ENTERING INDIAN MARKET- RETAILING

In this article I want to keep my focus on young people who want to make there career in the Retail sector and want to do business in country like India.
Now entering the Indian Retail sector is not easy, my thinking says that if we see now days whatever the trend is going, opening a cash and carry route is very effective because by so there would be strategic advantage. Instead of trying to compete in already crowded urban market place, starting cash & carry store or venturing into rural market/Retail space would help build significant competitive advantage.
If Retail stores are the passion the operators should consider other categories apart from food and grocery. Several other products categories have not even been explored one of its type could be home improvement segment since housing being key aspirations for Indians. And in this segment we can even expect a lot of boom in coming two to three years.
Now let us talk about which form of Retail would be suitable to enter into the Indian Market.
According to me conventional stores are the best way to go for it. These are easily owned and managed by individuals. The best example of such a thing in the current scenario would be a pharmacy stores. They work on the same principle and performing so well.
Now what make me to say that conventional stores would be the best for Indian market, firstly all these stores require less area space this is a very big and key point because now days the land values are rising like anything. And these stores also generate higher sales per Sq ft because of their smaller size. So it requires lesser sales too in order to achieve their breakeven point. And they can also offer higher discount level as compared to any other corporate stores. So this is how just because of small size whatever money been saved is so effective to reduce the competition.
And also these stores develop better and effective customer satisfaction 24/7 mostly now days in places that are near to metro like Bangalore were mostly both the couple are working thus these stores are the key destination to all these people they want convenient only so these stores provide them because all these are located near to their house. And also some of the stores even provide home delivery facility too.
And doing all such thing will lead to the development of good customer relationship. So its work in a chain that creates one another. And thus all this thing lead to a thing for which all marketer works his whole life – Emotional pull this when created automatically attract customer towards them. Customer won’t get satisfaction any were else just because of Emotional touch. And this is good enough to beat any corporate store.
And this type stores also gives us opportunity to diversify into various activities. Like I have seen a pharmacy store it started with medicine then when his business was successful he made little investment and bought a refrigerator and started keeping cold drinks and various items like bread etc then after some time they are even planning to make it a medical and general store too. So this might be looking simple and small but means a lot not all are able to do such thing.
So in country like India Retailing is not so easy we have to create good customer relationship so that it will create Emotional Pull and one of the best and the easy way according me would be a convenient store.
- SHANKAR

BALANCE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91bNp7HJolE&NR=1

check this vedio out its good :-)

WHY IS INDIA STILL A DEVELOPING COUNTRY?

WHY IS INDIA STILL A DEVELOPING COUNTRY???

The answer to this question is very simple. Let me explain this thing with a small but very famous story:
The Ant and the Grasshopper {Old story - New version}

Old Story:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up
supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs dances plays the summer away.
Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter
so he dies out in the cold.

New Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up
supplies for the winter.
The Grasshopper thinks the Ant’s a fool and laughs dances plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to
know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold
and starving.
NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to a
video of the Ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor
Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the Ant’s house.
Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other Grasshoppers demanding that
Grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter .
Mayawati states this as “injustice” done on Minorities.
Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not
upholding the fundamental rights of the Grasshopper.


The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the Grasshopper
(Many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the
Wrath of God for non-compliance.)
Opposition MPs stage a walkout. Left parties call for ‘Bengal Bandh’ in West Bengal
and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry.
CPM in Kerala immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the
heat so as to bring about equality of poverty among Ants and Grasshoppers.
Mayawati allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains,
aptly named as the ‘Gharib Grasshopper Rath’.
Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the “Prevention of Atrocities Against
Grasshoppers Act” [PAAGA], with effect from the beginning of the winter.
Our Education minister makes ‘Special Reservation’ for Grasshoppers in Educational Institutions in Government Services.
The Ant is fined for failing to comply with PAAGA and having nothing left to pay his
retroactive taxes, it’s home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the
Grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.
Arundhati Roy calls it ‘A Triumph of Justice’.
Lalu calls it ‘Socialistic Justice’.
CPM calls it the ”Revolutionary Resurgence of the Downtrodden’
Koffi Annan invites the Grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.
Many years later...
The Ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi-billion dollar company in
Silicon Valley,
100s of Grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India,
..AND
As a result of losing lot of hard working Ants and feeding the grasshoppers,
India is still a developing country...!! ! :) :) :)
This is a message to all the only reason why we are like this is because we lack UNITY, the great thing about us is we know what the problem is but we like to be quite until and unless the problems comes to us or our family. This attitude has to be change don’t allow any other person to make issue out of your life.
This may be in humour sense but means a lot try to get the inner message. This is the reason why a country like India which has everything but till now it is called as developing nation. Just think about it.
-SHANKAR

80/20 THINKING

80/20 Thinking
This is for all those young people who are now in the process to become an entrepreneur. This is a simple principle that each one of us can use and just give a start to our work and if followed effectively they can bring a lot of success.
Once Bill Gates rightly said “Take away our 20 most important people and I tell you we would become an unimportant company.”
I want the entire upcoming entrepreneur to make 80/20 thinking as their behaviour but not habit because habit is something that we do repeatedly. But strong habit becomes behaviour. To become effective leader in life people should adopt 80/20 Thinking as their second nature.
It is self-evident that 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the causes. The distinction between the vital few and trivial many is abundantly clear.
As a sole owner of the business in this competitive world we should first complete with ours elf only we should always compare our self with our past performance then check whether we are improving or not. And by doing this we automatically throughout millions of competitors. And this principle helps a lot in doing this.
So for that we should have 80/20 principle followed by us this means that I as a sole owner should know what is that 20 most important factors that lead to 80 percent of the results, if we know that then we can easily go ahead. And in the same way knowing other 80 percent is not important because they all are dependent in all this 20 percent only. So just doing business is not the thing that anyone can do but a successful person is that who can see the right picture in the right time of the business. So this principle has to be known to stay longer in business.
Now days the world is all about the idea and individual and only this matter. We have to apply the 80/20 rule to idea and individual, to power the now, to shape the future.
The principle is same: concentrate on the vital few to make a significant difference. The focus and efforts have to shift to opportunities. A creative leader spots opportunity when he finds gaps. Then take steps forward to remove all those missing links.
This principle is very widely used but it’s important for all to know this small but effective rule. Just believe in one thing “less is more.”
- SHANKAR

Destination branding - something beyond tourism

The word Destination Branding explains itself but does it refer to particular city, a place, a state, or a country as a whole?

Let us start by answering this question, the word destination branding means a process used to develop a unique identity and personality that is different from all competitive destinations.

Destination branding is “selecting a consistent brand element mix to identify and distinguish a destination through positive image building”

The example for it could be when we go for selecting our holiday destination we never select places like Pakistan, Afghanistan etc it is so because all these places have celebrity value that is people know about these places but there is no emotional pull attach to it so it is famous for some bad reason, but places like India they have both Emotional pull and Celebrity value too. So it is becoming a tourist hub now days. But there are many places that have that emotional pull but no celebrity value if all such country promotes itself well they can be a good place to bank on, because these places have potential but it is un explored.

So for country like India the concepts of Destination Branding are very important because if they want to sell country India as a product they should promote India well too. So Destination branding is not a small term it consists of the whole country and it is a combination of various states promoting itself.

Now if look at the economical point of view it would create a lot of employment generation opportunity. And also by doing so it will generate a lot of foreign currency and thus income from which the economy will be benefited. For this India has done a lot of work in the last 5to 8 years the Incredible India Campaign that was launched and it’s still running successfully. So all this activity adds value to our country and people get attracted towards our country.

Now if we look at the scope of Destination Branding a simple question comes to our mind that is destination branding only confined to the tourism?

Let us answer this with an example take Finland why Finland is famous is it a tourist place like India No is it famous for some wrong deed the answer is again no then for what? It’s for the company Nokia is originated their only. So this example states that tourism can be part of destination branding but it is not the only thing but yes it can be the key or the major player under it.

In country like India if we look states wise only few states will be famous for tourism thing, states or places like Gujarat is famous for AMUL company, Bangalore is for IT sector, Chennai is for automobile sector , Mumbai is for Bollywood, Jamshedpur is for Tata Steel and many others.

So all the above examples tell that the Scope of Destination Branding is very vast and it would be wrong to say that Destination Branding is equal to tourism.

So for Country like India it’s high time to understand these basic thing and work for it and we have to work as a team as a country as a whole so that we can make our country India a much better Destination for the tourist that are coming here and also unique from other competitors too. And in country like India which is famous for its rich diversified culture, the only thing that we have to do is to well organize the things that we have and maintain them well.

THE WORLD OF SYMBOLS

The world of symbols

The word symbol in simple words means any sign that has some meaning. But the second part that say about the meaning hardly anyone now days try to know about it. 99% of the people does not the meaning behind the various symbol that they either see every day or worship every day.

Now why only symbol why not any other thing, the sole reason behind it is that a symbol create uniqueness that no other thing can create. We can take a simple and a very common example since in Hindu mythology its very common to put Tika or Tilak but did we every thought why people in south put it horizontally and people from north put it vertically it is so because everyone what to be unique and by doing this they try to be unique. Now we can easily say who is from which group.

People in areas like Amazon basin make them self unique buy putting white stripes in their whole body and thus they different from others. Same would be with the Red Indians they make them self from their big red hat that they wear. So these are the various unique symbols that are used by people of various places to create uniqueness.

Almost every one of us worship god in some form. But how many of have questions why lord Ganesha have only the head of elephant why not other animal we only worship god but it’s important to understand the message behind these then only we can implement it and then only it can be told as true worship.

Now talking with respect to Hindu mythology take Lord Ganesha i have taken Lord ganesha because it is the god that symbolises a student so the important question is that why only elephant head why not any other animal it is so because elephant has a biggest ears and this symbolises that as a student we should listen more and speak less because elephant has small mouth. And a big stomach symbolises that as a student we should digest more of new things and should store them too. And also that time big body structure means strength that time.

Take Lord Kali or Lord Durga these are the goddess that show anger and power and whenever there is more of evil then we as a person should kill all the evils around us. But the logical question is why only a Women god why not Men god? Is there any reason behind it. Yes because it’s only in the Indian society in which women are given more importance and considered more powerful than men this symbolises the inner strength of a women. And why Lord Kali took her tong out as she put a leg on Lord Shiva this symbolises that an Indian Women should respect their husband its depict Indian tradition, and whenever required the husband should stop or guide there wife whenever required.

These are the things that we worship every day but we never question why we are doing it, its high time to know what this all symbols mean.

Take a very latest example of Pepsi blue, the company came up with a blue colour Pepsi and it was during the time when the World Cup was going on the main logic behind it was that since the colour of the drink was blue and the colour of India team jersey was also blue people will associate the drink with Indian Team. But what happen?

The product was a flop it does not run as per the expectation the reason that a blue colour symbolises different thing no person can associate any food or drink in colour blue because colour blue means poison and many people even said that it look like kerosene oil, so they rejected the product so just a single colour that symbolises different thing can effect to the extent that it make the whole product.

The same was the case with TVS when it was launch it came with two colour black and green but green colour got the maximum sales not the black it is so because during that time Indian Economy was agriculture economy so people go for green colour and black means evil so people do not prefer black colour so this is another example of how important the symbol can be.

During the time of Election we vote for a particular symbol like lotus means BJP and Palm means Congress and so on. We never remember the name of all the people but we remember the symbol so this is how it creates uniqueness and thus attract us with the help of emotional pull that they belong to our group.

There are many thing in life that we see and do but we never try to know what it symbolises because of this many people misuse the fact and thus guide us to the wrong path so it’s now high time just does not move around because other are saying something just go for what the thing that we worship or see every day says that will guide you to the right path. And thus the world is all about symbols that we see around us and thus how we interpret ate it and take meaning out of it.

- SHANKAR