To call mobility a hot technology trend is probably an understatement. In reality, the gravitation towards using highly mobile devices, such as smartphone and tablets, represents a transformation of business technology priorities rather than simply, a trend. This transformation is not only taking place in large enterprises with the capital to invest in cutting edge technologies and IT strategies, but even amongst SMBs who are keen on adopting mobility for their business needs.In fact, the India findings from Symantec's 2012 State of Mobility Survey have revealed a tipping point in mobility adoption. The survey highlighted an uptake in mobile applications across organizations, with half of the Indian enterprises discussing deploying custom mobile applications and one-third currently implementing or having already implemented custom mobile applications.A key driver behind the SMBs interest in business mobility is the "bring your own device," or BYOD, concept. Many SMBs do not have the resources to supply employees with the latest mobile devices, yet they want to partake of the benefits of an always-connected workforce. With BYOD, employees use their own personal mobile devices for work. In fact, working without the confines of an office is an effective proposition for many small businesses. According to a recent report by AMI Partners, more than two thirds of Indian SMBs own at least one smart phone or tablet and almost half plan to purchase more devices in the next year. However, as more and more SMBs implement BYOD and leverage mobility in their business strategies, the risks are sometimes overlooked. While the benefits are significant, the risks of adopting mobility cannot be ignored. As per Symantec Internet Security Threat Report 17, mobile vulnerabilities increased by 93 percent in 2011. At the same time, there was a rise in threats targeting the Android operating system.After all, SMBs often already have their hands full with managing the demands of their traditional IT infrastructure and endpoints. Add mobility to the mix and often overtaxed IT staff is stretched further.In this scenario, how do small businesses not only keep track of mobile devices and the information on them, but also ensure that their confidential data –be it intellectual property , customer information- is s secure no matter where it is located?As SMBs explore the opportunities of mobility, it is essential to be aware about the current threat landscape that has emerged due to the increasing usage of these devices and develop a phased approach to build an IT ecosystem that secures their information across devices.The following tips would help SMBs to embrace mobility, without compromising on security:Plan mobility: Mobility offers tremendous opportunities for SMBs. Think beyond email. Explore all of the mobile opportunities that can be introduced and understand the risks and threats that need to be mitigated. SMBs need to take a cross-functional approach to securing sensitive data no matter where it might end up.Manage effectively: Mobile devices are legitimate endpoints that require the same attention given to traditional PCs. Many of the processes, policies, education and technologies that are leveraged for desktops and laptops are also applicable to mobile platforms. So the management of mobile devices should be integrated into the overall IT management framework and administered in the same way – ideally using compatible solutions and unified policies. This creates operational efficiencies and lowers the total cost of ownership.Enforce strong security policies: Small Businesses treasure their information as a valuable asset. As more employees connect their personal devices to the corporate network, SMBs need to modify their acceptable usage policies to accommodate both corporate-owned and personally-owned devices. Employees will continue to add devices to the corporate network to make their jobs more efficient and enjoyable so organizations must plan for this legally, operationally and culturally.Secure comprehensively: Look beyond basic password, wipe and application blocking policies. Focus on the information and where it is viewed, transmitted and stored. Integrating with existing data loss prevention, encryption and authentication policies will ensure consistent corporate and regulatory compliance.Keep yourself up to date with threat landscape. While the mobility and endpoint security landscapes evolve and change so do the hackers. As their awareness on security updates and new threat developments increases, the vulnerability of SMBs to cyber threats is reduced.Many SMBs are struggling to find the proper balance between enabling mobility and maintaining a secure IT infrastructure. These simple steps – taking stock of mobile devices, securing with proper tools and policies and managing through software – are relatively simple ways to strike that balance.(The author is Managing Director- Sales, India and SAARC, Symantec)
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Through the better part of the last decade, India witnessed GDP growth rates in excess of 8 per cent, with the economic downturn of 2008-2009 coming as a surprise to corporate India. At the time, a number of our clients witnessed a slowdown in business across many sectors. This resulted in an unprecedented focus on increasing productivity and bringing down costs. We also witnessed a number of businesses choosing to rightsize their workforce and putting hiring decisions on hold. With the latest economic forecasts indicating sub 7 per cent GDP growth, are we heading for a situation like the one witnessed in 2008-2009? It is unlikely. The past downturn was one that sparked off in the West, owing to a collapse of the housing market and the subsequent credit crunch, and the impact to India and other Asian nations was an after-effect of this damage.The crisis caught India Inc. unawares. Glossing over the high-growth patterns witnessed in the years leading up to 2008, most organizations in India were not prepared to deal with the sudden turn of events. It was a unique situation for business leaders who were accustomed to high growth, and it called for them to ‘unlearn' a lot of the ways in which they had been doing business.In the aftermath, we have found that the best organizations have emerged stronger than before. The experience of the 2008-2009 slowdown ensured the following: a. It created a pool of "crisis-tested" leaders and managers who were able to adapt business strategy to ambiguous market conditions.b. It forced organizations to finally address poor employee performance. As Jim Collins (Author of the best-seller "Good to Great") puts it: ‘People are not your greatest asset; the right people are!'c. It drove a relentless focus on productivity, compelling organizations to re-configure their operating models and structures to ensure efficiency.Seemingly, there is no "right way" to deal with the new business reality. What we do know is that organizations which weathered the storm of 2008-2009 are better equipped to address the current ambiguity.Our experience suggests that the following principles have worked well: Make sure everyone knows what they have to do: Adequate role clarity is a must for work to be geared towards maximum efficiency. This will also help keep a tab on HR costs. Don't blindly follow the herd: Workforce reductions, although the most painful, may sometimes have to be resorted to owing to business needs. If this is the case, the blueprint for it must be planned carefully and deliberately. Trim the fat, but not the muscle: Use your performance management processes to identify the underperformers and take corrective action to address poor performance. Continue to reward your top performers very well: Be sure to differentiate sharply between the top performers and the average performers – for a clear message. Don't alter incentive programs in haste: Tweak your incentive mix only to reward the behaviors that your organization wants to encourage. Help calm frayed employee nerves: The vast uncertainty can lead to grapevine talk, thus impacting employee morale and motivation. Clear, consistent, two-way communication is required here. Having said that, despite the clouds of uncertainty, in this case, history may not necessarily repeatitself; what matters more is how much we have learnt from it – or perhaps, unlearnt – and how wecan apply it to the future.(The author is a Managing Consultant heading Hay Group's consulting operations in New Delhi)
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In recent years, MNCs from emerging economies such as India, Brazil, and China have risen dramatically to attract global attention. Within the context of the debate around Asia's — and by extension India's— emergence as a regional leader, the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad (ISB) and Fundacao Dom Cabrall(FDC), a leading business school in Brazil, recently conducted a joint survey on Indian Transnational Companies. Transnational Companies (TNCs) — any corporation that is registered and operates in more than one country at a time — account for over a quarter of the world's GDP in 2010This the first time a systematic ranking is being attempted in India using a globally accepted, multi-dimensional measure of internationalisation: the Transnational Index(TNI). The Transnationality Index combines three measures: Percentage of International Assets to Total Assets, Percentage of International Revenues to Total Revenues and Percentage of Overseas Employees to Total Employees, to determine the overall degree of internationalisation of companies.The study offers valuable insights on the performance of Indian companies in recent years as well as their growing international presence by comparing Indian transnational companies to their global counterparts, analysing the factors that helped then achieve a higher degree of internationalisation and identify the industries which have higher degree of internationalisation compared to others. The research team comprises Prof. Raveendra Chittoor, a researcher on the internationalisation strategies of emerging economy who teaches a competitive strategy as well as a strategy implementation course in ISB, and Arun Chandra Patro, a research associate at ISB. Source: TNI Report, ISB Acording to the TNI report, in India, it is not possible to calculate the Transnationality Index and rank companies based on secondary data alone, as some of the measures are not publicly disclosed by firms. For example, the number of international employees or foreign assets cannot be obtained from public sources for all firms. Hence, the study incorporates a mix of primary and secondary research, to arrive at with the rankings. The ranking methodology is based on the framework (Transnationality Index) developed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Of the Top 100 firms ranked by their consolidated international assets collected from secondary data, the top 50 companies were asked to answer a questionnaire with information regarding their international activities. 33 companies responded to the questionnaire. The internationalisation measures were collected for the three financial years 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. The data collected through primary research was validated again using available secondary data and a composite TNI ranking was created.A look at the result reveals that the top five companies have a TNI greater than 50 per cent which is comparable to transnational corporations from the developed countries. More than half of the top 15 TNCs are affiliated to business groups, a phenomenon unique to emerging economies, with companies from the Tata group dominating the list. A key driver behind the Tata group companies dominating this list could be Mr Ratan Tata's (Chairman of the Tata group) vision for the group companies to be global. Suzlon Energy and Bharti Airtel are some of the youngest companies in the list and have internationalised rapidly. Source: TNI Report, ISB Growing Inorganically The study finds that, for expansion into developed countries, most Indian companies seem to prefer the M&A route. Companies affiliated to Business Groups — primarily Tata, Aditya Birla, Reliance, Mahindra and Mahindra and Godrej — account for more than 60 per cent of overseas acquisitions by value. Among other private players, Bharti Airtel and Suzlon Energy have donewell. Oil & Natural Gas Corporation which operates outside India through its overseas investment arm — ONGC Videsh is the primary public sector company among the major Indian transnationals.The year 2008 witnessed more than 150 majority acquisitions as compared to 38 minority acquisitions. An industry wise break up of acquisitions yields that minority acquisitions dominate in industries such as the banking and financial services (BFS) and coal & power, whereas companies in industries such as FMCG and Telecom seem to prefer majority acquisitions. Source: TNI Report, ISB However, most firms have shown a reduction in TNI since 2008-09, as they seem to be consolidating their overseas investments and focusing more on the domestic markets for growth. Bharti Airtel, through its recent international acquisition of Zain (South Africa) has the fastest rate of growth in internationalisation over the last three years.The survey has also generate a list for top 20 companies on the basis of the value of the international assets and top 20 companies ranked on the basis of the value of overseas revenues. Tata Steel tops in the former category while Reliance Industries ranks number one in the latter. Source: TNI Report, ISB Home And The WorldThe study documents that India's Outward Foreign Direct Investments (OFDI) grew from $ 1.0 billion in 2001-02 to $18.5 billion in 2007-08 at a compounded annual growth rate of over 60 per cent. The global economic crisis however slowed down the rapid internationalisation of Indian companies between 2008 and 2010. The crisis had its strongest effect in the financial year2 (FY) 2009-10, reducing OFDI by 26% as compared to 2008-09. With the economy recovering in FY2010-11, Indian companies resumed their process of internationalization and OFDI increased by 23 per cent over FY2009-10.The Top 50 Indian TNCs were also affected by the economic downturn. While the total foreign revenues for the Top 50 companies remained unaffected in FY2009-10, their international assets reduced by 4 per cent and the number of foreign employees4 by about 2per cent as compared to FY2008-09. FY2010-2011 saw a sharp rebound, as foreign assets (of the Top 50) grew by 29 per cent, international employees by 15 per cent and revenues by 25 per cent. This rebound may prove unsustainable considering the current economy. The total OFDI outflow in FY2011-2012 as on February 22, 2012 is estimated to be only $ 8.8 billion.ISB is now collaborating with FDC, which has been leading a similar effort in Brazil over the last few years, to compare and contrast transnational companies from India and Brazil.
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Some months ago, I was at a B-School competition to help judge a students' competition. The idea was also to articulate a new theme for India. The best thought that emerged was Implementing India. This is the critical need for central and state governments. India doesn't need more policies as much as it needs existing policies to be implemented. It needs the pending projects to be completed. It needs central and state government departments to join hands to ensure that every decision on paper leads to time-bound action on the ground.The government has accepted that projects worth more than Rs 1.46 lakh crore are awaiting completion. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is leading from the front to push for the projects to be cleared.He has asked two organizations to monitor the projects. The Department of Financial Services under the Ministry of Finance and the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) will "submit a quarterly statement of all projects monitored and any issues identified that need resolution, either systemically or individually."While this seems like a good idea, the worry is that it may not be enough. The NMCC is a body of industry leaders and secretaries from various ministries including Finance and Heavy industry. The heads of apex chambers of commerce and some experts are also members.At best these two organizations will inform the PM about what is already known. That projects are being held up for lack of various clearances. These organizations don't have the clout to force decisions.I fear that this project monitoring effort will take away from the natural responsibilities of the various ministers who are in charge of getting the projects done. It's really the responsibility of the Ministers in charge of infrastructure ministries to get projects completed. They can't throw up their hands at every hurdle and ask the PM to intervene.In the corporate world, the senior managers don't run to the CEO for every problem they face. Similarly, ministers can't push the onus of delivery on the PM.Here the political clout of ruling UPA coalition and its lead constituent Congress has to take some responsibility too. It was heartening to hear that the Congress Working Committee pulled up the government for economic slowdown and absence of decision making. But the Congress party should go a step further and demand action from each minister. Each minister in the Cabinet is also a veteran politician who is answerable to the party and the CWC.The UPA and CWC should send an unambiguous message to the government that each minister has to drive decision making. Each Minister has 2-3 junior ministers and 3-4 secretary level officials. There are enough resources available. What is needed is a will to deliver and the whip to punish.Unless the ruling coalition uses the political threat of taking away the jobs of ministers, action will not be taken. Congress should demand action from ministers. The political parties should monitor the work of ministers.Strong government action needs cover from political power. And political power will be enhanced if there is more investment, more jobs are created, and people have more money in their pockets. If people feel that their income is rising, they will be less worried about rising prices.It's in the political interest of UPA to be ruthless with ministers.(Pranjal Sharma is a senior business writer. He can be contacted at pranjalx@gmail.com)
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Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, big companies ruled roost over their kingdom of customers. The king companies made what they liked, sold as they pleased, and told customers what to think of the result. If they said their goods were the best, then who were you, the customer, to argue? And the little companies all followed suit. Then one day, one customer dude turned to another and said: Hey, what do you think this coffee really tastes like? And the other dude said: Why, toothpaste and mud, of course – it always has. Well hey, then why should we drink it and pay for it too, they thought. And they proceeded to empty their coffee cups right on the table and walk out. So then the two dudes, now somewhat coffeeless, decided to spend some time online. There, they told all their friends about the coffee that tasted just like toothpaste and mud. And their friends told their friends. And very soon, everyone knew what that coffee tasted like. The coffee makers scratched their heads, wondering why no dudes came in anymore. They looked at each other and said: we'd better advertise…This story could go on, but I think we get the drift. Companies, big and small, have seen full well that their customers suddenly seem to have a say in matters. But unlike some years ago, you can't just broadcast louder and overwhelm opinion. What is needed is a strong, meaningful connection with the customer; so brand managers, eat humble pie, drink your own coffee now and then, and let's look at one of the ways this connect is brought about – through storytelling. Storytelling dates back to when we landed on the planet and that's quite a while ago. It's almost instinctive to us. Nothing new about it. What's more recent is that storytelling is now a tool in the hands of brand managers, marketers, and communication professionals who need to think beyond broadcast messages because their target audience is online and socially active. Using storytelling is both easy and tough. It's easy because you get to use your gut feel, your knowledge and your creativity. It's tough because you now have countless methods of telling that story and you can get paralyzed by sheer choice. Brand storytelling also seems to be begging for some demystification because of the unhelpful jargon it's been garnished with by many new media gurus. Bob Bejan, Chief Development Officer of MSL Group and a communications architect who works with agencies and clients to help bring about creative storytelling that works, agrees. "The technological world is completely taken with the idea that everything is absolutely new and therefore needs a new name and a new way of talking about any given topic, feature or capability. This is absolutely true in the storytelling space today", he says. "It is easy to see in India -- or really anywhere in the world -- where marketers are chasing the "answer" and the "secrets" to this new medium and how to use it, when it really has never been simpler. The palette of social media and the "always on marketplace" allows for the storyteller to express in the purest way so far. What is your story? Who are you trying to tell it to? And what do you want to have happen once you've told your audience the tale? These are the questions to ask."Basically, forget that four-fold brochure and connect with your customers with engaging stories about your brand that you know they will relate to readily. As far as the stories themselves go, no one size fits all. The Kolaveri song – which has a story of sorts and is catchy and funny to begin with – may have gone wildly viral, but the same format may not necessarily do for a brand that has characteristics and customers that pull it in a different direction. Before you reach for the Ramayan or Mahabharata to pick out a good hero or head for the most popular celeb, because that's the flavour of the day, invest in a listening phase to see what your customers respond to most. If you're comfortable with a matrix and complex paradigms for storytelling, Google and ye shall find. But before you force-fit a story or method on to your brand, stop and think of some of the story's must-haves. Start by choosing a possible content area that is relevant to your customers. That may sound like a no-brainer, but with the tendency to head straight for cliché, it's more than possible you could end up with something working for other brands, but not quite fitting yours. Brand story can be about many things. It can be the brand's history, if it's remarkable enough. It could be its customers. It could focus on a value, a strong characteristic or capability. Best of all, it could be the brand's customers. Whatever you choose to base a story upon, the two critical parts are creating emotion, and making it something customers and fans can talk about, share, or respond to in some way. In other words, something that engages. People must see something of themselves in the brand -- an aspiration, a fear dealt with, a validation of a strong belief... Whatever finally emerges, it should be a consistent messages across all communication – though I'd still say there's no formula. Off the top of my head I thought of a brand that is part of my everyday life – Vodafone. Looking at their Facebook page for India, I see no brand story or even a taking up where their wonderful pug-based ads leave off. The Facebook Timeline, actually is a great canvas for a story, executed creatively and with impact. It's also easier to make it shareable because not only because your customers are likely to be there but because the practice of sharing and commentng is something they're more accustomed to. The same is true for YouTube. On some other networks, such as Twitter, for example, or Quora, consumption may happen just as frequently without sharing. PR pundits think you can readily borrow from the elements used in regular storytelling and in particular, everyone who talks about this draws parallels with Star Wars. So, there's a setting, a hero, an antagonist, a conflict, a resolution and a denouement. But one has to watch not to get too formulaic or over the top. Paradoxically, the story shouldn't be too obviously a story, just as selling shouldn't be too blatantly selling – specially on social media. Whether you ultimately choose to recreate from mythology or Star Wars or wherever, stay authentic and true to what is known of the brand. It's the age of the believable and some brand building storytelling extends the story into actual experiences for customers and fans. The next thing is to take the story where the customer is (read community, tribe, flock, fans, or whatever social jargon rocks your boat). That doesn't just mean what social network they inhabit, but what media or mix will have the greatest chance of holding their increasingly fleeting attention span. One thing we do know is that visual rules. Experts say that every brand must develop a visual vocabulary, starting from the logo and moving right through images and videos that have impact and are highly contextual. So whatever channel you choose to tell your stories on, visual is critical, and not an afterthought or mere eye candy. The rich new platforms and tools with which you can tell your story, in fact, sometimes decide what brand stories you choose to create and tell. Santosh Desai, MD of Future Brands, often talks about brands and story telling. He thinks brands don't merely tell stories -- they are stories. Any brand is, at its heart, an idea that is brought alive as a story we can relate to.As everyone learns to tell stories in ways they never thought possible, we also see that those stories become part of the brand's language that is shared by everyone within the company. Just as you would want everyone to have the same one powerful understanding of the brand, so would you also want everyone working with the brand to participate in creating and sharing the stories, remembering that brand stories are not a single event at one point of time, but ongoing, sustaining and adding to the brand over the long term. There's a lovely little story from a few days ago of a marriage proposal. Filmmaker Walt Thompson asked his girlfriend Nealy to marry him. Not in the usual pop-the-question manner, but by making a lovely little stop-motion film with Lego characters, Lego-boy proposing to Lego-girl. I's sweet enough to bring a tear to the eye, but what a story – not just for the happy couple, but for Lego. Case in point.
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If Research in Motion's recent "Wake Up" campaign is any indication of the company's mindset –and I rather suspect it is — we can go ahead and despair for the BlackBerry maker. RIM has had enough bad luck to last a lifetime without having to shoot itself in the foot with this embarrassing campaign, but it doesn't look like it has had its fill yet. What happened was that on April 26th, a big black bus appeared in front of a Sydney Apple store. Out spilled a bunch of people, dressed in black, holding up black signs that said WAKE UP Be Bold. They went straight to the Apple store and yelled in protest. At what, we don't know. Perhaps Apple's dominance. Nonplussed Apple staff and the general public couldn't make head or tail of this flash mob and what they wanted or what they were protesting about as BlackBerry was not mentioned anywhere.Samsung, about to launch its Galaxy S III then, was suspected to be the culprit behind the flash mob, but denied responsibility for this bizarre activity. Research In Motion however, owned up and said it was behind the campaign. Who are these people that actually agreed to participate in the Wake Up mob? I wouldn't have done it for a million dollars – or maybe I would, but I'd go in disguise.Not satisfied with an incredulous and scathing reaction from practically the whole world, RIM has now gone ahead and formalised the campaign with a website, wakeupbebold.com which houses the short black bleak blah-blah ad.As for the ad itself: an Australian voice exhorts you to wake up because it's time to mean business, not the standard briefcase and suit business, but taking action and doing different instead of just thinking different. Further, the voice tells people it's a simple choice: mean business or just be satisfied with floating along like a cork in the stream. And one final, arrogant shot at those who aren't interested in BlackBerry. You can "float on by" because being in business is not for everyone. So you're supposed to head for the company that knows business because it's been in business from the very beginning. Never mind that its stock is scraping the bottom of the barrel, that just lost its two CEOs precisely because it couldn't handle business – not in the face of competition – and that confidence in the company is draining out like water from an unplugged bathtub.Mobile companies keep taking pot shots at each other in their ads, sometimes to the amusement to of customers, sometimes not at all. Samsung recently had an ad making fun of "iSheep", the derogatory term used for Apple fans who will buy anything the company makes, and stand in long queues losing their sleep to do so. It would be nice if companies got away from this fairly tired line of advertising. Enough already. Come up with your own strengths instead of insulting mobile users, even if there's sometimes a laugh or two in it.Funny or not, an Apple-Samsung battle is one thing, and RIM trying to take on Apple is another. Not only is it abjectly ridiculous, it reinforces the increasingly held belief that the BlackBerry Boys are living in a world of their own –a world in which they are as big and as healthy as Apple. In this sense, Nokia, another company that lost its top dog position, differs in its attitude. I've found that they admit they're no longer in a great place, and that a lot of hard work needs to be done to regain their former glory, and that slow and steady will make this happen. This is starkly different from RIM, where there seems to be a disconnect with what the world outside thinks.The world outside, as it happens, has just seen RIM demo its largely unfinished BlackBerry 10 operating system, admittedly with a few nice features but ones that would have made sense over a year ago. They gave a device to developers to encourage them to make the apps that everyone knows BlackBerry World is starved for. But no confident strategy. No definite date. No commitments. Nothing for either enterprises or consumers to really wait for. It's this backdrop against which the Wake Up campaign looks even more nonsensical than ever.RIM is now hiring a new chief marketing officer, Frank Boulben. Well, it certainly needs one. But before that, it needs something to market. It needs to open its own eyes and look around at how many people are saying it's RIM that needs to wake up.Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professionalContact her at mala at pobox dot com and @malabhargava on Twitter
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To fill the gap in the Sports and Multi utility segments, market leader Maruti Suzuki India on Friday aunched its compact multi-purpose vehicle Ertiga, in an all new category -- Life Utility category.So, is this a deliberate shift from the mini segment where Maruti Suzuki India has seen a decline in sales lately?Consider this: According to the latest Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data, in the mini segment consisting of Maruti 800, Alto, A-Star and WagonR models, the company sold 491,389 units in 2011-12 as compared to 573,238 in 2010-11, a 14 per cent decline. For the month of March, the segment saw a 10 per cent drop in sales. This clearly indicates that there is a sudden shift in the passenger car market from the entry level mini segment to hatchbacks and sedans, particularly diesel variants."We want to sustain the business and therefore we are launching products in categories where we are absent. This does not mean that we are shifting our focus," says Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer - Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki India."Utility vehicles has demonstrated a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent over the past three years and is a promising segment," he added. MPV's at present account for 10 per cent of the Indian automobile industry. Maruti Suzuki India has invested Rs 410 crore in overall development and production of the car.The Ertiga will be in direct competition with the soon-to-be launched Mahindra Mini Xylo in the compact MPV space, which is expected to be priced in the Rs 5-6 range. Besides, it might also compete against some of the cheapest SUV and MUV models such as the Premier Rio which is priced up to Rs 6.46 lakh. In the compact SUV category, Ertiga will also face competition from Ford Ecosport, Renault Duster, Ssangyong's XiV 2 and Skoda Fabia Scout. With the all new K-Series engine, Ertiga will be available in both 1.4 litre petrol and 1.3 litre DDiS diesel variants. The petrol variant is priced between Rs 5.89 lakh and Rs 7.30 lakh, while the diesel variant will cost between Rs 7.30 lakh and Rs 8.45 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The company claims a fuel efficiency of 16.02kmpl for the petrol and 20.77kmpl for the diesel powered Ertiga.Maruti Suzuki India will also start exporting the Ertiga to markets in the South East Asia. It also has plans to start a completely knocked down (CKD) operation in Indonesia soon. At present, the uitility vehicle segment in India witness a sales of about 40,000 units per month.
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Business education has changed and evolved since Tuck started world's first MBA program over a 100 years back. Business however, has evolved much faster. Business schools carry an ever-greater burden of keeping up with the industry demand for leadership in number and quality - readiness to perform. This requires business schools to innovate and keep up with the pace of change.There are 3 key things that are affecting the future of MBA now more than ever - the easy availability of information because of Internet, changing face of the workplace and high cost of a quality MBA.Easy Availability Of InformationEven until the 90's several people carried their notes with them when they graduated from top schools, for reference! Information was really only available in expensive books, and hand-written journals. However, today one can find most information for free or very inexpensively. This is putting more and more pressure on reversing the traditional focus of "Knowing"->"Applying" ->"Being" to "Being"->"Applying"->"Knowing". The adoption of case based learning has been a step in this direction over the last two decades.The Changing Face Of WorkplaceThe proliferation of manufacturing led to "campus" like companies in the first half of 20th century. Everybody lived together and worked together. With "knowledge industry" being the main growth driver now and rapid globalization, typical businesses tend to be much more distributed. I remember negotiating an M&A deal with a Ukrainian on phone with lawyers joining in from the US. A Google product manager might be working with teams in Bengaluru, Shanghai and Sao Paolo. Business schools however are still pre-dominantly "campus-based" with little use of technology. Attempts of distribution still remain focused on "extending" classrooms either physically or through video.High Cost Of Quality MBAThere are two opposite forces at work for business schools. On one hand, there is a value in getting more experienced students since they have greater appreciation of "real" work; on the other hand the opportunity cost of quitting their jobs for these individuals goes up as well. Many schools have started 1 years executive MBA programs for the same reason however most are "extensions" of existing campus programs and trying to balance quality vs. capacity.We believe the future of MBA lies in solving these challenges and leveraging these opportunities to focus on "Being"->"Applying"->"Knowing". This might mean a ground up design of curriculum that helps students see the big picture. It might means transferring the traditional burden of "lecturing" to technology while faculty plays a much greater role as a coach. It might mean making a business school to look more like the distributed "knowledge-based" company using technology for greater collaboration. And it might mean bringing down the cost of MBA for high quality working professionals by keeping them in their jobs while they study.Its not easy by any means but has the potential of very high impact if it can be done."The need is not just strategy, but strategy and execution. I wish business schools produced more people who can combine the two." Comment from Dilip ModiThe author is Director of Sunstone Business School
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