Tense Economic Situation depicted lightly

All images are from Glasbergen

Another Story on Innovation : Japanese Fishing Industry

The Japanese have a great liking for fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So, to feed the Japanese population,fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring back the fish. The longer it took them to bring back the fish, the staler they grew. The fish were not fresh and the Japanese did not like the taste.
To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer.
However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish. And they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So, fishing companies installed fish tanks.
They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little hashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive. Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish.
The fishing industry faced an impending crisis! But today, it has got over that crisis and has emerged as one of the most important trades in that country! How did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. And they survive and arrive in a healthy state! They command a higher price and are most sought-after.

Another example where innovative ideas can help bussiness

$13 bn a year : The cost for gender equality

The report entitled ‘Equality for Women: Where Do We Stand on Millennium Development Goal 3’ was released today during a joint seminar of the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and the World Bank.

According to the report women’s health and education have improved substantially in most of the countries, but progress is still lagging on improving their economic opportunities. The investments of the tune of some $13 bn a year is needed to achieve the overall goal of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The report says that out of 122 countries for which data are available, 82 achieved the official MDG3 target of gender parity in primary and secondary enrollment by 2005. However, 19 countries, 13 of which are in Sub-Saharan Africa, are seriously off track to meet this target. Also, in general, progress in expanding women’s opportunities (employment and political participation) has lagged behind progress in expanding women’s capabilities (education and health.

The report also notes that no country or region have achieved gender equality in all the areas covered by the MDG3 plus indicators. The health indicators single out the high mortality rates of girls under age 5 in East Asia and Pacific and South Asia, as well as the high adolescent fertility rates in 36 countries, with a majority of those countries in Sub- Saharan Africa.

Cultural Branding : The way to go

Marketing managers seek to keep their brands fresh and relevant, by trying out the latest trends and fads like the online and major media advertising with new imagery,new slogans and taglines,. new product packaging— and above all trying to attach themselves to the latest pop-cult phenomena, hot colors, and new vibes.
But can these cosmetic changes can result in the ‘value’ of the brand, or can these changes alone can result in the increase patronage of a brand. The answer to these questions is a big No.

Jumping on the latest trends can have the opposite effect, Brands cannot and should not be all things to all people. Nor they should change themselves constantly going after whatever is trendy at the expense of consistently ( a classic example can be the Burger King Advertisement campaigns ) . But instead the brands should always reinforce their core values and assets.Brands should have the ring of authenticity and conviction. They should possess and express the following:
· A reason for being
· A definitive point of view
· A system of beliefs
· Clearly defined values and assets
Therefore there has to be complete alignment at every touch point so that the brand is consistently and faithfully portrayed to employees, business partners, stakeholders, and customers ( the Triangle should be balanced )
Keeping these in mind can we think of some ways in which a more closer and emotional connects can be made between a consumer and its brand. I think Cultural anthropology can play an important role in developing consumer connections by taking marketing to a more meaningful, and at a more human level.
Tying core brand essences to deeply held cultural meaning gives consumers "reason to believe" in them. By being firmly grounded in cultural values that really matter to the customer, brands can transcend competitors to become not only category leaders, but icons.
These brands can become a way of projecting their own identity by the help of these brands for example , Harleys Davidson , the bike owner displays his identity with the help of his bike.These therefore become a way for consumers to affirm who they and allow them to project their identity to the world.

It is still true that consumers choose products based on price, quality, and cachet. Yet to a considerable degree brands with deeply significant cultural meaning override these aspects of marketing. For example, Apple, the brand, has an iconic presence among consumer-product brands and a cult-like following. So do brands like Harley Davidson, Coca Cola, Nike, Starbucks, The NFL, NASCAR and Whole Foods.
None of these brands appeals to everyone, but among the consumers they do appeal to they enjoy a devoted, and even fanatical, following. We can also point out that whether consumers are devotees of these brands or not, very few consumers the world over do not recognize their brand marks or fail to understand the essence of these brands' core values.
The evangelism inspired by these brands has everything to do with their meaning and an integrated lifestyle fit among their devotees. When these brands are marketed, and their products and services packaged, their core values are leveraged in a consistent, targeted manner that does not respond to every trend or fad. Otherwise, a dilution would occur with the very audience for whom they are viable and relevant.

Experience Makes a Brand

Café Coffee Day or CCD as it is popularly know stands today, with 595 cafés across 100 cities in India, It also has three outlets in Vienna, and two in Karachi,
It is the largest player in the coffee market and is followed by Barista, which has about 200 cafés. Java Green (around 75 cafés) and Mocha (around 25 cafés).
According to the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital: "The coffee shops have enough potential to open a café every 200 yards in the country, within five minutes' walking distance of one another.", now keep this in mind before you read further.

In this intense competitive market , what do we think would make a brand different from the another, the taste , the offering or the experience ? Even before you answer this question ask yourself whether you go to a coffee shop to have a coffee or to enjoy a coffee.

When a customer goes to an outlet he not only factors the offering in the menu but is equally looking forwards towards the ambience, the service, the hospitality and may be the not so significant aspects like the music played.

What makes me write this, well very recently we found all these elements missing during our outing to a CCD outlet. The Cold coffee was served hot , there were no glasses to serve water , the order were messed up and above all even the music which was played was bad.

The case in the point is not to complaint about the outlet but to highlight two important issues :

1) Cafe Coffee Day to have 900 outlets by year end , now if they only want to grow and do not focus on customer experience then they are leading to nowhere. Only growing their stores would not result in any benefits , patronage of its brand will.
2) At this pace of growth the company needs to ensure that customer ensure the same experience all over the country in the similar manner, may be I am talking about copying the Mc Donald experience model

To conclude I will only say that brand is what the customer experience and associate with. If a brand especially of the likes of CCD, is not able to strike a chord with the customer then, certainly its growth is not a real growth but its slow yet steady movement towards the path of oblivion.

Hadron Collider : To know about the Past ; A peek into the Future

Scientists in Connecticut and around the world will be watching closely today when their colleagues in Switzerland flip the switch on what is being touted as the world's grandest experiment in particle physics.If all goes according to plan, the Large Hadron Collider, a gigantic particle accelerator underground near Geneva, could re-create the very moment 13 billion years ago when scientists believe a tremendous explosion known as the "big bang" created the universe."It could be the most exciting thing since Einstein," said Yale Professor Paul Tipton, part of a multinational research team, including physicists at Yale and Fairfield University, that has spent years designing and building the collider.Data collected in the coming months has the potential to lead to the discovery of new dimensions, a new understanding of time and space, or advances that could someday be applied to fields such as medicine or energy generation, said Tipton and other scientists.
By working at unprecedentedly high energy levels, the collider will, in effect, provide the ultimate in back-to-the-future information, researchers said."It is in a sense a time machine to look back to the earliest moments of creation and to be able to explain the present state of the universe and to predict its fate," said David Winn, chairman of the physics department at Fairfield University. He spent 15 years working on the project.Shedding light on the most basic building blocks of the universe at the moment it was born could help scientists understand what makes up the most fundamental elements of matter, which could lead to advances in medicine and other fields, said Chris Sanzeni, who worked on the project when he was a student at Fairfield.Researchers don't expect major breakthroughs immediately. The European Organization for Nuclear Research expects to propel the first beam of protons through the accelerator today, but it is expected to take several weeks to reach top speed and start beaming back data to computers watching their every move.Tipton likened the collider to a brand-new race car that won't be driven in fifth gear for at least a few months.But even turning on the collider today has significance, said Keith Baker, a Yale physics professor who has been working on the project for 14 years."What happens [today] is exciting more from a social and a human point of view, and that is, a lot of people worked for a long time to make this thing work," he said. Some 2,300 scientists from 40 countries collaborated on the collider, work that often required bridging languages and currencies.Baker said he plans to watch the collider turn on — remotely — so he can tell his grandchildren about it.Construction on the 17-mile long tunnel 328 feet underground began 14 years ago and has so far cost $5 billion.Scientists hope the collider will shed light on things that have eluded researchers, Baker said, things they have been unable to see in experiments or describe with current models of understanding. For example, the way scientists understand the big bang suggests that the expansion of the universe should be slowing, Baker said, but in fact, it is expanding and accelerating outward. So they are hoping what might explain this. Similarly, researchers know nothing about what accounts for the rotation curves of galaxies, he said.Baker and his team are searching for something called the Higgs Boson, sometimes referred to as the "God particle." Scientists have theorized that the elusive Higgs Boson, if it exists, is what gives particles mass, but researchers have not found it. Baker has hopes that if it does exist, the Large Hadron Collider will help find it.Tipton said he doesn't expect the information to produce anything directly; it won't bring about a brighter lightbulb in the next few years, he said. But he expects major things from the research. "Humans have never learned something and not used it," he said

Execution In Outsourcing : A critical Issue

I was recently reading an article in HT Mint in which S.Mitra Kalita a columnist writes about the issues she has faced as a customer and how these things are somehow related to outsourcing.( Please, Airtel, Hear My Call )
The question which comes to the mind is whether it is really right to outsource when our customers are not happy about it.The answer has always been from the perspectives of the companies, that cost savings and efficiencies are achieved by the involved companies. But how much these affect the customer is what is the subject matter of concern here.
We can understand the concerns of the US and the EU customers, but this is the case of an Indian company outsourcing to a Indian service provider. By doing this the company aims to achieve effiencies in service and better customer experience . But quite contrary to this situation the customers are themselves complaining about the whole setup .
So the question , has Airtel gone wrong in its decision of outsourcing ? after all the "Customers are always right"
In my view Airtel has taken the right choice of outsourcing its business , but now it needs to focus on excecuting it right. The company has its busines service portfolio's outsourced to various vendors , but now its needs to create a "Command and Control" centre which coordinates with all these business partners so as to achieve the desired results. One more thing which needs to be addressed is that Airtel needs to ensure that the Outsourced business partners 'Own' the process. They should feel that they are a part of the Airtel family and not of a different company say HTMT , Firstsource or a IBM Daksh, then only the 'Wow' effect can be created.
To sum up the customer only knows Airtel and would only complaint about Airtel and not about its partners , so the company now needs to focus on Executing its outsourcing plans flawlessly.