Just try & stay away!

Lucrative offers & rural penetration are on the radar of Indian consumer durable majors
“The Indian consumer durables sector always performs well during the festive season... The industry records unusually high sales during the 3-4 month period,” discloses Shushmul Maheshwari, CEO, RNCOS, a market research consultancy. He adds that while on an average, the business done by the industry during this period is around 40% of total business done in the year, for the upcoming festival season, industry is expected to perform better. “They may report an 18-20% higher sale over the previous year,” he says. Maheshwari’s optimism is not misplaced. Increased advertising budgets, aggressive promotion schemes & growing consumer loans in the economy are only some of the indicators forecasting a delightful season of sales for biggies in the segment. Rising disposable incomes have already seen the sector witness a 20% increase in advertising expenditure during the first quarter of 2007, as compared to 2006.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

“Europe is anti’ american”

The European union’s very mission and purpose looks flawed, and it’s high time America realizes this fact

Only in part. To be more precise, yes, the animating spirit of the EU is anti-American. But this is an elite pathology much more than a popular one. Then again, the EU is a project, par excellence, of Europe’s elites. For decades, Europe’s leaders have explicitly said that voters don’t know what’s best for them; that the leaders will build a united Europe and people will come to like it. When they put their proposed constitution to popular vote & the French & Dutch rejected it, they were shocked. How dare voters do that? This European “arrogance of power,” with its fundamentally antidemocratic underpinnings, is something many Americans find hard to understand. Europe’s political class returns the compliment by finding America’s robust & genuine democratic traditions dreadfully vulgar.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

4Ps power brand Awards 2007

4Ps B&M felicitates India’s 100 most valuable brands & top 30 automobile brands
There was a time when the number of brands in the Indian market place could be counted on one’s fingertips. No more! Liberalization and globalization have completely revolutionized the life and times of the Indian consumer, with a plethora of brands, both domestic and international, vying for shelf space. Recognizing the increasing power of brands in the Indian market place, 4Ps Business & Marketing (4Ps B&M), in association with The Indian Council of Market Research (ICMR), last year instituted the “India’s 100 Most Valuable Brands” award, published as an annual feature in a special issue of the magazine. Like last year, this year too 4Ps B&M organized a special function on 24th August 2007, to give away the awards to the most deserving brands, which have made momentous efforts to endear themselves to consumers over the past one year.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Die-hard Marxist

Beyond doubt, Prakash is a die-hard Marxist, who draws his inspiration from strong leaders of small nation states like Hugo Chavez & Castro, but ideologies oft en have to take a backseat in the prevailing political scenario in India. He fully realises that the only chance for the Left in India is to cooperate with the mainstream centrist political parties, lest the communists remain confined as regional actors. Prakash, as the ideologically driven 56-year-old General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is said to be devoid of any personal ambitions. But his rather strong affiliations to the party and its objectives make him ferociously ambitious to see to it that the hammer & sickle gets painted on the pan-Indian wall.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

Framing farmers

How to kill the farmer with double speak!
Absolutely bizarre and inexplicable actions by policy makers in India are nothing new. Nor is their penchant for double speak and double standards. Add one more to this ignominious list-the recent decision to import millions of tons of wheat to ‘help the Indian farmer’. Quite frankly, that is akin to UP Chief Minister peremptorily shutting down Reliance Fresh outlets in the state to lend a helping hand to Mukesh Ambani. Both actions defy logic, and both make a mockery of the stated objective of the UPA government and of Mayawati of helping the poor Indian farmer earn a better and more dignified livelihood. Elementary economics states that prices have a tendency to fall when supply increases in the market place. So if the government places contracts with multinational food companies like Cargill to import as much as 5 million tonnes of wheat around the time the Kharif season domestic output is coming out of the farms, common sense states that the farmer will be the loser since there will be a downward pressure on prices.

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative