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Crucial day for 2G scam accused.

2011-10-22T01:03:00.000-07:00

2G scam: Raja, Kani & 15 others charged

A special court in Delhi on Saturday (October 22) found prima facie evidence against all 17 accused for their roles in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The court allowed CBI's fresh plea to invoke charge of criminal breach of trust against former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK MP Kanimozhi.

Section 409 was also pressed against former Private Secretary R K Chandolia, former Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura. Those charged under Section 409 hands a minimum punishment of 7 years and a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Meanwhile, Kanimozhi was also charged under Section 120(b) for criminal conspiracy and other charges pertaining to Prevention Against Corruption Act were also pressed against her.

Telecom companies Reliance Telecom Ltd, Swan Telecom and Unitech Wireless were charged with criminal conspiracy and abetment in the case.

The Court also found prima facie evidence against 3 top Reliance ADAG officials Gautam Doshi, Surrender Pipara and Hari Nair for offenses of cheating and abatement.

All 17 accused, including DMK MP Kanimozhi, seek time to peruse the court order before framing of charges.

Types and Kinds of Business Possibilities

2009-08-17T00:14:00.000-07:00

Already Existing Business:

When choosing a what business you want to pursue, there are not only many different kinds of businesses you can run, but there are also a wide variety of business models that you should consider when deciding what is the right business for you.

The system identifies 1170 industries each of which include a number of specific types of businesses. The 1170 industries are grouped into 20 general categories:

Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting

• Farming
• Fishing
• Logging
• Ranching
• Timber Tract Operations

Mining

• Coal Mining
• Metal Mining
• Nonmetallic Mineral Mining
• Oil and Gas Operations
• Support Activities for Mining

Utilities

• Natural Gas Distribution
• Power Generation
• Sewage Treatment Facilities
• Steam and Air-Conditioning Supply
• Water Supply and Irrigation Systems

Construction

• Commercial Building Construction
• Drywall Contractors
• Electrical Contractors
• Flooring Contractors
• Framing Contractors
• Glass and Glazing Contractors
• Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction
• Land Subdivision Construction
• Masonry Contractors
• New Housing Construction
• Oil and Gas Pipeline Construction
• Painting Contractors
• Plumbing Contractors
• Poured Concrete Foundation
• Power and Communication Line Construction
• Residential Remodelers
• Roofing Contractors
• Siding Contractors
• Structural Steel Contractors
• Water and Sewer Line Construction

Manufacturing

• Aircraft Manufacturing
• Apparel Manufacturing
• Arts and Crafts
• Breweries
• Cement Manufacturing
• Chemical Manufacturing
• Clay Product Manufacturing
• Commercial Bakeries
• Commercial Printing
• Computer Equipment Manufacturing
• Distilleries
• Electronic Manufacturing
• Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing
• Food Manufacturing
• Foundries
• Furniture Manufacturing
• Glass Product Manufacturing
• Iron and Steel Mills
• Machine Shops
• Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing
• Metal Manufacturing
• Mineral Product Manufacturing
• Motor Vehicle Manufacturing
• Paper Product Manufacturing
• Petroleum Refineries
• Plastics Product Manufacturing
• Retail Bakeries
• Rubber Product Manufacturing
• Sawmills
• Textile Product Milling
• Tobacco Product Manufacturing
• Tradebinding
• Wineries
• Wood Preservation
• Wood Product Manufacturing

Wholesale Trade

• Business to Business Electronic Markets
• Commercial Equipment Wholesalers
• Construction Material Wholesalers
• Durable Goods Wholesalers
• Electronic Parts Wholesalers
• Equipment Wholesalers
• Farm Product Wholesalers
• Grocery Wholesalers
• Hardware Wholesalers
• Home Furnishing Wholesalers
• Industrial Wholesalers
• Motor Vehicle Wholesalers
• New Parts Wholesalers
• Personal Service Wholesalers
• Professional Equipment Wholesalers
• Supplies Wholesalers
• Wholesale Trade Agents and Brokers

Retail Trade

• Art Dealers
• Automotive Parts and Accessories Stores
• Boat Dealers
• Book Stores
• Building Material Dealers
• Clothing Stores
• Crafts Stores
• Department Stores
• Electronic Auctions
• Electronic Shopping
• Electronics Stores
• Farm Supply Stores
• Florists
• Fuel Dealers
• Garden Centers
• Gasoline Stations
• Gift, Novelty, and Souvenir Stores
• Health and Personal Care Stores
• Hobby, Toy, and Game Stores
• Home Centers
• Home Furnishing Stores
• Household Appliance Stores
• Internet Auctions
• Jewelry Stores
• Liquor Stores
• Luggage and Leather Goods Stores
• Mail-Order Houses
• Manufactured (Mobile) Home Dealers
• Motor Vehicle Dealers
• Musical Instrument and Supplies Stores
• News Dealers and Newsstands
• Nurseries
• Office Supplies and Stationery Stores
• Outdoor Power Equipment Stores
• Pet and Pet Supplies Stores
• Pharmacies and Drug Stores
• Prerecorded Tape, Compact Disc, and Record Stores
• Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Stores
• Sporting Goods Stores
• Supermarkets
• Tobacco Stores
• Used Merchandise Stores
• Warehouse Clubs and Supercenters
• Vending Machine Operators

Transportation and Warehousing

• Air Traffic Control
• Air Transportation
• Bus Transit Systems
• Charter Bus Industry
• Couriers
• Employee Bus Transportation
• Freight Transportation Arrangement
• Limousine Service
• Local Delivery
• Local Messengers
• Marine Cargo Handling
• Motor Vehicle Towing
• Packing and Crating
• Pipeline Transportation
• Port and Harbor Operations
• Postal Service
• Railroads
• Scenic and Sightseeing Transportation
• School Bus Transportation
• Special Needs Transportation
• Taxi Service
• Trucking
• Warehousing and Storage
• Water Transportation

Information

• Archives
• Book Publishers
• Cable and Other Program Distribution
• Cable Programming
• Cellular Telecommunications
• Data Processing
• Directory Publishers
• Greeting Card Publishers
• Internet Publishing
• Internet Service Providers
• Libraries
• Mailing List Publishers
• Motion Picture Production and Distribution
• Motion Picture Theaters
• Music Publishers
• News Syndicates
• Newspaper Publishers
• Paging
• Periodical Publishers
• Radio Networks
• Radio Stations
• Record Production and Distribution
• Satellite Telecommunications
• Software Publishers
• Sound Recording Studios
• Teleproduction Services
• Television Broadcasting
• Video Production and Distribution
• Web Hosting
• Web Search Portals
• Wired Telecommunications Carriers

Finance and Insurance

• Claims Adjusting
• Commercial Banking
• Consumer Lending
• Credit Card Issuing
• Credit Unions
• Direct Health and Medical Insurance
• Direct Life Insurance
• Direct Property and Casualty Insurance
• Direct Title Insurance Carriers
• Financial Planners
• Insurance Agencies and Brokerages
• Investment Advice
• Investment Banking
• Mortgage Loan Brokers
• Nonmortgage Loan Brokers
• Pension Funds
• Portfolio Management
• Real Estate Investment Trusts
• Sales Financing
• Savings Institutions
• Securities and Commodity Exchanges
• Securities Dealing
• Trust, Fiduciary, and Custody Activities

Real Estate and Rental and Leasing

• Appliances Rental
• Consumer Electronics Rental
• Equipment Rental and Leasing
• Formal Wear and Costume Rental
• General Rental Centers
• Home Health Equipment Rental
• Lessors of Real Estate Property
• Offices of Real Estate Agents and Brokers
• Property Managers
• Real Estate Appraisers
• Vehicle Rental and Leasing
• Video Tape and Disc Rental

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

• Advertising Agencies
• Architectural Services
• Building Inspection Services
• Certified Public Accountants
• Computer Related Services
• Drafting Services
• Engineering Services
• Environmental Consulting Services
• Geophysical Surveying and Mapping Services
• Graphic Design Services
• Human Resources Consulting Services
• Industrial Design Services
• Interior Design Services
• Landscape Architects
• Lawyers
• Marketing Consulting Services
• Marketing Research
• Notaries
• Payroll Services
• Photography Studios
• Public Opinion Polling
• Public Relations Agencies
• Research and Development Agencies
• Surveying and Mapping Services
• Tax Preparation Services
• Testing Laboratories
• Title Abstract and Settlement Offices
• Translation and Interpretation Services
• Veterinary Services

Management of Companies and Enterprises

• Offices of Bank Holding Companies
• Offices of Other Holding Companies
• Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices

Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services

• Armored Car Services
• Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning Services
• Collection Agencies
• Convention and Trade Show Organizers
• Convention and Visitors Bureaus
• Copy Shops
• Court Reporting
• Credit Bureaus
• Employment Agencies
• Exterminating and Pest Control Services
• Hazardous Waste Collection
• Investigation Services
• Janitorial Services
• Landscaping Services
• Locksmiths
• Office Administration Services
• Packaging and Labeling Services
• Private Mail Centers
• Repossession Services
• Security Guards
• Security Systems Services
• Septic TankServices
• Solid Waste Collection
• Sports Tour Operators
• Stenotype Services
• Telemarketing Bureaus
• Telephone Answering Services
• Temporary Services
• Travel Agencies
• Tour Operators

Educational Services

• Apprenticeship Training
• Automobile Driving Schools
• Business Schools
• Colleges
• Computer Training
• Cosmetology and Barber Schools
• Educational Support Services
• Elementary Schools
• Exam Preparation
• Fine Arts Schools
• Flight Training
• Junior Colleges
• Language Schools
• Management Development Training
• Professional Schools
• Secondary Schools
• Secretarial Schools
• Sports and Recreation Instruction
• Tutoring
• Universities

Health Care and Social Assistance

• Ambulance Services
• Ambulatory Surgical and Emergency Centers
• Audiologist Offices
• Blood and Organ Banks
• Child and Youth Services
• Chiropractor Offices
• Community Food Services
• Day Care Services
• Dentist Offices
• Diagnostic Imaging Centers
• Emergency and Other Relief Services
• Family Planning Centers
• HMO Medical Centers
• Home Health Care Services
• Homes for the Elderly
• Hospitals
• Kidney Dialysis Centers
• Medical Laboratories
• Mental Health Practitioner Offices
• Nursing Care Facilities
• Occupational Therapist Offices
• Optometrist Offices
• Outpatient Mental Health Centers
• Physical Therapist Offices
• Physician Offices
• Podiatrist Offices
• Residential Mental Health Facilities
• Residential Mental Retardation Facilities
• Speech Therapist Offices
• Substance Abuse Facilities
• Temporary Shelters
• Vocational Rehabilitation Services

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation

• Agents and Managers
• Amusement and Theme Parks
• Botanical Gardens
• Bowling Centers
• Casinos
• Country Clubs
• Dance Companies
• Dinner Theaters
• Fitness Centers
• Golf Courses
• Historical Sites
• Independent Artists
• Independent Performers
• Marinas
• Museums
• Musical Groups and Artists
• Nature Parks
• Promoters
• Racetracks
• Recreational Sports Centers
• Skiing Facilities
• Sports Recreation Guides
• Sports Teams and Clubs
• Sports Trainers
• Theater Companies
• Writers
• Zoos

Accommodation and Food Services

• Bars
• Bed-and-Breakfast Inns
• Campgrounds
• Caterers
• Hotels
• Restaurants
• RV Parks

Other Services (except Public Administration)

• Automotive Repair
• Barber Shops
• Beauty Salons
• Business Associations
• Car Washes
• Cemeteries and Crematories
• Civic and Social Organizations
• Conservation Organizations
• Diet and Weight Reducing Centers
• Electronics Repair and Maintenance
• Environment Organizations
• Equipment Repair and Maintenance
• Funeral Homes
• Grantmaking Foundations
• Household Goods Repair and Maintenance
• Human Rights Organizations
• Labor Unions and Organizations
• Laundries and Drycleaners
• Linen Supply
• Machinery Repair and Maintenance
• Parking Lots and Garages
• Personal Goods Repair and Maintenance
• Pet Care (except Veterinary) Services
• Photofinishing Laboratories
• Political Organizations
• Private Households
• Professional Organizations
• Religious Organizations
• Social Advocacy Organizations
• Voluntary Health Organizations
• Wildlife Organizations

Public Administration

• Administration of Public Programs
• American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Governments
• Correctional Institutions
• Courts
• Electric, Gas, and Other Utilities
• Executive Offices
• Fire Protection
• International Affairs
• Legal Counsel and Prosecution
• Legislative Bodies
• National Security
• Parole Offices and Probation Offices
• Police Protection
• Public Finance Activities
• Regulation of Agricultural Marketing and Commodities
• Space Research and Technology

There is more to deciding on the right business other than settling on the actual product or service you will be producing. Here are a number of other factors that may be a consideration in identifying the right model for your business.

Buy a Franchise vs. Join a Direct Marketing Business vs. Start From Scratch
This is a question of how ready you are to plan and implement every aspect of your business. Direct marketing businesses and franchises train and support you, but your flexibility of what you offer is limited. It also can be costly to buy into an established business. Franchises do usually have a track record and marketing that can be a bonus to get your business going. Look carefully into any direct marketing businesses you might consider. They can require tremendous investments that often cannot be recovered if you decide it is not the right path for you.

Home-based vs. Office-based
Some people are looking for a business they can operate out of their home; others feel more productive when they separate their business from their home life. Zoning laws may limit the types of businesses you can do from your home. You also may have space limitations that limit your choices. Home-based businesses can be lonely. Office-based businesses may bring hassles with other tenants if you are renting or cashflow if you purchase.

Invent Something New vs. Produce a Product vs. Offer a Service vs. Consult as an Independent Contractor
Inventions are usually solitary activities that require a lot of creativity. Products require manufacturing facilities, supplies, and distribution; services are more people-oriented, often facing deadlines not of your own choosing. Independent contracting can be the best of all worlds, although continually finding new contracts can cause cash flow problems.

Long Term Commitment vs. Build a Business to Sell
Some people have every intention of staying in this business forever. It is the realization of a dream. Others dream of making their money through starting new businesses, then selling them. The rush for them is the joy of starting something new over and over. Such folks are sometimes called "serial entrepreneurs." Each way of operating requires a very different financial model. Be honest with yourself about what is right for you so that you can structure your business plan accordingly.

Not-for-profit vs. Profit-based
Not-for-profits can be very emotionally rewarding, but are often low pay, although as with any business you can set your own pay within the budget of the business. There also extra legal hoops to jump through to run a not-for-profit business. If you dream of a solid nest egg or even fame and fortune, a profit-based business may be the best path for you.

Online vs. Physical Business (or Both)
Online businesses are often the choice of people who want a home-based business, but they are not synonymous. Online businesses can be any size and in any location. They can be worldwide or local. Physical businesses are almost always local unless there is a mail-order or ecommerce component. Each of these types of businesses is different to manage and run. Don't let other factors like wanting to be home-based influence your decision on this. If you like activity and hate computers, the internet is not the right spot for you. Grow vegetables instead.

Sell Your Product or Service in a Physical Location vs. Contracting Your Goods or Services Out to the Federal or State Government
Selling as a contractor has lots of rules, regulations, and paperwork, but can provide a lot of flexibility and a great cash flow. Selling locally (or nationally) is a totally different kind of marketing effort, but in many ways less hassle. One of the biggest areas of contracting is the federal government. The Small Business Administration has a number of programs to help with selling to the government. So, do take a look at some of the pros and cons if you think this might be something of interest to you.

Size of Business
Some entrepreneurs simply want to make enough to live simply. Others are looking to build another Microsoft. There are two components to consider in size. What is a comfortable size to start for you and how big do you eventually want to get? Some folks who are new to business want to be on their own to learn the ropes before adding employees, others who have managed before may be more comfortable having at least a few employees to share the workload. Your strengths and weaknesses will help you assess your short-term objective. Your own personal goals will help you determine your long-term objective.

Skills Needed
You may have a dream of what business you want to have eventually, but not have the skills yet. Education may need to be part of your business plan. Even for those of you who have a basic idea of what the business entails, the more you can learn about it, the better a business you will have. Make certain you know what skills are required for a business and how your strengths and weaknesses fit with those skills.

Urban vs. Rural
Urban businesses and rural businesses frequently have different constraints and different models. Marketing can be very different. It can make a difference in what business you choose. You may have always wanted to move to a rural location or vice versa and are taking the opportunity of starting a business to explore such a change. Do be aware of the differences in population density, consumer behavior and zoning laws, to name only a few of the differences you will experience by changing location. Learn as much as you can before taking this leap.

Right Business

There are literally thousands of types of businesses you could choose to operate. Making the choice can be very difficult. You don't want to make a major commitment of time and money to something that is not something you will love, or that is not financially viable.

One way to start is to look at lists information about different types of businesses to help explore possibilities; however, all lists have limitations. They are nice to scan, through -- and great if they describe precisely the business you want to start, but even lists with hundreds of possibilities barely scratch the surface. I have put together a resources on a variety of businesses. It is far from comprehensive, but is an information resource that I am constantly building on.

Certainly, the most common advice is that any business you operate should be something you love. Even if you are certain about what you love and/or want to do, finding the right business that best utilizes your skills and interests needs to be considered carefully. For instance, someone who loves art can be an artist, run an art gallery, do restoration, or teach art. Each requires different skills, but all fit with loving art. Part of knowing yourself is finding the right fit for what you find fun to do.

For those of us have do not have a clearcut passion, deciding what is the "right" business is often a major stumbling block in taking the big step. Most of us have an assortment of skills and interests that are not focused towards one particular field of endeavor. In some ways we are blessed because a wide variety of things can make us happy, but it can also provide confusion when there are so many different directions one could go. How do you make the choice?

It is not uncommon to get pulled into scams because of this indecision. Potential entrepreneurs know they want to take the big leap, but can't decide. Along comes a friend or an ad with promises of making riches overnight using their program. If the deal seems too good to be true, it is. No one is making money overnight. A successful business is built slowly based on a well-designed business plan.

So, how do you know what kind of business to start? You need to start with writing down what you personal goals are for the business as a start. Are you seeking certain income level? Do you want to grow into a major company or will something small be sufficient? Is this a means of making money so you can do other things or are you seeking a business that is fun in-and-of itself? Describe the ideal business as thoroughly as you can.

You next step involves using a technique common in strategic planning -- SWOT analysis. What you should have at the end of this assessment is a clear set of attributes a business must have to be "right" for you. The next step is to consider how to choose the right one.

This is where you need to get creative. Hopefully, by this point you have some sense of the general area you would like to work in, be it sports, computers, or any of the other hundreds of possible industries. Take the SWOT analysis developed earlier and apply it to the industry of interest. What businesses in this industry are best considering your strengths and weaknesses? What businesses are best for the opportunities and threats that are confronting you?

While brainstorming with a friend is useful at the preliminary stages to identify possibilities, this is where you really need to make your own decisions. You are the one who has to live with this business day-after-day for years to come. It is a major life decision. It is, of course, always possible to close or sell a business, but if you are going to put a positive effort into it, it needs to be something you are comfortable with committing to for a significant period of time.

To make the decision, write down your SWOT analysis, your long-term goals, and your preferences from the choices listed above. Take a moment to peruse my list of business characteristics that may be an additional factor in your decision. All this information you have compiled should give you a relatively detailed overview of the qualities you need for a business to have for it to be satisfying.

All these decisions can be overwhelming. For people who hate to make decisions, it is a near impossibility. But decisiveness is a necessity in entrepreneurship. If that is one of your weaknesses, perhaps you need to team up with someone else for this venture -- or reconsider entrepreneurship.

If you know what you want to do, but are concerned about the financial aspects, write a simple business plan. While time consuming, it will give you all the information you need (given that you are realistic in your planning) to tell you what your financial obligations will be. If the financing looks like it will be a problem, visit my financing information to see what options may be available to you.

If you feel that you are ready to go, move on starting a business. And, remember to have fun!

Essar to buy Britain’s 2nd-largest oil refinery

2009-08-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

India's Essar group is in the race to acquire Britain's second-largest oil refinery -- Shell's Stanlow complex, a media report said.

Shell hopes to pocket up to 1.5 billion pound from the sale, the Sunday Times said.

Shell's Stanlow complex, near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, produces a sixth of the UK's petrol and is the oil giant's only refinery in Britain which is being sold along with two German refineries, at Heide and Harburg.

"Among the bidders are Libya's National Oil Corporation and Essar, the mobile phone to shipping conglomerate owned by the billionaire Ruia brothers, Ravi and Shashi," the Sunday Times said.

However, the company officials of Essar were not available for comments.

The daily further said that "American refining giant Valero and an investment vehicle controlled by the Saudi royal family are also expected to make offers."

The auction is being run by Lazard and final bids are due on August 17, the newspaper said.

Shell has put its Stanlow complex up for sale as it tries to rein in its huge cost base and struggles with the effects of an oil price that is half the level of the historic high hit last year.

Shell last month reported a sharp fall in profits and its chief executive Peter Voser has launched a savage efficiency drive that is expected to cost thousands of jobs.

The involvement of Essar and the Libyans reflects a wider interest by developing-world groups that produce oil and want to break into the European market, the report said.

Meanwhile, PetroChina is in talks with chemicals maker Ineos, about taking a stake in its Grangemouth refinery.

"Stanlow, which employs more than 800 people, has seen much controversy recently. Next week, construction engineers will be balloted on strike action over pay, and it has also been targeted by fuel protesters over petrol prices," the Sunday Times added.

India launches First Nuclear Submarine -INS Arihant

2009-07-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

India reached a milestone on Sunday when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur launched the country's first indigenous nuclear-powered submarine 'INS Arihant' for sea trials. Kaur broke a coconut and performed a puja after which she unveiled a plaque naming the 112-metre-long submarine."I name it INS Arihant. All the best to the submarine," she said. Declaring that India has achieved a "historic milestone in the country's defence preparedness" with the launch of the submarine, the Prime Minister said, "We don't have any aggressive designs nor do we seek to threaten anyone. "We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and protection of our value systems," Singh said in his speech congratulating everyone associated with the advanced technology vessel (n-submarine) programme.

Singh said, "Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon us to take all measures necessary to safeguard our country and to keep pace with technological advancements worldwide". With the sea trials, India has announced to the world that it possesses underwater platforms capable of launching nuclear weapons, completing its nuclear triad (land, air and sea) capability and strengthening its strategic deterrence. It also made its entry into an elite club of nations comprising the US, Russia, France, the UK and China which possess capabilities to develop nuclear submarine.

Code-named Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV), the submarine christened 'INS Arihant' (destroyer of enemy) was launched for sea trials at the Matsya naval dockyard in Vishakapatnam. As India has declared "no first use" of nuclear weapons, the country's weapons system must survive a first strike for retaliation. Therefore, Arihant's primary weapon is stealth as it can lurk in ocean depths of half a kilometre or more and fire its missiles from under the sea. The 6000-tonne submarine is powered by an 85 megawatt capacity nuclear reactor and can acquire surface speeds of 22 to 28 kmph (12-15 knots) and submerged speed upto 44 kmph (24 knots). It will be carrying a crew of 95 men and will be armed with torpedoes and missiles including 12 ballistic missiles. Four more nuclear-powered submarines of this class have already got government's nod and these would add to the Navy's underwater combat potential in the years to come.

Defence Minister A K Antony, Navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy witnessed the event. The Prime Minister flew to Vishakapatnam this morning by the IAF's newly acquired Boeing business jet and reached the venue of the submarine launch by road. Sea trials of the submarine will be conducted in the Bay of Bengal off Vishakapatnam, where the vessel was under construction for the last two decades. The Rs 30,000-crore secret nuclear submarine project was started in the 1980s though it was conceived by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in the 1970s. The first official admission of the project nearing completion came this February when Antony had announced it during the AeroIndia show in Bangalore.

INS Arihant can also be armed with cruise missiles. The Defence Research and Developmen Organisation is already working on an equally secretive Sagarika project for a 700-km K-15 missile, capable of carrying nuclear weapons. With US, Russia and China already fielding 5,000-km range SLBMs, the DRDO too has recently tested an SLBM based on the design of 3,500-km range Agni-III. The induction of ATV will help India to complete the nuclear weapons triad, as envisaged under its nuclear doctrine to deliver nuke-tipped missiles from land, air and sea. India has land-based nuclear-capable Agni ballistic missiles, apart from IAF fighters such as Mirage-2000 that can deliver tactical nukes. Two decades ago, India had operated a Charlie-class nuclear submarine, christened INS Chakra, leased from Russia for three years between 1989 and 1991. Moscow will again lease out two Akula-class nuclear submarines to New Delhi for 10 years. Plans to deliver the submarines this June were hit by a mishap during sea trials late last year. But hopes have soared for its delivery in 2010 after Russia took out the repaired vessel for sea trials again early this month.

ICICI to deduct credit card dues from salary account

2009-07-26T10:56:00.000-07:00

In their constant pursuit of recovering dues from credit card customers, banks are empowering themselves with a tool that allows them to ask employers to deduct the outstanding amount from the salary.

Employees who may have defaulted on payment, however, cannot object to this deduction of dues at source, according to the new clause introduced in the `terms and conditions` by the country`s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank and expected to be adopted by others as well.

Such deductions will be remitted to the bank and will continue till the entire dues are recovered.

The amended `terms and conditions` say that "no law or contract" governing either the card holder or employers prevents the bank from seeking such deduction and subsequent payment by the employer to the bank.

When contacted, an ICICI Bank spokesperson confirmed the new clause. "This clause is applicable only for customers who default on their credit card payments. Prior notice has already been sent to all out customers to make them aware of this clause," the spokesperson said.

"Only the defaulters in repayment need to be concerned and it is not of concern to regular customers," he added.

With this clause, ICICI Bank is now "entitled and authorised to contact and require the card holder`s/card member`s employers to make deduction/s from the salary/wages payable by the employer to the card holder/card member and to remit the same to ICICI Bank until all of the card holder/card member dues outstanding from the card holder/card member to ICICI Bank is/are completely discharged."

Besides, as per the new clause, it would be the bank which would decide upon the quantum of the deduction.

"The deductions shall be of such amounts, and to such extent, as ICICI Bank may communicate to (and instruct) the card holder`s/card member`s employers," says the revised terms and conditions of the bank.

"The card holder/card member shall not have, or raise/ create any objections to such deductions. No law or contract governing the card holder/card member and/or the card holder`s/card member`s employer prevents or restricts in any manner the aforesaid right of ICICI Bank to require such deduction and payment by the card holder`s/card member`s employer to ICICI Bank," it adds.

The revised credit card terms and conditions, after incorporating the new clause, have come into effect from July 23, 2009.

Kickstart Your Resolution to Save Money -10 Ways

2009-07-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

You can't save money if you don't even know how much you're spending. Before you get down to the business of saving your money, take a week to track every single penny you spend. At the end of the week, you'll have a good idea of what you need to tackle first--for example, you might consider switching to a bank that's close to your office or home and offers no-fee withdrawals if you find out you're spending a lot on ATM fees.

Sell Out
The quickest way to get some cash in your hands? Sell things you don't need. Have a garage sale, put your old laptop up for sale on Craigslist, or sell your used books on Half.com. The extre money lining your pockets might inspire you to see how much you can save if you put in a little effort.

Ask Your Man Questions
Is your relationship getting serious? Before you move in or marry your guy, make sure you know all the intimate details of his financial situation. The five things you need to know? How much he makes, how much debt he has, how you plan to split expenses once your married or living together, how many kids you'll need to put through college, and where he sees himself in five to ten years, whether it's as CEO or as a starving grad student.

Keep Your Hands Off Your 401(K)
Dipping into your 401(K) early should be used only as a last resort. It'll cost you a penalty of at least 10% for cashing in before you're 59. Add the taxes Uncle Sam collects and you've already lost a sizeable chunk of your savings.

Ask for Forgiveness
Not from a higher power--from your bank. A late payment charge isn't written in stone, despite what they would have you think. If you've got a clean record, you may be able to get away with not paying it if you slip up--as long as you ask. Make a call to your credit card company to see if they'll waive it, just this once. Just don't make a habit out of it!

Invest
Think it's a bad time to invest your hard-earned cash? Think again. "Although the market's not going to go up right away," buying stocks or mutual funds now, when they are less expensive, is like "buying a dress from Banana Republic for $50 instead of $100," says senior financial adviser James E. Law of Law, Chemtob, and Associates.Tthe less you spend initially, the less risk is involved, and the greater returns could be. If, and only if, you have extra cash (your grocery money doesn't count!), consider putting your money into stocks, bonds, or even your office's 401(k).

Don't Make Stupid Mistakes
Late payment fees, bounced checks, and overdraft charges, besides wrecking your credit score, are easily-avoidable money-suckers. Start balancing your checkbook and keeping track of your cashflow and bill payment due dates on a service like mint.com and you'll never have to spend shoe money on bank fees instead.

Get Specific
Instead of vowing to spend less, give yourself a fighting chance by deciding exactly what you'll be spending less on. Will you be eating breakfast at home instead of buying something on your way to work? Will you drop the expensive membership to the gym you've been to twice in the past year and buy a pair of running sneakers instead? Giving yourself guidelines and following them makes you an active participant in your quest to save cash, instead of a helpless bystander to your spending sprees.

Get Insured
It might be tempting to go without health insurance if you're only going to a couple of doctors' appointments each year, but keep this in mind: a recent Harvard study found that nearly half of all bankruptcies today are attributable to overwhelming medical costs. Feeling healthy? Even minor injuries that end with a trip to the emergency room can leave you thousands of dollars in debt. Don't risk it.

Save On Your Energy Bills
Start by saving money in your home--if you're smart, you can save as much as 30% on your energy bills every month. Start by investing in compact fluorescent light bulbs (they use less power and last on average ten times longer than incandescent bulbs), using cold water for your laundry, and unplugging electronics when you're not using them. These small changes can make a big difference in your wallet.

Volkswagen plans merger with Porsche

2009-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

The board of the giant German carmaker Volkswagen agreed Thursday to to forge a new global automotive powerhouse by mounting a two-step 8-billion-euro, ($11.4 billion) takeover of the legendary sports vehicle group Porsche.

Announcing the agreement, Volkswagen (VW) chief Martin Winterkorn said the way was now free for the creation of an integrated VW-Porsche group with the sports carmaker to remain an independent brand.

The new combined VW-Porsche group would be "a major force" in the world car business.

Meeting in Stuttgart, the VW supervisory board decision turns the tables on Porsche, which had been forced to abandon an audacious bid to acquire VW after wracking up about 10 billion euros in debt in a David-and-Goliath battle to buy Europe's biggest carmaker.

The prospect of Volkswagen now seizing control of Porsche came in the wake of the luxury sportscar maker's announcement Thursday that its chief, Wendelin Wiedeking was stepping down after opposing VW's takeover ambitions for Porsche.

The Volkswagen decision to back the takeover plan represents a major victory for its supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech, after the protracted merger battle triggered a power struggle among the two families controlling Porsche and VW.

Under the VW takeover plan, the Wolfsburg-based motor vehicle group is expected to pick up an initial 49.9-percent stake in Porsche and then buy the rest at a later date at a total cost of about 8 billion euros.

The ownership of the new merged VW-Porsche group would be split between a more-than-50-percent stake held by the current controlling clans - the Porsche and Piech families.

Another 19 percent stake would then be held by the Qatar Investment Authority and about 20 percent would be in the hands of the German state of Lower Saxony, where Volkswagen is based.
Under the integration plan, VW and Porsche would together forge a carmaker with 10 brands.

This includes VW's nine brands from premium saloons such as Lamborghini and Bentley through to its more mass market brands such as Skoda and its flagship Volkswagen. Porsche will be the 10th brand in the new group.

But analysts say the VW takeover push has left open several key questions including the details of the link between the new VW-led carmaker and the oil-rich Qatar.

Held in Porsche's hometown of Stuttgart in southern Germany, the VW board meeting followed an all-night extraordinary session of the Porsche board, which gave the green light to talks aimed at securing a deal worth up to 5 billion euros with Qatar.

This could enable the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority to buy a stake in Porsche SE, the group's holding company, which Porsche said would help lay the foundations for integration moves with VW.

In addition, the Porsche board meeting approved a plan to raise 5 billion euros in capital.

Samsung reports biggerst profit in 2.5 Years

2009-07-24T08:34:00.000-07:00

Samsung Electronics, the world's top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, posted its best quarterly profit in 2-½ years thanks to a turnaround in its memory chip business but maintained caution for the rest of the year.

Samsung looks poised to make the most of a nascent recovery in the global memory chip sector following a 2-year-old industry slump, as it enjoys a technological edge over rivals such as Elpida.

Higher chip prices also helped Hynix Semiconductor, the No. 2 maker of memory chips, post a sharply narrowed net loss on Friday. Hynix is expected to swing to an operating profit in the current quarter.

"Samsung Electronics will benefit the most from the current chip sector recovery as it is the market leader in the most advanced mass produced DDR3 chips," said Kim Sung-in, chief technology analyst at Kiwoom Securities.

Hawala link in Satyam case - CBI

2009-07-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

In a startling revelation, a highly placed source in the CBI today confirmed the hawala trail of money from Satyam Computers traced by the agency. The accused persons in the multi-crore scam allegedly routed some Rs 12 crore every month through hawala channels outside India since 2002 till the scam was unearthed, said the source. The money was illegally sent out of the country every month leading to the loss of some Rs 1,008 crores since 2002 till 2008.
CBI officials are already trying to identify the transactions and money routed by B Ramalinga Raju, Satyam’s founder chairman and main accused, in countries including the US, Mauritius and European nations. CBI sources alleged that Raju had fraudulently increased the number of employees (fictitious employees) in its offices in India and abroad to give a broader scope for the use of the hawala network.
“As we have come to know after preliminary investigations into hawala transactions, it has been learnt that Rs 12 crore every month was being sent abroad through hawala on the pretext of paying around 10,000 employees who never existed,” said the source.

Ramalinga Raju’s judicial custody ends on 22-07-09

2009-07-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

The judicial custody of former Satyam Computers chairman B Ramalinga Raju and other accused in connection with the 7,800 crore fraud at the IT major ends on Wednesday.
On July 8, a local court had extended their judicial custody till Wednesday.
The accused are Ramalinga Raju, his brother and Satyam’s former managing director Rama Raju, ex-CFO V Srinivas, former partners of Price Waterhouse S Gopalakrishnan and T Srinivas along with Satyam Computer Services former employees G Ramakrishna, D Venkatapathi Raju and Ch Srisailam.
All are lodged at Chanchalguda Jail in Hyderabad.
Ramalinga Raju allegedly admitted overstating its cash reserves by USD 1.5 billion. Later, allegations have been made that the company’s assets were not inflated, but instead siphoned off by Ramalinga Raju.
Raju is currently held in Hyderabad’s Chanchalguda Jail on criminal charges including fraud, forgery, cheating, embezzlement and insider trading.

Mukesh Ambani owns a private and unlimited gold mine

2009-07-21T08:57:00.000-07:00

Very little notice, however, has been taken of the fact that Reliance Gas Transportation and Infrastructure Ltd (RGTIL), which set up the pipeline network for transport of this gas which has had rival users clamouring for government priority, is no longer owned by RIL, but by the latter’s chairman and managing director, Mukesh Ambani.

The change took place three years earlier and went largely unnoticed, even though RGTIL is crucial for RIL’s burgeoning gas business. RGTIL was moved out of the RIL fold to be a subsidiary of Reliance Utilities Pvt Ltd in 2006. Which is owned by Mukesh Ambani through a clutch of eight companies. The entire transaction at that time took place for only Rs 5 lakh. Even at that time RGTIL had the right of use (RoU) for setting up a major pipeline network across the country.

RGTIL has so far laid 1,400 km of pipeline to transport gas from Kakinada to Bharuch, passing through Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat, at an investment of $4 billion. It is also in the process of implementing four pipelines that will interconnect with the east-west network. These are the 1,100 km Kakinada-Haldia, 600 km Kakinada-Chennai, 670 km Chennai-Tuticorin and the 660 km Chennai-Bangalore-Mangalore pipeline networks.

RGTIL is estimated to be earning an average revenue of $1 per mBtu (million British Thermal Units) from gas transportation to RIL’s customers in the fertiliser and power sectors. When the company would transport the entire KG Basin gas of 80 million metric standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd), it is likely to earn revenues worth $2-2.5 million a day, said an analyst. The net asset value of RIL’s gas business, based on just the production profile of D6, is estimated at $19.98 billion, assuming a sale price of $4.2 per mBtu.

An official spokesperson of RIL did not respond. Justifying the transaction, however, an executive said since RIL’s only investment at that time in the company was Rs 5 lakh as equity and RGTIL did not have any other assets, the company was “desubsidiarised” after the payment of the amount. He said regulatory caps on returns on investment in the pipeline business were not attractive for the group as a whole and so, it was decided to move the company out of the RIL fold.

Kasab statement admission of guilt: Judge

2009-07-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

The special court trying the lone surviving terrorist in 26/11 Mumbai terror strikes, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, on Tuesday said the Pakistani gunman's statement pleading guilty before it was not a confession but an admission of guilt.

Judge M.L. Tahaliyani said Kasab's statement before the court was "broadly speaking not a confession but an admission of guilt".

Tahaliyani's observation came after Kasab concluded his version of events related to November 26 terror strikes.

In a dramatic turn of events, Kasab on Monday confessed to his involvement in the terror strikes at CST and other locations, apart from giving a detailed description of his training by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan.

Kasab was free to plead guilty at any point of time during the course of the trial, the court observed.

The court would need to verify whether Kasab was genuinely pleading his guilt as there were many charges against him, Judge Tahaliyani said.

The court could then accept or reject Kasab's statement or accept his plea and continue with the trial, the judge said.

Kasab, who was caught alive during the Mumbai attacks, had already recorded a confession before a magistrate but later withdrew it alleging it was obtained through coercion by police.

The gunman had earlier pleaded not guilty to the charges framed against him.

Government hones in on probable independent directors for Air India

2009-07-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

The government has identified people, with time and ideas, to be taken on Air India's board to steer the flag carrier to profitability, civil aviation minister Praful Patel said today.
"We are going to form an independent board of directors very soon. I shall be meeting the Prime Minister this week and discuss all the probable names," he told reporters on the sidelines of a management institute function here.
The airline's current board has only one independent director - N Vaghul, ex-chairman of ICICI, while the remaining nine are either from the civil aviation ministry or the airline itself.
The probables identified by the government are people who can "give time and contribute meaningfully for this great turnaround" that the airline hopes to achieve, Patel said.
On the requirement of funds for reviving the national carrier, Patel said that a revival plan on the financial side is expected from SBI Caps soon.
Dispelling the notion that the government would bail out the carrier, whose losses in FY'09 are expected to be near about Rs 5,300 crore and working capital borrowings around Rs 16,500 crore, Patel said the ministry was not looking at any major financial help but only an equity infusion

Govt Hits – Ambanis can’t hold economy hostage

2009-07-19T04:06:00.000-07:00

The government has slammed the Ambani brothers for having created a private feud over a national asset, natural gas.In an independent appeal filed in the Supreme Court on Saturday, the Centre adopted an unusually belligerent stand towards the two powerful industrial groups while asking them to stop squabbling over something that didn't belong to them.

In its appeal, the Centre urged the apex court to quash the June 15 Bombay High Court order which directed Mukesh Ambani to honour his “commitment” and provide gas to Anil Ambani's RNRL as per an MoU between them. This MoU, the Centre maintained, was ``null and void''. Not just that, it also accused the brothers of trying to ``surreptitiously and unauthorizedly'' appropriating the country's sovereign natural resources as ``family property''.

While the stinging comments could seriously hurt the pride of the Ambani brothers, it is also a serious setback to Anil Ambani's claim over an agreed supply of gas from KG basin which is being operated by Mukesh Ambani. Not surprisingly, Anil Ambani rushed to the Supreme Court to file an affidavit, claiming the Centre had no role in the dispute.

Anil Ambani's RNRL reacted sharply to the Centre's appeal and virtually accused it of playing a new game altogether after maintaining before the Bombay High Court that its role in the dispute was limited to interpreting the The Economic Times Sharing Contract. The Centre's affidavit, expanding its role now, should be tossed out, it pleaded.

On its part, the government said natural gas was meant for the country's industrialization and not for the individual gains of ventures owned by the Ambanis. The MoU between Mukesh's RIL and Anil's RNRL was ``null and void'' in the face of enormous national interest involved in the distribution of natural gas, it said, adding, ``the national economy cannot be allowed to be held hostage by the Ambanis''.

In its appeal, the government said the gas produced from KG Basin, if properly utilized, ``will promote industrialization of India''. However, the Ambani MoU made it appear that ``all the gas will be owned by RIL and RNRL and utilized at their discretion. Obviously, the pressing needs of the priority sectors of the national economy cannot be allowed to be held hostage to the benevolence and mercy of RIL and RNRL.''

``Knowing fully well that gas does not belong to them (RIL and RNRL) and that contracting companies are bound by the terms of the The Economic Times Sharing Contract (PSC), RIL and RNRL have appropriated, through the MoU, in a surreptitious and unauthorised manner, the entire gas, treating the same as their personal and family property,'' it said.

``The MoU, therefore, to the extent that it has as its consideration a property not belonging to the signatories to the MoU (in this case belonging to sovereign government of India) is blatantly illegal and in disregard of the provisions of the PSC and should be declared null and void,'' it said.

Till the dispute raised in the appeals filed by RIL, RNRL and the Centre was finally resolved, the Supreme Court should stay the operation of the HC judgment and keep in operation the interim arrangement ordered by the HC in its January 30, 2009 order, the Centre said.

Govt to conduct special audit of top 5 pvt telecoms

2009-07-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

The government has ordered a special audit of the country`s five leading private-sector mobile telecoms firms to check whether there had been any misreporting of revenue, Minister of State for Communications and IT Gurudas Kamat said on Thursday.

"Certain phone firms have been charged with misreporting their revenue," Kamat said in a written reply to law makers in the Upper House of the Parliament.

"Hence, the Department of Telecom has decided to conduct special audit of Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd and Tata Teleservices Ltd," he said.

Separately, the minister said state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd`s net profit for the year to March 2009 had dipped to 1.04 billion rupees (USD 21 million) as revenue fell and wage costs rose.

He did not give the comparable figure for the previous year.

Revenue for the year to March was 349.37 billion rupees, the minister said, 8 percent lower than 380.53 billion rupees in the previous year as reported on BSNL website.

The state-owned firm`s board last year approached the government for permission to sell 10 percent stake in an Initial Public Offer and an official had said they expected to raise about USD 10 billion from the IPO. The offering ran into opposition from the government`s communist allies and the firm`s employees.

BSNL Chairman Kuldeep Goyal said last month the government, which no longer relies on the support of the communist parties, was again thinking about the share sale and a decision should come shortly.

In a written response to another question, Kamat said new telecom operators Etisalat DB Telecom, Unitech and S-Tel had told the government they were deploying network infrastructure.

Norway`s Telenor is taking a majority stake in Unitech telecoms business, while Bahrain Telecommunications Co is taking a 49 percent stake in S-Tel. Both the firms have said that they would start operations during October and December.

Tata's final promise, to give First Nano key on Friday-17-07-09

2009-07-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Five years after his promise to build a people's car, Ratan Tata will hand over the key of his dream project--the Nano- to its first customer tomorrow.

From the birth of the dream in 2003, to its launch in 2008 and finally its delivery in 2009, the Nano's journey has been anything but smooth.

The car, first showcased at the Delhi Auto Expo last year, was at the centre of much controversy as its proposed plant site in West Bengal became a rallying point for Mamata Banerjee and her party to gain political mileage.

The controversy surrounding the site led Ratan Tata to abandon Singur and shift the Nano's production to Gujarat.

But the overwhelming support for Tata's dream car was evident when the booking opened early this year. Despite the slowdown in the auto sector, the car attracted over 2.05 lakh bookings.

In the first lot over 1.55 lakh cars would be delivered and the first one lakh will be sold at the announcement price of Rs 1 lakh, making it the cheapest four-wheels in the world.

Tata had earlier said that 'a promise is a promise' and keeping his promise he would hand over the first car tomorrow at the price-protected rate

Will Andhra and Gujarat house US nuclear reactors?

2009-07-16T08:30:00.000-07:00

The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's five-day tour of India beginning Friday is likely to set the stage for developing two US nuclear sites in India as a follow up to the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Former US President George W. Bush in December last year had signed into law a nuclear deal with India in a major step towards allowing New Delhi to buy US reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years.

According to a media report, India has more or less identified the sites in two states: Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.

The identification of the sites flows from a commitment India had given, through a letter of intent under the nuclear deal, which commits India to purchase 10,000 MW from US nuclear companies and mark “at least two sites” for this purpose. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh were the two states that offered sites for this and have now been approved, the 'Indian Express' reported on Wednesday.

India has a yawning energy deficit, and the accord opens up a market worth billions to US companies such as General Electric and Westinghouse Electric, a unit of Japan's Toshiba Corp.
"It opens up as much as $10 billion worth of new exports to India," a top US official said about the US prospects.

Apart from naming nuclear sites, Hillary is expected to sign another agreement on end-use monitoring of sensitive US technology and equipment.

Assistant Secretary for South Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake said in Washington on Wednesday that US hopes to be able to sign an end-use monitoring agreement and added that US hoped that India will be in a position to announce two sites where US companies will have the exclusive right to set up nuclear reactors.

Allaying fears in India over the recent G-8 declaration regarding restriction on transfer of atomic technology to non-NPT States, Blake said it was "fully committed" to the nuclear deal with New Delhi and hopes to sign the end-use monitoring agreement on Monday. "We hope to be able to sign that (end-use monitoring agreement), and obviously, that will take place on Monday of next week," Blake told reporters in Washington

Anil Ambani enters Hollywood, ties up with Spielberg

2009-07-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Anil Ambani signs deal for Hollywood debut

In one of the largest deals in global cinema in recent years, Anil Ambani's Reliance Big Entertainment and Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg on Wednesday announced $825-million funding for their Los Angeles-based production house Dreamworks Studios to make six films a year for global audiences.
Ambani and Spielberg, in a joint global conference call from New York, said the movies produced by Dreamworks will be distributed by Walt Disney globally, while the exclusive rights for India will be with Reliance Big Entertainment.
"Clearly, the outlay of $825 million is what we are aiming at in the next three years - $325 million will be in the form of equity, $150 million will come from Disney, while the rest will come from banks and others," Ambani said.
"There is no scaling up or scaling down of investment. We will begin with $825 million and this is the largest in recent times," said the Mumbai-based industrialist, whose aides had earlier indicated an investment outlay of as much as $1.5 billion for Dreamworks.
Spielberg said he was looking forward to films produced by Dreamworks as also to visit India soon to meet with filmmakers, scriptwriters and actors to see how they can all collaborate.
"We have a golden opportunity to have a better control over our product," he said, alluding to the strained relationship Dreamworks faced after it was sold to Viacom's Paramount in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
"I am very excited that we are in business again and we are independent of any motion picture studio. Now, we feel we have the independence in our partnership with Reliance," Spielberg said.
Some of the films that will be produced first include 39 Clues, Cowboys and Aliens, Dinner For Schmucks, Motorcade and Hereafter in a mix of genres including thrillers, action, comedy and family drama.
Ambani also announced that his associate Amitabh Jhunjhunwala and Spielberg's partner for decades Stacey Snider, who has been associated with projects like Eric Brockovich, The Mummy and American Pie, would also serve on the Dreamworks board.
The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group ranks among India's top three industrial houses with interests in areas including telecommunications, energy, finance, entertainment and infrastructure development.
The group's entertainment business owns 428 cinema screens across India, the US, Malaysia and Mauritius, contributing 11 percent to the domesticindustry's box office collections and 35 percent from the Hindi movies screened in the US.
Its entertainment business has its presence across several platforms, including FM radio, music, sports, gaming, animation, Internet and mobile portals, direct-to-home TV, Internet TV and mobile TV.

Trendz Fever: Entrepreneurship and Business explored

2009-07-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

Trendz Fever: Entrepreneurship and Business explored

Honda to step on the gas on hybrid development

2009-07-14T10:02:00.001-07:00

Honda Motor Co's new chief executive Takanobu Ito said on Monday, that the No 2 Japanese automaker would accelerate development of hybrid models in the company's bid to align with customer needs.
In his first public appearance after taking office last month, Ito aid the company would launch the planned CR-Z hybrid sports car next February. The company would also launch a gasoline-electric Fit subcompact by end 2010 given the growing importance of fuel economy and environmental concerns in buyer calculations.
"I think everyone is going to go the way of hybrids," the 55-year-old former engineer told reporters at Honda's Tokyo headquarters.
"Bringing hybrids quickly to customers will be a major focus of our activities," he said.
"I want Honda to be a speedy company,'' he said

He added that this would include speeding up the development of dual electric motor powered medium-to large-sized vehicles; with the company having shelved its plan to use clean diesel engines to improve mileage on bigger models.

Latest Trends in Internet Marketing

2009-07-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

Almost all of the articles on Internet marketing lack coverage on all the basics and all the avenues of Internet marketing because there is just too much information to cover in a few words. Here I am going for an attempt which will be an overview, not an in depth affair.

The most basic step in researching your market is to first have a "target." There should be a clear picture in your mind about the target audience and you should treat them as your potential customers. This means you know who you're aiming for (their likes, dislikes, general age group, income, business type, etc.) and have a general idea how to "hit" them. Sample target markets would include:
This includes the segregation based on

* Age group
* Qualification
* Per capita income
* Spending capacity
* Geographical location
* Business class
* Technocrats

Once you know who your target is - the more information the better - you're ready to get into the nitty-gritty of market research. There are five basic ideas in market research: "Primary," "Secondary," "Combined" (all types of research) and "Qualitative" and "Quantitative" (ways of gathering the information). A quick definition of each:

Primary research is research conducted by the primary user of the information. Secondary research is gathered elsewhere and used by you (purchased, leased, etc.). Most small businesses conduct both of these types of market research - customer surveys for primary information and by researching free or paying fees for secondary information. This is called "Combined" research.

Qualitative research is usually exploratory and has a direction or goal. It generally aims at specific issues in the subject matter and gives you a better idea in which direction you should proceed. This type of research is "loose" and is geared more towards finding a market or narrowing your market than it is towards getting specific information on that market and where your product fits within it.

Quantitative is much more rigid than qualitative marketing. This research gets much more accurate statistical results and information and is best used when your target market is already narrowed and you wish to find ways to reach or explore that market as well as find specific information on your product as it relates to that market.

Conducting your own market research is time-consuming, but is very well worth it if you have a need for information or if you are spending any considerable amount of money on your marketing for specific products or services.

Search Engine Marketing

This has, for a long time now, been a "hot phrase" in online marketing circles. I'm not sure why, since while it is generally an important part of a presence online, it is not the end-all-be-all of marketing on the Internet . Search engines have become one of the most expensive forms of advertising on the Web, but have also become one of the most effective. Great search engine marketing (read: placement, strategy, etc.) is done by professionals and takes a lot of time to do correctly. There are two types of search engines to market towards: search engines/directories and pay-per-click (PPC) engines.

Email Marketing

Marketing online using email is a touchy affair and can easily lead to many problems. Despite this, it is by far the most effective form of advertising online - bar none. An email advertisement to a targeted and strong list of people can generate responses of close to 1/3 (1 response for every 3 targets). That's phenomenal in ANY form of advertising.

There are three types of email marketing: SPAM/UCE, opt-in, and newsletter marketing.

SPAM/UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) is something that everyone, whether savvy online or not, has heard of. The word SPAM has risen from "questionable meat in a can" to "plague of the Internet" in the past three or four years. Despite its bad name - and any personal feelings I may have about it - SPAM is a very effective form of email advertising. If it weren't, it wouldn't exist.

Opt-In email advertising is extremely effective and carries very little of the weight of SPAM marketing. The idea is pretty basic: you create a list of email addresses and send marketing messages to them occasionally. The hard part is getting those names to start with. Usually other forms of advertising get your website going and this type propels it forward.

Newsletter marketing is similar to opt-in marketing, but includes useful information such as articles or insights. In fact, you're probably reading this article through a newsletter that is being used to market a business of some type or another . Newsletters can be time-consuming, but are well worth the effort. Some newsletter publishers supplement their income by running advertisements in their publications

If done right, a proper newsletter or opt-in list can greatly increase your success online. If you feel you don't have the time or skill to publish your own newsletter, there are those who will do it for you.

Mallya calls Gujarat prohibition a failure, govt reacts

2009-07-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Charging that prohibition in Gujarat has failed to stop illegal production and consumption of spurious liquor, United Breweries Group Chairman Vijay Mallya today virtually asked the state government to lift the ban on making and selling of alcoholic drinks. Mallya''s comments in the wake of the recent hooch tragedy, which claimed more than 100 lives, drew a sharp reaction from the Gujarat government.
"Unilateral assessment that the prohibition policy of the state was resposible for the tragedy from the largest producer of liquor who has vested interest in the business is unfortunate," health minister and state government spokesman Jaynarayan Vyas said. Mallya had said liquor prohibition in the state had failed to stop the illegal, unhygenic and unsupervised production of deadly spurious liquor and that the death of so many people should serve as "a wake-up call to our political hypocrites.
" "Chief Minister Naraendra Modi knows fully well that every brand of alcohol is available in the state of Gujarat at two or three times the price charged in neighbouring states. This means that the government of Gujarat is losing thousands of crores in potential revenue," he said.
But Vyas in Ahmedabad said Mallya''s statement has "come at a wrong time" and "the issue cannot be solely ascribed to prohibition policy or lethargy of police. It has far more complicated causes like deprivation due to poverty, reckless urbanisation and frustration among the poor.

Six Mega-Trends that Define India's Future

2009-07-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

Writing a year ago, I looked at sharply rising (and indeed, record) oil prices and forecast the safe thing: an economic slowdown in 2006, after three years of rapid growth. An unkind colleague mailed me that article the other day, to underline human fallibility.

As far as I know, only one person forecast anything like what the Sensex achieved: something like a 50 per cent gain in the past year, starting from the already high levels of December 2005.

In fact, the member of Sebi (the stock market regulator) who daringly forecast the Sensex hitting 16,000 was hooted out by most commentators.
Despite this failure last year to tell the good news before it happened, the safe forecast this year too would be to stay with the thought that the business cycle has not been abolished, and that a slowdown has to appear on the horizon before too long -- especially since interest rates have been climbing, loans for cars and housing have become costlier, and the United States (the world's "consumer of last resort") is slowing down.

But the nagging worry is that, in choosing what looks like the safe forecast, we may simply be suffering from a fear of heights.
Commentators like Larry Summers and Ajay Shah, both writing on Business Standard's editorial page in recent days, have said in essence that there is reason to worry because there seems to be no reason to worry!
In other words, that this is just too good to last, and it could therefore be the calm before some as yet unseen storm. Since that is the kind of forecasting that no one can deal with or prepare for, what about staying with the assumption that the economy will continue to soar, without meeting Icarus's fate?
What would that mean? Four more quarters of handsome corporate results, and the Sensex at 20,000 a year from now? Another year of 20 per cent pay hikes? And hiring in the tens of thousands by a dozen and more firms that are burning the rubber in many different sectors? More foreigners telling us nice things about ourselves?
Like Goran Ivanisevic sending down one service ace after another, permanent good times can sound monotonous and almost boring. Except that China has been sending down those aces for a quarter of a century, and the story of its dramatic rise is anything but boring.

Still, better than attempting risky forecasts, it may be more productive to understand mega-trends. "Mega" because they cannot easily be reversed, have large ripple effects, and which therefore will define the future. I can think of half a dozen such

MEGA-TREND 1 is the acquiring of scale. The Indian economy, Indian companies and Indian markets were mostly small or tiny. Remember that the Ambani family wealth seven years ago was about Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) -- the same as Jignesh Shah's today. Don't know about him? He is a first-generation entrepreneur who is not yet 40.

The telecom market was 5 million connections 15 years ago; now it is over 180 million, and the fastest growing in the world. The fourth-largest phone company in India is now being valued at $20 billion. Or take commercial space: all of India's cities used to have office space totalling 40 million square feet. Now we are adding that much as new commercial space every year.

The total Indian car market was half a million vehicles in 2000; by 2010, a single company will be turning out twice that number, and India will be a small car manufacturing hub for the world. Companies, when they hired, used to do so in the hundreds; now the big ones do it in the tens of thousands.

On a visit to India some years ago, the chairman of General Electric (Jeff Immelt) said that whenever his company had bet on the Indian market, it had failed them; but whenever they had bet on the Indian people (Indian skills, that is), the bet had paid off. But by his last visit to Delhi, Immelt had changed his view: now the market is working too.

MEGA-TREND .2 is the spread of connectivity and awareness. In John Naisbitt's original identification of mega-trends, back in 1982, he called it networking.
Imagine the difference between a country that has 5 million phones and another with 180 million; between a country with 10 million TV sets and one with 120 million; between a country whose trucks move at 25 km per hour on the highways (counting the time taken for stops), and 50 km per hour.

Think of the consequences as Country No. 1 morphs into Country No. 2: better supply chain management, just in time delivery, and therefore scale of production if you can start at dawn and give delivery 500 km away by dusk (tomorrow it may be 800 km).
Think different awareness levels and therefore a different quality of decision-making; and think speed of response because you can reach someone on a mobile phone anytime anywhere. In short, think productivity gains -- which is what the growth story is all about.

MEGA-TREND 3 is the growth of the middle class -- talked about and anticipated for 20 years, but finally acquiring true scale. In 2001-02, there were 61 million Indians belonging to families that earned more than Rs 2 lakh (Rs 200,000) a year; by last year (2005-06), that number had crossed 100 million.
In 2009-10, the National Council for Applied Economic Research forecasts it will be 173 million. Marry that with growing urbanisation, and it is a safe guess that well over a third of all Lok Sabha constituencies will have a sizeable middle class and urban voter base. Think, then, of the many changes this might bring about. The obvious point is about growth of consumption, but we can go beyond that.
For instance, could it lead to a different type of politics and politician, because the urban voter is usually not thinking caste? The middle-class will expect (and increasingly demand) reliable power, clean water, comfortable mass transport systems. . .

Look at the pressures on the government in Delhi in recent years, to provide clean air, uninterrupted power, fast traffic, and responsive government-and you can see what could happen elsewhere in the coming years.

MEGA-TREND 4 has to do with the growing problems of growth. There is the environment: the increasing pollution of air (all those additional cars), the dropping of the groundwater table, and the failure to renew resources (like forests).

There is the energy question: do we really think the world oil market will not go haywire if we treble our consumption? The fact is that we are locked into a pattern of increasingly energy-intensive, resource-gobbling production and consumption from which there is probably no escape any more because everyone wants the western middle-class dream.

As surely as night follows day, then, there will be consequences. As someone said, other than weapons of mass destruction, the only thing that can extinguish human life is environmental change.
The third problem of growth is disparity, which is almost certain to increase (think all the way from executive jets and Bentleys to luxury watches and multi-crore apartments). How will this play in a democratic system, if others don't have food to eat and are committing suicide?
Consider then how politicians are trying to mediate the tensions: reservations of seats and jobs, cesses of various kinds to finance big spending programmes. . . If the rich have thought they can secede into gated residential communities and offices in corporate parks, hang on because outside reality will intrude.
Two statements were made at a conference I attended last year. One said: "Globalisation is a market efficiency project, but badly prepared to handle its political fall-out." The other said: "The issues are emotional. The solutions are technical. The decisions are political."
I interpret that to mean the issues will not go away.

MEGA-TREND 5 has to do with India's increasing openness to the world. The number of US visas issued in India doubled in 2006, to over 800,000 -- more than in any other country, barring Mexico. More Indian students are studying in other countries than those of any other nationality, barring perhaps China. Neither of these was remotely true 15 years ago.

The foreign trade component of India's GDP (if you include trade in both goods and services, like software) is now about 55 per cent -- nearly three times what it used to be. Foreign institutional investors own about 25 per cent of India's listed stock. And Indian firms were buying three overseas companies a week, through 2006.
A country that is open to the world reacts in fundamentally different ways from a closed system (of the kind that India used to be).

There is greater self-confidence, faster acceptance of new influences and ideas, a willingness to accept global benchmarking, and a speedier response to changing circumstance. It is simply a more adaptive and therefore a more efficient system. Translate that to mean more productivity growth.

MEGA-TREND 6 the continuing dominance of youth. Something like half of India is under 25, and it will remain that way for some time. This is usually spun around into the economic fact that a higher percentage of people will be in the working age till the mid-twenty-first century, but that is only one facet.

Youngsters are different from oldies in a hundred ways, and anyone can make a long list of the differences. How this will affect Indian society cannot really be predicted, except to say that it will be more mobile (think more migrants), and more volatile (stronger responses to frustrations-- one manifestation being the spread of extremist Left ideology in some 60 districts).

It will adapt faster to new trends, and marketers will be encouraged to focus on low-cost products and services because youngsters usually have less money. It will probably mean that the two-parent home (for nurturing children) will remain the predominant norm for long, and that there will be a strong saving habit because families will be planning (among other things) for their children's educational future.

Four of these six mega-trends have almost entirely positive implications; one is clearly negative, and the last can cut both ways. There could be other negative trends too, like the steady collapse of governance and the country's politics shooting off the tracks.

The first is (one hopes) more easily reversible than these six and therefore does not affect quality; and the second is more a risk than a trend.
If, therefore, you were to outline a medium-term future for the country, you would paint a mostly upbeat picture. After that, whether GDP growth is 8 per cent or 9 per cent is really a matter of detail.

Calvin Klein USB Sunglasses Upgrade Your Memory To 4GB

2009-07-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Calvin Klein's new sunglasses offer up a little storage with your UV protection thanks to a 4GB USB flash drive embedded in the right arm.

Too bad these glasses can't store the images you see. Last week at the beach I saw some things I would like to remember. Then again, I saw other things that I would really like to forget. At any rate, they will be available for $200 this October—just in time for...fall?

Sixth Sense Theory

2009-07-11T04:42:00.000-07:00

How to develop your sixth sense

Everyone has it.

Everyone is aware of their five basic senses, seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing and tasting. What everyone is not so well aware of is their sixth sense, that sense of otherworldliness, a connection to something more and greater than their physical senses are able to perceive.
This is the entrance to the world of the unseen encounter, the unheard communication, the unfelt touch of someone from the spiritual world trying to make a connection with someone in the physical body.

Nothing to fear.

The sixth sense is a part of everyone whether or not they like it. It is a normal part of the human psyche and not abnormal or reserved for special or gifted persons. Thanks to the media and to religion, it has been misrepresented and as a result, people associate the spirit world with fear and trepidation. A person has more to fear going to their car in the parking lot after work than from those souls in the spirit world. Contrary to the media’s misrepresentations, those in spirit do not have physical bodies to carry out evil deeds like some thug in a parking lot.

It is scientific.

Every human being is equipped from birth with what they need to communicate with the spirit world from where they came, and to where they will eventually go when they give up their physical body. This is the same scientific phenomenon that works in the transmission of electronic information such as the television or radio. These require that you tune into a particular band or frequency to get the program that you want. The sixth sense is similar in that it requires tuning in to another person’s frequency or to the frequency of someone in the spirit world. Electronic tuning is done through electronic means that is mechanical in nature. Spiritual tuning is done through the brain with mental focus, intent and desire being the means.

Mental tuning.

Although, tuning by mental focus is inconsistent and capricious, while electronic tuning is reliable, consistent and tangible, it is no less scientific. The difference being that psychic and medium communication is in its infancy as far as future development goes. It has a scientific basis for its manifestation because all things that happen work according to scientific laws, even by laws that haven’t been discovered yet. Consider technology that we take for granted, anyone that would have predicted one hundred years ago where we would be today, would have been laughed to scorn. So it is with mediums and communication with the so-called dead, it is a science in its infancy.

You’ve already had contact.

One doesn’t have to be a practiced medium or an ordained saint to make contact with the souls from the spirit world. At one time or another, everyone that is alive today has seen them, heard from them, been touched by them, smelled them, either while in the waking state or through a dream. Those that can’t recall having the experience are not aware of the signs or, because of fear and ignorance programmed through religion, are in denial. This is the first step in development of your sixth sense, recognizing the times that you have been touched by those in the spirit world.

Esp Test, Telepathy and Mind Control
The Purpose of These Tests and Exercises.

The four symbol tests and on the following pages are designed to gage your basic Esp ability. Following these, there are two Telepathy exercises for you to further develop the power of your mind. The symbol cards along with the telepathy exercises help to discipline and train your mind to focus. Even if you don't perform well with the symbol cards, it doesn't matter. Just practicing all these exercises increases your mind's ability to send and receive information that will be an asset to your life. Be patient and persistent and one day you will realize that your mind has expanded and your perception of what is going on in your life has greatly increased. You will then begin to notice that the things that you want to happen, suddenly begin to happen. That will be your proof and reward for developing the power of your mind. Its called MIND CONTROL.

What is ESP?

Esp - Extrasensory perception is the term used to describe a means of getting information from other than the five senses that everyone uses as their primary means. The five senses are seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting, and hearing. These are considered to be our 'normal' senses and any sense or gathering of information, is said to be 'extra', or out of the ordinary.
When a person develops their ESP, they have increased their mind power by a quantum leap above other people. It enables them to send and receive information almost at will to influence things that are important to them.

Esp is mental telepathy, our other sense.

Mind reading, clairvoyance, precognition are all perceived through mental telepathy, . Mental telepathy makes possible the "knowing" about past future or current events that is not supposed to be part of our knowledge. When someone demonstrates an ability to send and receive information that is not part of their five ordinary senses, it is placed in the realm of "extra" almost as though it was bizarre or abnormal and not part of the human psyche or sense abilities. However, telepathic ability is available to all those willing to practice and learn how to increase this talent that is given to everyone at birth.

Psychics and mediums use extrasensory perception.

This is how clairvoyants, psychics and mediums know secret and private information about another person's life and are able to advise them.
Some of them discovered that they had the ability at a young age and some not until later in their life. But they all have one thing in common. They made a decision not to ignore it, but rather to improve and cultivate it through patience, practice and effort. Many people can now benefit from their diligence and persistence in their own self development.

Don't get bored.

Each of the tests covers a different aspect of mind control and telepathy. Do all of them repeatedly and on a rotation basis. Using different symbols at different times helps to keep the the person being tested from getting bored which happens when using the same symbols over and over. It is important to maintain enthusiasm and interest when testing your self because it has been found to make a difference. When a person begins to get bored, their score often times goes down. That is why we have presented here, 4 varieties of colors and symbols. Test your self with all four, switching off when you lose interest in one or the other. There are also telepathic exercises that require 2 people which will help add an expanded dimension to the exercises. Remember that the important thing is not in how well you score, but in the practice which leads to telepathy and mind control.

After you read the instructions on how to test and keep score, you can print the symbols and paste them on cards. The instructions how to do it are on each of the symbol pages. For color symbols, you'll naturally need a color printer.

A Visit From the Deceased or Spirit Guides

Appearances from loved ones that have passed on occur fairly frequently. In our sleeping state we are closer to them than when in the waking state. The reason being that our five senses and our ego are at rest allowing our sixth sense or our higher self the freedom it needs to make these communications happen.
In the sleeping state, everyone gets a chance to be close to the veil, that is the dividing line between the physical state and the spiritual one. Mediums continually practice focusing themselves so that they can attain this state in order to communicate with the deceased. This requires quite a bit of time and effort on their part. However, the sleeping person is already there nearby.

A symbol in a dream

Sometimes a deceased loved one can become a part of our dreams as one of the actors in the play of coded symbols. Then through the divide and analyze interpretation technique, we use the memories associated with them to understand the meaning behind that particular dream. Your subconscious uses these loved ones just like every other symbol in its composition of a dream.

A visitation is more than a dream.

There is a noticeable difference between a dream and a visitation. In the latter, the spirit of the loved one appears spontaneously and unexpectedly as the unmistakable central focus. Its image may be much brighter than in an ordinary dream. It can simply be a face to face momentary meeting with a full or partial image and no more than that. Or, it can involve an issue that has some relevance between the person and the spirit. In either case, the visitation usually leaves the dreamer with a feeling of otherworldliness about the encounter when they awake.

A visit from a friend.

When Sandra was a sophomore in high school she was part of a small group of close knit friends. Whenever something was happening, they always went as a group. One day several of the boys skipped school and went swimming in an old quarry. One of them drowned. She had a difficult time dealing with it and used to pray for him regularly. Quite some time after, he appeared to her in a vivid dream. He was his very gregarious self again, wearing new shiny clothes. He was standing on a platform against which there was a ladder. She felt happy and excited and began to climb the ladder, he said in a clear consoling voice, "Sandra, stop worrying about me, I’m fine." With that the dream ended.
After this dream, she felt whole again and accepted his death. She felt that he had spoken to her from heaven.

They just drop in to say "Hi"

Spirits don’t only come to resolve issues, they may appear just because the opportunity presents itself like friends that drop in unexpectedly and unannounced. Don’t ever be frightened by their appearance, greet them just as though they were in the flesh.

Psychic Power - Connecting with Universal Energy.
This hidden power is is available to those who recognize and accept that there is a higher realm of knowing and communication beyond their own physical bodies. The universe is full of this unlimited energy that can be tapped by almost anyone who will make the effort to focus and tune themselves to its subtle vibrations. These vibrations are not just for the so called 'gifted' persons, but for everyone who makes the effort to learn its secrets. Most all psychic people are that because they recognized the signs of this energy and focused their attention on its workings which is the very thing that is required in order to develop it. If they hadn't focused their attention on it, then they wouldn't be what they are.

Focus

To begin tuning into this force you need to learn about focusing. Focusing on even the smallest instance of psychic phenomena that happens to your self and to people around you. Play the event around in your mind continually, to get familiar with the sense of the action and presence of the energy involved. This will give you a perception of how involved and integrated is the underlying hidden power that caused the event to take place.

Everything is connected

One of the most important things that anyone needs to understand is that every living thing has consciousness has a connection to everything else in the universe. People, animals and plants are all connected to the hidden energy of universal consciousness that permeates the entire universe and 'wires' all of us together.
Understanding and accepting this concept is the most important requirement to developing one's own latent ability. The next important requirement, is that the person must have both a desire and willingness to develop and tune themselves so they can also connect with the universal spirit

Mindset

After that, it becomes a matter of adopting a certain kind of mind set that is necessary to cultivate a power thinking process. Next, you will need to practice diligently a number of exercise techniques to get feed back while developing these abilities. Feed back helps you to learn and understand the signals and symbols that are received and experienced as a normal part of the learning to experience process.

Practice

To advance, you need to find a development circle or starting a "circle" of your own. A circle means weekly meetings where like minded people can practice in a positive environment. Another thing you can do is to visit the pages on Esp and Telepathy which is part of this website. There you'll find tests and practices which will help you to begin developing your latent psychic abilities. They are not games, but rather exercises for someone who is serious about psychic mind development. This development is a primer for those who feel they'd like to continue into mediumship.

Meditation

In addition to these practices, the student should learn to meditate. Although, this is not a rigid requirement, it makes a lot of difference in how fast you progress. You can develop a lot more quickly when you practice meditation.

Get a reading

It is also advantageous for your development to get a reading or consultation from a local reader or medium to learn what its all about. (not one of those hotlines advertised on TV or in magazines). Its best to be directly in the vibration of a the person giving the reading, so you can get the feel of the energy involved.

Eight business technology trends to watch

2009-07-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

Technology alone is rarely the key to unlocking economic value: companies create real wealth when they combine technology with new ways of doing business.

Through our work and research, we have identified eight technology-enabled trends that will help shape businesses and the economy in coming years. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

Managing relationships

1. Distributing co-creation

The Internet and related technologies give companies radical new ways to harvest the talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. Today, in the high-technology, consumer product, and automotive sectors, among others, companies routinely involve customers, suppliers, small specialist businesses, and independent contractors in the creation of new products. Outsiders offer insights that help shape product development, but companies typically control the innovation process. Technology now allows companies to delegate substantial control to outsiders--co-creation--in essence by outsourcing innovation to business partners that work together in networks. By distributing innovation through the value chain, companies may reduce their costs and usher new products to market faster by eliminating the bottlenecks that come with total control.

Information goods such as software and editorial content are ripe for this kind of decentralized innovation; the Linux operating system, for example, was developed over the Internet by a network of specialists. But companies can also create physical goods in this way. Loncin, a leading Chinese motorcycle manufacturer, sets broad specifications for products and then lets its suppliers work with one another to design the components, make sure everything fits together, and reduce costs. In the past, Loncin didn't make extensive use of information technology to manage the supplier community--an approach reflecting business realities in China and in this specific industrial market. But recent advances in open-standards-based computing (for example, computer-aided-design programs that work well with other kinds of software) are making it easier to co-create physical goods for more complex value chains in competitive markets.
If this approach to innovation becomes broadly accepted, the impact on companies and industries could be substantial. We estimate, for instance, that in the U.S. economy alone roughly 12 percent of all labor activity could be transformed by more distributed and networked forms of innovation--from reducing the amount of legal and administrative activity that intellectual property involves to restructuring or eliminating some traditional R&D work.
Companies pursuing this trend will have less control over innovation and the intellectual property that goes with it, however. They will also have to compete for the attention and time of the best and most capable contributors.

2. Using consumers as innovators

Consumers also co-create with companies; the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, for instance, could be viewed as a service or product created by its distributed customers. But the differences between the way companies co-create with partners, on the one hand, and with customers, on the other, are so marked that the consumer side is really a separate trend. These differences include the nature and range of the interactions, the economics of making them work, and the management challenges associated with them.
As the Internet has evolved--an evolution prompted in part by new Web 2.0 technologies--it has become a more widespread platform for interaction, communication, and activism. Consumers increasingly want to engage online with one another and with organizations of all kinds. Companies can tap this new mood of customer engagement for their economic benefit.
OhmyNews, for instance, is a popular South Korean online newspaper written by upwards of 60,000 contributing "citizen reporters." It has quickly become one of South Korea's most influential media outlets, with around 700,000 site visits a day. Another company that goes out of its way to engage customers, the online clothing store Threadless, asks people to submit new designs for T-shirts. Each week, hundreds of participants propose ideas and the community at large votes for its favorites. The top four to six designs are printed on shirts and sold in the store; the winners receive a combination of cash prizes and store credit. In September 2007 Threadless opened its first physical retail operation, in Chicago.
Companies that involve customers in design, testing, marketing (such as viral marketing), and the after-sales process get better insights into customer needs and behavior and may be able to cut the cost of acquiring customers, engender greater loyalty, and speed up development cycles. But a company open to allowing customers to help it innovate must ensure that it isn't unduly influenced by information gleaned from a vocal minority. It must also be wary of focusing on the immediate rather than longer-range needs of customers and be careful to avoid raising and then failing to meet their expectations.

3. Tapping into a world of talent

As more and more sophisticated work takes place interactively online and new collaboration and communications tools emerge, companies can outsource increasingly specialized aspects of their work and still maintain organizational coherence. Much as technology permits them to decentralize innovation through networks or customers, it also allows them to parcel out more work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks.
Top talent for a range of activities--from finance to marketing and IT to operations--can be found anywhere. The best person for a task may be a free agent in India or an employee of a small company in Italy rather than someone who works for a global business services provider. Software and Internet technologies are making it easier and less costly for companies to integrate and manage the work of an expanding number of outsiders, and this development opens up many contracting options for managers of corporate functions.
The implications of shifting more work to freelancers are interesting. For one thing, new talent-deployment models could emerge. TopCoder, a company that has created a network of software developers, may represent one such model. TopCoder gives organizations that want to have software developed for them access to its talent pool. Customers explain the kind of software they want and offer prizes to the developers who do the best job creating it--an approach that costs less than employing experienced engineers. Furthermore, changes in the nature of labor relationships could lead to new pricing models that would shift payment schemes from time and materials to compensation for results.
This trend should gather steam in sectors such as software, health care delivery, professional services, and real estate, where companies can easily segment work into discrete tasks for independent contractors and then reaggregate it. As companies move in this direction, they will need to understand the value of their human capital more fully and manage different classes of contributors accordingly. They will also have to build capabilities to engage talent globally or contract with talent aggregators that specialize in providing such services. Competitive advantage will shift to companies that can master the art of breaking down and recomposing tasks.

4. Extracting more value from interactions

Companies have been automating or offshoring an increasing proportion of their production and manufacturing (transformational) activities and their clerical or simple rule-based (transactional) activities. As a result, a growing proportion of the labor force in developed economies engages primarily in work that involves negotiations and conversations, knowledge, judgment, and ad hoc collaboration--tacit interactions, as we call them. By 2015 we expect employment in jobs primarily involving such interactions to account for about 44 percent of total U.S. employment, up from 40 percent today. Europe and Japan will experience similar changes in the composition of their workforces.
The application of technology has reduced differences in productivity between transformational and transactional employees, but huge inconsistencies persist in the productivity of high-value tacit ones. Improving it is more about increasing their effectiveness--for instance, by focusing them on interactions that create value and ensuring that they have the right information and context--than about efficiency. Technology tools that promote tacit interactions, such as wikis, virtual team environments, and videoconferencing, may become no less ubiquitous than computers are now. As companies learn to use these tools, they will develop managerial innovations--smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value through interactions--that will be difficult for their rivals to replicate. Companies in sectors such as health care and banking are already moving down this road.
As companies improve the productivity of these workers, it will be necessary to couple investments in technologies with the right combination of incentives and organizational values to drive their adoption and use by employees. There is still substantial room for automating transactional activities, and the payoff can typically be realized much more quickly and measured much more clearly than the payoff from investments to make tacit work more effective. Creating the business case for investing in interactions will be challenging--but critical--for managers.

Managing capital and assets

5. Expanding the frontiers of automation

Companies, governments, and other organizations have put in place systems to automate tasks and processes: forecasting and supply chain technologies; systems for enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and HR; product and customer databases; and Web sites. Now these systems are becoming interconnected through common standards for exchanging data and representing business processes in bits and bytes. What's more, this information can be combined in new ways to automate an increasing array of broader activities, from inventory management to customer service.
During the late 1990s FedEx and UPS linked data flowing through their internal tracking systems to the Internet--no trivial task at the time--to let customers track packages from their Web sites, with no human intervention required on the part of either company. By leveraging and linking systems to automate processes for answering inquiries from customers, both dramatically reduced the cost of serving them while increasing their satisfaction and loyalty. More recently, Carrefour, Metro, Wal-Mart Stores, and other large retailers have adopted (and asked suppliers to adopt) digital-tagging technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID), and integrated them with other supply chain systems in order to further automate their supply chain and inventory management. The rate of adoption to date disappoints the advocates of these technologies, but as the price of digital tags falls they could very well reduce the costs of managing distribution and increase revenues by helping companies to manage supply more effectively.
Companies still have substantial headroom to automate many repetitive tasks that aren't yet mediated by computers--particularly in sectors and regions where IT marches at a slower pace--and to interlink "islands of automation" and so give managers and customers the ability to do new things. Automation is a good investment if it not only lowers costs but also helps users to get what they want more quickly and easily, though it may not be a good idea if it gives them unpleasant experiences. The trick is to strike the right balance between raising margins and making customers happy.

6. Unbundling production from delivery

Technology helps companies to utilize fixed assets more efficiently by disaggregating monolithic systems into reusable components, measuring and metering the use of each, and billing for that use in ever smaller increments cost-effectively. Information and communications technologies handle the tracking and metering critical to the new models and make it possible to have effective allocation and capacity-planning systems.
Amazon.com, for example, has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services. It also gives independent software developers opportunities to buy processing power on its IT infrastructure so that they don't have to buy their own. Mobile virtual-network operators, another example of this trend, provide wireless services without investing in a network infrastructure. At the most basic level of unbundled production, 80 percent of all companies responding to a recent survey on Web trends say they are investing in Web services and related technologies. Although the applications vary, many are using these technologies to offer other companies--suppliers, customers, and other ecosystem participants--access to parts of their IT architectures through standard protocols.
Unbundling works in the physical world, too. Today you can buy fractional time on a jet, in a high-end sports car, or even for designer handbags. Unbundling is attractive from the supply side because it lets asset-intensive businesses--factories, warehouses, truck fleets, office buildings, data centers, networks, and so on--raise their utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the demand side, unbundling offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment or significant scale to achieve competitive marginal costs. For companies and entrepreneurs seeking capacity (or variable additional capacity), unbundling makes it possible to gain access to assets quickly, to scale up businesses while keeping balance sheets asset-light, and to use attractive consumption and contracting models that are easier on their income statements.
Companies that make their assets available for internal and external use will need to manage conflicts if demand exceeds supply. A competitive advantage through scale may be hard to maintain when many players, large and small, have equal access to resources at low marginal costs.

Leveraging information in new ways

7. Putting more science into management

Just as the Internet and productivity tools extend the reach of and provide leverage to desk-based workers, technology is helping managers exploit ever-greater amounts of data to make smarter decisions and develop the insights that create competitive advantages and new business models. From "ideagoras" (eBay-like marketplaces for ideas) to predictive markets to performance-management approaches, ubiquitous standards-based technologies promote aggregation, processing, and decision making based on the use of growing pools of rich data.
Leading players are exploiting this information explosion with a diverse set of management techniques. Google fosters innovation through an internal market: employees submit ideas, and other employees decide if an idea is worth pursuing or if they would be willing to work on it full-time. Intel integrates a "prediction market" with regular short-term forecasting processes to build more accurate and less volatile estimates of demand. The cement manufacturer Cemex optimizes loads and routes by combining complex analytics with a wireless tracking and communications network for its trucks.
The amount of information and a manager's ability to use it have increased explosively not only for internal processes but also for the engagement of customers. The more a company knows about them, the better able it is to create offerings they want, to target them with messages that get a response, and to extract the value that an offering gives them. The holy grail of deep customer insight--more granular segmentation, low-cost experimentation, and mass customization--becomes increasingly accessible through technological innovations in data collection and processing and in manufacturing.
Examples are emerging across a wide range of industries. Amazon.com stands at the forefront of advanced customer segmentation. Its recommendation engine correlates the purchase histories of each individual customer with those of others who made similar purchases to come up with suggestions for things that he or she might buy. Although the jury is still out on the true value of recommendation engines, the techniques seem to be paying off: CleverSet, a pure-play recommendation-engine provider, claims that the 75 online retailers using the engine are averaging a 22 percent increase in revenue per visitor. Meanwhile, toll road operators are beginning to segment drivers and charge them differential prices based on static conditions (such as time of day) and dynamic ones (traffic). Technology is also dramatically bringing down the costs of experimentation and giving creative leaders opportunities to think like scientists by constructing and analyzing alternatives. The financial-services concern Capital One conducts hundreds of experiments daily to determine the appropriate mix of products it should direct to specific customer profiles. Similarly, Harrah's casinos mine customer data to target promotions and drive exemplary customer service.
Given the vast resources going into storing and processing information today, it's hard to believe that we are only at an early stage in this trend. Yet we are. The quality and quantity of information available to any business will continue to grow explosively as the costs of monitoring and managing processes fall.
Leaders should get out ahead of this trend to ensure that information makes organizations more effective, rather than less. Information is often power; broadening access and increasing transparency will inevitably influence organizational politics and power structures. Environments that celebrate making choices on a factual basis must beware of analysis paralysis.

8. Making businesses from information

Accumulated pools of data captured in a number of systems within large organizations or pulled together from many points of origin on the Web are the raw material for new information-based business opportunities.
Frequent contributors to what economists call market imperfections include information asymmetries and the frequent inability of decision makers to get all the relevant data about new market opportunities, potential acquisitions, pricing differences among suppliers, and other business situations. These imperfections often allow middlemen and players with more and better information to extract higher rents by aggregating and creating businesses around it. The Internet has brought greater transparency to many markets, from airline tickets to stocks, but many other sectors need similar illumination. Real estate is one of them. In a sector where agencies have thrived by keeping buyers and sellers partly in the dark, new sites have popped up to shine "a light up into the dark reaches of the supply curve," as Rich Barton, the founder of Zillow (a portal for real-estate information), puts it. Barton, the former leader of the e-travel site Expedia, has been down this road before.
Moreover, the aggregation of data through the digitization of processes and activities may create by-products, or "exhaust data," that companies can exploit for profit. A retailer using digital cameras to prevent shoplifting could also analyze the shopping patterns and traffic flows of customers through its stores, and could also use these insights to improve its layout or placement of promotional displays. It might also sell the data to its vendors so that they could use real observations of consumer behavior to reshape their merchandising approaches.
Another kind of information business plays a pure aggregation and visualization role, scouring the Web to assemble data on particular topics. Many business-to-consumer shopping sites and business-to-business product directories operate in this fashion. But that sword can cut both ways; today's aggregators, for instance, may themselves be aggregated tomorrow. Companies relying on information-based market imperfections need to assess the impact of the new transparency levels that are continually opening up in today's information economy.

Shaping the outcome

Creative leaders can use a broad spectrum of new, technology-enabled options to craft their strategies. These trends are best seen as emerging patterns that can be applied in a wide variety of businesses. Executives should reflect on which patterns may start to reshape their markets and industries next--and on whether they have opportunities to catalyze change and shape the outcome rather than merely react to it.

Entrepreneurship and Business explored

2009-07-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

10 things CEO's should know about social media and online communities

1. Social media efforts need people, money and time, like with any thing else

It is not one more task for that intern in marketing. If you want to use social media or online communities as leverages for your business, then be ready to invest resources into it. And the most important resource you need to invest is people dedicated to the task.

2. Most still don't get it

Most businesses out there still do not understand what social media is or what it can do for them. So, you need not be afraid that you will make a mess of it. On the other hand, you do not have too many examples that you can follow or copy. And the rules are all unwritten and changing. So get in with your eyes open, knowing that you are going to make mistakes before you succeed.

3. Listen

Social media is about conversations. And many many conversations at the same time. So, like at any noisy party, start by listening. Understand what they are talking about before you get in. Choose carefully which are the conversations you want to join, which, which are the ones you want to ignore and which to start.

4. Dialogue not monologue

Social media is about conversations. Right? And a successful conversation cannot be a monologue. It has to be a dialogue with both parties contributing. There are business whose sole activity in twitter is to automatically broadcast URLs of new additions at their website using tools like twitter feed.Does not work in the long run.

5. 99% of what is out there is not relevant. Find the relevant 1%

Social networks tend to generate a lot of noise. a huge amount of them in fact. Almost every other question in Linked in is irrelevant to a professional network. According to twittergrader.com's state of the twittersphere report 55% of twitter users have never tweeted. And if you look at the 45% who do tweet, most of it is inane stuff like - "i am awake" or "i am going to sleep".
You need to navigate through all this to find the 1% that is relevant to you. for this you need to use tools like yahoo sideline and retweerank.com.

6. There is no single magic wand community.

If you believe that there is a single community that is the answer to all your needs, then you are mistaken. Your customers, bot current and potential are active on many social networks, not just one. For this simple reason, if nothing else, you need to be active on multiple communities, but as part of one continuous and crosslinked effort

7. It is more of PR and than of marketing. It is more of marketing than of sales

Social networks are not meant for direct sales. While Dell has been talking about their doing USD 3 millions of sales on twitter, not many realise that most of it is indirect and soft sales and through discount offers, and that a lot of the tweets were about othe rthings including resolving problems customers were facing.
Direct sales is mostly frowned upon on social websites. They are more about helping and good PR and thus indirectly driving sales rather than the hard sell.

8. Do not put all your eggs in the social media basket.

If some one tells you that Social media is the answer to all your problems, take a reality check. Roughly 4% of India's billion plus population has an Internet connection. Just about 600 thousand are on twitter. Traditional channels still count, and count quite a lot

9. Revolutions are best driven from the top; else they will be bloody.

If you are looking at revolutionizing your business using social media, then be sure that someone who understands the media and equally importantly, has the requisite powers and clearances within the organization is driving it. Else, the whole effort may just blow up on your face.

10. Don't argue against the individual, even if you are right.

Soon enough, along with genuine issues, you will also come across the perpetual heckler or the constant cribber- individuals who hold a grudge or just want to be the David taking on the Goliath that is your business. Do not argue with the individual. you cannot win. Goliath never won against David. Attempt to rewrite that story only at grave peril to your business.

Gamer Steals From Virtual World to Pay Real Debts

2009-07-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

Facing real world debts, a trusted figure in a popular online game stole money from the virtual bank he ran and exchanged it for cash through the black market. It happened in EVE Online, where more than 300,000 subscribers pay $15 a month to play. They gain wealth through hard work, manipulating the market, or killing rivals in a distant future where humans have colonized the stars in an online game similar to World of Warcraft and Second Life.

EBank, EVE's largest player-run financial institution which has thousands of depositors, is at the center of the scandal. "Basically this character was one of the people that been running EBank for a while. He took a bunch of (virtual) money out of the bank, and traded it away for real money," said Ned Coker, of the Icelandic company CCP, which developed the game. The CEO of EBank, a 27-year-old Australian tech worker who identified himself only as Richard and used the online name Ricdic, embezzled about 200 billion interstellar kredits, the game's virtual currency. He broke the rules of the game by exchanging the stolen virtual funds for $6,300 Australian ($5,100) with players who preferred to buy virtual money rather than earn it playing the game. "It was a very on the spot decision," the married father of two explained in an interview. He said a spam email for a black market website that traded online money for real cash popped up on his screen, prompting him to exchange the virtual cash for real money to cover a deposit on his house and expenses related to his son's medical problems. "I saw that as an avenue that could be taken, and I decided to skim off the top, you could say, to overcome real life (difficulties)." Word of the theft spread quickly within EVE. Panicked customers started a run on the bank, worried that they would lose the money they had amassed by hunting space pirates or mining asteroids.

Ironically, if Ricdic had merely stolen the online money he could have stayed in the game. But exchanging the virtual cash for real dollars broke the rules and CCP banned Richard's EBank accounts. "It unbalances the game," Coker said. Players can only buy virtual money with real money, or use virtual cash to pay for playing time, but they cannot exchange game money for the real thing. "We have never seen ourselves as gods who make the rules of social interaction," said Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, an economics adviser to CCP. "You are able to lose the things you have created. That's what makes the world interesting." Ironically, Richard had built a reputation as one of EVE's few trusted players - a rare commodity in a game where repeatedly blowing up a violator's spaceship was the only way to enforce some contracts. Asked if he had any regrets about the scam, Richard said he felt he let down his fellow EBank staffers, many of whom he considered friends. "I'm not proud of it at all, that's why I didn't brag about it. But you know, if I had to do it again, I probably would've chosen the same path based on the same situation," he said. EBank survived the crisis. But Richard will not be returning to EVE anytime soon. "At the moment, we've got our hands full," Richard said about his family responsibilities in the real world.

Online Marketing Trends For 2009 - Top Seven

2009-06-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama changed the political rule book: his 2008 presidential campaign leveraged the Internet's strength to engage disenchanted voters and register new voters. Future political campaigns won't be able to utilize these strategies with the same impact since they won't be as novel and the identified constituencies will now be an established part of the electoral process.
Going forward, online marketers will face challenges similar to those of their political counterparts. The online market's accelerated maturation due to recent economic turmoil means that growth will no longer come as easily. Growth now will have to come at the expense of other channels or competitors, rather than from new users.

Three Online Marketing Goals for 2009 and Related Metrics

Because both marketers and consumers will have limited budgets, we'll see longer sales cycles, lengthier prepurchase dialogues with consumers, and less brand advertising. As a result, companies will focus on the following three goals and the related analytic indicators to track them:
• Increased ROI (define) from better resource utilization. Firms will also explore the potential for new revenue streams. In addition to tracking sales and expenses, companies will spend more time assessing tradeoffs.
• Improved targeting based on a better understanding of the behaviors that drive profitable revenues. This translates into better data mining across functions to find areas of opportunity as well as the use of third-party behavioral targeting functionality.
• Enhanced customer focus to determine what's being said about your organization and to respond quickly to resolve customer issues. This includes assessing your contact strategy, monitoring ratings and reviews, and participating in relevant online communities.

Online Marketing Trends 2009 – Top 7

In 2009, the following seven trends will dominate online marketing. While most are similar to the trends I outlined for 2008, they show an evolution to a more competitive, multichannel marketplace. Also, these trends consider the impact of working within an expense-constrained environment.
• Increase customer retention efforts, because market share often will be at the cost of other channels and/or competitors. Additionally, marketing to your existing customer base is cheaper and more effective because you know who they are and understand their behavior.
• Create more attractive content because it cost-effectively engages consumers at many touch points during the purchase cycle, leverages internal resources, and aids search optimization. While attractive content will take on a variety of formats, a growing proportion of it will be video.
• Develop more targeted and relevant communications to be disseminated across a variety of devices, including advertising, e-mail, smartphones, text messages, and instant messages. While consumers may opt in to text message for time-delayed communications and cost reasons, businesses may limit text messages in enterprise-owned phones to reduce costs. Good database functionality is required to track and analyze customer activity to drive effective communications. For some marketers, this may mean the use of third-party behavioral targeting. Further, in the current economic environment, creating pertinent messages is critical.
• Better leverage communities. While social communities expanded and new niche sites evolved in 2008, companies must think more broadly about their prospects, customers, and other influencers this year. This means evolving beyond the engagement phase of dealing with customers to show them the love. As a result, the community organizer role in companies will be become more prevalent.
• Increase analytic sophistication to drive business decisions in a resource-constrained environment. Contribution to return will determine resource allocation, including money and people. Since this will have an impact on every phase of the business, not just transactions and financials, companies will improve their database utilization. As a result, firms may be forced to reassess their database functionality and create workarounds to compete effectively. On a related note, privacy issues may gather strength under the new Democratic administration.
• Enhance search marketing advertising despite increased cost, because search engines are still the first place online users turn to find information. This translates into more expensive keyword buys due to the growing demand for the limited supply of high-yielding keywords. Additionally, it means an expanded approach to search optimization to include social media, mobile, and local search.
• Continue to integrate distribution channels despite the internal corporate challenges and higher costs. Multichannel merchants will face increased complexity and thinner margins unless they become more efficient.
For online marketers, 2009 will be an exciting and challenging year. They'll need to build the basis for future expansion, including enhancing their brand with limited resources. The reality is that companies can't just stop marketing when times are tough because they risk hurting their long-term market share and bottom line. For many firms this will translate into clever workarounds to leverage existing resources to achieve short-term goals.

2009-06-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

TOP TEN TRENDS IN MARKETING

I have put together the 10 key trends I see for 2007 in Marketing Innovation. None of these are new, except for Net Promoter Scores which have only been around for a few years.

And, OK, I have to admit that some of these might end up being more wishful thinking then actual trends, but I get the distinctive feeling many marketers are actually starting to wake up.

Authenticity

Authenticity, honesty, ‘realness’ should have been at the top of this list for the past 10 years – but it seems as if it is actually breaking through now. Too many great examples of how companies enhanced their image and standing with either the general public or a relevant group of advocates have emanated recently – Scobleizer has probably generated billions worth of goodwill for Microsoft, Direct2Dell executives ‘fessing up to making mistakes has taken the air out of the whole DellHell movement, and many a politician has recently saved himself by coming out straight away with the ‘oh man, I’m just human, please forgive me’ or ‘yup, I’m gay, so what’ approach.

Also the negative examples still abound, and this time around they are starting to hurt. We wont mention names *coughEdelmancough* *coughwalmartcough*
Net Promoter Scores

Sell your shares in market research agencies – their extensive research methods will go the way of the dinosaurs. Turns out, it all comes down to one question: "On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend brand/product X to someone else?" As the results of this research can be directly tied to revenue growth, instead of intangible (and not-boardroom safe) fuzzies like brand recognition, watch the corporate world being taken by storm by NPS, following the likes of GE and Philips.
And isn’t it great that the interruption during dinner time will only last 10 seconds instead of 10 minutes?

Buzztracking

What’s being said about me? Why is nobody talking about me? These are becoming core issues for every company. With the advent of ever better tracking tools for online conversations, it’s becoming indispensable to listen into those conversations, be it to monitor bad things happening out there so you can jump in and call corporate 911, or to find out that nobody really cares about you (which is actually even worse).

Time to go look at those Net Promoter Scores...

From segmentation to insights

‘Hey Cathy, I know you have a long distance relationship and are working only part-time to care for your newborn baby (which by the way has done it for your disposable income, for good), but I will still treat you the same as two years ago, when you were a job-starting, free-spending party animal. After all, you are still a 25-29 year old highly educated urban single female, aren’t you?’

Green

It may be a cynical choice by many companies, but green awareness is the trend-du-jour. If even WalMart is starting to promote eco-friendliness, where will it stop? As there is a lot of revenue waiting in this market – be it from selling eco-friendly goods at marked-up margins, or actually providing eco-technology, this one won't go away.

Personally I don’t care if they move into this market for cynical reasons, it’s the end result that counts.

Grey

Marketers the world over are waking up to the fact that the older demographic is a major opportunity – and needs to be addressed in a different way then the 18-34 year olds. Mind you, different doesn’t mean being patronizing and playing on old age. We’re talking people who went to Woodstock and did all kinds of naughty things in their youth – don’t talk to them as if they are senile.

Maybe the fact that many advertising and marketing executives are Boomers themselves will help here

Co-creation

The lazy developers dream – let your customers come up with your products for you. The power of harnessing your customers’ insights is amazing. Once again you are connecting directly to the insights, wishes and beliefs of your customers, ensuring that you will hit a home-run with the rest of the world too.

And the funny thing is – they will do it for free, and even shout it out at the world for you, ‘hey, I helped develop the next Lego Robots, and man, they are cool’.

Experimentational budgets

Following the leaders like Unilever, P&G and Heineken, marketers realize that they will have to set a portion of their marketing budgets aside for well structured experiments. Developments in the digital domain are so fast and furious it’s not always possible to wait for full understanding. By experimenting in a controlled way companies can get insights at very attractive cost – and sometimes even strike gold.

You may not get 24 million viewing minutes for your Ronaldinho fake video on Youtube, but 10.000 views with your target of influencers might be worth just as much, especially if it only costs you 5.000 to do something for them.

The Return of the Soap

As the consumers aversion to traditional 30” spots is starting to hurt, TV channels and advertisers alike have to look for different models. Product placement and branded entertainment are starting to take up a serious position in their portfolios. A major advantage is that the convergence of TV and online is almost built into this model, as there are far less objections to the re-distribution of branded content throughout the internet then with traditional advertising-funded models.

Whether through podcasts, on-demand TV, the fact that the good guys always use Macs or by putting your music up on MySpace, you can be a star outside the networks, or together with them.

More CGA

Not only developers have their lazy-dream, marketers too: Consumer Generated Advertising. Let your customers not only be your Promoters, but actually make your advertising for you. As this advertising will always be based on what they REALLY love about you, it’s sure to strike home with other consumers.

Giving your advocates the tools to tell your story for you is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to enhance your position in the market. It’s also scary as hell, but don’t worry – the simple fact that you show the guts to even let your detractors pipe up like Chevy Tahoe did, will create a lot of goodwill.
Oh, and don’t be silly like FedEx or Apple and try to sue your evangelists.

Trend 11:
No more top ten lists :)

So, let me know, what do you think? Did I miss out on something? What won't fly in 2007? Which ones will still be on the list for 2008? And most importantly - I'm hesitant to put a ranking on. I'd rather hear from you what you think will be the Nrs 1 to 10. Let’s discuss.

2009-06-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

Top Ten Marketing Trends to Watch in 2007

An inside look at the latest marketing trends that’ll help you boost your business in the coming years

Throughout 2006, I've been watching and interpreting the marketing stats and studies that impact small businesses to give you tips on staying one step ahead. Now, with 2007 fast approaching, let's look at a roundup of the hottest trends, from changes taking place among consumer audiences through what to watch for in traditional and online marketing. Here's the info you need on the most important trends and how to make the most of them to increase sales and grow your business in the New Year.
Consumer Trends
1. College Grads
If you're searching for the most effective way to reach this desirable prospect group, move your marketing dollars into online media. The internet is now the primary source of media and entertainment among college grads, whose top planned purchases upon graduation are professional clothing, travel/airline tickets, health insurance and furniture according to the “Y2M: eGrad College Graduate Survey”. Nearly 80 percent of respondents are online purchasers, making them ideal candidates for your online campaign.

2. Affluent Working Women
The big news is that this group is increasing in size, and the best way to reach them may be online. According to The Media Audit, affluent working women with family incomes of $75,000 or more are growing in number, and 94.3 percent access the internet during an average month. About half are now considered heavy users of the internet, while heavy use of radio, television, newspapers and direct mail has all declined within this group. To increase sales from this expanding audience, alter your media spending to place greater emphasis online.
3. Asian Population Growth
The southern region of the U.S. boasts the fastest Asian population growth rate (31 percent), followed by the Midwest (24 percent), the Northeast (23 percent) and the West (19 percent), according to an analysis of Census Bureau data in the “American Community Survey” by Kang & Lee Advertising. Asians represent a prospect group with higher than average household incomes and education levels. Can you offer a product or service that will appeal to this growing market?
4. Word-Of-Mouth
Want to build buzz? Lucid Marketing's study, "U.S. Adults: Word of Mouth Communications," found that women were more likely than men to share a positive experience with a business or recommend an enjoyable product; full-time employees made substantially more daily contacts than those not in the workforce; and people with household earnings of more than $100,000 were more likely to make recommendations than those earning less. So buzz marketers should direct efforts to these three "chatty" groups.
Trends in Traditional Media
5. Yellow Pages
According to a study from the Kelsey group, marketers targeting younger demographics should transition away from print. Only 28 percent of teens said they would turn to print Yellow Pages first to find a local business, product, or service, while 47 percent said their first choice would be search engines. And just 44 percent of respondents between the ages and 18 and 34 favored print Yellow Pages.
6. Simultaneous Media Usage
There's no longer such a thing as a captive media audience--consumers are frequently participating in more than one form of media at any one time. Seventy percent of web users, for instance, watch TV occasionally to regularly while online, according to BIGresearch’s “Simultaneous Media Survey.” It also found that nearly 65 percent watch TV while they read, and 51 percent of radio listeners read the newspaper while listening. The rise in multitasking among consumers mandates an integrated media approach and an increased emphasis on advertising within the most relevant and engaging content.
7. Newspapers
This past year, many of the websites of major newspapers have become the number-one portals in their geographic markets and are drawing a larger, younger and more affluent readership. The audience that reads a newspaper’s website but not its print version accounts for 2 to 15 percent of the Integrated Newspaper Audience, according to Scarborough Research, and that represents hundreds of thousands of readers for many newspapers in larger markets. They’re successfully attracting 18-to-34-year-olds to their sites, and the online readers are more upscale, which can make them a more desirable audience. If you're an advertiser in the "print" newspaper, you can negotiate for a combo rate to run online as well to reach these additional readers. And if advertising in the print newspaper is too expensive for your business, you may find more affordable rates online by drilling down past the main pages to place ads on content-rich, but less frequently visited web pages.
Hot Online Trends
8. Web Conferencing
As business travel becomes increasingly challenging due to increased security, advance check-in times and transportation delays, online workshops and meetings that require no travel are coming to the forefront. It’s more desirable than ever to demo your new product to a group or make a sales presentation without anyone ever leaving home. Participants can watch your presentation on their computer monitors and hear you live on their computer speakers or by phone. In fact, I'm now transitioning to this technology to deliver webinars, and you can, too.
9. Online Research
Whether you sell exclusively online or primarily through a brick-and-mortar site, online search will have a profound impact on your sales in 2007. When asked how often they researched products online before buying them in person or in a store, 87 percent of nearly 7,500 respondents to a BIGresearch “Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey” said they did so occasionally to regularly. And a comScore research study showed that 63 percent of searchers completed a purchase in offline retail stores following their search activity. So no matter whether you sell online, off-line or both, you need a great website with deep, persuasive content that keeps your prospects and customers shopping on your site or sends them to your store.
10. Local Search
Want to know where to invest your online marketing dollars in 2007? Aim for higher rankings in the top search engines. Sixty-two percent of searchers click on a link within the first page of results, according to a report from iProspect and Jupiter Research. To win higher rankings in natural search results, you can optimize your site by sprinkling the keyword phrases your best prospects will be searching for throughout all the pages of your site, in your page descriptions and in metatags. You should also secure links to your site from other high-ranking websites. But to guarantee you'll turn up in the top search results, invest in a paid search campaign. Local search campaigns are often the most affordable and will bring traffic from your immediate market area in the New Year