By Rajiv Banerjee & Shuchi Vyas BRAND EQUITY, THE ECONOMIC TIMES 9 May 2007 At the MTV head office in Mumbai, the channel’s seven CEOs troop in every month to report their observations. And just like their Mumbai counterparts, CEOs from six other Indian cities too mail in their reports diligently every month. Meet the campus executive officers — the eyes and ears of the music channel, which sweep colleges across India looking for what’s hot or cool. It’s the kind of information which enables MTV to get deep into its target audience’s minds. “The insights may not lead to…
A few weeks ago there was an immense buzz about an email that was apparently leaked from Starbucks. Chairman Howard Schultz apparently had written this to CEO Jim Donald, and there was immense speculation about whether it was fake or a genuine leak. Well, Starbucks itself put that mystery to rest by confirming the e-mail's authenticity, and that makes it even more interesting. The soul-searching shared by Schultz in the memo, reflects the criticism that Starbucks has faced in recent years. As a pioneer of “the third place” experience, it must be especially painful for Schultz to admit that the…
The idea that the "younger generation" is from another planet is age-old, and no different from the notion that "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus." However, there is certainly a fundamental cultural shift that is taking place at work that is a product of the social, political and economic changes of the last 20 years or so. In India's case, I call this Generation-C (C for Choice). The 20+ year olds or younger who are entering the workforce in India are ones who were born after the introduction of color television in India (1982), who have grown up…
Two separate incidents recently reinforced to me the need to know and understand the customer intimately, and to have the ability to respond to that knowledge with the appropriate product or service. One was the experience an acquaintance had with the tea-vendor at a Mumbai railway station, who had segmented his tea-concoctions by the train (and its passengers), customizing to their regional tastes. The second was a music concert sponsored by a well-known motorbike brand. The audience was largely off-target and the event was clearly not successful for the bike brand, though the audience and the band itself had a…
It often seems like "Scaling Up = Dumbing Down." As an organisation starts to scale up, the challenge is getting everyone to work the same way as earlier. And Process with a capital "P" takes over. In the absence of inspiring and totally involved leadership, it often is just a hop and a skip from Bureaucracy. If a lot of people feel the same way, there may yet be hope for small businesses and the more personalized touch.
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
