to their very comfort..... Now the west says ,yes the image has indeed changed to "Slum Dog millionaires", who get this by god-damned luck rather than hard work. This is the power of of a well marketed movie and in this way it has been able to reconstruct the brand-image of India.
That is why it is not possible to leave this movie alone,just as a movie for the Indians. People have to realise its ramifications...

A person from the west who has watched this movie but has never been to India must be asking a question- " Do kids really swim in shit holes as shown in the movie??? "
**** "Land of Elephants and Snake charmers to Land of Slum Dog Millionaires"********

I think its time our media goes crazy for some meaningful and nation-enlightening movie and we delve in bringing back the pride of our nation and let our expectations for Oscars rely upon such pieces of art...!

Nations Global Standings...

75th-- favored business locations

125th- Trade freedom

118th- Corporate tax rate.

64th- Technology front.

71st- Corruption.

107th- Monetary freedom.

90th-- Red tape basis

54th- Personal freedom.

30th-- Investor Protection.

44th-- Intellectual Property rights

14th-- GDP growth.

4th-- Purchasing Power Parity.

5th-- Foreign Exchange Reserves.

3rd-- Test cricket

3rd-- One day cricket.

6th-- Men's hockey

13th-- Women hockey

104th-- Greenest countries.

128th-- Human Development Index.

113th-- Gender Equality Avhieved.

71st-- Murder rates

9th-- Most expensive cities(Mumbai)

109th-- Peace orientation

80th-- Press freedom

50th-- Global Competitiveness..

Banks- changing approach..

During the flowery days, bankers favored a 3-6-3 format of working. This implies "borrow at 3%, lend at 6% and be at the golf course by 3 PM!" Those were however, good times when the stocks were rising, consumption was high fueled by the emerging economies by maintaining high surpluses and huge forex reserves and the economies growing at an astonishing rate.
But soon the flexibility of banks was forces into implementation. With rising inflation, interest rates rose. So the new format that emerged was 4-7-3! leading to 5-8-3, then 6-9-3, and so on and so forth.
This continued till the time was 9-12-3 (perfect combination of 3 multiples to send the global economies into a recession for a period of atleast 3 years).
Then came the default crisis!!! The economies began shrinking, liquidity of the financial institutions was questioned....Then the need to increase the money supply among public forced the government to pressurise the banks to reduce the interest rates.... Resulting in the reduced profits of the banks...

As of now the borrowing has been fixed at 9 to 10% and that is in the form of fixed deposits!!!

This phenomenon explains the apprehensions of banks in lending in current scenario. Lowering the interest rates to 8% will essentially mean only one thing for a banker, that is, 10-8-out. This means " Borrow at 10%, lend at 8% and then be fired by the bank heads for maintaining such scrupulous lending and borrowing procedures!"

*** lets hope that the economies start growing soon so that the banks regain confidence about lending and are able to contribute to the economy in a better way****