Back to square one?

IIPM fights meltdown, places 2300 students By Education Mail Bureau

They call it a breather! And why not? Despite the ongoing carnage in the global aviation industry Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic has not only been able to end the year on a positive note but it also seems flying high this year without any turbulence (read financial!). All thanks to the fuel hedging and a rise in sales of premium seats the flamboyant airline was able to almost double its pretax profits to £68.4 million for the financial year ending February 28, 2009, from just £34.8 million last year. This definitely puts the privately owned airline aloft of the red-painted crowd, where the number of casualties (read bankruptcies) has reached 30 since the oil price started to soar at the beginning of 2008. But then, critics argue that the falling air traffic and increasing input costs might pull the soaring airline back to the ground. “The current economic downturn is extremely challenging for the airline industry. There will be a particularly pronounced fall in premium class and cargo revenue,” warns Binit Somaia, Regional Director, Center for Asia Pacific Aviation. Thus, with fruit bearers turning futile Virgin is surely to find it tough to maintain its current profitable run.

Ratan Lal Bhagat

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

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Delhi/ NCR B- Schools get better By Swati Sharma
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2300 IIPM students get jobs
The Most Revolutionary Concept In Education PLANMAN CHE CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Supported by IIPM India’s Leading B-School
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Bid to start MAXimising your desires...

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Brand: Max New York Life;
Agency: Euro RSCG

Remember the ‘Czechoslovakia’ ad, which has a young couple ecstatic as their child starts speaking? Karo Zyaada Ka Iraada breaks the clutter in insurance advertising. The power idea is to move away from simply meeting your post-retirement needs to maximising your post-retirement life. Playing on the basic human emotion of desiring more than one has, the campaign portrays a similar circle of life, making an instant connect with the target audience. Post this campaign, the premiums received by the insurance player have seen a 100% rise over six months (IRDA). Well, if it’s about maximising your revenues, guess zyada ka irada works!

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

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MOHIT D. JAYAL, MD, W+K, DELHI

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1. Vodafone – an excellent example of great client & agency relationship
2. Incredible India – re-branding a nation is no easy task...
3. Coke’s ‘Paanch’ series had great characterisation and gave the competitors a run for their money
4. Fevicol’s campaign helped define a brand new Indian sensibility based on authenticity, not ‘aspiration’

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

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Together we can, and we will... !

IIPM only B-school in India to be Ranked Ahead of The IIMs in so Many Parameters! Regularly!

It was indeed a long wait when in July 2007 Air India and Indian got the government’s nod to operate as a single entity. But then it was worth waiting! The rationale behind the merger was to provide an integrated international and domestic airline that will benefit passengers significantly. And the merged entity has achieved that effectively. Their complementary networks, common ownership and greater efficiencies, all point towards the benefits of a successfully merged entity. Though, the ongoing slowdown seems to have restricted it from scaling new heights at present, but then, savings have definitely come from route rationalisation, common sales & distribution network, et al. Certainly, one cannot ignore the nice and ambitious idea behind the merger despite the poor execution, which as a matter of chance was revealed later.

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

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Spreading the spirit of enterprise all over!

The Most Revolutionary Concept In Education PLANMAN CHE CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION, Supported by IIPM India’s Leading B-School

Deconstructing the McDonald’s supply chain efficiency, straight from the horse’s mouth. What works and what certainly does not!

A unique sense of dedication and commitment characterizes McDonald’s India – a commitment to be driven by the leadership of local owners. Commitment to provide quality products and fast friendly service at a real value to support other Indian businesses through local sourcing. McDonald’s unique ‘cold chain’ – which the QSR major spent more than six years for setting up – in India has brought about a veritable revolution, immensely benefiting the farmers at one end and enabling customers at retail counters get the highest quality food products, absolutely fresh and at great value. Setting up this extensive cold chain distribution system has involved the transfer of state-of-the-art food processing technology by McDonald’s and its international suppliers to pioneering Indian enterprises who, today, are an integral part of the McDonald’s cold chain.

Trikaya Agriculture, a major supplier of iceberg lettuce to McDonald’s India, is one such enterprise that is an intrinsic part of the cold chain. Exposure to better agricultural management practices and sharing of advanced agricultural technology by McDonald’s has made Trikaya Agriculture extremely conscious of delivering its products with utmost care and quality. Initially lettuce could only be grown during the winter months, but with McDonald’s expertise in the area of agriculture, Trikaya Farms in Talegaon, Maharashtra, is now able to grow this crop all the year round. Post harvest facilities at Trikaya include a cold chain consisting of a pre-cooling room to remove field heat, a large cold room and a refrigerated van for transportation. With this cold chain infrastructure in place, Trikaya Agriculture has also a plan to export this high value product to other international markets, especially to McDonald’s Middle East and Asia Pacific operations.

Financial support extended by OSI Industries Inc., USA and McDonald’s India Private Limited have enabled Vista Processed Foods to set up world-class infrastructure and support services. This includes hi-tech refrigeration plants for manufacture of frozen food at temperatures as low as - 35°C. Also, keeping cultural sensitivities in mind, both processing lines are absolutely segregated and utmost care is taken to ensure that the vegetable products do not mix with the non-vegetarian products. Today, production of better quality frozen foods that are both nutritious and fresh has made Vista Processed Foods Pvt. Ltd. a name to reckon within the industry.

McDonald’s supplier of cheese, Dynamix Dairy, recognising the need for quality milk to make quality cheese, has set up a dedicated quality programme for milk procurement. It has made significant investments in setting up bulk coolers at all milk collection centres in the Baramati area, where it is based. On receipt, the milk is immediately stored in the bulk coolers at the collection centres, to prevent growth of bacteria in the milk and preserve its freshness – thus, maintaining the ‘cold chain’.

McDonald’s local supply networks through Radhakrishna Foodland, which operates distribution centres (DCs) for McDonald’s restaurants in Mumbai and Delhi. Ranging from liquid products coming from Punjab to lettuce from Pune, the DC receives items from different parts of the country. All these suppliers share McDonald’s commitment and dedication to satisfying customers by supplying them the highest quality products. They work cohesively to ensure that the final product reaches the customer consistently each time and every time.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

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Luxury’s not a lipstick

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Small wonder that there has been a slash in the colossal promotional activities of such luxury brands in recent times. Market watchers claim that Chanel’s couture show (2008 fall-winter collection) was a much muted version of the spectacular displays in previous years. Even the Swiss luxury giant Richemont (owner of prestige brands like Cartier & Montblanc) is cutting down on promotional costs. Given the dramatic dip in their third quarter sales (by 12%) and their quagmire is understandable.

But why has premium-luxury escaped the wrath of the market downturn? Take Tag Heuer. Despite Swiss watch brands seeing an overall drop in export figures, Tag Heuer (from Louis Vuitton), claims that in the last half of 2008, it has grown by nearly 4%. “Recession hasn’t affected us much because we are into the premium luxury segment. Our target audience will buy a Tag Heuer irrespective of recession,” Jean Christophe Babin, President, Tag Heuer told 4Ps B&M.

Clearly, premium luxury and their Richie Rich target audience continue to ride the downturn unaffected. Self-proclaimed global leader in luxury Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) has recorded 6% growth for the quarter ended December 2008 and Dior has shown a 3% growth in the same period. A glaring case in point is Van Cleef & Arpels (a premium-luxury brand from Richemont) that has shown 5% growth this quarter; while Cartier and Montblanc (mass-luxury brands from the same Richemont Group) recorded negative growth. Here’s what Stanislas De Quercize, President and CEO, Van Cleef & Arpels told this magazine. “We don’t believe in volume growth. The brand has always been into quality sales (as opposed to quantity sales) so our sales figure has remained intact even during recessions.”

What also keeps the premium-luxury flame burning is exposure to emerging markets (instead of depending only on US and European markets). Take for example Cartier. The brand still does not have a direct retail presence in India, whereas LVMH has expanded its arms deeply into Japan, India and China. The company claims that 94% of 20-plus Japanese women own a LVMH bag. That’s huge, given that Japan accounts for almost 41% of the global luxury mart. “This takes care of avoiding the monetary transaction cost, which has been affected due to recession,” feels Bradely Jones, Head of South Asia Unit of UK Trade & Investment. The Lipstick-Index may or may not be decisive in its feelings and judgements; but hey, it does seem that there are a few recession-proof things in this close-knit, global world! Do we hear cheers going up from the likes of Tag Heuer, Versace, Dolce&Gabbana, Van-Cleef & Arpels???

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2009

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

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1500-plus IIPM students placed across the country with 44 bagging international offers
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Why Study Abroad When IIPM Gives You 3 global Advantages!

Why the old, brutal and controversial prisons should be closed

The next in line is Camp 1391 which was built by British to imprison Jews and Lebanese. It now serves Israeli interests and is known more as Israel’s Guantanamo. Detainees, mostly from Palestine and Lebanon, are imprisoned in small cells with walls painted black or red with one small ventilator and a light. And then there's the Black Beach of Guinea. It is said that incarcerating someone in Black Beach is like ‘a slow but gradual death sentence’. Prisoner torturing through beating, burning, limited food rationing make life as good as hell for detainees. The Vladimir Central Prison in Russia too can be safely called the Gitmo of Russia. There, in normal circumstances six captives are locked in one cell and are often subjected to violent torture by guards and suffer from deadly diseases like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

Closing litigious Guantanamo prison is a good start but not enough. Punishing and imprisoning criminals is very important and relevant but prisons all across are losing their credibility on ground of justice, fairness and basic facilities to be served to any human on any situation. But shutting them down would not guarantee the eradication of crime from the world. Thus it isn't about closing prisons but about making efforts to make them look similar to earth and not hell. This change would serve mankind more while keeping crime at bay. Let's not the hatred of civilised world be the reason for giving birth to a new breed of terrorists.....Continue

Death for the milkman

China gets tough on those behind the scam

Two men have been sentenced to death and a woman, a top executive of a dairy company, got life imprisonment by an intermediate people's court in Shijiazhuang, capital of Hebei Province, China, for their roles in the production and the sale of milk that was deliberately contaminated with an industrial chemical. At least six babies died and 300,000 fell ill after drinking the milk powder produced by the dairy company Sanlu Group. According to investigations, Geng Jinping, the middlemen who bought milk from farmers and sold it on to dairies, watered it down and mixed it with melamine, a nitrogen-rich chemical used to make plastics and fertilisers, which creates the appearance of higher protein levels in quality tests.

The court has sentenced Zhang Yujun, 40, to death for producing 770 tonnes melamine-laced “protein powder” and selling more than 600 tonnes to others to be mixed in the milk powder. Jinping also faces execution for selling 900 tonnes of milk tainted by 434 kg of protein powder to Sanlu Group. Geng was convicted of manufacturing and selling toxic food while Zhang was convicted of endangering public safety. Zhang was well aware of the damage his actions created, the prosecution said. Another man, Gao Junjie, got a suspended death sentence for endangering public safety while protein powder dealers Zhang Yanzhang and Xue Jianzhong got life imprisonment. The remaining 15 defendants were sentenced to 15 years in jail.

However, the life sentence given to Tian Wenhua, 66, former board chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, has outraged many parents, as they feel she too should have been condemned to death. Tian had pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling toxic products and admitted knowing of the problems for at least four months before notifying the government. Adam Segal, senior dellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, told TSI: “It's now unclear if Chinese officials have made any real gains in food safety over the past year or they have simply been blocking bad news out. Death sentences can act as deterrence but its impact will be short-lived.” Undoubtedly, the milk scandal has tarnished the image of Chinese products in the US and European markets.....Continue

Serendipity in Serendib

From all our immediate neighbours, only one may ever be considered as an escapist destination, it’s the island which Marco Polo declared as, “the finest in its size”, Sri Lanka. This beautiful country enjoys a rich heritage and an eventful history, as one finds it through the pages of Greek, Egyptian and Indian literature.

As soon as I arrived at the Colombo International Airport, a plethora of appealing elements unfurled before my senses. The heavy warm air, the copious green foliage, the luxuriant swirls of the Sinhalese language and the multi-coloured Buddhist flags. All of them in perfect harmony and yet individually alluring.

From the bustling commercial capital, 12 kilometers south, I reached the passive but exquisite colonial beachfront hotel of Mt. Lavinia. A legacy of colonial heritage, it stands as a monument to the forbidden love of a Governor General and a local mesitzo dancer who cast a spell on his heart. Time stood still in the corridors of this grand old structure, but I managed to stir a beach volleyball game with the effervescent and warm staff outside. A few good games and a special body massage later, I parked myself pretty comfortably and called it a night.

In the morning, after breakfast, I left for the city of gems or Ratnapura. The scenic route takes us passing the paddy fields, rubber plantations and extensive tea estates to the foothills of Adam’s peak – the holy mountain where Ratnapura is situated. A visit to one of the museums, gem workshop or even mines and one gets educated to the variety and processing of precious stones. Sri Lanka is most renowned for its Blue Sapphires.....Continue

Air farce one

As the ‘Bush’ jokes era winds down with Barack Obama taking over on 20th January, here’s one last satirical jibe at ‘The Decider’ who has been ‘misunderestimated’! So, it’s 2006 and the President (of the US of A of course!) is coming. Among other things on his agenda after Air Force One (the Presidential plane) touches down in India, is his wish to shake hands with a ‘young’ Indian and the responsibility for finding that Indian is of Samantha Patel’s whose Zenith PR is the agency hired for the job. Six madcap shortlists later, Samantha and able assistant Ritu Johnson find themselves in the American consulate taking the contestants through a ‘Survivor’ meets ‘Big Boss’ style reality show setting to find out who will be the last one standing to shake hands with the President.

Throw in six dysfunctional contestants in a room for a night as they compete in farcical rounds (‘Recognising American Faces’ where one guy thinks Bin Laden is Osho or reading out a Bush speech while acting like a duck!) and the laughs are bound to come. The beauty is that the laughs are a result of insightful writing and dialogue as much as the ability of the cast. Konkona Sen Sharma is in top form as the Bengali author and the frontrunner in the contest, but the others too play their slightly typecast (there’s the Gujju stock broker, the right wing MBA, the cool accent trainer, the software engineer and even a Paris Hilton wannabe!), but hilariously funny, roles with aplomb!....Continue

Strange question

K Swain, BJP MP, Orissa

“No MP named Swain stays here,” the security guard said, stunning us when we asked for Kharabela Swain’s residence. “Actually, no one knows me in this locality. You have to ask for Kalpana Parida’s home to find me!” Swain later told us when we finally traced him. “Sometimes even security guards stop me from entering my wife’s house.” He never applied for a government accommodation, nor has he bought a house in Bhuvaneshwar. “Whenever I come to the capital, I stay in Kalpana’s flat. She is working with Doordarshan and lives here with our only son,” clarified Swain.

Named after Orissa’s legendary ancient king Mahameghabahana Aira Kharabela, Swain, a powerful BJP politician maintains a very low profile. And his entering politics says it all. In 1988, this 1980-batch Indian Allied Services Officer quit his cushy job to join politics. “I was fed-up with the corruption and opportunism of politicians. People feel that good and honest persons can’t survive in politics. I wanted to prove them wrong. I believe in that old economic aphorism – good money drives out bad money from the market. So will it be in politics.” Kharabela’s stature as a highly articulate and active parliamentarian cuts across party lines. He always takes centre-stage in all major national debates. He is exceptionally popular in his constituency. In the last election, Kharabela polled a massive 553,087 votes and defeated his rival by 236,955 votes. And why not? During the floods last year, the first man to reach the remotest areas was their MP, not any sort of government agency.

‘My capital is people’s affection, which is much more valuable than a bungalow, car or money. I could have achieved all that, but that is not my philosophy,” says he. And bribes ever offered? “Yes, but only in my initial days as a parliamentarian. Today, everybody knows what I do. Kalpana manages all our expenses. My son has got a job through campus selection. So for what will I pile up money?”....Continue

Survival of the fittest?

When hunting is all they have done for generations, it is difficult to contemplate an alternate means of living overnight. Inasin Bai, an intrepid member of the hunting tribe of Pardhis brazenly questions, ‘what about us?’, now that hunting is banned...

We are a nomadic clan. For generations we were known as baheliyas and have been hunting to earn a living. We know no other skill. Living in the jungle has been a way of life for us. Tigers are like cats for us. We stay in the jungle and for days our men roam around the jungle and study the routes that the animals take, especially the tiger.

Tigers fetch us good money because the buyers are readily available. A lot of business comes from the crocs as well. But for killing them we use poisonous tablets. Once the men have hunted the animals, it is the women’s job to shave the skin off, to clean it and to look for a buyer at a good price. Till the time we are in the forest, we often feed on birds like bater (quails). Our kids have learnt to mimic the voice of the bird well, which it assumes as another bird’s call and also responds. This makes it easier for us to trace them and then we hunt them with a catapult. But now animals have to be protected and hunting has been made illegal. So suddenly our means of earning a living has become illegal. The rules are so strict that most of our men are in the jail. It has been three months that we have been ostracized from our community because we have stopped hunting in the hope that the government would provide us with an alternative. But now there seems to be no source of earning from the jungle. It seems like it will take long before anything is done for us. The money in the work they offer us isn’t enough and the work is tiresome too. If we don’t get enough food to survive, we would have no other option but to go back to the community and engage in hunting, which is no more legal. Everybody thinks that the count of tigers and other animals is falling, but we can’t die of hunger for them. I’m sure you would weigh human life more than that of an animal!....Continue

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The Sunday Indian

In Delhi, people were swayed by Sheila Dikshit’s consistent track record on development, and simply ignored the BJP

In Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – the creditable innings of Shivraj Chauhan and Raman Singh notwithstanding – the two were also partly helped by the Congress party’s internecine struggles and often outright negative campaigns. The party failed to project a united front, ignoring young leaders like Jyotiraditya Scindia.

In Chhattisgarh too, the Congress was visibly divided between the VC Shukla, Moti Lal Vora and Ajit Jogi camps. While Jogi kept projecting himself as the chief ministerial candidate, the other Congress leaders continued to be in denial mode, confounding the electorate to no end. Slim as Congress chances were, Chief Minister Raman Singh’s promise of providing rice at Rs one per kg won for him the sobriquet of Chaval Baba. In an impoverished state like Chhattisgarh, such gestures count a great deal; and the Congress could find no effective counter to the popularity this had ensured. But if these upsets can for a moment be put aside, the polls do show that the scale – howsoever slightly – is at this point tilted in favour of Congress. And it also looks like the finals will be a real cliffhanger. The issues will be different no doubt, as too will be the protagonists. But what is almost certain is that smaller parties like the BSP will have a major say in determining the course of events.

Both Congress and BJP are gearing up for the Big Battle. While Congress has to put its house to order in some states, BJP wants to sharpen its attack on issues which it feels, might appeal to people in parliamentary elections. “People might not have found rising prices and terror a potent issue in the Assembly elections, but we will keep highlighting the government unwillingness for strident terror law, till either government accedes or people realise the need for such a law”, says BJP general secretary Arun Jaitely.

By announcing a hefty bail package, Congress is leaving no stone unturned to contain inflation, rising prices and combat economic recession. It has already reduced the repo rate and reverse repo rate, besides infusing the manufacturing sector by lowering cenvat. “People would have forgotten about inflation and price rise by General Election time,” said a senior Congress leader. But where all pundits have failed, such statements seem based on the recent euphoria. Reality may be different.....Continue

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The Sunday Indian

Tribals put Reds on red alert

The tribal upsurge in West Bengal’s Jungle Mahal area is making the ruling CPI(M) lick dust, with people in Chhotopelia village of the now famous Lalgarh area surrounding a patrol party of the Central Reserve Police Force for more than seven hours through the night of December 8, till the district administration asked for forgiveness for “a breach of treaty”. The ‘treaty’ had been worked out on December 7, one point of which was precisely that villagers would have to be informed whenever police wanted to enter the forests or villages.

Again, this week itself, the vast Sarenga area in Bankura district, so far unaffected by the upsurge, saw a gathering of 2,500 tribals telling the administration that they would follow the Lalgarh path against police atrocity. Surprisingly, far away from Lalgarh, tribals in Balurghat, West Dinajpur district, submitted a 33-point charter of demands, which included immediate stopping of atrocities on tribals in the name of hunting for Maoists, and punishing those responsible for atrocities in Lalgarh. And in Nadia and Jalpaiguri district too, tribals are expressing solidarity with Lalgarh.

Almost a full month after the massive tribal unrest started in the Jungle Mahal area, the agitation had been suspended early this week after the leaders of the Committee’s Rail Roko call....Continue

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The Sunday Indian

…not with standing the fact that many Pakistanis suspect the hands of their own establishment in one of the worst terror strikes anywhere, that is wha

Lashkar-e-Taiba or "Army of the Pious" was banned in Pakistan in 2002 but it continues to operate in Pakistan under the garb of a charity organisation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa. Similarly, al-Qaeda and the Taliban, with strong footholds in Pakistan's Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), continue to pose grave threat to nascent democracy in the country. In the Swat valley, some 100 miles from the capital city Islamabad, at least eight people were killed and 40 others injured when a suicide bomber attacked a military check post on December 1. The intelligentsia in Pakistan is equally alarmed by developments following mayhem in Mumbai.

"The inhuman and callous attack in Mumbai is a great surprise to each and every Pakistani. When hopes were high that India and Pakistan relationship was going to be normalised, various routes between India and Pakistan were going to be opened, the trade between the two countries were on the verge of taking off, and the uselessness of military establishment was going to be a reality, this incident is a stab in the back of the people of Pakistan. I hope that the two governments will stop the blame game and rise above in the interest of common man and appreciate the new reality of a global village," said Dr Syed Haroon Ahmed, an eminent psychiatrist and president of Pakistan Association for Mental Health.

Veteran journalist and peace activist MB Naqvi concurred. "Speculation about who organised the Mumbai outrage is useless. Both India and Pakistan are among the usual suspects. It is quite possible that Pakistan''s security establishment has decided to derail the Indo-Pak peace process and to keep the two at daggers drawn; it will suit its long-term purposes," he said.

The Mumbai carnage and subsequent developments have also alarmed the US government because war between India and Pakistan would mean diversion from the "war on terror", that is neither in the interest of the US nor the vast majority inhabiting South Asia.....Continue

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The Sunday Indian