Cricket fans can now enjoy the thrill of owning an IPL team virtually by purchasing their favorite cricketers in a fantasy league that may fetch them rewards based on their player's performances. Available at the IPL's official website, the league provides a budget of $10 million in fantasy currency, using which, one can create a virtual XI, by picking batsmen, bowlers, all-rounders’ and a wicket-keeper belonging to different IPL sides. Points will be awarded for scoring runs, holding catches, effecting run-outs and taking wickets, among other performances.Winners will be rewarded with match tickets and IPL merchandise. The fantasy team with the most points wins the league. Netizens are free to select a name, motto and an emblem for their team.Air India Official Airline Partner Of DD, MI Country's flag carrier airline, Air India has joined hands with the Delhi Daredevils (DD) and Mumbai Indians (MI) as their official airline partner for the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League. As per the association, the players of these two teams would be flying by Air India during the franchise-based Twenty20 league to be held at different venues of country from April 3 to May 26."Whenever the teams fly on our services, exclusive miniature bats bearing the autographs of the members of the respective teams will be given away to 10 lucky passengers, chosen at random through a draw of seat numbers." he said. The spokesman added that there will be at least 10 Air India flights on which each of these two teams will be travelling.NGC To Air Documentary On IPLThe glitz and glamour of the IPL is all set to be the subject of a show on the National Geographic channel, which promises to air the unseen "inside story" of the multi-million dollar Twenty20 event. 'Inside IPL' will air on National Geographic Channel, later this year."IPL is more than just a cricket tournament, with hundreds of millions of people and billions of rupees being involved," says Keertan Adyanthaya, MD, National Geographic Network and Fox International Channels India. Rajeev Shukla, Chairman, IPL also said that “they are very excited to be associated with a prestigious brand like National Geographic Channel for a special series on the Pepsi Indian Premier League."Punjab Lions Plan To Roar Loud This YearAs IPL plans to hit the bull’s eye this year, every associated team is geared up to bring out their best. Where all the franchises are engaged in prioritizing their sponsors, the Kings XI Punjab has gathered as much as 14 sponsors for their team.“We are very fortunate to have some of the best brands on board with us as our partners. NVD Solar, one of the leading and prestigious manufacturers of “Renewable Energy Products” (Solar) has joined hands with us as the Title Sponsor of the team for the next 3 years. In addition to this, we continue to have other reputed brands as our partners such as Lux Cozi as the Official Comfort Partners; ACC, Arise Inverters and Batteries, Raindrops Basmati, USL and McDowell’s no. 1 as Official Team Partners; Kingfisher as the Official Good Times Partner; Pavilion Sport as Official Licensing and Merchandising Partner; Noida University as the Official University Partner, Mountain Dew as the Official Beverage Partner, Meshi Creations Pvt. Ltd, as Official Entertainment Partner, 92.7 BIG FM as Official Radio Partner; Kabirz as Official Food Partner and TK Sports as Sportswear Partner,” says Arvinder Singh, COO, Kings XI Punjab.This year they are also introducing a loyalty programme to strengthen the bond with their supporters. Other initiatives like launching a mobile application, a live in-app FanWall and an initiative with the Punjab Police to support women empowerment have also been instituted.Game Of The TitansAs KKR and Delhi Daredevils are all set to battle it out on 3rd April’ 2013 at the Eden Gardens, fans eagerly wait to witness them in action at any cost.According to Venky Mysore, CEO Red Chillies Entertainment, “KKR hasn’t made any changes in the price structure of their tickets for KKR Vs Delhi Daredevils match, which are nearly sold out. We secured a break even in March’ 2012, and this year we expect to grow by 25 per cent year on year.”Red Chillies Entertainment that is co-owned by Shah Rukh Khan, also the brand ambassador of West Bengal has partnered with some of the biggies such as Nokia, Reebok, Dish TV, Pepsi.All About MerchandisingOwners of Delhi Daredevils team, GMR Sports, are the latest group to enter the merchandising bandwagon, which will be launching its new line of exclusive merchandise along with an ecommerce site which will contain all the creative stuff for their consumers. This move is believed to add another source of revenue for the team, as well as bolster the team’s brand equity.“We have roped in four sports personalities as flag-bearers of daredevilry. These superfans will engage with fans and we will be launching range exclusively before IPL,” says Hemant Dua, Head Marketing, GMR Sports. GMR sports will also be retailing its merchandise range through shop-in shops and various departmental stores.
Read More
Rajesh Nair is not exactly the HR head of a company. Rather, he is the CEO of TopGear Consultants Pvt Ltd, a strategic Human Resource management and placement consulting firm with primary focus on recruitment and helping clients to retain employees. Surviving the 2009 recession and triumphing over it, has been Nair's greatest achievement (the company grew 15 per cent) so far. Nair believes managing human capital cannot be the responsibility of the HR department alone and line managers should be made accountable for attrition in his /her team.What attracted you to HR and recruitment?The most critical asset for any company is its employees. The company with best employees always has an edge over its competitiors . For example, an FMCG major has the best tetra pack juice in market but its rival easily beats this company in sales by a very long margin. The only reason I see is that the rival company has the best marketing brains in this country. They have actually recruited the best team , invested a lot in this team and this team helps them be market leaders. HR/recruitment is the most critical role for any company , be it a start-up or an established player. This is what actually attracted me towards HR and recruitment in particular.What has been the biggest achievement in your career?My biggest achievement till date I feel is facing recession in 2009 head on and managing to survive it. But it would would be wrong to say that it is my achievement alone. We as a team not only survived it but also grew 15 per cent in 2009 which I felt was extraordinary . Also being awarded the “Platinum Certificate of Excellence” by HDFC Stanlife Insurance and “The Most Preferred Recruitment Partner Award ” by ICICI PRU Life Insurance has been really special. What have been the primary traits/qualities that have helped you attain your present position?I feel we still have a long way to go. I have always believed in hard work . We have always placed our clients’ interest first. We have never compromised on quality and will never do so. In fact, we have managed to deliver high quality service even when faced with pressing deadlines. The client appreciates this and I feel that has been the reason for our success. I feel this approach will help us be the best and biggest recruitment company in the world.What are the challenges you are facing in organisation?The challenge is to maintain the high quality of work. With the volume of work increasing, we have to ensure that quality does not go down. We do have our audit process in place but still it is a challenge.What are the steps a company should take to develop and motivate future leaders?Empowering people goes a long way in deciding whether he /she has the stomach to take on responsibilities. I feel giving responsibilities to someone even when he/she is only 60 -75 per cent ready for the job also works well. Also making future leaders stand up to real crisis situations has helped me analyse and handpick leaders.What is your rate of attrition? How do you prevent it?Our attrition rate for senior managers is very low. Many of them have been with us for more than 5 years. I feel giving more responsibilities and space to grow can help prevent attrition. Of course you add good compensation to it.How do you retain talent in your company?As I said giving your employees space to grow as a professional goes a long way in retaining talent. But at the same time I believe in the philosophy that non-performers should not be tolerated.What sets your company apart from other companies as far as work culture goes?Transparency! We always have had a very transparent work culture. Even a trainee is able to view data about the senior-most managers’ performance. Also we have the best profit-sharing model. Everyone has a sense of ownership and is aware that the each one of us will grow with the company.What is the biggest challenge you face when selecting people?The biggest challenge for us has been separating serious job seekers from the stop gap kind of job seekers. But we have a good recruitment process in place that helps us in selecting the best.How do you track of employees' satisfaction or dissatisfaction?We have open house sessions and one to one meeting every 15 days. The performance of every team member is tracked and timely feedback is given. We also have assigned mentors to each team whose primary job is to ensure that everyone remains motivated.How HR has been important to the bottom line of the company?If we recruit quality people it straightaway reflects in the bottom-line. Obviously when you recruit someone who is on the job from day one without much of training, it helps improve your bottom-line.How has the downturn affected HR?Downturn has had an impact on recruiting for expansion while there has not been much impact on recruitment for replacement. However, many companies have again started recruiting for expansion.How should HR be integrated with the core line of business?I think line managers/ functional managers should be sensitised to the challenges faced by the HR managers in recruiting the best talent. Also the line managers should be made accountable for the attrition in his /her team. Managing human capital cannot be the responsibility of the HR department alone.A recent survey has questioned HR's actual contribution in an organisation. Would you like to comment on it with particular reference to your organisation?The HR department is traditionally viewed as a support department . But if you look at top companies, they have always given a lot of importance to HR. Companies like Infosys have always maintained that their meteoric growth is a result of high quality employees. Narayan Murthy used to refer to employees as the most critical asset. So, the role of HR has become much more critical. A wrong recruitment choice can have a negative impact on bottom-line as well.
Read More
The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife,” David Ogilvy famously told marketers. Yet, marketers have consistently missed the point and often alienated women consumers.So how does one influence this key constituency? BW | Businessworld’s panel discussion — The $150-billion 'She' Economy: Marketing To Women — tried to find some answers. The discussion was the highlight of the launch of the BW | Businessworld Marketing Whitebook 2013-14. The ninth edition of the book, an essential handbook for marketers, attempts to decode India’s diversity from the perspective of various consumer groups.The event kicked off with an address by Prosenjit Datta, editor of BW | Businessworld. He began with a Dickensian remark. “There has never been a better time to be a marketer, and there has never been a worse time to be one.” He talked about the new forces in the market that have changed it beyond recognition — be it the rise of organised retail, the maturing of online retail or the social media revolution. Taking centrestage shortly thereafter were panellists Abheek Singhi, partner and director of BCG India; Neeraj Gupta, director (technology, telecom and consumer-packaged goods), Google India; Anuja Chauhan, well-known author and advertising professional; Dinesh Dayal, COO, L’Oreal; and social commentator and MD & CEO of Future Brands India Santosh Desai. Ambika Srivastava, chairperson, Zenith Optimedia, moderated the discussion which started out with Singhi giving an interesting spin to the term 'she economy'. He noted that there is no one woman consumer, so it should be called 'shes economy'. “There is an increased participation of women in the workforce and this is influencing their spending behaviour,” Singhi said. In India, he said, a reported 44 per cent of the spending is influenced by women. The ebullient Anuja Chauhan begged to differ, saying that women influenced much more of the household spending than the figures suggested. “The woman has a say on pretty much everything. She may not be influencing it directly, but she’s influencing it indirectly,” said Chauhan, who came down hard on the stereotypical depiction of women in ads. Santosh Desai highlighted the changing consciousness of women in today’s world. “Women are increasingly making huge investments in themselves, their bodies and their skills to prepare themselves,” he said. Dayal narrated the story behind the revolutionary L’Oreal tag line —“I’m worth it”. He said blending the traditional with the modern in products helps in connecting with Indian women. Neeraj Gupta highlighted the role of the mobile phone in giving Indian women a sense of personal space. “The mobile is like her personal assistant. It becomes an expression of individualism, independence and empowerment.” At the end of the engaging discussion, the panel unveiled the Marketing Whitebook 2013-14. Seagram’s Blenders Pride was the event’s presenting sponsor; NDTV Profit and ABP News were television partners.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 06-05-2013)
Read More
Listening to Dixon Jose you know he is at heart an industrial relations (IR) man. Jose, Head, HR, Hyundai Construction Equipment India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), Korea, came up the ranks, having interacted with people at all levels. He believes HR should be given the final say on the recruitment of people, which currently is not the case and which very often results in bad hires. HR should be given its due place on the board, which automatically will result in integration of HR with the core of business. For a lean and mean organisation, outsource the routine work, is Jose's advice to HR practitioners.What made you choose HR as a profession?I have always had a sense of compassion for people, whether professionals or ordinary, with whom we interact in our day to day lives; This, coupled with a sense of empathy towards people, helped me choose HR as a career, to serve people at large and make a difference in their lives. I don’t regret my decision a bit!What has been the biggest achievement of your career?Signing the first wage settlement with the union in one of my previous stint with a large organisation could be termed as my biggest achievement. The heat of the last lap of negotiations, sitting late night in a make-shift building, surrounded by unruly workers outside (some of them drunk and throwing stones at the building), gates blocked; we could not step outside the building even to attend to the call of nature; overall a nightmarish experience, but when we cracked the stalemate, it gave me a sense of achievement and satisfaction, which I had not experienced for a long time.What have been the primary traits/qualities that have helped you attain your present position?I have come up the ranks and hence have seen and interacted with people at all levels. Seeing people at close quarters and understanding the demands and pressures at various levels helped me in my progress. A sense of time and deadlines, coupled with being a team player, helped me to stay on track. Of course, timely updates with the latest trends in HR also helped.What are the challenges you are facing in your organisation?Currently, the biggest set of challenges we are facing are :To get the right people to man key positions;Leadership development to take on higher and complex challengesMeeting ever increasing employee expectations, particularly of Gen Y;The requirement of complex skill sets, ever widening demand for professionals in the market, changing tastes and expectations of people due to fast changing socio-economic landscape, also contributed in changing motivation and engagement factors of people, thus posing challenge to HR to meet such expectations; What are the steps a company should take to develop and motivate future leaders?I believe leadership development is one of the biggest challenges being faced by HR practitioners across industry verticals. Corporates may take some pro-active steps to nurture future leaders:Depute potential leaders to MDP’s or LDP’s to enhance their functional & leadership skills, from time to time;Assign specific tasks / projects to them to complete in a given deadline, with clear deliverables. This will help them to stretch & groom themselves to their best.Reward & recognise their achievements suitably, through’ career progression & market driven compensation.Suitably reward them for innovation and risk taking abilities.What is your rate of attrition? How do you prevent it?We would be one of select group of companies having achieved sub 10 per cent attrition rate, with 8.5 per cent attrition in 2012, while the industry average is anywhere between 13 and 18 per cent.How do you retain talent in your company?We believe size of pay packet is not the sole motivator to retain people in an organisation and while we may not be the best paymasters in our industry, we try to keep people engaged through’ various other means. We have a structured engagement programme calendar running through’ the year, which takes care of people’s urged to be recognised for their non-corporate skills.Secondly, we have a well built rewards and recognition programme in place to appropriately recognise the efforts and delivery of people, through’ spot awards, half yearly and yearly awards.Further, being a growing organisation, we provide people with a challenging work environment, with job rotation, new projects, etc, to make people multi-skilled as well to provide them a new avenue to learn. Overall, we strive to provide a positive work culture to people for their growth. What sets your company apart from other companies as far as work culture goes?We have an open work culture, i.e. we do not follow a multi-layered hierarchy; in fact anyone can walk into the cabin of our MD anytime to have a chat with him. We also have a relatively flat organisation structure, resulting in lot of synergy & faster decision making.We are a Korean MNC and hence respect all cultures. We give equal importance to the cultural setup of Korea, keeping in view the Indian work culture as well. What is the biggest challenge you face when selecting people?The challenge during selection is not as much as to assess functional knowledge, but to assess the softer skills of a person, which results in either good or bad hire. For instance, how do you find whether the person is honest or hard worker or his long term commitment levels, inter personal skills, risk taking ability, etc. Even the best of psychometric tests fails to pin point such softer issues.How do you track employees' satisfaction or dissatisfaction in your company?Structured Satisfaction surveys are conducted through’ an external agency, once in two years, spanning issues like infrastructure, job roles and responsibility, leadership, career issues, etc., which gives us a third person perspective to gauge the satisfaction levels of our employees.Yearly Town hall meets are held, which gives us a reasonable measure of satisfaction levels.Stay interviews are conducted randomly across levels to assess satisfaction levels.How important is HR to the bottom line of a company?At the end of the day, HR function is THE most important function for the bottom line, as we fully acknowledge the fact that we cannot survive in the market, unless we have the right kind of people on our side. We strongly believe, People are the ultimate differentiator whether a company sustains the vagaries of the market or falls flat on its belly. Hence, talent acquisition & development directly affects the bottom-line. Having said that, the Board monitors key HR indices, which affects bottom line like direct and indirect employee cost, productivity levels, etc.How has the downturn affected HR?Generally during the downturn, HR roles changes slightly, due to manpower rationalisation or re-deployment, reduction of administrative costs, etc.; These measures are obviously not taken very kindly by employees; As such downturn results in more work for HR, as there are more emphasis on trainings and re-trainings during such periods. How should HR be integrated with the core line of business?I firmly believe that for any organisation to be successful, apart from Finance, HR should be given its due place on the Board, which automatically will result in integration of HR with the core of business.A recent survey has questioned HR's actual contribution in an organization. Would you like to comment on it with particular reference to your organisation?There are some areas of HR function which are routine or technical in nature and hence can be outsourced easily, which we have also done. But I believe that the core HR roles cannot be outsourced and hence the relevance of HR will remain intact in time to come as well If you could change three things about HR practices, what would they be? HR should be given the final say on the recruitment of people, which currently is not the case, resulting in bad hires at times;HR should be looked at as a profit centre instead of as a cost centre by the management.HR should shed its flab, by outsourcing routine work, make use of technology to connect to people and make them less dependent on HR, by becoming process oriented.
Read More
Entrepreneurship helped India become one of the richest countries in the world centuries ago. By the 16th century, India’s economy was a quarter of the worlds by most estimates. It was driven mostly by smart, innovative entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs produced cotton, silk and agri-products for domestic and global markets. But lack of industrialisation, colonialism and command economy all but killed entrepreneurship. Some of the entrepreneurial spark was reignited two decades ago from the ashes when industrial licensing was removed in the first of many reforms. India has a vibrant private sector but it ranks low on entrepreneurship and startups. Even though the information technology industry led the way for start-ups by creating global IT giants, India’s track record is poor. Consider these figures from industry body Nasscom: India has more than 300,000 IT professionals; second highest number of engineers in the world. With such talent, India should be a hotbed of start-up activity. This is where India disappoints. In 2012, US saw 15,000 start-ups in tech industry. Israel had 800. India? Just about 450 brave entrepreneurs managed to start-up. Nasscom has launched a mission to enable 10,000 tech start-ups in the next ten years. That’s about 1000 start-ups every year for the next ten years. This is more than double of the start-ups that begin on their own. This is an ambitious and much needed activity that will rightly work in mission mode to ensure that the targets are met. Start-ups in India face many problems. While thousands have smart ideas, very few have the knowledge or the support to realise them. Those who know or learn how to, find it tough to fund their ideas. Nasscom’s 10,000 Start-Up plan aims to bring together mentors and funders for critical support to fragile early stage start-ups. Aspirants will send the ideas to the Nasscom team. The selected ideas will be showered with incubation oriented support. They will get seed funds of as low as Rs 5-15 lakhs; business tools worth Rs 10 lakh; and much needed advice on next steps. For a start-up, even simple facilities like an office or help in registering a company can be a boon. Venture funds don’t even look at start-ups. They support projects that have already assumed a corporate shape, howsoever small it may. But start-ups need very basic help. The support and guidance they need is similar to what teachers offer pre-schoolers. Nurseries prepare toddlers for the rough and tumble of school life. The Nasscom mission is to offer such support. Once the start-ups are on their feet, the formal funding system will swoop down on them. To be really successful and inclusive, the Nasscom mission will have to go beyond the metros and look for talent and ideas in small town India. Technology based business solutions will boom only when they serve local needs. Smart ideas that work in Delhi and Mumbai will not necessarily work in Jaipur and Visakhapatnam. While some start-ups will have national and global solutions, many will be focused on local and regional needs.Innovative technology will have a great bearing on the surrounding entrepreneurial ecosystem. It will inspire thousands of young and talented to create their own businesses. Service sector offers a relatively better environment for start-ups than the manufacturing sector where red-tape and government clearance are deal-breakers. Hopefully, the tech start-up mission will inspire more such efforts that make it easy for start-ups to blossom in other sectors. (Pranjal Sharma is a senior business writer. He can be contacted at pranjalx@gmail.com)
Read More
Abhishek Bachchan gave his daughter a Rs 30-lakh car on her first birthday,” says the man pacing the stage at the Fine Arts Society auditorium in Mumbai. “Where did he get all that money?” “Our pockets,” is the chorus from the almost 1,000-strong audience. “What did you give your child on her first birthday?” is the mocking follow-up.
Read More
The third edition of the METS Forum, an event jointly organised by Infocom and Assocham, kicked off on 8 March in New Delhi. The theme this year was technological convergence in the fields of media, entertainment, telecom and social media. METS Forum 2013 was inaugurated by Manish Tewari, MoS, Information and Broadcasting. Uday Kumar Varma, secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, D.D. Purkayastha, managing director and CEO, ABP and chairman, Infocom, and Rajkumar Dhoot (MP), president, Assocham, were present. Tewari, in his address, touched on issues such as censorship, freedom of expression and the responsibility of citizens with the coming of new media. “Each individual becomes a broadcaster with the power to put his views in the public space. The government has no desire to control new media. But as concerned citizens, we need to make the distinction between the right to privacy and the right to anonymity,” said Tewari. The event began with the release of a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers — ‘From Silent to Digital-100 Years of the Indian Film Industry’. The forum felicitated Padma Bhushan winner D. Ramanaidu as a legend of Indian cinema, Basu Chatterji for his lifetime achievement and Shah Rukh Khan as the actor of the decade.Arijit Dutta, MD of Priya Entertainments, described the role of multiplexes in changing the landscape of the film industry during a panel discussion on ‘100 Years of Indian Cinema — Expectations of the Millennium Generation’. Other panelists included filmmakers Ramanaidu and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. A Japanese perspective on media and entertainment was brought in courtesy the keynote address by Mitsuhito Hosoda, senior managing director, Shochiku, a film and theatre company. He spoke on ‘A Centennial of Japanese Cinema’. Juntaro Shimizu, deputy director general, Japan External Trade Organisation, called for greater Indian and Japanese collaboration in Indian cinema.In his address on Big Data, Mandheer Walia, solutions manager, Media & Entertainment, SAP Labs, USA, emphasised on organisational capabilities for managing diverse information to achieve optimum results. The issue of creating quality products for any screen was addressed by Guru Vaidya, solutions consultant, Adobe Video Solutions, Adobe India.A special poster exhibition was hosted on ‘Revisiting 100 Years of Indian Cinema’, courtesy S.M.M. Ausaja, vice-president, Osian’s Learning Experience. Ausaja is also known as the ‘Poster Man of Bollywood’. The exhibition sought to showcase the journey of Indian cinema through a collection of inspiring posters. The final event was the Excellence in Media and Entertainment (EME) Awards — an initiative to recognise excellence in animation and VFX, and innovation in film technology. The occasion was attended by communications and information technology minister Kapil Sibal. He talked about the revolution that was taking place in entertainment, and highlighted the role of the government in extending connectivity to 1.2 billion people in the country, via the fibre optic network. He concluded a discussion on freedom of expression and the need for self-regulation by the media with: “Tera toh haq hai khabar chalana, kuch mere bhi haq hai mat bhool jana. (It is your right to broadcast, but don't forget, I too have some rights).” The awards saw 530 entries from 28 countries across 12 categories.The principal sponsor for the event was Prayag Group, with associate sponsors SAP, Adobe, Star TV, Priya Entertainments and Mainland China. Parker was the official writing instruments partner for the event.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 22-04-2013)
Read More
A few weeks ago educational researcher and professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University, UK, Dr Sugata Mitra won the $1 million TED grant for his 'Hole-In-The-Wall' project. It basically promotes the concept of school in the cloud (web) relying on the premise that in the absence of supervision or formal teaching students will discover good content, share, discuss and teach others too. It is based on his experiments conducted in 1999 at Kalkaji, an urban slum in New Delhi. Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering the slum, installed an internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other. Such is the nature of technology that children relatively unexposed to the internet and computers were able to operate and learn to work with the technology. The outcome of the experiment points towards one direction – the need for availability of reliable and relevant content. The importance and demand of good and reliable content in education is evident in the alacrity with which SmartClasses were adopted in India. The vendors, who were keen to sell computer hardware and claim they have "content for KG till 12 Std", had a strong USP -– make the information electronically available would help their students in learning. According to a proposal letter from a Delhi-based vendor says they offer to set up SmartClasses and a Knowledge Centre and they have done so in over 10,000 schools across India. Recently there has been some information circulating that this large firm responsible for introducing smart classes is floundering since the veracity and quality of the content it offers is questionable. Schools are getting out of these alliances after 2-3 years of getting into the partnerships.The ‘E’ LandscapeSure, the market for e-content is growing. However, to get a definite figure for the size of the edu-content market is difficult. Perhaps these numbers and facts will help us imagine the landscape and possibilities in the ‘E’ economics. The literacy rate for the Indian population is 74.02 per cent (2011), up by 9 per cent from the previous decade. Of this 40 per cent of the population is below the age of 30, where 200 million children are under the age of 18 and 69 million of them reside in urban areas. The book market is estimated to be between Rs 10,000-12,000 crore in value with over 18,000 publishers doing business in the country. and you will perhaps even plan on setting up shop for e-content. Moreover, the publishing industry is growing at a rate of 30 per cent as per recent Ficci estimates.Now, let’s go over the statistics on the electronic part of the content. The O’Reilly Global eBook Market's (Feb 2013) says the ebook market in India is expected to be less than 1 per cent of the total book market, though this too is expected to grow by 20-25 per cent in the next 2-3 years.Almost all of the online educational content and digital books are currently in English. According to PrintWeek India “In the last five years, digital printing industry has grown by approximately 21.6 per cent and over the next five years it is expected to expand by 23.6 per cent. There is a growth of 73 per cent in textbook printing in the last five years in India."The government of India is leading several initiatives to promote digital literacy and provide access to digital content at school and college levels. National-level missions such as the Rs 4612 crore ($859 million) National Mission on Education through ICT (NME-ICT) have been introduced. The NME-ICT is working in collaboration with other related missions and schemes—National Knowledge Network, Scheme of ICT in Schools, National Translation Mission, and the Vocational Education Mission. The idea behind the initiative, according to a report published in The Hindu (7 January 2009,http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200901021501.htm), is to work towards creating personalised and interactive knowledge module for students.India’s education sector, moreover, is set to increase to Rs 602,410 crore ($109.84 billion) by FY15 due to the expected strong demand for quality education going by a recent report issued by India Ratings, a Fitch Group Company. Indian education sector’s market size in FY12 is estimated to be Rs 341,180 crore and the market for content forms a key chunk of this pie. The sector grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 16.5 per cent during FY05-FY12. The higher education (HE) segment was at 34.04 per cent ($17.02billion) of the total size in FY10 and grew by a CAGR of 18.13 per cent during FY04-FY10.The Fitch report also said that it has a stable outlook on the Indian education sector which includes both school and higher education. Hence it is not surprising that content service providers and publishers future strategies are based on how to capitalise this sector. For instance, in Jan 2013 it was announced that HarperCollins India would be launching a new educational division in India. Collins India in a press note said the English-language schools textbook market in India currently stood at more that £150m, more than the market size in the UK, and is expected to grow further. Similarly Wiley India launched its Authorship Development Roadshow to get quality content in Bangalore and Chennai.Now link all this to the demand from thousands of schools for e-content in India, and perhaps you will immediately think of registering a company and learning the ropes of the business to supply content. And competition already exists in the form of the education sector (K-12, higher education and academic) who were the early adopters of e-learning and e-content have company — the trade publishers too have joined the 'E' game.But it’s not just competition that could prove a bugbear to your prospective firm. The vendor should find out if the content he is providing to schools is legitimate and importantly if it is suitable to the recipients.With the tablet and smartphones boom in India, convergence is inevitable. However offering good content then becomes a prerequisite. As Thomas Abraham, managing director with Gurgaon-based Hachette India says, “Where trade (non academic books, literary fiction, self help, mind, body and spirit lists) books are concerned, 90 per cent of revenues come from the straight text flows of narrative fiction or non-fiction -- the printed page moving on to the screen.”Content Is Still KingOne of the five publishing predictions for 2013 made at international publishing conferences at the start of the year is reiteration of the fact that content will be king. This is the future of publishing. If content falters or is under-par, it will not translate into a sustainable business model. It does not matter if the service provider is a trade publisher for fiction and non-fiction books or an education publisher for creating textbooks, everyone has to focus on creating good, reliable and authentic content.Today there are slight shifts noticed in the nomenclature being used to offer content. Well-established publishing firms whose focus is education prefer to no longer be identified as publishers instead as educational service providers. Others will prefer to use terms like “content management” and “curriculum development”. Trade publishers, whose prime focus in their children’s list is to create fiction and non-fiction, recognising the need for offering reliable and branded content in educational institutions are now expanding their lists to include grammar books, elocution speeches and quiz books written by “branded” names or those who are willing to lend names. Everyone recognises the market and its potential, so it does make strategic sense to tweak existing lists and offer it in any format: print, digital or audio. Or as was said at the ‘If Book Then’ conference, Milan (19 March 2013) “data is the new oil of xxi century”.Jaya Bhattacharji Rose is an international publishing consultant and columnistFollow Jaya @JBhattacharjibusinessworldbooks (at) gmail (dot) com
Read More
