IIPM NEW-DELHI: March 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

LEONID MUSATOV, CMO, SSTL TALKS TO SURBHI CHAWLA ABOUT THE FUTURE OF THE MTS BRAND IN THE INDIAN MARKET

But how would you market your voice services in such a competitive environment?
The major challenge for us is to make sure that the consumers who are using our SIM, they make it their primary SIM. We are seeing a lot of progress, but these things take time. Moreover, people have this mental inertia in switching from one operator to another.

You have licenses to operate in all 22 circles but you are present only in 12. By when do you see MTS becoming a pan-India player?
You are right but we have a roaming agreement with Tata Indicom for both data and voice. So, virtually, we are present everywhere. Actually, we are apprehensive about entering certain circles right now. What we are trying to do is to enter markets where we see substantial business for both voice and data. But as business progresses there would be discussions on that.

Can you throw some light on your distribution strength?
We currently have around 20,000 outlets per circle and the number is constantly growing.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

IIPM Proves Its Mettle Once Again....

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

AKAI PLANS TO REENTER! NO CELEBS STILL...

Japanese consumer appliance and electronics company Akai is making another comeback in the Indian market. Its foray in the 1990s did not work very well in the Indian market largely owing to its offerings based on lack of cost competitiveness and low brand recall. It was browbeaten then by other entrants like LG and Sony. But now, the company is all set to return. Global Brands Enterprise Solutions Pvt Ltd has signed up with Akai to sell its products in India. This resulted in the recent launch of a range of ultra-slim LED, LCD High Definition and CRT televisions. Presumably, to become one of the leading players in the Indian market in the next few years, the company plans to invest around Rs.25 crores towards advertising and marketing. At the same time, the company is not looking to hire any brand ambassador. The positioning of Akai will be done as a mass premium brand and it will be 5-8% cheaper than leading brands like Sony, Samsung and LG. There are other strategies too. This time, Akai will not be focusing only on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities (like the previous time), but will also target larger cities. Will all this be enough to gain a significant market share? The fact cannot be neglected that Akai had turned the market upside-down in the nineties by playing the pricing game. It was the first one to offer the combo offer (a 14 inch colour TV with every 24 inch TV), which rewrote marketing rules then. But the market space has changed. So have the rules.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

WILFRIED AULBUR, MD, MERCEDES-BENZ INDIA

What kind of expansion plans do you have for this business?
We have announced a rollout across four locations in the Indian market in the first phase, but we are aiming to take this venture to close to twelve locations by the end of December 2010. The company expects that close to 10-15% of its sales volumes will be contributed by second-hand cars by 2011.

Unorganised channel remains the biggest challenge for the industry’s players, who are trying to establish authorised pre-owned car arms in India. How do you plan to tackle that?
Close to 90% of the total sales that take place in the second hand car market happen through the unorganised route. As far as the unauthorised dealers are concerned, a consumer who is investing a huge amount of money to buy a Mercedes, will like to buy it from the authorised channel. But there many one-to-one deals that also happen in the Indian market. However, we will make the consumer aware of the importance of the authorised channel and will try and take some significant amount of business away from the unorganised sector in the domestic market.

But BMW announced its plans to enter the used car business last year itself. So have you lost out on the opportunity to become a first mover?
Truly, I don’t know what BMW had announced. But even if BMW had not launched its second-hand car arm in India so far, we would have! It was just an announcement from BMW, while we have already entered India with a second hand car arm.

BMW even announced its plan to launch a car financing arm. Aren’t you planning something along those lines?
We are planning to open our own car financing arm, but the proposal is still under consideration and it will take some time.

BMW aims to first tap the metros with its finance arm. Are you also looking at Tier I locations?
No. We will announce a national roll-out, but there is still some time left before we actually go ahead with it. 70% of our sales come through the financing route, and therefore it’s a very lucrative opportunity to tap consumers across India.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

IIPM B-School Detail
IIPM makes business education truly global
IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri (IIPM Dean) – ‘Every human being is a diamond’
Arindam Chaudhuri – Everything is not in our hands
Planman Technologies – IT Solutions at your finger tips
Planman Consulting
Arindam Chaudhuri's Portfolio - he is at his candid best by Society Magazine

IIPM B-School
Arindam Chaudhuri
Rajita Chaudhuri
Planman Consulting

Thursday, March 10, 2011

ARCH RIVALS STAND UNITED FOR ASSOCIATION

Leading Indian non-alcoholic beverage makers like Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Dabur among others have joined hands to form the Indian Beverage Association (IBA). This move albeit coming late despite the beverage industry forming a huge part of the overall Indian food sector, is aimed at putting up a united stand to the policymakers and government regarding regulatory frameworks and legislation. Above all, the IBA would serve as the platform to market the industry as a manufacturer and marketer of quality products adhering to the highest international standards to be ready for the kind of controversies as those that erupted some years back (related to pesticides present in soft drinks). The Indian Soft drinks Association would also be a part of the IBA. It is being set up on the lines of the American Beverage Association which represents producers, distributors and supporting industries for soft drinks and juice makers. IBA will be leveraged to increase the market share of juice and related products, apart from supporting the framing, development and dissemination of standardized best practices with regards to quality in manufacturing, packaging and other environment and health related issues. Companies that have currently subscribed to the association include Dabur, Red Bull India, Jain Irrigation Systems, Tetra Pak India, Pearl Drinks, Bengal Beverages, Coca-Cola India and PepsiCo India Holdings while companies like Parle Agro, Amul and Godrej are likely to join soon.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

But then, for a starter like Wynn Telecom, the approach had to be and is different from that of Micromax. Explaining Wynn’s reasons for signing not one but two celebrities, Bipasha Basu and Saif Ali Khan, Naved Chaudhary said to 4Ps B&M, “Anybody can have celebrities, but the key lies in how you are utilising the same. We wanted someone who can cut across masses and classes simultaneously and still have a mass appeal. I also need to look at my marketing communication, and ensure that the celebrity should not over shadow the brand.” As per him, the choice was made bearing in mind not just the current product portfolio, but also the future line up.

Shashir Devsane, Executive Director, Karbonn Mobiles, agrees with Naved that the key lies in utlisation of the celebrity and there is nothing to be gained by just being a part of the herd mentality. “At Karbonn, the idea is always to be a market leader and we have demonstrated the same in the past. This may come with periods of silence and we are ok with the same. But when we do something it should be something that we believe whole heartedly and be the trend setter,” he avers.

However, the question that needs to be answered here is that will getting big celebrities alone help these companies lift their brands to the big league of the business or there are other ingredients also?

For most of these players, getting a celebrity is a way to announce their arrival to the notable names at the market place. But then they must understand that once they have entered with a bang, they need to carry on in the same manner. This means they have to continue to build themselves for sometime with help of big events, campaigns and so on to stay alive in consumers’ minds till they establish themselves with a strong foothold. Moreover, as these players are looking forward to the lower segment (Rs.1,500 to Rs.2,000), which represents almost 50% of Indian hadset buyers (Media Tek India survey), to create volumes, association of a celebrity can be a great help in catching eye balls and increase recall value for the brand post the initial phase too.

And as the guide book on marketing for dummies goes, in India, it’s not just promotion that is enough; another equally critically element is to ensure that the product is available till the last mile. In the lower priced end of the market, most of the times, the choice of the consumer can be influenced simply by availability. But all said and done, we come back to the initial question. Would you buy a mobile simply because Bipasha says you should? Umm, for Bipasha, we’d do much more :-)