BLACK & GREY

Fashion Myopia

2012-01-23T05:09:00.000-08:00

There seem to be another case for Theodore Levitt, to explain marketing myopia.
We know most of the fashion brands, GAP, A&F and many more are struggling to keep themselves up and there seem to be less innovation in fashion industry, except emergence of value retailers offering brands for less.

With rapid changes in technology, the last decade has seen emergence of range of personal devices, music players, mobile, tablet, laptop, etc. However the fashion retailers still limiting themselves to clothing, footwear and personal accessories. Once they embrace fashion for these devices, , which is nothing but extending existing creativity to new products, there is an opportunity to extend themselves into this entirely new market, which is limited to few electronic accessory suppliers and unbranded market .

I am convinced ,this ' Device Fashion' market is growing and has potential to make the fashion more fashionable.

Measuring Disparity

2012-01-19T03:43:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article where, Industry leaders see socioeconomic risks, such as income disparity and economic imbalances, as their biggest concerns for 2012,

I have a hypothesis to measure inequality(Not Gini Index): I idea is " Faster you can become rich in an environment, the higher is the disparity".
How do we calculate.
1. How many millionaires are there in a geography
2. How did their pre-tax incomes grow(growth rate) over the decade
3. Higher the growth rate Vs average income growth
Conclusions: higher the growth rate, higher will be the income inequality

Needless to say there are some constraints, such as all the transactions should be within the environment.

E-commerce: An opportunity wasted

2012-01-10T06:08:00.000-08:00

E-commerce is one of the areas of my interest ,currently. I found this offer while I was browsing a new site,out of curiosity.

While I understand in a brick and mortar model , space is a major constraint so it is not possible to showcase every product over a model. However I am surprised to see this a shoddy product presentation over online.
Obviously there is no thought which has gone in doing this disaster piece.

Yes, online has constraints in look , feel and fit department , however it scores in cost, options and convenience factors. So there presents opportunity to make up with images/multimedia with more detail on stitches, texture, fit over a model ,real or virtual to enhance the user experience.

So while in brick and mortar product is the king, e-commerce has multimedia takes the position esp. so in apparel segment,
Needless to say here is an opportunity wasted!!!!

Successful Protests ; Winning the war of patience

2012-01-09T21:45:00.000-08:00

Protests

It’s a great time for anybody to be an anti-establishment. There are plenty of large scale protests across nations against,autocracy, capitalism, austerity measures, corruption,etc. for one to join.

Most of these demands are on a quantum change in thestructure, so a bigger cause.

I am of the opinion that revolution for any cause is a ‘ War of Patience’ ; Sustain till the othergives up.

Most of the protests have high energy initially but slowdown later and eventually die down or

wait for stimulus to regain the momentum.

Religion

If you notice most of the religions have components ofprayers/chanting. I personally believe it

is this process which is making them sticky to the religionand making religion SUSTAINABLE.

Winning the war of patience

The idea is to make the protests more engaging with the massesgiving it a flavour of religion

CHANGE SLOGAN TO MANTRA
CHANTING WITH THE MASSES
ENGAGE MORE MASSES BY TRANSFORMING REVOLUTION TORELIGION
SUSTAIN

It is well known that chanting mantra has therapeutic effecton the health of body and mind.

Needless to say the revolutionists are unhappy lot(in thesense of cause).

So the chanting on sustained basis will make them more happier to engage. This means wordof mouth publicity and the masses will expand.

Needless to say once you sustain your protests the ‘war of patience’ is won.

Killing The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs

2011-12-26T00:36:00.000-08:00

Recently a CEO of a INR10 Billion company approached me to assist him in diversification of the business. He is a second generation entrepreneur , willing to move beyond the business built by the father. While discussing the criteria, based on his current capabilities and expectations, an interesting point was mentioned by him.

'I do not want labour intensive businesses, but don't mind capital intensity.'I was just wondering if this is the general thinking of current generation entrepreneurs.If yes, I am apprehensive about the sustainability of economy based on such businesses.

'By the machines and for the people' is easy money on the short term and will help economy (capital goods manufacturing). Needless to say sustainable jobs will go out of the markets, killing the economy.

It's time entrepreneurs think of 'Invisible Hand', as technology is up in arms to ampute, this hand, through improved machine productivity, disruptive innovations and government promoting the initiatives in the name of competency and innovation.

Engineering Cities To Be Cost Efficient

2011-08-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

While China is a super power in exporting manufactured goods, India is a current champion in exporting knowledge based services(IT, BPO, KPO). However there is a threat of India becoming more expensive. Is there a thing we can do to stay competitive.

Most of the recent increases witnessed is mostly a result of Inflation, but also an important factor i.e. cities housing the industry are becoming increasingly expensive to live. Eg. Mumbai is expensive than Delhi and Delhi in turn is more expensive than Bangalore, if you go by rentals or salary levels or real estate are higher in Mumbai than elsewhere in India.

So bigger the city, expensive it is expected to be. Not only this, bigger cities record higher crime rate affecting overall quality of life.

Now the challenge is to have smaller cities , not the traditional cities focused on only domestic economy but also on exports and restrict the growth ,the large cities are currently witnessing.

India over 30% of 1.3 Bn total population living in urban areas. and if you see the distribution of population , you can witness a power curve. With few cities holding large chunk of population

- Top 3 cities has 12% of the urban population,

- Top 25 Cities has 25% of the urban Population

- Top 100 Cities has over 40% of the urban population.

Where as 70% of the population is present in 0.65 Mn villages.

Instead , we can have say 10,000 cities with 1 Lakh population than few cities with very large population and many 1 lakh towns with smaller population of about 5K. And each city or cluster of cities can be focused to develop certain competencies, say auto, telecom, ITES etc. while the towns will focus on agriculture and domestic trade.

I can think of three step approach to achieve this

Step 1: Defining the ideal city with respect to the area and population, economy, Infrastructure such as

roads, education, etc..

Step 2: Larger cities playing a fathers role. i.e how father saves money and invests in the future of sons.

So the larger cities can focus on just maintaining themselves and share of the cities’revenues can be diverted towards the growth of very small cities/towns say in the proximity of say 100-200 km across all the directions. In this way say every city adopts 4 cities around itself.

So once the city attains certain size, they have to be not only self sustainable but also help growing more cities around it. and eventually de-growing itself.

Step 3: Developing Competencies developing them into clusters. Within Individual states a clusters of cities (Say 10 of them) can be formed with focus on specific industries such as Auto, Telecom, ITES etc,. The cluster focus can help the industries to manage talent pool and even growing skilled manpower through active participation in educational institutions

My thought is serious

2011-04-20T22:59:00.000-07:00

Looks like my stupidity is a serious thought.
I had posted my thoughts on managing corruption back in December 2010 on this blog. http://vijaykrishnapppa.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-solution-to-beat-corruption.html
Recently I found a proposal on the same lines by Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, India, published in March 2011
Refer the below link.
http://finmin.nic.in/WorkingPaper/Act_Giving_Bribe_Legal.pdf

While I don't think of any plagiarism by Mr. Basu , pat on my back?? definately yes..

A Solution to Beat Corruption

2010-12-16T00:41:00.001-08:00

I some how missed to post this piece, struck to me more than a year back.
In the midst of 2G, Real estate, bank, games and many other scams I feel the right time has arrived.

Argument is;
We cannot stop corruption as long as you punish giver and taker of the bribe.
It is an incentive for both not to disclose about the instance. The moment we say that only taking bribe is punishable , imbalance begins because of two reasons :
-Increased probability of Whistle Blowing by the giver.
-Reduced social stigma on the giver but increases on the taker.

So this may be a social and behavioural motivator to be on the givers side than on the takers side reducing overall corruption level.

Loose Weight While You Shop

2010-12-16T00:27:00.001-08:00

Here is THE great Idea!!

While women are shopaholics in general ,they have tendency to be obese(citation needed)
I am not a Narcissist here, just that I believe male breed is yet to mature in the art of shopping.
Now how about Playing a Carrot and Stick with this to work the way out. This great Idea is a “Loose Weight Shopping Mall.”

The Mall will have interesting shops focused around women.
However the way to reach each of the shop will be physically a workout,
Eg. Reverse Escalators, reverse flat escalators(Walk ways), stairs etc,
So you would not be able to reach the next store without walking effectively say 50 meters.

It will have movie halls where the individual seats are Cycles(Gym) .While your eyes/ears and mind are busy watching movie,
Legs will be busy cycling at more than stipulated speed, so as to remain at the same place ,
else you would go down and eventually out of the cinema hall.

What will motivate women to stay long in the mall??
Answer:Shoppers' High(remember Runners High).While this is an extra effort for women it will still be motivating because of their feeling good while shopping

What is in for the shop owners?
Answer: The feel good factor of losing weight motivate them to buy more.

How many grams is your salary ?

2010-11-19T00:39:00.000-08:00

Recently in a family gathering , we were discussing about the salary hikes between cousins. While everyone agreed that in spite of double digit growth in salaries there seem to be no visible change in the quality of lifestyle.

Not many among the working class can actually workout the real change in their income (Vs Nominal change). One of the simpler methods for everyone is to measure salary can be by Quantity of Gold your Salary can Buy.
Now you draw your career graph with grams of gold you might conclude better than absolute value.

In fact one of them was shocked to know that, in the last four years his salary has gone down.

Protesting the Dirty Administration

2010-11-19T00:23:00.000-08:00

While there are scores of allegations about misutilization of funds power happening in India.
The action is limited to media’s hue and cry and opposition parties’ protest.While the participation of taxpayers towards normalizing the governance is very limited.
The major bottleneck here is, the mass taxpayers has no time to spend on these issues, who are caught between work and families inspite of having will to do something.
so all that he can do is give TRPs to the breaking news channels and forget the issue with the channels later.

But there is a better way to mobilize taxpayers for protests, by taking turns for protests.
So the concept is giving One Day in a year for India.(ODI) .To say if there are 20 Lakh working population in city. Each person can give a day in a year for protests. So in this sense at least 6500 People will be Available in a day in a city. so the managing body of protests can now target issues places and people using website and monitor. And further there are Saturdays and Sundays where people are available.

Get the best real estate deal

2010-11-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

Here is my simple formula to get the best reale state deal.
One of the best ways for politicians to hide money, today is invest in real estate .Esp. in India.
Reason being, the real estate is bound to appreciate due to ever increasing levels of overall economy and urbanization which is far from the levels in other developed and developing countries . Needless to say more the politicians are puttting their,rather our money in realestate. Remember land cannot me manufactured(Forget Middle east , we aren't so rich) so because to supply constraints, if higher is overall investments higher are the returns for them.

Now the good thing is politicians need liquidity during the elections when money flows back to people, though mostly in the form of Beer and Biryani.That is when they start disinvesting in the realestate. As a general trend before the national elections the unlocking of realestate starts helping overall prices to fall.

So don't miss to get the best deal on your home before the next general elections.

Is it a Positive NPV Project??,

2010-10-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

After witnessing events from collapsing bridges to amazingly performing Indian athletes,
from Impertinence to the politicians to applauses to the players common wealth games is ready for the final show stop today .It has further proved the point that a resource hungry country like India , every penny spent has to be worth more than its price.
Tax payer probably will never pardon the pathetic performance of the organizers.
While every scheme/ initiative should be seen as a positive NPV Project. Organizers hardly managed to put the pieces together.

If you look back, there was a big hue and cry with the Australian Public before the CWG 2006, Melbourne.The cost was described in some local media as excessive. One of the opposition party leaders said that the government should win "gold (medal) for burning money" .However, not all of this money was wasted. The actual costs for hosting the games was 1.144 billion dollars & prior to the Games, it was estimated that the gross income generated by this event could be as high as 1.5 billion dollars.
I am sure there were more intangible benefits beyond games.

We should not to forget every good rupee invested will multiply in the future and so is a bad rupee..

Leveraging the Nudge

2010-10-08T03:42:00.001-07:00

Recently there was a mail from my senior stating that the big wins for the team during this week.General environment in cafeteria has also turned up more lively with live telecast of commonwealth games, where India is faring good.So a thought ran in my head connecting these two events.My argument is the positive emotions created( in this case because of India’s performance) can trigger positive results(in Clients’ minds) .This behaviour can be leveraged for your gain.Say if you are negotiating with client on a contract, better you do when a game is running where home team is doing good.

Rajni Will Never Die

2010-10-04T20:58:00.000-07:00

What made me think beyond this 2 hour super entertainer of Rajnikant.
All started with the question,
“What made the creator/Rajni to come up with this Idea of Robot??”
Is it a deliberate thought or a Random one?

I think it is a deliberate one( a conspiracy).If you ask me why?
One of the key aspect of on screen Rajni is ,that he refuses to age.
Amitabh Bachan had tried this earlier to fail miserably.
But for how long Rajni can remain a young man on screen?
One can clearly see slowing physical movement behind the energetic face.
At 60, I am sure he feels the pain to do super acts.

So I believe this idea of Robot is a deliberate Idea towards making him Eternal Rajni.
Idea of moving the spirit of Rajni beyond himself , to a robot and subsequently to
The cartoon movie being directed by his daughter and further.
Towards becoming a creator for the next generation from an actor.

Rajni Will Never Die!!!

Copanhagen Consensus: Never arrived at

2009-12-18T18:26:00.000-08:00

The flop show of such a critical conference once again shows countries focus more on short term gains(Political view) than long term survival. In the end if not a negative sum, it was turning out to be a zero sum game where developed countries had to pay cutting GHG in developing countries. As one can assume "Zero Sum " and "Co-operation" can never go together.
Solution for this can only be 'Technology".In addition to current Kyoto Protocol. Let countries across the world commit a mammoth fund towards disruptive technologies across all the areas, power generation, transportation, Consumer Durables etc... They can invest in proportion to the countries current GHG contribution and per capita income levels,

Empathetic Ants Vs Insensitive Elephants

2009-09-23T08:36:00.001-07:00

Personally I have always been associated with medium companies ; three to be accurate. I always felt insecure working with large companies, from my mobile service provider to vendors at work, unless its a commodity like a piece of soap. Recently for one of the events promoting India we were planning to make an audio visual. I had horrible experience working with India's best creative agency,with pathetic communication, toothless customer interface guys, rigid working style.
And last Sunday I went for a haircut, The whole experience right from booking slot to making payment ,it was real pleasure.The owner was well read and when asked about ,why is he not expanding the business,his answer was"I have consistent business only due to the quality of experience, and I am confident I would not be able to provide same service with expansion".
He was right .
Like economics measures GDP not Gross National Happiness,
Economics administers 'Economies of scale not Economies of satisfaction .

Prove all ideas as facts!!!

2009-09-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

You can call me pessimistic. But I'm suspicious about every damn research outcome in the news. Right from the finding that 'Caffine in moderation is good or bad for human beings'.
There is always an incentive for one to prove an interesting stuff. The third culture has only deconstructed the barriers for the men of ideas in reaching the common reader..

Sun screen for the globe

2009-09-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

Now that "cap and trade" formula is failing to contain the green house gases,

Expert panelists in Copenhagen Consensus have concluded "Marine cloud whitening" as the best option.

It would cost $9Billion , not big, when you look at returns, when the clouds work as a sun block for the globe.It would take about 1850 ships to do the work.

Needless to say Cap and Trade was among the last options in the list..

Guess how much the global fraternity could save on sun block creams...;) !!

Simplicity and Clarity

2009-08-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to an interesting talk on TED.
http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html

What really hit me is the utter simplicity of the authors idea ,
which I doubt is easy to perceive in today’s world in the midst of social clutter and conditioning of media, peers and institutions .

Measure economy from space

2009-08-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

Found this interesting article on WSJ.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/08/03/measuring-economic-growth-from-outer-space/
Well India I doubt if it works with uninterrupted powercuts .

Stocks ,Marriages and Bear Run

2009-04-09T07:12:00.000-07:00

There is a strong correlation between how a father chooses a groom to his daughter and how one chooses investment option.
During the economic boom IT folks, consultants ,I-bankers were every fathers dream bridegrooms.
Since returns were high.Similarly I choose stocks to invest my money .
Now when the crisis has hit the scene father's have started mitigating the risk by choosing
Govt employees whos careers are risk free though returns are average.
With 6th pay commision being implemented even this statement is not completely true.
Alas!!! a bachelor consultant trusts now in bonds than stocks.

Freakonomics & Crisis

2009-03-18T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here is my two cents of freakonomics.
There are huge incentives in pipeline if you can plan to have your kids during 2010-2011

My hypothesis here is about the behaviour of couples in middle and upper middle class working in private enterprises.
This segment of people are significant in cities; metro and non metros.
The current economic crisis has led to a certain degree of financial insecurity among this class of people .
The couple who were planning to have kids during this year and next year will post pone their decision expecting the uncertainty to continue.
So one can expect less number of births during these years .There by a smaller peer group for the kids.

This will create a gap in supply demand. With supply remaining same demand in relevant services and goods will reduce due to smaller peer group.
The benefits are
-Access to best hospitals and doctors due to lesser demand during pregnancy and delivery
-If you are looking for admissions for the kids in school ,college its easier and cheaper due to smaller peer group
-Less competition in national and international entrance exams like GMAT, CAT etc.

Whats your take ? Esp. just married ones!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

My first actual encounter with Global Economic Crisis came last sunday; from the raddiwala.
He was weighing a month's stock of newspapers,I just enquired how much does he pay a KG.
"Four ruppes sir", He responded.
"Why two rupees less". I shouted back.
" Sir every where slow sir, don't you see the news these days"
I was amazed. he took four notes of 10 rupees and kept them in my hand and went away with the papers..

Bi-Polar World.

2008-09-07T12:18:00.000-07:00

I thought of below definations or buckets to classify the citizens
The Winners: Who earn more than they work.
The Loosers : Who earn less than they work.

The recent american election confirms the bi-polarity of the world. The information yet to be reveled on the contribution and its quantum to the republicans as well as democrates by various companies;obviously large. Obviously they are paying the parties to have the government polices and regulations framed for their individual advantage. These large companies generally have impact on larger society directly or indirectly . The economics work like this..The large companies and political parties are together a pole called "Winners".They are strongly interdependent. Rest of the society form another pole called "Loosers",who give power to politicians and Money and hard work to the Large companies. Looks like Pareto's principle is at work.

Get ready to work for few extra hours with out any returns.

Strategy at the Leading end.

2008-08-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

As a strategy student I have always read successes of the organizations and case studies. Innumerable books have been written on formulas of sustainable success. Often empirical study has been done on many companies for years before authors came up with the "Elixir" of success.

I wonder if these are universally applicable. Do they ensure success if one does 'Monkey see, Monkey do' .I remember my prof. telling " Nothing succeeds like success". The moment of truth would have decided whether the strategy works..

So I feel it is important to understand the dynamism of the situation and the decisions which involve risk; such as one has to take a decision on one of the two new technology. It involves risk many times.
So its possible that successful companies are "Fooled by randomness "

Nothing much has changed over time

2008-08-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Since few were asking me why the date on Mcleod Gunj photographs was showing 2005.

Answer:
My Sony cyber shot camera started working just before we left for the trip.
Earlier the display screen used to become white when you switch on and did not work.
I googled out for a solution.
One of blogs it was mentioned ” I Tapped twice on the logo beside the lens”
Wow it worked for me as well. I can’t believe..
But date was reset; never mind changing it..

But this reminded me of my grandfathers radio which had to be tapped ( sometimes smacked) before it uttered....!!!

Nothing much has changed over time.....

Kick off at XL

2008-01-24T01:25:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t pay 8 bucks for two cups of Chai to Dadu, owing to no change. He nodded at me to pay later. And then ran in my mind“Expenses a/c Debit Rs.8.00Dadu a/c Credit Rs.8.00”I could not stop laughing at myself. After spending 6 years in Fashion industry this was a surprise since I expected myself to doze off in accounting classes, which I thought could never be fascinating. but my expectations were wrong.Other classes are no different. The first sense of ‘Being GMPian’ was in MHB (Managing Human Behavior) class, where each one of the class had as many perspectives as the number of people and none of the arguments were discountable. In the same week the ‘OutBound learning brought out the best of the strategies among us. I’m sure we have broken all the previous records.Bright red skies in the evening have always been the badge of Jamshedpur. Thanks to TATA Steel. In the Campus academic grind and weekend chill outs make an incredible blend for our new lease of life far away from corporate cries. Unforgettable weekends with music from DJ (we call Bhaskar) was real delight including Folk songs of Bhojpuri, an offbeat.The time is surely short and moving fast ; we have more of XL to experience and more synergies to create.

2007-10-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

To sing we must have a song in our hearts

Learning a technique may provide us with a job, but it will not make us creative; whereas, if there is joy, if there is the creative fire, it will find a way to express itself, one need not study a method of expression. When one really wants to write a poem, one writes it, and if one has the technique, so much the better; but why stress what is but a means of communication if one has nothing to say? When there is love in our hearts, we do not search for a way of putting words together. Great artists and great writers may be creators, but we are not, we are mere spectators. We read vast numbers of books, listen to magnificent music, look at works of art, but we never directly experience the sublime; our experience is always through a poem, through a picture, through the personality of a saint. To sing we must have a song in our hearts; but having lost the song, we pursue the singer. Without an intermediary we feel lost; but we must be lost before we can discover anything. Discovery is the beginning of creativeness; and without creativeness, do what we may, there can be no peace or happiness for man.
By J. Krishnamurthi

2007-09-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

Welcome

2007-09-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Blog