I have moved on...

I know, it's been long since I wrote and there are lot of things which have happened in the last month. Its been over an year I joined naseba in 2007. I joined naseba as the marketing manager and kept growing. I Became the Sr. marketing manager in a months time (much credit to my ex-colleague Zafar Siddiqui who left naseba quickly and now works with Honeywell in Dubai) and moved on to become the marketing director within 4 months of joining. While at naseba I showed some good results (oh BTW marketing metrics is BS @ naseba)... I am talking about revenue here...And now I have moved on from naseba.

At naseba, my job was to setup a marketing department. Setting up a marketing department can be a daunting task, especially when you are in a company which survives and earns its bread and butter only through sales (sales people who are hard-wired to sell to a the CXO level audience), it's a strenuous job. Phew! Your a$$ is on fire most of the time but then it makes you a seasoned salesman and I guess you can crack any sales interview or negotiation anywhere across the globe (or this is what everyone thinks). And yes, I was supposed to set up a marketing machine which generates quality leads for the sales guys to close and generate continuous revenue.


Well this brings me to a point on - How to sell to CXO level audience? Which I will discuss sometime else but now coming back to the topic, I have moved on....

In the last yr, I believe I have learnt a lot...

• How to establish a Marketing Machine
• Getting to work with Multiple Cultures
• Getting Management Buy-in
• How to influence people and get things done (making it happen)
• Email and Online media - the new marketing mix
• How to manage people (especially when they are older than you)
• How to build relationships and how to break them
• Grass is NOT greener on the other side
• Consistency is a choice

Well, the one thing in my life which is constant is my Passion and Consistent Love for marketing. Many people are of the opinion that my passion for marketing is insane but I feel that's the depth of my passion which keeps me awake and kicking day and night.

I was your regular guy out of the school who thought he is one day going to be a big time engineer in some power plant as this is what was told to him at that point in his life. You can blame the Indian education system and partly the protective nature of parents in India for drilling these engineering/medical dreams in children. Till the time the children reach their graduate school, they have not made any choice of what they want to become in their life. It's all driven by someone else's wish. This simple guy who passed out of college after doing his graduation in Engineering, realized during the course of 4 year's that he is made for something else. Off-course, realizing what you want to achieve is one thing and realizing what you can achieve with what you are good at is completely another ball game.

But the self realization of your skills is something which takes you a long way. Not only do you get a clear focus in life but, you aslo get to learn and work towards your goal faster and in a more focussed way. It brings a purpose to life and helps you strive harder to achieve success. Who would have thought a small time software engineer from Wipro Technologies would aim to become a techno-marketing guru and would actually keep getting closer to it in this much time.

Now, I have moved on from naseba and joined a small start-up in the suburbs of Mumbai. It's called www.games24x7.com . Yes, as the name suggests it's a online gaming company. It's a humble start-up with a simple goal - of providing a platform to play online, Games like Chess, Rummy etc.

A new start, a new effort, a new business! Wish me luck.

SEC on Blogging - It's a Open Blogger's World - CEOs Blog More!

According to BNET, the new SC regulations on Blogging clears it all up for corporate bloggers. Let’s say you’re the CEO of a company. A competitor or disgruntled ex-employee posts nasty and inaccurate information on a blog that your company website operates. Are you under any regulatory obligation to correct it?

No, you are not. At least that’s what the staff of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission said it is recommending today in a draft of new rules designed to encourage more corporate use of websites to disclose required information.

What’s more, the new rules could do much to clear up confusion over meeting the Full Disclosure (FD) rules of the SEC regarding Internet use.

At an SEC meeting today where the rules won a 4-0 vote to go to the next level, new measures were explained that could allow companies to use their websites and blogs to meet requirements under the FD rules. Under certain conditions, such electronic media can be the sole means of disclosure.

A few other measures in the proposal:

* The information on the blog or company Web page does not have to be in “a format comparable to paper-based information” unless the SEC explicitly requires it.
* Hyperlinks to other sites can be used provided that the company explain their relevance.
* Information disclosed on the Web is not generally subject to under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (of course, the company must still follow SOX for other forms of financial disclosure and attestation.).
* Companies are responsible for what they put out on their Web pages or blogs but are under no obligation to correct inaccurate or misleading information that outsiders post.

SEC Chairman Christopher Cox says he sees the new Web-based rules as a way to make for more efficient and more creative ways to inform potential investors about a firm. Cox argues that using the Web can cut disclosure costs for companies while improving their communication with shareholders.

Indeed, some tech-oriented CEOs, such as Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems, have complained that they want to communicate with investors and customers on blogs but feel they have to undergo tedious consultations with their lawyers because SEC guidance is so unclear.

Maybe this new round of rules will clear up those concerns. For more info, check a story by IrWebreport and an SEC statement. Full issuance of the rules may occur in about six months.

Categories: Technology, Regulation

Tags: Web, SEC, Blog, Rule, Blogging, Channel Management, Internet, Marketing, Peter Galuszka

Chetan Bhagat - Spark Keep it Shining Speech! - What about the ACTION?

Summary: I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. What I couldn't notice in his speech was the Umbrella or the Rain Coat to save yourself from these thunderstroms: THE ACTION. 

"Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstrom!"

-Sachin Uppal, 1st August 2008

I was reading Chetan Bhagat's speech at the inaugural function of Symbiosis College in Pune, India. He spoke about a simple concept that keeps people kicking and striving to reach higher success. He likes calling it Spark, and urges to keep that Spark Shining. It is nothing but your will power and your passion to achieve something more in life and your continuous drive to reach it. 

Download the complete Speech in a PDF format along with comments here.

In my life I have learnt that this spark comes to you if you are passionate about something and that passion is driven from your goals. If you set your goals (short term and long term) you always have a direction and you can measure and strive harder to achieve the same. Some time back I wrote about Goal Setting and how it's important to achieve and bring a direction to your life.

When I look around I see a lot of talented people and see a lot of them with new ideas but what I fail to see is people taking action to fulfill their dreams. Having a long term and short term goal helps you get focused in your life and you can actually achieve what you have set out to achieve in your dream.

I liked the speech given by Chetan and they way he showed the 4 thunderstorms of disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation trying to thwart you. However, while saying that don't take life too seriously, instead sincerely, what he missed out was a BIG point: ACTION. 

What differentiates people from being Great and not good, is ACTION. Having dreams, living life sincerely and keeping yourself focused towards your goals need ACTION. Not taking life seriously shouldn't make you complacent and shouldn't make you lack in Action. Action comes to you from your passion. There are thousands of people out there who like to talk about doing something great, but how many take action to achieve it? These days with the competition increasing at such a fast pace, you are going to face one or more of these 4 thunderstorms.

Have you ever thought what's going to differentiate you? 

To SUM it up in a sentence:

"Sincere ACTION is the Umbrella that can help you brave the thunderstroms!"

For many people reading this the obvious question would be - How do you do that?

- Set up your goals.
- Be realistic or upgrade your self.
- Believe in yourself.
- Follow some dicipline.
- Breakdown your goals in small milestones.
- Congratulate yourself on achieving milestones. (get yourself a pair of new shoes, a tie, a watch, a perfume or whatever you think you like)
- Bring your passion to everything that you DO.
- Let your passion Permeate  amongst the people around you.
- Show the world that you are not just about the Talk, but you prove it with your small Actions.
- Small steps go a long way to achieve a goal.
- Influence people in believing your goals.
- Ask for help (don't feel ashamed).
- Give help - It's a 2-way road.
- Follow- Ethics and Integrity.
- LIVE your dream and don't give up. Even at a failure learn and stand up again and give your "passionate best shot".

Enough of talking. Let's DO!

Community Strategy - Infoedge's Brijj.com Incentivizes Networking

Strategy Critique - Incentivising Professional Networking - Are we killing the Goose?

Info Edge India Limited of the fame of Naukri.com, Jeevansaathi.com, 99acres.com had launched Brijj.com in 2007 which is a professional networking site built on the lines of Linkedin.com. Though the site was aimed at promoting professional networking and social job hunting (HR 2.0) concept, the initial response was not what they expected.

People jumped in to directly post stupid things like: get me a job. However, the site traffic kept growing (thanks to big daddy Naukri.com). However, recently to enhance the concept of professional networking in India, the portal has taken a strategy to incentivize networking.

I was suddenly surprised when some random people started sending me connection requests and I was thinking probably someone has really gone through the pain of knowing me and wants to connect with me. However, I get this mailer yesterday afternoon from Brijj.com saying:

“A trip to London could be yours”. 

Wow, I don’t mind getting a free trip to London. So what is that I am supposed to do? Well not much, just do professional networking. Sounds like a dream. I build my network and you send me to London. Ahmm…well as apparent this strategy is to promote the user interaction on the community and to get more people coming to website, however, it’s going to loose the purpose of Professional Networking. I build my professional network based on trust and previous or present working relationship shared with an individual.

However, by incentivising the networking it’s like killing the goose. My network might grow, however, is it going to be meaningful? Nah, I would end up networking with jimpys whom I wouldn’t have added otherwise. I had to reject few requests already and then I started thinking if this is the right strategy at all??

What’s your thought?

New Search Engine - www.cuil.com It's Raining Search Engines now

www.cuil.com CUIL the New Search Engine

After Scour.com with Social search now there is CUIL.com a completely new search engine. A former Google employee and her husband launched a new search engine this Monday called Cuil (pronounced as "cool"), aiming to topple Google by indexing more Web pages than the search giant.

After the Web 2.0 buzz across the globe, it looks like it's the time for Search Engines...with news about search engines every day, I feel like I am bathing in a Search Engine rain.

Cuil, situated in Menlo Park, California, is led by Anna Patterson, a former leader of Google's search index and her husband, Tom Costello, who researched and developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM. The two, president and CEO, respectively, met at Stanford.

Russell Power, the third cofounder of the group, also worked at Google on search indexing, Web rankings and spam detection. He works as vice president of engineering at Cuil.

Cuil, claims it has indexed 120 billion Web pages and can provide results organized by ideas with complete privacy for users. While on the other hand, Google, on Friday claimed it had discovered 1 trillion unique Web pages on the Internet.

Cuil said its search engine goes beyond traditional approaches by analyzing the context of each page and the concepts behind each query so it can provide better rankings by content rather than popularity. Cuil then organizes similar results into groups and sorts them by category. It also offers tabs to clarify subjects, as well as suggestions on how to refine searches.

Cuil and Scour aren't the first Google rival to launch this year. Wikia Search, a highly anticipated search engine from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, made its official debut in January. Wikia Search hopes to provide better search results by allowing a community of users to index pages by using their Web page rankings and other suggestions, as well as its own indexing of the Web.

Though, seems like the servers of Cuil are already getting heated up (image below), which is good in a way, as they would have wanted a huge traffic to come to them.

Let's see how cool Cuil is?

Ahmedabad Blasts Update - 16 Blasts, 10 Killed, 100+ Injured

Ahmedabad Blasts Update

According to the sources on NDTV, now its over 16 blasts in the Ahmedabad City which has left 10 killed and over 100+ injured. The scene is really chaotic right now in many parts in Ahmedabad with police trying to shoo away the people with power. This is in favour of the people only as you never know how many blasts have been planned.

Veerappa Moily just now gave a statement that take these blasts as a unified case of blasts and shouldn't be politicized.

Lal Krishan Advani said political angle is not been considered yet...however, later on the agencies can look at that angle too.

These statements are in the wake of the BJP led governements in the cities where these blasts have occured. Agencies like SIMI etc are under scanner now.

I would again like to re-iterate to keep safe and follow the tips which I suggested.

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 9 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Sachin Uppal: Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-blasts-6-blasts-in-30-minutes.html

http://sachinuppal.blogspot.com/2008/07/ahmedabad-bomb-blasts-6-bomb-blasts.html

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - Update 2 - 7 Blasts, 2 Killed 20 Injured, as updated on NDTV.

It's a really disheartening to see how bad the situation is becoming on a daily basis in India. Yesterday, teams were sent from Rajasthan and Delhi to Bangalore to probe the bomb blasts and even the national security guard (NSG) teams were checking the blast sites and trying to find out cues on the sources of the same.

It's becoming evident now that these are all similar kind of blasts which are low intensity blasts and done to disrupt the local population with their daily activities and instill terror in the country.

The perpetrators of this crime should be brought to justice.

News updates:
HamroPalo.com
A2to.info
theindian.com

Blog Updates:
Danny G Sam
Hindustaniat
Paras Shah
Indian Raksa
Ankit Rawat

More updates to follow...

Ahmedabad Blasts - 6 blasts in 30 minutes

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - 6 blasts in a series within 30 mins. These bombs were allegedly planted in soft targets like Cycles, Tiffin Boxes, Buses - and with evil intentions in crowded areas ... more news is awaited.

Places where these bombs were planted - Maninagar, Bapunagar, Isanpur, Narol Circle, Sarkhej, Haksar

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts report: - at around 7.30PM

There are reports of 6 bomb blasts in Ahmedabad - this is as per the news showing in NDTV news channel.

Kindly share if you have any information regarding this.

TIPS to keep safe in a time like this - A public appeal to all Indians:

• Please keep away from crowded places.
• Try to avoid traveling for few of days.
• Inform any suspicious activity to police immediately.
• Keep general vigilance in and around your vicinity.
• Do not spread panic, relax and help others.

Keep safe.

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts - 6 Bomb Blasts Reported

Ahmedabad Bomb Blasts, 6 Bomb Blasts reported till now

While the IT City of India, Bangalore was just recuperating from the Serial Bomb Blasts yesterday, now Ahmedabad has been rocked by series of 6 bomb blasts.

Just one day after the bomb blast in Bangalore, today, serial Bomb blasts have rocked industrious Ahmedabad city of Gujarat in India. Till now 6 bomb blasts have been reported. The effected areas are Maninagar Chowk , Raipur , Bapunagar , Isanpur , Narol , Naroda , Juhapura.

These bomb blasts have occurred in busy areas like market places, buses etc. There seems to be a lot of chaos already.

Also, refer to Paras Shah's blog for the same.

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 - Series of blasts - Terror Strikes Bangalore

Bangalore Blasts – Update 4 - 8th Blast - Series of blasts - First Time Ever in Bangalore

Bangalore has largely been a safe and sound city to stay in. Most of the IT companies find it as the safest haven with the best of talent and mostly stable political situation in the city. Even though the infrastructure of the city has been a area of concern for many organizations, however, with most of the positives these things take a back seat.

25th July's Serial Bomb Blasts in Bangalore which lead to at least 1 killed and over 6 injured shook the city. These were low intensity blasts, however, this opened the city to the first ever serial blast risk. After Delhi and Mumbai serial blasts, Bangalore has been on high alert however, things were peaceful in the city. But after this series of bomb blast, things are different now. Even though the city is quickly recovering from the shock, the government and police needs to make sure the security is stepped up to the next level and such instances do not occur again!

A recent update seems to point out that there has been one more blast which is the 8th in the series now

Below is the - City News and Blog Update - News and related updates from across the city:

NDTV LIVE video reporting

Economic Times Reporting - Terror strikes Bangalore, Sensex ends lower

Neha Singh – Reuters UPDATE 3-Seven small blasts hit Indian IT city of Bangalore

Yahoo News - Five blasts hit Bangalore

Times of India - 7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded

Humsurfer reported - Bangalore Bomb Blast, 6 blasts rock Bangalore, Two killed, 20 injured, Bomb Blast In Bangalore, Bangalore News

DNA India - Serial blasts rock Bangalore, one dead

Blog updates on Bangalore Blasts:

http://justkeepsakes.blogspot.com/2008/07/blast-in-bangalore.html
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/25/india-bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://rimahadchiti.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blast-in-bangalore-today/
http://zdark.blogspot.com/2008/07/update-3-seven-small-blasts-hit-indian.html
http://sterex.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/bomb-blasts-in-bangalore/
http://amritanshuu.blogspot.com/2008/07/7-blasts-rock-bangalore-two-killed-70.html

Bangalore bomb blasts - Update 3

NEWS : Bangalore Blast : 5 bomb blasts in Bangalore - 1.30 PM 25th July
Update 1: 6 Bomb Blasts in Bangalore 1 killed- NDTV reporting LIVE
Update 2: 7 Bomb Blasts in Bangalore in 5 Locations - City in Chaos

I have just reached home and the area near koramangla and madivala seem to have been deserted. Either the police has cordoned off the entire area or people have just left the area completely. This was surprising as I was expecting the Traffic JAM which was there just 1 hour back...now it was completely calm.

City seems to be coming under control and things are cooling off. I am suspecting in the evening at 5.30 PM and 6.00 PM when many offices will have their off...things might become chaotic again. However, the way police has handled the situation till now, its commendable and I hope things will be fine by tomorrow morning.

A public appeal, if anyone sees anything suspicious please inform the police immediately and take care.

Bomb Blast in Bangalore - Update 2

Due to multiple and series of Bomb Blasts in Bangalore this afternoon many offices have announced holiday for the rest of the day. Bangalore police is reporting that it was triggered by a timer and some gelatin based material was used. All these bomb blasts happened apparently in just 12 minutes (NDTV reported).

I tried opening AAJTAK's website and it didnt even open, NDTV has done a good job in keeping people informed and updated on the same.

As many offices have given off to the employees, the roads have been jammed. Large IT companies like Wipro, Infosys and TCS has not given the half day off and they are maintaining calm at their campus. Most of the roads are having chaotic traffic and jams because of this. 

As these blasts happened in a busy areas like Madivala (very near to Koramangla) a residential and commercial hub, things might go berserk. However, bangalore police is handling the situation well and asking people to maintain calm.

From the areas affected a small portion has been cordoned off by police men.

Bomb Blast in Bangalore 25th July - Update 1

Bangalore Bomb Blast - Update 1

NDTV is airing the video Live online of the bomb blast scene and the video can be seen at:http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videopod/default.aspx

Recent updates total - 6 serial blasts
Reported (not confirmed) 3 killed, several injured
Areas where blast happened: (reported)

Nayandahalli,
Madivala,
Adugodi
mysore road
Mallya Hospital,
Langford Road

All Cell phones are getting jammed...

Bangalore Bomb Blast - 5 bombs went off

I was just passing by the area where apparently some bomb blast happened. Even though I didn't see any scene of actual bomb exploding there, but I have heard there has been a series of bomb blasts in Bangalore upto 5 of them in multiple places.

The scene was busy with people getting anxious and asking what's going on, however I have not see anything in particular. It was all filled with Police men trying to sort out the chaotic traffic and managing people.

Bangalore has been a high growth city for past 10 years now and has been peaceful. However, it seems like many people do not want that to happen. It can also be a political unrest or some kind of terrorist act. However, in the past couple of years this has been the 3rd biggest incident of Bomb blast in a city like Bangalore.

I wonder sometimes, what leads the people to do something as heinous as this? What do they get personally out of this?

I am sure like Mumbai ... Bangalore is becoming resilient to such instances and will surely come back to normalcy within a day!

A Big Thanks to Google! - Google Adds Search Volume Data to Adwords

A long awaited but a welcome step from Google when it added the search volume data for keywords and Ad placement flexibility to the Adwords platform.

Some time back I wrote about Google's Hogwash on how auctions set prices, and my key argument was that there was no campaign data available. However, with the below mentioned new tools and features added by Google, it proved again that they are the Best and the most pioneering and innovative Search company who really listens to customer's demands and deliver on the same. Hats off to you guys!

Also, it added Keywords and placements -- together!

Now, both keywords and placements can be targeted in all AdWords campaigns. We can now use both to get better control and pricing power on the content network. (this was a big disadvantage earlier)

What can you do with keywords plus placements?

• Bid more or less for specific placements. Let contextual targeting with keywords place your ads across the content network, while you set placement bids for sites that have a special value for you.

  Selling soccer shoes? You might bid $1.00 for clicks from any content network pages that match your keywords, but $2.00 when those clicks come from a soccer fan site that's converted well for you in the past.

• Show your ad only when both keywords and placements match. You'll get the benefits of keyword targeting while also limiting the places where your ad can appear.

  For instance, set your campaign to appear only on your favorite soccer fan site, and only when the site content matches the keyword soccer shoes. You may see less traffic, but AdWords contextual matching will help make sure your placement pages are highly targeted.

Instead of creating separate campaigns for keywords and placements, you can now include both in any campaign. All ad groups now have tabs for both keywords and placements, and the two can work together to target your ads on the content network.

Keyword-Targeted Placement-Targeted Online

Here's an example: You might target the keyword roses and the placement *www.example.com*. You can let the keyword roses display your ad across the content network, and use placements to raise your bid whenever roses triggers your ad on www.example.com. Or you can choose to have your ad appear only on www.example.com, and only when its content is a match for roses.

Pick Keywords

Pick Placements Google finds pages that meet both criteria

Well, what pleases me most is the way Technology and Marketing have got married these days. It's the nupital knot which any Techno-Marketing professional would want to get into. And additionally what makes me feel elated is the way companies are learning from there customers and prospects through social media and using that feedback to come up with better product features and solutions for the customers.

A big thanks to google again!

www.Scour.com - World's own Web 2.0 Social Search Engine

www.Scour.com - World's own Web 2.0 Social Search Engine

How is scour different from anything else? What is a social search engine anyways? Can Scour - Social Search Engine gives Google, Yahoo, Microsoft a run for their money?

How is Scour different from the rest?

Scour - the social search engine, is a reward based search engine which brings in the search results from Google, Yahoo! and MSN, all together with their rankings. You can comment and vote for the search results that you get and you don't have to switch to various search engines to get the best results which are most relevant for you.

The huge opportunity this social search engine brings is to involve the individual searching into the revenue sharing model. This incentivising technique attracts the individual to come back and search on scour and nothing else.

Social search, I guess, was the only phenomenon left in the Web 2.0 space which was started by the social search engine AfterVote and is now known as Scour! Dan Yomtobian, CEO, Scour.com explains the concept behind Scour in the Video below:



What is Social Search?

Social search or a social search engine is a type of web search method that determines the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users. When applied to web search this user-based approach to relevance is in contrast to establish algorithmic or machine-based approaches where relevance is determined by analyzing the text of each document or the link structure of the documents.

Social search takes many forms, ranging from simple shared bookmarks or tagging of content with descriptive labels to more sophisticated approaches that combine human intelligence with computer algorithms.

The Search experience revolves around the outcome of collaborative harvesting, collaborative directories, tag engines, social ranking, commenting on bookmarks, news, images, videos, podcasts and other web pages. Examples of user input include social bookmarking or direct interaction with the search results such as promoting or demoting results the users feel are more or less relevant to their query.

Some time ago AfterVote was acquired by ABCSearch, one of the largest pay-per-click search companies in the world. As a result of this acquisition, the product has a much better backing for growth and quality and its offerings are now bigger and better with this move. The original core development team from Thinking Big is still deeply involved in Scour, but it has more resources, better servers and a richer brain trust to improve the quality and accuracy of daily information search needs.

So what would be the next step? Will Google, Yahoo and Microsoft acquire stake in this company? I guess considering MS couldn't lay its hands on Yahoo!, Scour's popularity might attract MS to consider a stake.

Also, interestingly the commenting and voting attracts the individuals to look around which can also mean that click/ad revenue Scour search engine might be better. This clearly means that advertising dollars would start flowing in for Scour.

However, monetizing commenting is not that great an idea as it would lead to spam comments and would eventually be of no use to anyone. If there is no moderation / trusted member validating comments, it would lead to disruption of search results which will go against the pure reason of existence of Scour - ie Search.

As of now I am starting Scouring but the real fate of Scour needs to be determined in the coming years!

Digital Marketing in India - Agencies or In - House?

I would be publishing the blog post on "Digital Marketing in India" - Agencies or In-House where I am going to profile some Top Digital or Interactive marketing Agencies in India.

To get your organization profiled, send me a mail.

With this I will also be publishing the results of the in-house survey on "Internet marketing challenges and opportunities – 2008". To be part of this Global Survey...Click Here.

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.

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!