Tech headlines of interest

Google purchases Slide.com

Google has purchased a small social networking firm called Slide.com, which was made public on Aug7th.

In addition to a $100 million investment in game maker Zynga, the maker of Farmville and other massively popular games on facebook, looks like google is collecting a portfolio of social game makers.

On Inception - Whoa! Just Whoa!

If you are the kind who enjoyed Matrix 1, then you will be blown away by this movie. I know this will feel like a fan boy going gaga... but I cannot help it... Inception Rocks!

Inception has a beautiful

premise, which has been flawlessly extrapolated to support a story line that is very beautiful, which is as much outside-in as it is inside-out.

I do not want to expand more on this because I hate to give away the story. Instead, I would like to explain my experience.

From the first minute to the last, the story moves like a juggernaut going through layer after layer of the story’s complexity. The visuals are amazing, the story deep and very very very clever. I was expecting certain kinds of tricks, but nolan does not even take those tricks, he has 2-3 deep yet simple targets w.r.t story milestones and he goes after them without veering at all.

The characters are very credible. Which is not by accident, the movie has a lot of top notch talent, and everybody pretty much played their role to the T. I also believe that you do feel a bit, but not too much empathy for the protagonist and his team, which I suspect is by design.

In my personal ranking list, City of God is a 9, Matrix is an 8.5. Inception is an 8.75 on 10.

It is gripping, clever, deep, layered, beautifully constructed, extremely well executed movie. This movie is one of a kind, dont expect many movies like this to be made in the next decade atleast.

Simply BRILLIANT! An instant CLASSIC!

Dr Raju on Retail in India and Retail in General

On 7/7/2010, we had a small discussion with Dr. Jagmohan Raju about his views/insights into the Retailing Industry in general and his observations about this field.

The conversation was lively, interesting and insightful to say the least. Following some of the excerpts from the talk.

On coupons

Dr. Raju mentioned that he started his academic career with Retail related research. His first projects were with Safeway of California and he was fascinated with some interesting developments that he was witnessing.

Some interesting problems to tackle were apparently to do with the effect of coupons of sales of an entire category and not just the specific brand in question. Apparently until then, there was no consolidated view of the store point-of-sale and warehouse views of sales.

As the new advances were coming, his research looked the effect of sales coupons on the sales of the category. The coupons apparently resulted in reasonable , short term spikes. His observation was that there was no long lasting effects on the sales.

Some of the alternatives considered were whether to use deep discounts or shallow discounts. Apparently, they finally settled on using package coupons.

Essentially the insight was that usually when customers are given normal a.k.a FSI coupons, people would lose track of the coupons, or forget them or were just unlikely to come in and use those coupons. Even in cases where they worked, it would cause customer acquisition, but not customer retention and repeat sales.

However adding package coupons were a way inducing customer loyalty and repeat purchases. Some of the means of doing this was like printing a coupon on the carton, to be redeemed for the next purchase or one which can be exchanged for cash or store credit at the cash counter.

Dr Raju stated that the retailers were able to see marked difference in customer retention with this technique and were able to retain a lot of customers and increase the category sales as well.

On private labels

Private labels are frequently seen in US , UK and many other retailers world wide. However, private labels are much popular and prevalent in UK than in US. The primary reason being the concentrated nature of UK retailers as opposed to US retailers, where there are still a relatively larger number of players.

However, one might think that retailers can benefit by focusing their energies on promoting promoting private labels in retail stores.

Dr. Raju states that the role of the private labels is more strategic than monetary in nature. Essentially the idea is to use a strong a private label product as leverage to negotiate a better retail price from the manufacturer. Since the retailer has a reasonably strong brand in the market, the manufacturer will be forced to negotiate terms better.

The repeated message from previous section is that retailers are not interested in getting too many businesses. Their strength is to retail products for others and to benefit from the sales of the whole category. Not just from one manufacturer or from a private label.

Also, at this point we discussed about the viability of private labels in India. An interesting insight is that the retailer needs to have a widely recognized brand name. Something akin to an unaided recall in order to be able to use its image behind a private label. Without the required body of image, private label is unlikely to succeed.

Another interesting dynamic to consider is when and what product category to introduce a private label. Quick Question:

Would you like to introduce a private brand into a category where there are 2 dominant players or a category where there are five dominant players.

Dr Raju prefers the one with five dominant players to avoid more directed competition from the two established players.

On category champion in retail stores.

An interesting concept is that of a retail category champions. The idea is that, lets say, for the soaps section, P & G could be assigned the product category champion by Walmart. The idea is that P & G will take care of product placement, pricing, competing brand quantities, inventory management of the whole 'aisle' in every Walmart store.

Counter intuitive as it might sound, apparently after much research, it was realized that

i. P & G would actually benefit from stocking both its own and it's opponent products.

ii. It benefits Walmart obviously because it is one less thing for them to worry about.

iii. Apparently when incentives are aligned, it could be a win-win-win for Walmart, manufacturer and the end customer as well.

On challenges for Retailers in india

Dr Raju states that the biggest challenge to Retailers in India is the ability of customers to aggregate their purchases. His experience is that typically, a dedicated trip to Retail store is worth the effort if the customer can purchase atleast 7-8 different items and comeback.

However, in India, majority of the population still drives two wheelers. The problem is that at a time we dont have the capacity to carry all these items back home. He says that big box retailers make sense only when the consumer is able to aggregate all their purchases in one trip and take the purchases home. This he believes is a major challenge to indian retailers.

Other concerns are the infrastructure, infancy of the supply chain etc.

Another major concern is the image of big box retailers. In india, we are still used to the notion that big shops mean big margins and hence less affordability. This stems from the traditional "retailers" who would buy stuff from different manufacturers/wholesalers, keep a 3-5% markup, open a shop under their home and sell goods. In such circumstances, we are used to seeing a big store as passing on their overheads on top of their margins. Hence the image to common consumer that big shops are expensive. Retailers will need to figure out a way to change this image.

Some of the opportunities to seize in India, he believes, are with expensive products. For ex, gold, Tanishq, would be an excellent opportunity. The reason being that the traditional model of buying gold in India depended on life long trust one had with the jewellers. However, since indian population has become a lot more mobile and concentrated in cities, such trust is very difficult to establish. Hence, brand name like Tanishq, provides a lot of credibility, which can be leveraged.

He believes that in store credit cards have a lot potential in India. The retailers in the US operate on a substantially higher margin ( usually 100%) than Indian retailers ( <10%>

about malls in india...
Dr Raju sees malls in India as being very expensive. There is a lot of traffic and foot falls, but in terms actual purchases, the volume, he believes, is substantially low. One of the prime reasons is the very high real estate cost in India. This makes the malls very expensive, hence very high prices products are what can be realistically sold in India.

On single brand show rooms

He believes that single brand showrooms will work better from high end brands with a lot of built up brand image. But needs to be carefully thought out for other players.

The primary advantages are such stores can create price anchoring and can focus on product positioning without worrying about interbrand competition. i.e., not worry about the models and colors in which a competing brand is being offered.

on blindspots for marketing departments

He believes that marketing departments usually suffer from some of their expenses being under management blindspots. Companies lose sight of their marketing expenditure to either gauge their strength or weaknesses, because of these blindsport.

Some examples:

i. Sales force in a lot of firms actually performs a lot or marketing. However, this expense comes under operating, overhead or payroll expenses and is not easily visible to managers.

ii. One of the bigger marketing expense by a company is the distributor margin. Distributor margin is in a way an expense to the firm as the firm decides on how much incentive to give to distributors to "push" your product. This does not show up on the income statement or other standard statements of the company / division operations.

Managers will need to keep an eye on such blindspots to make sure they have an eye on their marketing strengths and weaknesses.

Six weeks at a time - 2 down 6 to go

Hmm.. one more post after a long hiatus. Every term at ISB lasts 6 weeks at a time, here's reminiscing the second set.

I thought the first term was hectic. This term makes the first look like a breeze. However, "learning effects" have kicked in. The learning is new, the process atleast has gotten more familiar.

It has been a crazy, hectic, fun, impressive, exciting , mind opening, happy, sometimes sad, reaffirming, sometimes humbling experience here. It is 3:30 in the am, after a party at the 08 lounge, with some drinks, loud music and lots of friends, the process of catharsis that will last till next monday ( ;-) ) has just begun.

Some things happened at ISB

Elections were completed. GSB sworn in, core committees appointed, professional and extra-curricular clubs formed. Lots of glad handling, PR, surprisingly little politicking and lots of commotion.

Just to remind that murphy prevails at ISB as well, the resumes and applications for professional club core positions were due on the friday before a tight deadline monday. The ELP that we were working on had to be in the week leading up to end terms, with 2 assignments, 2 case study reports and 2 term projects were due.

ELP frenzy, desperate hunt for members for that-killer-ELP-team. Late night drafts and last minute touches to the EOI. Bidding frenzy for exchange programs happened. :-) Glad that I sat out that race though...

Some commotion about shaking up sections and some passionate points of view on either sides of the fence. Ultimately, status quo prevails.

Alum sessions happened where they gave some insights and take aways from ISB. Seems like no matter what you go through at ISB, there will always be something substantial to take a way with you out of ISB.

Seth Godin spoke, and he totally dodged my question, :-( , but he was Okkkay. He is good, but I am actually impressed a lot with my own ISB faculty.

Things I will cherish

Dunking people, getting dunked. The surprise of seeing the cake my wife sent me on my birthday. People grabbing samosas out of each others plate at Cafe. Watching world cup soccer at 08 lounge and then partying right after the game was over.

And yeah.. i have the bragging rights... i did dance and party till the DJ ACTUALLY STOPPED THE MUSIC, from 11:30 pm to 5 am, non-stop! And then went to simrans place, had another round of vodka, maggi noodles and some existential discussions.

Giving people a case study the day before the exam and asking your analysis in the exam has got to be the strangest format of exam I have seen in my life. Will remember that i was staring at the case bleary eyed to 4 in the morning to figure out what the heck the case was about.

That every case discussion starts with a perspective, frames your thought and then turns the tables on you to teach you to book wear the framework-goggle and remind you to think laterally to make sure you dont miss stuff.

Things I am impressed with

Dr Jagmohan Raju is god. Let me repeat, Dr. Jagmohan Raju is GOD! He is all about substance and raw wisdom. Reminded me of the way Balki used to explain Relativity Theory at IITM.

While he is explaining things, he has a way to explain things like they are really simple. But, then there is an art to the thought process. In grokking the right stuff and avoiding the petty the stuff. Same with Balki, Feynman etc. ( Totally on a tangent, btw, if you havent, check out this link, a talk by Benoit Mandelbrot ).

I swear, there was this one lecture where Dr. Raju explained the history of marketing. Holy mother mary! That was the best lecture/speech/talk I have ever heard, PERIOD! For the marketing initiated, what the heck is PIMS, how does it lead to BCG and McKinsey matrices, where does capabilities and competencies come into the picture, AWE-FRICKING-SOME.

Almost every single lecture at ISB has been impressive. Dr Krishna actually play one video, from commanding heights, every lecture in his class to actually explain the eco concepts. His idea of going through some relavant news papers was very impressive.

Dr Milind Sohoni's passion and fight to get people to absorb and appreciate the concepts of DMOP was very impressive.

It was impressive to see Dr. Harbeer Singhs, underplayed humor and approach to teaching. And for the same course was the sharp contrast with Dr Nagalakshmi's, confrontative-but-engaging style of teaching.

And while I stay here the world moves on

So many of my friends became fathers. My nephew began to speak, wish I could get him to say "Mavayya". My wife is almost done with her masters.

My best friend got married! And i missed his wedding :-( .

What to say, as Gump would put it, "Life is like a box of choc-lates. You never what you are going to get!"

Adios Amigos! Its been long 2 days with errant sleep...

and so it begins

alright! back from a small hiatus.

So, continuing from the last point, week 2 at isb was a pre-term week. basically, anybody deficient in stats, accounting or quants can take pre-term courses and "brush up" their skills.

took up accts. the lecturer was very knowledgeable and very approachable also. learnt a bit about the basics of accounting.

this week the classes start. 2 lectures, 2 hrs each. economics and marketing. the modus operendi here seems to be make sure you read up about 2-3 hours worth and the prof talks abt 2 hrs worth...

mkting is a case study based method. surprisingly quant heavy analysis was done. interesting.. learnt a bit..

the race has begun... :)

Talent Nite and LDP

okay... yesterday nite they had a talent nite...

so they had competition between all the sections ( there are 8 sections of 72 ppl each per yr ). The show was awesome.. our section came up with some stuff... but a lot of other sections came up with really creative stufff...

ppl have a broad range of talents... couple of western classical trained vocalists... couple bharatanatyam dancers... couple of kathak dancers.. taekwondo guys... a buddhist monk... a couple guys really good at rock music and guitar stuff ..

yours truly belted out a song "vennilave vennilave.." ... :-) thank you...

really nice show... enjoyed it a lot.

so we have a 2 day workshop on leadership development..

some interesting temperament evaluations frameworks etc. stuff is interesting so far.

O-week.... phew...

hi everybody..

meaning to update for sometime but its been crazy at the campus here...

the first week here continues to be busy... i was slowly ambling along till sunday apr 10 11 am... after that i pretty much felt like being thrown from the platform onto a maglev train...

2 parties in the past 5 days.. and these guys know to party... really loud music.. pro dj, booze and everything... lots of junta from delhi and places... lots of ppl dressed upto the nines and looking hip...

lots and lots of information sessions... they have a lot of professional club on campus and some social clubs as well..

lots of sessions of career choices after isb.

had almost 2 full days of team building excercise.

sports were on 2 seperate days.. have some talent nite preparations going on for the past 2 days. quiz competitions.

basically havent slept more than 4 hrs in the past 5 days... its been less than a week and already feels like i have been here a long time..

i am impressed with the breadth of ppl i am interacting with.. 8 doctors, 2 army personnel ( one was a colonel ) , lots of chartered accountants, financial analysts at goldman sachs etc... lots of ppl where analysts at consulting firms.. ofcourse apart from a lot of it folks...

last year 10% of the batch was NRI. this year it might be higher... about 55% from IT and all others from other industries. about 70% of the batch has more than 4yrs of exp... there are a lot of married ppl living single on campus... another cool thing i noticed is that spouses of alums come to ISB as well interesting... :)

so, overall looks like a neat setup..

infrastructure is real nice... really well thought layout of facilities... living arrangements are really nice... serviced apartment. they come in and wipe the place and even make the beds... but then @ 12k a month, i thinking the value is reasonable for the price..

the dining hall looks impressive.. but as we all know.. any mess can quickly bore you... this mess is no exception :)