Surely not a Me-too

While doing our organised retail issue recently, we found that there are tons of me-too products in the FMCG sector. Each one of them is copying the other's package design, point-of-purchase promotions and even USPs. Just when we were becoming cynical about dying creativity in retailing, two products stood out.

Bambino has been into processed food products for sometime now. While others have been aggressively selling new products, it has silently brought in a Macaroni made of rice flour. The uniqueness is the design; each tiny piece is shaped like an alphabet or a numeral!

Another company which has entered Indian market late was Shell. It has setup quite a few petrol bunks in all metros but it is struggling to get real estate space in prime locations. But one visit to a Shell pump will hypnotise the consumer. First there will be a big namaskar by the attendant and then a polite query about the fuel amount. After the fuel is filled a small bill is automatically presented to the consumer. There is a free air pump which has a solar battery backup to give you 24/7 service. Moreover people have been claiming that Shell fuel has given them very good mileage and more smilage!

Cynical Visionary Recently CII organised a national conference on Re-Energising India Inc, focussing mainly on leadership challenges. Speaking about the topic on great vision, Subroto Bagchi, COO, Mindtree Consulting said, there is nothing called a ‘cynical visionary'. "Visionaries don't look at the future with logical cynicism. All great things happen because of providence. But planning makes sure that we are ready for that providence.

My mother always used to say that even after we close the doors of our shop, you should keep a tiny gap to allow Goddess Lakshmi to come in. She was quite an energetic person who took care of all my siblings, each one of them who she groomed into a capable individual. During her old age she lost her sight, but was very much in touch with the world through radio and listening to newspaper reading. The passion she had for life, kept her going. Sometimes visions fail, but it is better than having no vision at all." Mr. Bagchi, that's too much of quotable quotes in two paras!

Too much honesty! In the second session on Re-Energising India Inc, our beloved minister R V Deshpande arrived quite late and as usual he profusely apologised. This time there was a valid reason, union finance minister P Chidambaram was in town. Speaking of the difficulties faced by Chidambaram in disinvestment, he said, "While our communist comrades are welcoming industries into Bengal and Kerala, why are they objecting to disinvestment... I feel they have to be worried about their vote banks. You see, we politicians are always concerned about votes!"

"See, now we have a prime minister who is focussed on economic stability since the vote bank management is left to the party president. Now CII has to build up by building its own vote bank. You need to send 30-40 MPs into the Loksabha, you see, politics is all about lobbying, liquor lobby, sugar lobby, etc. Narayanswamy from Infosys (?!?!) or Azim Premji of Wipro have a good image which can be very well utilised." When he was indicated that the time is running out, he says, "I am sorry, you know if we politicians are given a topic, we can go on forever!" wow! Deshpandeji, that's too much honesty to digest!

Job portals and the coming shake out

Recently I heard that Naukri.com is planning to enter other portal businesses like real estate, education and e-commerce. After Jeevansaathi.com, is this the new line of business that Naukri is planning to target? Makes sense, because thankfully people don't go through the matrimonial process as frequently as they change jobs.

Naukri.com's success was in being the first job portal and build Monster-like functionality before Monsterindia.com became a reality. As a result Monster had to acquire Jobsahead.com to compete with Naukri.com. I tend to think that the existing model of job search portals is due for a big overhaul, with vertical search becoming more pronounced, social networking collaborating with job search and giants like Google and Yahoo getting into the game with personalized search.

In this scenario I got a mail from someone called Himanshu asking me to review a site called Bixee.com. I was pleasantly surprised to find a vertical job search engine focussed on India. It needs some work, like a more advanced search function (e.g. to tell apart between Jammu city and Jammu & Kashmir!), but it's quite good to start with and gives job hunters better reach, aggregating info from 16 India focussed job sites. The only doubt in my mind is their ability to make revenue. I only wish they persist and get ready for the Google.co.in onslaught when it comes.

Posted by Gautam Ghosh

Softened software prices

There was a time when software experts used to crib that India has always been into IT servicing rather than products. Finally now we are seeing new software products being launched in India regularly. Recently Vedha Automations had launched its Shoper 7 software focussing on the retail sector.

On this occasion, managers from Microsoft India did a presentation on small business server solutions. While presenting they asked the audience whether they use Microsoft products. Most of the people raised their hands, while some murmured "Is there any other choice!" Then they asked how many used genuine products; most hands came down.

Later explaining the IT scene in India they said, SME businesses are now moving on from basic accounting software to more application specific software. While hardware prices are collapsing, software prices are bound to rise.  However when they explained the pricing for the server solutions, they said the prices have been brought down to ¼th of original price. How come Microsoft is going against
the trend... is it samajseva to combat piracy?!

Issue BG52 Jul05

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