BUSINESS INDIA Suman Tarafdar 26 July - 8 August 2010 Paris Couture Week, arguably the world's most prestigious fashion event, has just got over. The headlines haven't been kind, pointing out that the Week has been dying a slow death over the past two decades, as clients move away from the ensembles showcased at the event. An epitome of customised luxury in its heyday in the decade following World War II, the event has increasingly become a place for corporate showcasing of logo-encrusted products as falling revenues have forced many a couturier to focus on the less prestigious, but far…
Reviewed by Devangshu Dutta As I read through Arun Maira's book, the month unfolded with a number of high-pitched disagreements around the world. In India, quotas and reservations were a hot topic, as was an apparent divergence between the Prime Minister and corporate chiefs on executive income and distribution of wealth. Self-appointed moral police disapproved the expressions of a student of art, while, elsewhere in the world, suicide bombers expressed disapproval of foreigners on their soil. We are surely not the first to wonder why, after millennia of physiological evolution, societies around the world are still stuck in the same,…
By Gouri Shah MINT (Exclusive Partner The Wall Street Journal) DELHI, 2 August 2008 Mumbai: It was close to midnight and the crowd wasn't showing any signs of letting up. The DJ was still spinning fast paced music and finger food and non-alcoholic energy drinks kept coming. And the hosts weren't complaining that the party was stretching into the wee hours. That was because the "party", which kicked off at 10pm and lasted until 2am, was hosted by denim marketer Spykar Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd and had already generated three times the revenue that a similar sale by the company during…
By Saumya Roy FORBES INDIA, Jul 29, 2010 Seema Kakkar has followed a simple routine for the past few weeks. At least once a day, without fail, she makes sure she pops over to her Mecca, a glittering new store that's opened next to hers. As the entrepreneur who launched Remanika, a women's wear brand, Kakkar has modeled her entire business concept on Zara, one of the most successful fashion retailers in the world, known for getting the latest designs into the market before anyone else. More than five weeks ago, Zara opened its first store in Delhi, followed soon…
Retailwire raised a pertinent question recently about social media and marketing. In marketing as in life, it is all about timing. The question was whether retailers and brands should be concerned that they are moving to Facebook at a time when large numbers of teenagers are abandoning it? I believe it's horses for courses. Marketers of teen brands should definitely be concerned about teens exiting or reducing their usage of Facebook, as they have done with other social platforms in the past. However, there are plenty of others for whom the Facebook audience is apparently becoming more relevant than ever.…
Speciality Restaurants expanding into high-margin QSR and cloud kitchen spaces - @devangshu shared his perspective on the opportunities and realities of managing a diverse "house of brands" in the food service sector #India #strategy #diversification
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
