Information – Knowledge +
How has the Ambanis split fared?
How has the Ambanis split fared?
Two years after Mukesh and Anil Ambani separated, many who have associated with the family still find it difficult to believe the fact.
“Under their father, they complemented each other so well. They seemed inseparable,” recalls one whose family has known the Ambanis for four decades, his eyes misting over.
The eyes begin to sparkle once the conversation veers to business. “The split has created enormous wealth. There is not a soul in the country who won’t bless them,” he says.
That is the leitmotif of any conversation on the subject in business and market circles. The regret quickly gets erased by joy over how much the “dhandha” has grown.
Of the two Reliances, one agreed to participate in this article without being quoted but later went quiet. The other refused at the outset.
However, facts in the public domain script a story that destroys the notion that family businesses sooner or later become the bane of shareholders.
Soon after Kokilaben brokered the split of the group between her sons on June 18, 2005, the Sensitive Index of the Bombay Stock Exchange, which had until then remained depressed on account of the seven-month feud, soared to a record high. That, in retrospect, was just the flag-off.
In the ensuing 24 months, the combined market capitalisation of the two groups has increased four times to Rs 4,24,805 crore (Rs 4248.05 billion), net worth just under four-fold to Rs 1,28,091 crore (Rs 1280.91 billion), net sales 70 per cent to Rs 1,26,671 crore (RS 1266.71 billion) and net profit 87 per cent to Rs 15,635 crore (Rs 156.35 billion).
“It is difficult to say whether they would have done better had they not split. They may not have missed much because of it,” says Deepak Kapoor, executive-director, PricewaterhouseCoopers India .
It has helped that the different qualities of the brothers, which complemented so well earlier, have not really been put to each other’s detriment.
The only real thorn in the flesh is the supply of oil and gas from Mukesh’s group to Anil’s.
“While there has been a fair degree of success for both, it is good that there is not much dispute in public anymore,” says Jigar Shah, director, K R Choksey Shares & Securities.
It has also become visible how one is distinct from the other. Mukesh, who retained control over the mother company, Reliance Industries, continues to aspire for the global scale for which Reliance is known.
To deploy the cash being generated, he has made a humongous foray into retail and set up Reliance Petroleum to establish a $6 billion refinery in Jamnagar .
Anil, whose share included the telecom (Reliance Communications or RCom), power (Reliance Energy) and finance (Reliance Capital) businesses, has placed a number of smaller bets, the more notable being Adlabs and AMP Sanmar.
RCom is the company through which he can aim for the skies, but its one big gambit, a bid to take control of Hutchison-Essar, was trumped by Vodafone.
How Companies Got their Name!!!
How Companies Got their Name!!!
Apple Computers
It was the favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn’t suggest a better name by 5 O’clock.
CISCO
It is not an acronym as popularly believed. It is short for San Francisco.
Compaq
This name was formed by using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integral object.
Corel
The name was derived from the founder’s name Dr.Michael Cowpland. It stands for COwpland REsearch Laboratory.
Google
The name started as a joke boasting about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named ‘Googol’, a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros.After founders – Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to ‘Google’
Hotmail
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world.When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters “html” – the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective uppercasing.
Hewlett Packard
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Intel
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company ‘Moore Noyce’ but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.
Lotus (Notes)
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from ‘The Lotus Position’ or ‘Padmasana’. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Microsoft
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-‘ was removed later on.
Motorola
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.
ORACLE
Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The project eventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for the company.
Sony
It originated from the Latin word ‘sonus’ meaning sound, and ‘sonny’ a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.
SUN
Founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronym for Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built a microcomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy to manufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.
Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos
HR Lessons – A Small Story
During my second month of college, our professor
gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student
and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one:
“What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?”
Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the
cleaning woman several times. She was tall,
dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name?
I handed in my paper, leaving the last question
blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if
the last question would count toward our quiz grade.
“Absolutely,” said the professor. “In your careers,
you will meet many people. All are significant. They
deserve your attention and care, even if all you do
is smile and say “hello.”
I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.
(3 5 6 & 7) Tools which make u world class!!!
3P
A 3D model of TQM, having People, Product and Process as the 3 axis.
For Implementing TQM, all the 3 parameters should be improved.
1. People: Satisfaction of both Internal and External customer.
2. Product: Conforming to the requirements specified.
3. Process: Continuous Improvement of all the operations and activities is at the heart of TQM.
5S
is the Japanese concept for House Keeping.
1.) Sort (Seiri)
2.) Straighten (Seiton)
3.) Shine (Seiso)
4.) Standardize (Seiketsu)
5.) Sustain (Shitsuke)
5Z
This standard defines the procedure of “5Z Accreditation” which is the scheme to promote, evaluate, maintain and improve process control using the Genba Kanri principles.
“5Z” is a general term for the following five actions ending with “ZU”…meaning “Don’t” in Japanese.
-UKETORAZU (Don’t accept defects)
-TSUKURAZU (Don’t make defects)
-BARATSUKASAZU (Don’t create variation)
-KURIKAESAZU (Don’t repeat mistakes)
-NAGASAZU (Don’t supply defects)
6 Ms
The traditional 6Ms are:
* Machines
* Methods
* Materials
* Measurements
* Mother Nature (Environment)
* Manpower (People)
6W
Your project planning should answer following question:
WHAT : What will you make/do this?
WHY : Why will you make/do this?
WHERE : Where will you make/do this?
WHO : Who will make/do this?
WHEN : When will you start/stop this (time scheduling)?
WHICH : Which will you make/do this (process, tooling, material sources etc…)?
7 QC Tools
Histograms
Cause and Effect Diagram
Check Sheets
Pareto Diagrams
Graphs
Control Charts
Scatter Diagrams
These are 7 QC tools also known as ISHIKAWAS 7QC tools which revolutionized the Japan & the World in Sixties & Seventies
These tools make wonders by leading u to “WORLD CLASS”
Sony Ericsson to unveil 9GB Walkman mobile phone
June 14, 2007 (IDG News Service) — Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB will launch late Thursday in Berlin six new phones, including a high-end Walkman-branded handset with around 9GB of internal Flash memory, according to a company spokeswoman.
The music-centric Walkman will more than double the internal memory of previous models and feature a newly designed media player and large-touch display for easy navigating. But unlike Apple Inc.‘s planned iPhone, the new Walkman will include a keyboard.
“Our new Walkman mobile phone isn’t designed as a response to the iPhone but as a further development of the Walkman,” the Sony Ericsson spokeswoman said.
Sony Ericsson will also unveil the latest in its line of Cybershot camera phones, a 5-megapixel device.
Several new accessories will be introduced in Berlin, including a Global Positioning System unit that can be connected to a mobile phone and new Bluetooth headsets.
What the Japanese-Swedish joint venture will not be announcing in Berlin is a new video game-mobile phone based on Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld device, the spokeswoman said.
The blogosphere was full of rumors of a new PSP mobile phone after Japanese employees of Sony Ericsson last month filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a mobile phone with video game features.
“The patent is registered; we register many patents,” the spokeswoman said. “But we don’t have a PSP mobile phone in the planning. I can’t say that we won’t see such a device in 10 years, but there are no plans to build one at the present time.”
The spokeswoman said that the company’s current focus is on music, imaging and the Web, but not on the PSP.
Which isn’t to say that PSP owners won’t be able to make calls soon.
Last month, BT Group PLC announced that it is working on a software-based Internet telephony package for the portable device. The system will allow PSP users to make voice and video calls across a Wi-Fi network. Later, it will be extended to cover calls and messages to PCs, fixed-line phones and cell phones.
Twelve Steps to Raise Your Self Esteem
DETERMINATION
Do you recall small brands?
Fevicol did it and how. Its advertising established it as a a household name and a generic for the category and won the agency O&M tonnes of awards. Other brands in low involvement categories like plywood, pens, glass are now following suit. So, why are agencies and advertisers getting so involved with these brands?
Plywood – now how many people are really excited about this product category? Chances are that very few don’t even know that there are atleast a 100 brands in the market. A majority of these brands don’t invest in any form of advertising. But market leaders Greenply and Century Ply want consumers to remember just their brand names. And they are doing this by creating some simple yet eye- catching advertising. Advertising that is winning awards like the Greenply film that won an Abby Gold early this year or the Century Ply ad which is getting talked about within days of its launch. This film took a year from conception to execution and finally hit television channels only in December. The brief given to the agency was just to create an interesting ad with a single-minded proposition!
Deputy MD, Century Ply, Sanjay Agarwal , “There have been certain failures as far as certain creatives are concerned in the past. But this time, it has to be good. We are trying to reach the masses. Plywood maybe low interest category but when you make your house, you are spending 15% of your expenditure on plywood.”
“This is a lot of money and if the name Century Ply is in your mind and if we can convert even 3%-4% of people from other brands – that’s a big development for me. It’s a Rs 10,000 crore market and a small shift for us. Another reason is we are into plywood but diversifying into cement and the agri business, and for that we have to create a brand and Century Ply is the brand that will go to the masses.”
It’s every brand’s attempt to reach out to the masses, even if they are not going to directly buy your product. Brands that have very low consumer involvment tend to make the mistake of focusing on what they think is their USP. The trick actually according to other brands like Camlin is, to forget about product applications and focus on creating a high involvment emotional product that will eventually deliver sales.
Executive Director, Camlin, Shriram Dandekar says, “Any soft sell ad will never give you direct information on the number of units sold or the number of units picked up but we believe that over a period of time in a continuity, when people see this ad, it will have good recall value – the theme will have a record and will leave an impression that Camlin has created a good ad and that means Camlin has a good product.”
Group Creative Director, Lowe, Preeti Nair explains, “Unlike a detergent or a soap, your involvment is very clear, these are the categories you don’t care what you are buying, therefore what name remains salient is what you will ask for. Saliency will happen only if you are memorable. A brand gets registered – it’s not because of how often the brand name comes, it’s at what time it comes, so if you take a single-minded benefit and do a commercial they’ll remember, you’ll get saliency on the brands. Brands like Fevicol, Greenply have done it.”
Such advertising has a definate advantage in terms of longer shelf life over advertising campaigns in the FMCG space. For most such brands, there is greater emphasis on the creative idea rather than the media plans. Most of these brands don’t spend more than Rs 3 crore annually on advertising, but definitely get a lot more bang for their buck!
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