Thursday, June 26, 2008

Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing – Sales Pitch

Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing (SMPO)

Top Reasons, why companies outside India and companies in India should outsource their Marketing, Communication, Lead generation and Demand Automation programs to India.

In today’s fast-changing, technology driven, digital media marketing landscape, the management of marketing function in organizations has become global. Now most of the marketing is done through new online, on-demand tools which can be used from anywhere across the world. Software as a Service model is steadily growing into organizations worldwide enhancing the online execution capacity of organizations. Also, these collaboration tools allow today’s marketers to sit in any part of world and deliver the same metrics which there counterparts in US or UK would be doing.

So why pay more? – May be language and cultural tone can pose barriers for companies outside India, however, this is a myth, as many of the organizations outside India have a good 20% staff which is Indian. Indians deliver far more superior quality of work than their US counterparts.

Companies outside India - Business Case for Marketing Outsourcing

Pay less and get more - An average email marketer in US or UK costs around USD 40 - 60K / Euro 25K - 40K annually. However in India you can get the same for 15-20K Euros. This person would be not just an email marketer but more than that. You would notice a higher level or business acumen and strong fundamentals in business.

Risk Mitigation
– Considering you have low cost resources available, you can have more resources at the same time with lower cost and you will deliver much better results. Also, in case of attrition, you can still work efficiently as you had built redundancy.

Strong Talent Pool
– A very strong talent pool is available in India. Not just that Indians are quick learners but also they ramp up their skills very fast. And due to a large population and stress given on education its always easy to get the right person who fits the bill.


Companies in India

From my experience in India. Most of the marketing departments anyways outsource there marketing activities partially to the agencies. However, due to lack of agencies which can provide integrated marketing which can cover Traditional and Digital marketing both, its very hard to retain one vendor.

Also, many small and medium enterprises hire people at low cost and the end product is shabby. In today's time if one individual was to know everything in the marketing domain with deep understanding of various media, buying behaviour and negotiations, agencies wouldn't have existed at all. However, this is not true. Hence, you need an agency which can deliver exactly what you need.

With a brilliant planning, media buying, creativity you also need a strong execution backbone and one think tank which looks ahead and keeps a track of market, competitors and more.

Mostly agencies do that and if they are not doing it yet, they should dedicate their resources in doing that.

With a setup like this, I see that the agencies can provide a detailed end to end branding and marketing setup to organizations. Also, the agencies need to come up with low cost marketing techniques to help the SME segment.

Today online media provides Low Cost Marketing solutions and that is what the Agencies need to look at. Coming up with market segmentation and offerings for low budget and high budget customers.

At last, I would say its always beneficial to outsource a majority of execution to an agency and spend more time in analysis and planning in house. A complete SMPO or Sales and Marketing Process Outsourcing company can come handy in India.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Online Media - Solution to Crude Oil Price Rise and Real Estate Market in India?

You must be hearing that the crude oil prices worldwide have been rising and it has led to inflation in a lot of economies. Can “Internet” and “Online Media” become a small stepping stone solution to abate the rising Crude Oil and Real Estate prices?

The continuous rise in Crude oil prices worldwide is posing inflationary effects in emerging as well as developed economies. We all understand that Crude oil is a resource which will diminish one day. So the environmentalist, the energy honchos, corporate and governments worldwide are trying to find out solutions to reduce crude oil usage and trying to develop parallel sources of energy like: Bio-Fuel, Nuclear Energy, Water, Wind etc. I am hereby explaining the affect on Real Estate industry in India and how they can recuperate from the same.

What’s the Present Real Estate Industry’s situation in India?
The recent bloodbath in the real estate sector has started taking a toll. Almost all large developers are now facing a severe cash crunch and finding it difficult to complete their ongoing projects. In fact, the situation is so bad that most of them have reported a 50-70% cash shortfall. Industry sources say that the liquidity crunch has forced many developers to pick up cash from the unorganized market at interest rates as high as 35% to 50% annually. The lending rate of banks is between 18% and 20%. The grade A developers which are facing crash crunch include DLF, MGF Emaar, Shobha Developers, Unitech, Omaxe, Parsvnath Developers, Hiranandani Group, Ansal API, BPTP Developers and TDI Group. As a result of the crash crunch many developers have started going slow or even stopped construction of projects which are either in their initial stages of development or which would not affect their bottom line in the near future.

Why it happened?
There are multiple factors (explained in my previous entry) which have led to this situation which can be like:
-Rising Crude Oil Prices
-Inflated Cement and Steel prices
-Recession in US
-Increasing inflation
-Over-hyped prices of properties (for higher gross margins)
-Overspending on Marketing by these developers (tradeshows, marketing collaterals, TV ads, billboards, hoardings etc).

All these reasons put together led to the increasing real estate prices and here we are with cash crunch amongst real estate developers.

What’s the Solution?
Obviously, if people start buying more houses, the real estate developers get more cash. If people start using lesser oil, the consumption will go down and subside the demand and help in reduction of prices. However, with the inflation mounting the cash in hand is reducing for the common man and impacting the purchase cycles of the buyers and sellers. I can’t suggest what can be “ONE” solution to this country wide problem. However, here is one solution which I can think of, and can be helpful from a perspective of a “techno-marketing” professional.

Presently in India the consumption of fuel follows a pattern like this:

· Transport (Petrol, Diesel, CNG, Aviation Fuel) : 51%
· Industry (Petrol, Diesel, Fuel Oil, Naphtha, Natural Gas): 14%
· Commercial & Others : 13%
· Domestic (LPG & Kerosene): 18%
· Agriculture (Diesel): 4%

These numbers clearly show that Automotive Industry is definitely a majority fuel consumer. So if we can help reduce a small amount of automotive fuel consumption, we are surely headed to ease the pressure.

Solution: Leverage the Online Media.

Benefits of using Online Media in solving various issues:
Lower energy requirements.
-Work from home.
-Instead of people traveling for so many meetings all across the city, you can have web conferences and reduce your travel time and cost of traveling. You are saving time, money, oil and gas. Eg: www.webex.com
-You will be more productive while you are meeting people online and you would be able to do more in lesser time.
-Set-up Web cams in your construction sites to show the present construction status.
-Give maps of everything online to help people see the location of your site and many more similar things.
-Less print promotions, lesser expenditures and more ROI
-Lesser marketing expenditures.
-You can do online exhibitions and tradefairs eg: www.unisfair.com
-Spend less on marketing by doing away with billboard, TV and other sort of ridiculous expenses.

Spend money in promoting your websites and driving people to go Online and save money. Lesser use of energy sources which will get depleted one day. More usage of technology which can drive businesses and reduce dependency on oil based energy.

Though I am proposing something which is far fetched, however, things like these take a definite time span to get implemented and early adopters reap the benefits of Brand leadership and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Also, this is just one small solution which can go a long way in helping to reduce energy requirements and may help the inflationary pressures, public discretion can never be discounted for!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Podcasting Myth - You Need an iPod to listen to podcasts!

There are a lot of myths regarding Podcasting...people think they need iPods to listen to podcasts. Is it the rhyming names "POD"cast and i"POD" creating the myth?

Anyways...here is a video or I should say a public announcement which shatters the myths:
A podcasting "public service announcement" by Toronto band Uncle Seth http://musicface.com/uncleseth/ Co-written by John C. Havens of the About.com Guide To Podcasting http://podcasting.about.com/

Thursday, June 12, 2008

naseba Launch Party - The biggest launch party of 2008

Global Business Information and Strategic Events company, naseba, headquartered in Monaco is hosting 2008's biggest launch party in Bangalore. Official Radio Partner Radio Indigo!

Date: 14th June 2008
Time: 8 PM Onwards
Venue: Chancery Pavilion, Residency Road, Ballroom

Featuring: DJ TUHIN / DJ NASH/ MC DHIVIK

The Ballroom at the Chancery Pavilion (Residency Road) is all set to explode again this Saturday Night with 2 huge forces coming together under one roof for the 1st time... Dj Tuhin & Dj Nash!

Mr. Brute Force (DJ Tuhin) headlining the night with a signature set of wall-bouncing energi-tech... Need I say more??

Our own DJ Nash, is gonna set the mood for a killer Saturday Night, with red hot Bouncy, Clubby house tracks set to turn the dance floors crazy!!

MC Dhivik is there to keep the energy levels high as usual.

The full ballroom is going to be opened for the first time - with mind blowing sound, lights & huge lasers beaming across!

ONE PARTY U CANT AFFORD TO MISS!!!

Event managed by Rapsody Inc. For guest list and details, contact 9886514452 or 9342566874.

naseba Corporate Video!

Naseba Announces the Winners of the Indian CIO of the Year Awards

Naseba Announces the Winners of the Indian CIO of the Year Awards

Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Thursday, June 12, 2008 -- (Business Wire India)
naseba, a leading international business information company listed on the Paris Stock Exchange, held the Indian CIO of the year awards ceremony in conjunction with the 2nd Annual CIO Strategies India forum. The ceremony took place on June 9th, 2008, at 7.30 pm at Grand Hyatt in Mumbai.

The Indian CIO of the year awards recognize the leading Indian CIOs. The winners were selected by a jury consisting of Ashwini K Sharma, Former CIO, SBI and Markus Bell, CIO Analyst. This year, there were four categories with five CIOs competing in each category. The winners are:

1.Nirvan Biswas, CTO, Midday Multimedia - New Comer Award

Nirvan was selected based on his ability to implement new technologies integrated in web 2.0 to achieve massive cost savings for the overall company. These approaches are reflected in a new layout to SOA integration, communication products integration with the possibility of waste and lifetime data transmission. He also established himself as a leading business management personality, setting out new benchmarking systems and integrating all business units in the IT Architecture.

2.Navin Chadha, CIO, TATA Teleservices - Innovation Award

Navin has over 18 years experience in the telecommunications sector and in storage solutions and is a member of the advisory council for Sun Microsystems and CME Technology Advisory Group. Navin is very innovative in his approaches in the sector. He implemented Microsystems Configuration Manager 2007 to improve customer services and increase dataflow on an extensive configuration and collection of components to integrate business requirements and the management of IT Infrastructure. He is a pioneer, as this is one of the largest projects that has been carried out and reformed to the needs of business, this will revolutionise customer handling, business integration and IT architecture management over the coming years.

3.Anita Pai, Executive Vice President, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Ltd - Leadership Award

Anita was chosen for her outstanding approach in risk management leadership in implementing new technology in the telecom space and integrating all over team and unit in the process. While leading ICICI Prudential IT, Anita established a vast IT communications system, which guarantees security, compatibility to the system requirements and remote access in a highly secure data sector. Besides the integration of the technology, she established herself not only as an IT manager but also as a CIO, managing training cost calculations and the overall information flow throughout the company.

4.K Radhakrishnan, Head IT, Henkel India Ltd - Lifetime Achievement Award

The choice for this candidate was not only based on his work at Henkel, but also on his innovative approach in production, sales, data management and e-trade alignment integration of customer handling on a national and international scale. By using tools, integrating the business units and achieving an outstanding example of how to manage outsourcing and ERP systems over time, he laid out a perfect example of lean IT. In addition, he integrated training and business information in communication and data management for companies of various industries. Mr Radakrishnan has set an example on how to successfully outsource international companies on the Indian market and advanced the Indian economy by developing production and communication to a new level, giving India a competitive edge over other competing economies.

“I have always kept my focus on “Leveraging on Information Technology to Enable the Enablers”. Having held various offices with top MNC’s in India for over two decades now, I have realized that success starts only when business and IT alignment is well orchestrated, and I just converted the opportunity entrusted to me which has been well realized in all terms, to get to this milestone. With this award, while I have a sense of recognition of the achievement, I do understand the expectation being set of doing more of IT for the time to come. Thanks to the Jury, Naseba and the other partners to the event!,” explained K Radhakrishnan.

“We are proud to have organized and hosted the first edition of Indian CIO of the year Awards during our CIO Strategies India forum this year. The Indian CIO of the year awards ceremony provided awarded CIOs the chance to inform their peers about the technology innovations they used in their projects to achieve greater success for their organization,” concluded Shannon Mackrill, the event producer, naseba.

Please click on the link given below to download the list of nominees.
http://image.exct.net/lib/fefd1271766107/d/1/nominees%20page.pdf

About the CIO Strategies India forum

Working in strategic partnership with Business Wire India, Exchange4media.com, NDTV Profit, Outsourcing 2 India and Smart Techie, the second annual CIO Strategies India forum, organized by naseba, gave the opportunity for up to 100 CIOs from Indian companies to learn about the latest trends in the IT industry, to source customized solutions from leading solution providers as well as to network with their peers.

For more information, please visit www.ciostrategiesin.com

naseba

Established in 2002, naseba produces business platforms focused on re-education, networking and most importantly increasing deal-making opportunities for executive clients. With offices strategically located in five cities around the world, naseba employs over 250 executives from more than 30 nationalities. naseba group went public on the Paris Stock Exchange on October 5th, 2006.

For more information, please visit www.naseba.com

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

CATCH 22 – Rising CRUDE Prices – Inflation in Indian Economy & Real Estate Prices

There is a strange CATCH 22 situation which is developing in India for the Real Estate Market. Due to the increase in the CRUDE Oil prices there is an overall increase in the input cost of production of Cement and Steel. With the increase in Cement and Steel prices, the cost of real estate development is increasing. Due to the increasing prices the cost of real estate is rising, however, due to the increasing inflation rate in India, the money in a common man’s hand is depleting, so they can not afford to buy costlier real estate. This means on one side the increase in real estate prices is becoming inevitable, and on the other hand the decreasing liquidity is making people unable to buy real estate at the increasing costs.

Rising CRUDE Oil Prices
There are difficult days ahead in 2008 for worldwide markets. With the continuous rise in CRUDE oil prices, the worldwide economy is being affected. The recent price hike in Fuel prices across India is the LIVE example where there will be an additional burden on common man:
Petrol prices increased by Rs. 5 / Liter
Diesel prices increased by Rs. 3 / Liter
LPG prices increased by Rs. 50 / Liter

This price hike was inevitable as the Oil marketing companies were facing the liquidity crunch because of global Crude oil price increase taking the price to $125/barrel.

So what does this mean for us now? More Inflation in Indian Economy?
For starters, it means prices for daily use commodities going up, prices for daily commutation going up, prices for raw material for manufacturing going up. In brief, inflation going up and as predicted reaching approx 9.5%. It means everything is going to get more expensive for a common man. So FMCG, Electronics, Automobiles, Aviation etc would be seeing cost hikes and then price hikes.

Real Estate Prices
The real estate prices saw a boom in 2007. However, the steady rise in inflation and probably recessionary trends in US led the Indian economy to see escalating prices of two essential commodities - Steel and Cement. Unfortunately we have not been able to find any substitute for the same. For some mysterious reasons, the government didn’t do much about increasing cement and Steel prices and the Real Estate developers had to bear the brunt of the same.

The increased input costs led to increase in real estate prices coupled with Investors investing in real estate to create a fake increase in prices.

However, now considering the inflation will lead to depletion of household income on a regular basis, the demand for real estate would go down and the only option left with the real estate developers would be to take a hit on the prices of the properties. However, if the real estate developers choose to hold on to the properties, it would affect the new project completions. Also, the developers are holding onto the properties for a future price rise which may or may not happen in the immediate future. A marginal price rise in the apartment price in one years time will have the same NPV as the price today, with the additional impact of affecting present cash-flows.

Therefore, unless a price rise is indicated by strong economic indicators, I believe the prices are being sustained at the current levels purely by the developers holding power (the larger the developer, the longer he can sustain in a falling market) and are soon to be southward bound if the economic conditions persist.

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