It is truly said that when taxi drivers start to talk about the stock market, it's time to get out. My own mantra is that when simple minded laymen take to the streets to agitate on legal fine print, it's time to head for the nuclear bunker. In the last two months, India has been witness to two truly surreal melas, both led by incongruous national solution providers in search of a rational definition of the problem. Both, I am convinced, are manifestations as much as of the desperation of our polity as for India's appetite for political absurdity.Let us consider the essential facts. In June of this year, a TV yoga guru packaging himself as the next great messiah lasted four days into his great anti-corruption jamboree before he fell off the stage disguised in a sari and found himself in police custody. We then found that all his years of yoga did not train him to survive one week into a hunger strike without medical intervention. It later turned out that he had been land grabbing in Hardwar and his second in command had forged documents to get a passport. Looking back, we can sport a twinkle in our eye and slap our thighs in silent mirth in but at the time, everyone and their insane uncles took him seriously enough. Even then, we knew that the man wanted India to "nationalise" properties overseas and sold dodgy medicines with names like Divya Pidantaik oil which use cow urine as an ingredient. If we still followed him, it is because so many of us were beside ourselves with frustration.The frustration is still very real. It is no body's case that India doesn't have a problem with corruption, least of all the ruling party. But then, it is also no one's case that the ruling party is not trying to do something about it. It is nobody's case that this government does not have a comprehensive multi-pronged approach to the problem. It is nobody's case that this government has not introduced the Judicial Accountability Bill. It is nobody's case that this government has not already tabled whistle blower legislation in parliament. It is also nobody's case that this government is not trying to get some sort of Lokpal legislation into the statute books. It is nobody's case that this government has not successfully steered the first impeachment of a judge. The frustration comes from the multitude of power centres and vested interests that will simply not let this, and perhaps any other, government do what needs to be done. Who then can argue if movie stars and retired cops damn the entire legislature for these follies? Even as I write this piece, the government is trying to get some sort of regulatory order into the manner our sports bodies are structured and governed. Voting on these measure are people who have everything to lose if these sports bodies do get regulated. The result is paralysis. Indeed, you could easily argue that despite all its moralistic rhetoric about the Lokpal bill, the opposition has comprehensively undermined India's attempt to legislate against corruption and pretty much everything else by paralysing parliament for the best part of a year, or more. What principle of political absurdity allows the opposition to be the noisiest in condemning the ruling coalition on the corruption question?In this backdrop, we then had another tamasha played out in August by a desperate group of well-meant citizens led by the incongruously anachronisticretired army truck driver. For sure, this was a man with far greater credibility than the TV yogi but his brand of absurdity came from both the things he believes and the specifics of the cause that he was ready to die for. He wants death penalty for corruption, he recommends public flogging for boozers and he wants compulsory sterilization of young men in the best Sanjay Gandhi and emergency tradition. Yet, we followed him, because, as I have said, we are desperate enough to draw a distinction between the man and message. Unfortunately, it was just as hard to believe in his well-intentioned self-righteous attempt at suicide.When you get past the high decibel rhetoric, what you have left in the whole Lokpal tamasha was a bunch of issues that bear no relationship to the hype that has been created around them. It seems to me that most people don't have the foggiest idea what Anna wanted. We need to suffer this understanding to appreciate the absurdity of the Anna fast. First Anna wanted the Lokpal to investigate the judiciary while protecting whistle blowers and victims of corruption. In turn the Government wanteda separate Judicial Accountabilityandwhistle blower legislation? On a toss-up, do you care just so the job gets done? Second, Anna wanted all levels of the bureaucracy and all MPs to be under the preview of the Lokpal. The Government felt that it was enough to investigate senior bureaucrats, it being understood that a clean senior bureaucracy will mean cleaner departmental inquiries and consequently, a cleaner lower bureaucracy. The real question was this: could the Lokpal handle complaints against a million babus? As for MPs, there's the question of parliamentary privilege which required some pondering. Third, Anna wanted a national Lokpal while the Government did not want to disturb our federal structure. I wouldn't want our constitution jettisoned for a Lokpal either. Fourth, he wanted the politically tainted CBI to be run by the Lokpal while the government wanted to keep its sleuth. Frankly, so long as the Lokpal had the ability to investigate, I don't care whether it's the CBI or Lokpal Bill? And so it went on point after point. On removing the Lokpal, the government wanted to reserve that right while Anna wanted the Supreme Court to do so. Anna also wanted the Lokpal to determine his own budget, determine how far it would delegate its functions to its subordinate officers, proactively prevent corruption and sue the corrupt in court. He also wanted special fast track benches to hear corruption cases. He wanted higher punishment for wealthier people! The government wanted Lokpal to investigate complaints against its own staff while the Anna wants to create another independent entity that will police the Lokpal! About the only issue on which I think everyone, including Singh our King, could agree was that the Lokpal should have jurisdiction over the Prime Minister. That point was easily taken and as easily conceded by the Government. Am I the only one who thinks that most of these debates are either about fineprint or genuine differences of opinion? We can argue backward and forward about this or that provision and there are probably as many views as there are people. This is not the heart of the issue. A democracy must embrace all shades of opinion if it is to function at all. It cannot be good liberalism to say that we will do things my way or I am going to starve myself to death and start a riot. I cannot for the life of me find an issue here that justifies a life and death ultimatum to the country. Legislation is a long and complex process with multiple levels of consultation and compromise. As a lawyer, I cannot accept the idea that one small group of no doubt well intentioned souls can thrust their will down my throat by intimidating me with their suicide threats to accept their vision of what the brave new India should look like.As it finally turned out, Team Anna dropped many of their demands with the result that they would have ended up in substantially the same place if the fast had never begun. So what is the net takeaway from this particular mela? Officially, the difference between the position on the eve of the fast and the position at its conclusion was only that parliament had passed some resolutions supporting (a) citizens charters, (b) to consider some sort of mechanism for the lower bureaucracy and (c) structure state level lokayuktas. In effect, they only promised to be well intentioned when the Lokpal legislation finally showed up at their door. We will soon see how their intentions play out into actions.Since this is India's 9th attempt at Lokpal legislation in 43 years, I suppose this resolution is no mean feat. Perhaps we should be pleased because at the best of times, nation building is a slow, ponderous, slippery path. On reflection though, the real benefit of the mela may well have been in the 'awakening' it brought, bringing to the street, people who are widely seen as defeated and listless. Although a rhino like hide seems to be mandatory for those who enter politics, notice may well have been served on members of parliament that this legislation needs to be passed. If you are brutally honest, you will agree that this is small ticket achievement for the massive effort the nation made. You could be forgiven for asking yourself if this mela was everything it was cranked up to be. Perhaps, when it all comes down to dust, you will concluded that while we Indians have always loved our melas, we have now progressed to organising melas which have an ostensible mission even though in the long run, its only so much redundant drama, symbolism and emotional purgation. The author is managing partner of the Gurgaon-based corporate law firm N South and author of the pioneering business book Winning Legal Wars. He can be contacted at rcd@nsouthlaw.com
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You wouldn't think of it as a cooperative bank, but Netherlands' Rabobank Group's beginnings were in the cooperative movement, and it still runs on cooperative principles. Sometime before the end of November, the bank will open its first branch in Mumbai (the Reserve Bank of India issued the license in April 2011). The group provides a range of financial services: from banking through asset management and insurance to real estate and leasing services. In the Netherlands and internationally, food and agribusinesses have been principal focus areas for them.Rabobank has been around as a non-bank finance company (NBFC) - Rabo India Finance. Adrian Foster, Head of Financial Markets Research, Asia-Pacific for Rabobank International who was travelling through Mumbai - perhaps in preparation for the branch opening - sat with Businessworld's Tanushree Pillai and shared his views on a range of topics: from what we should expect from the RBI in the next couple of months and how the Eurozone needs to find a solution for its present crisis. Excerpts:What are your projections for India's growth?India has proven itself as a bit of a super-tanker, the analogy of turning around relatively slowly, when it sailed relatively comfortably through the global recession (2008). The positive is that it is a demand-driven economy while the negative is the fact that it's not quite that well-integrated with the global manufacturing chain and the global financial sector as well. You could view these things as weaknesses in normal times, but on the positive side, India did not participate much in the global volatility because of these very reasons. We look at the global environment now and clearly there are concerns, dangers and risks of a double-dip recession in the US. While we are worried about double-dip, we should certainly be concerned about third-quarter contraction. We have become too complacent with our performance story for the Asian region, including India, so if it has achieved about 8 per cent growth in the last couple of years, this year it could be a percentage lower. The disappointing global environment will be reflected in this region.The RBI raised its repo rate for the 12th time since March 2010. What can we expect going forward?The RBI has been more aggressive than I would have thought in the last couple of month; the inflation situation in India has actually been relatively flat. It is clearly high and worrying, but with oil prices likely to be lower in the next couple of months, and of course against the global backdrop with so much uncertainty, I would think the RBI has got the luxury of sitting back and assessing these global risks for a little bit longer before thinking about hiking rates again. The rationale for rate hikes will be much less convincing in the next couple of months.Why do you think inflation will ease?There are two main drivers of inflation: If you look at food prices, they peaked a couple of months ago. The pattern is that they certainly bounced sharply from their recessionary lows a couple of years ago, they are supported by robust demand regionally, but they have been relatively flat and bit off their peak for the last couple of months. As you go forward, the year-on-year changes in food prices roughly flatten out to about zero, so by the end of this year, the year-on-year change should be about zero.The other one is oil prices, which peaked in April after the tension in Libya, have been lower since then, and projecting it at today's price, the year-on-year change will be zero by the end of this year. So we have clearly seen a readjustment.Do you think gold has peaked out or will it continue to shine? I agree with the fundamental demand story. If you look at the competition between India and China on who is the major buyer of gold, they have changed places a couple of times and so the demand continues to support the price. If you look at the risks that are impacting markets and investor sentiment, equity market volatility, liquidity provided by central banks, these are areas from where gold will continue to find.A lot is being said about Greece and its near-default status. What do you think is going to happen?We think it probably is going to default. Its deficit levels are much bigger than what the world probably knew about. In a weak global environment and given the lackluster environment in its (Greece) neighborhood, it is difficult to get out of debt problems. The question is not whether it will default the question is when it will default. The debt of these countries (Eurozone) is held by the core banks, so supporting Greece will be the obvious choice for them. It is important for Europe to kick the can down the road which will buy more time, so beyond a certain point Greece's debt problems will be so much less systemic risk for the Eurozone.Does that mean it already is a systemic risk? It definitely is. What we recognise as a peripheral debt crisis, is actually a core banking crisis in disguise, because these banks at Europe's core hold such large amounts of fiscal debt.So what do you think can be done to stop this from spreading like a wildfire?There is a lot of political opposition in that region to unify fiscal measures. The measures come in bits and pieces. The danger is the bigger decisions to solve this problem will probably be taken when there is massive amount of weakness and at that point there will in fact be a series of crises which will galvanise politicians to take measures and in about six months' time there will be integration in Europe. That's when everyone will be comfortable with Eurobonds, which will be backed by Eurozone and will provide a cheap source of funding.How will the bonds help?If you look at debt-GDP levels and budget deficit-GDP, the Eurozone is better than US. The problem with the Eurozone is, unlike the US where there is one fiscal authority and one central bank, it is not integrated in that sense. Europe has a lot of competing decision-makers, so there's no integrated response. The solution over time for these obligations (debt) will be Eurobonds. Do you think a central treasury or a fiscal authority is needed for Eurozone?The issue with Europe is that everyone maintains their national identity. There is a lot of resentment over Germany supporting Greece and this issue of fiscal transfer has become a political hot potato. The only time we think Europe's politicians will be forced to break through these issues is when they will be standing at the precipice looking over a Eurozone breakup. It is primarily a political battle rather than a financial one.
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HCL Infosystems, an Indian IT company has emerged as the best employer in an IT survey undertaken by Dataquest with CyberMedia Research (CMR). Mumbai-based Rolta has taken the second spot followed by iGATE-Patni. The annual IT Best Employer Survey 2011 conducted among a selected sample of 3,337 professionals from a long list of about 200 companies across India reveals SAP Labs, a new entrant, has taken the fourth spot while a Bangalore-based niche player Tavant has emerged as the fifth best employer. Mahindra Satyam's sixth position signals it has moved past the crisis. Tulip Telecom, CapgeminiIndia, Virtusa India, and Nagarro Software take up the remaining positions in the Top 10. Attrition Is BackThe Dataquest survey finds that companies have started hiring in FY 2010-11. This led to a significant jump in attrition from 13 per cent in 2009-10 to 19 per cent in 2010-11. "With stability, career development and work-life balance emerging as the main attributes for a job, the outlook towards a job is maturing," said Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor, CyberMedia. "The fact that job stability features on top even after the recovery shows that in India, the HR rules have to be very, very different in the long run," he added. The survey consists of two parts: 1. HR round and one employee satisfaction survey round. In the HR round, companies are given scores based on their HR practices. The final score is a combination of HR score (20 per cent weightage) and employee satisfaction or E-SAT score (80 per cent weightage). Capgemini India, Mahindra Satyam and Synechron were the top performers on HR score, while HCL, Rolta and iGATE Patni came on top in E-SAT scores. The findings of the survey will be released in the forthcoming issue of Dataquest (September 30, 2011).
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Neither the incessant downpour nor the delay in foreign direct investments (FDl ) dampened the mood at the India Retail Forum held in Mumbai recently that literally extended a red carpet welcome to industry stalwarts such as Kishore Biyani and budding players in the sector alike. The 2-day event held at Marriott's Renaissance near lake Powai — which was also beaming in the monsoon — not only discussed the imperatives and challenges faced by the Indian retail sector but also talked about how to tackle these issues while also talking about upcoming trends that might change the face of the industry going forward. The annual gathering for retailers witnessed about 30 per cent growth in footfalls compared to last year. Over 3000 players participated in the forum, which is apparently the biggest conference for the $28 billion industry despite the murmurs that the government is not willing to open up FDI in the sector, much of which has been a result of vote bank politics. "There is no better time than now to open a gate for foreign FDI in India as consumers are becoming global in their shopping preference and there is a set path to developing an ecosystem of inclusive growth in the sector," said Thomas Verghese, Chairman of CII's national retail committee and CEO of Aditya Birla Retail. What Verghese said in his opening remarks at the forum was a common feeling shared by corporate biggies. Viren Shah, president of Federation of Retail Trade Welfare Association (FRTWA) went on to express that with the entry of deep pocket retailers in the country it would be difficult for mom-n-pop stores to survive as the competition will not have a level playing field.With multiple approaches towards opening up of the sector for FDI, this year's summit focused more on government policies and uncertainties rather than way ahead post approvals."This year single brand foreign retailers seem more keen to come to India compared to last year because of the growing domestic market and less regulatory hurdles vis-à-vis multiband peers," said a senior delegate of a real-estate advisory firm who had a series of business development meetings during the event. He explained that during the 2008 slowdown, real-estate developers had almost scrapped their ideas of making malls and shopping complexes which is now resulting in demand-supply parity due to international entrants.The country's biggest retailers, Future Group, Aditya Birla Retail, Bharti Wal-Mart and Reliance Retail are of the opinion that FDI in multiband retail is the need of the hour in order to sustain growth momentum. Liquidity flow will help companies create supply chains and back-end infrastructure which will improve their efficiency in production. As the government's conditional nod to 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail seems just around the corner, there were a number of discussions on nitty-gritty of the proposal and charting the way forward."Organised retail has grown great categories and formats according to the needs of new age consumers. Now, to sustain this growth momentum we need foreign cash flow to come in system," said Kishore Biyani, founder and group CEO of country's largest retail conglomerate Future Group. According to one of the PE investors and a delegate, who wished to remain anonymous, "presently, retail trade is disorganised and largely inefficient. As in other economic activities, minimising costs and maximising efficiency are imperative in retail trade. However, it's not only government regulation but also corporate governance issues that making investors like us sceptical towards investing in the sector. Companies such as Subhiksha and Vishal Retail are examples where till last minute no investors were aware of what's going on within the company."Big ticket retailers were of the unanimous opinion that, concerns about kiranas closing down are not based on facts. Small stores offer customers the convenience of quick doorstep delivery, often extending a month's credit, offering local flavour and tailor made size of grocery which are things that no organised retailer can match.While people talked serious business at the podium, singer Hariharan and others soothed their soul and mind with Coke Studio.
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Stock markets around the world had a torrid time last week and the Indian ones were no exception. Concerns over a possible sovereign debt default by Greece and belied expectations of a third of quantitative easing (QE3) by the US Federal Reserve Board sent a wave of negative sentiment through Dalal Street, resulting in across-the-board selling by investors. In a word, liquidity (mainly from foreign institutional investors, or FIIs) just dried up. There was a massive fall on Thursday and Friday that wiped off 900 points from the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensitive Index (Sensex), which ended the week with a loss of 772 points overall, closing at 16,162.06 points. On Thursday, FIIs sold over $251 million worth of stock."The volatility in the Indian market is the mirror of what's happening in the global markets," says Puneet Nanda, executive director at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance. "If you ask me when I see the market stabilizing, the answer is I don't know." he's not alone. many others believe the market could fall another 10 or even 15 per cent from here on; no one knows the fate of countries in the Euro-zone.At least for another few weeks, they say, fear and uncertainty will be the twin swords of Damocles hanging over the markets. Economic recovery in the US holds out no hope of certainty either (which matters because the US is opne-third of the global economy). Nanda is certain that there is still some pain left in the Indian market. "The next two-three quarters will be tough in terms of corporate performance," he says. There is little doubt that the slowdown will sooner or later impact corporate profitability. The bigger worry is the long-term, as going ahead (about 2 years from now, according to Nanda), when the the capacity bottle-necks will impact the topline or revenues of many companies. Is there any respite? Perhaps a fall in crude oil prices; they also fell, following the pessimism on the global economic outlook. Brent crude is down $5, trading at around $105 per barrel. Crude oil imports accounts for nearly 55 per cent of total Indian imports.So don't let the bull to charge this week. Markets will probably remain volatile ahead of the expiry date of futures and options (F&O) contracts at end September. Some short covering may help the market regain some of last week's losses, but overall the Sensex is expected to remain jittery, and take cues from its global counterparts.
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Japan stands to lose its technology leadership in many areas and along with that its export revenues, if the recent trickle of high technology Japanese companies moving to China turns into exodus. While manufacturing moving to China has been the usual trend in the last decade but this recent movement is a result of a unique new crisis —the strangle hold of the Chinese over the rare earth metals that are a very vital input to many high technology and cleantech goods. As I had written before (The Rare Advantage) that Chinese dominate the production of rare earth metals. And to the extent that they can starve off to death many of the Japanese firms producing SLR cameras to auto parts who depend upon the extraordinary properties of these metals to produce high performance goods. And while the Chinese were already cutting off the supplies of rare earth through restrictive export quotas, their recent actions seem to have gained much more urgency. China is now undertaking an aggressive drive to shut down and nationalise many mines, as if to accelerate its ultimate bet.The bet as I'd pointed out in the aforementioned column earlier is not driving up the prices for its rare earth produce but the possibility of manufacturing the value added products using rare earths that can generate way higher export revenues. Further clue to its plans can be reflected in the way it has structured its new rare earth production regime. The new regime will make available twice as much quantity of rare earth metals available domestically as compared to that allowed to be supplied in world market based on figures here. Since most companies who consume rare earths are outside China, therefore prices would be low within the country while the prices outside the country are sky rocketing. That should push the manufacturers to move to China. Prices of neodymium, another rare earth have multiplied fourteen times since 2008. High prices would at first knock off those manufacturers who use rare earths in low value addition products. Such manufactures may therefore rather migrate to alternatives or shut their production lines rather than absorb or adjust the cost. For e.g. a similar absolute price increase on CFLs (that also use rare earths) will more severely impact CFLs than SLR camera makers. Those manufacturers that use rare earths for high value addition products such as some niche Japanese manufacturers may at least be initially able to adjust to the high prices. But if Chinese are eyeing those highly protected, high technology companies then gradual tightening of the noose may hit them but will not bring them running to China immediately. It will take a much more drastic supply cut. This probably explains the more aggressive perhaps drastic recent Chinese efforts to reduce rare earths exports.But ultimately there is no denying the fact that if the supplies keep dwindling- while the alternative supplies may not be able to entirely replace the Chinese supplies; it may force the world countries to come to the negotiation tables and warm up the Chinese for other favors, such as its territorial claims. China would be very willing, perhaps eager to take that route. Given the diplomatic flare up China has had with the Japan in the recent past; they would be eager to gain an upper hand on the Japanese. And this is where the choices for the world countries and global industries including many of the Japanese firms will become difficult. Would they give in to the Chinese stance and let the companies relocate in a China where intellectual property rights are weak and give away their long kept technological superiority? Will the global countries try to get at a negotiated settlement that will help share the riches emanating from rare earths in a cleantech led future? Or would they innovate their way out? Negotiate or Innovate?Atleast for the time being the Japanese want to innovate and keep their fingers crossed that it is already not late enough. Nidec Corporation, a Japanese company engaged in manufacturing of niche motor products hopes to produce rare earth metals free motors by 2012. Nidec is betting its chances on a new motor technology called ‘switched reluctance'. The Japanese government is also extending liberal subsidies to Japanese manufacturers to invest in facilities that produce rare earth free products. Elsewhere NEDO another Japanese research agency is working with the Japanese universities to accelerate development of such motors to be used in Hybrid vehicles. The overall effort will require synchronisation between corporation, governments and the educational fraternity of a higher order to avert the crises.If the Japanese manufacturers succeed in replacing the rare earths they can completely reinvent the motor supply chains. More than the diplomatic dividends, it should set forth new systems in which market economies can respond and act towards new challenges that the new order of globalisation will pose. The technological dividends of such a success will also be interesting to look at. For one such motors will cut down the costs of electric/hybrid vehicles or other cleantech goods that use such motors and give a greater push to the cleantech technologies.The Japanese obviously do not want to depend upon negotiations as a solution to the crisis, although they may use it as a temporary reprieve. And quite obviously so. Innovation and not negotiations can produce lasting solutions and the Japanese have their sight set on that. It is immaterial what the WTO provisions about the rare earth exports say. Years of dead locked rounds on WTO or frequent distortion of WTO spirit by ‘import duties', ‘anti dumping cases' or ‘hidden subsidies' show that countries will only accept what is economically beneficial to them or what they can be negotiated down to, irrespective of what the international treaties may outline.A number of our current technologies, that may hold immense future prospects, are dependent on rare earths and leaving that to the outcomes of negotiations is akin to kicking the can down the road and hopefully we will see a different outcome this time.Yash Saxena is a sustainability consultant with Emergent Ventures, a climate change mitigating consultancy. He also works on innovation evangelism with Techpediayash (dot) saxena (at) emergent-ventures (dot)com
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For most small and medium businesses (SMBs), buying a printer is often a matter of going and finding a multifunction device that suits their requirements in terms of print costs and speed. Over the years though, this space has not changed dramatically, with the core components -printing, scanning and copying -largely staying the same, except that print quality has gone up and prices down. Could the LaserJet Pro M275 a.k.a TopShot, HP's innovative 3D scanning multi-function device change all this? At its most basic, the device adds a second scanner, via an arm that sits above the device. The embedded camera then allows you to scan in any 3D object small enough to sit below it and fit in an area no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper.It's a rather novel concept, and a number of applications immediately come to mind. Want to show your friends the papier-mâché mask your kid made? Or how about the jewellery or handicrafts you produce? Or the product you wish to auction off on eBay? Just place the product on top of the M275 and hit scan. The result will be a high-resolution 2D photo of your device created by combining 6 different images that the camera takes from different angles. The image processing removes the background leaving you with a clean object image. You can then either print this image or instantly upload a scan to the web. The HP Topshot LaserJet Pro M275 will be available in Asia Pacific in early 2012, and pricing is yet to be announced. John Solomon Tushar Kanwar discussed the TopShot and HP's Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) at large with John Solomon Senior VP, Asia Pacific/Japan HP IPG at the HP Innovation for Impact Summit recently. TopShot is very novel and innovative for the space, but where do you truly see it being used?We don't know yet how broad the applications are going to be, we've launched one product and while we're excited about it, we want to see what the consumer reaction to it will be. The initial focus for us is that we think it has a great ability for a simple workflow, because while there is a wow factor (which is nice to sell a product), but what we want to look at is how do we make SMBs more productive. And since a lot of SMBs are in the business of selling and demonstrating their products and services, TopShot is not just a cool new way to capture it, but also from a workflow perspective, it enables them to showcase their products on a website very quickly. And going forward, much like we did with ePrint, we'd be interested in looking at how we can apply what we learn on this one model to proliferate such innovations (assuming it's well received) across other lines of our products.Let's talk about ePrint for a second. You've been in the market with ePrint for well over a year, what's the response to ePrint been like, especially in India?In general, the interest in ePrint has been extremely high. With this feature, every print job is sent through an HP server, so we actually know how many pages are printed and how people are using it. The thing with applications, especially on the mobile space and the Apple app environment, is that most people use it for a week and then they stop using it. We've found it's different with ePrint; consumers try it, they like and they continue to use it. They may use it less, but there isn't that steep a drop off because fundamentally it is such a useful utility, and in my case as with many others, they've incorporated it into how they use their printer in their workflow. You will also notice that we've lowered the price point of ePrint, particularly looking at a market like India, which is a price sensitive market on the hardware side. And we've seen a high propensity in metros like Delhi and Mumbai where you have a lot of mobile users - iPhone users, BlackBerry users -use ePrint a lot. HP's LaserJet Pro M275 a.k.a TopShot One criticism that has been made about ePrint is that while the apps are a strong component of the offering, the printing itself is a very rudimentary interaction with the printer. For instance, I can't send instructions for two-sided printing, or print with photo paper. How do you plan on addressing that? You're absolutely right. What we looked at first was basic printing, and what we decided in the first generation was to make simplicity our first goal and give up some of the features. But now what we've done with this current introduction of ePrint is to bring back some of the features you typically had through your printer driver. With the downloadable app that we're launching, you will recover many of those features, such as selecting number of copies, the print mode, the media type and you'll even be able to use scanning functionality from the printer to your mobile device. Speaking of apps for ePrint, the discussion hasn't really happened and HP has maintained a silence on the app space when that could well have been the centrepiece in this app-aware economy. When will see a shift from hardware to apps? If you think about it, ePrint initially was the core app; it's different in the sense that you don't pay for the app and it comes with the printer. I think beyond that what you will see us doing and what we're announcing are apps for education, and we're going to talk a lot about that, invest in that because we think that is so critical to growing the market in India. We're at 70 per cent in the inkjet market in India, and a key way to grow the market is via the education sector. At some time in the future, we will also publish the SDK for apps for ePrint, and at that time, we will be able to talk more broadly about apps rather than just the focus on specific segments like education. A broad complaint has been that while the initial cost of the hardware is low, the recurring costs of cartridges is what keeps people away from printing as much as they'd want to, and from printing in general. Could you speak to what you're doing to address that?This is something we've been focusing on for some time now, right from the "everyday" cartridge in India to the InkAdvantage product we've announced. With InkAdvantage, we're looking to change the model - we'll charge you a little bit more for the hardware, but charge you much less for the supplies. We ran a pilot in Philippines and we believe a lot of consumers self-limit their printing, and this is proven by the fact that people who bought the InkAdvantage product printed a lot more than people who didn't buy it. We're seeing that if you lower the cost of supplies, people print more. InkAdvantage, we feel, is a huge breakthrough in getting people to print as much as they need. VJ (Vyomesh Joshi, EVP of HP's Imaging and Printing Group) mentioned that enterprise is a big focus, and a lot of HP's messaging seems to suggest that enterprise is a large part of their future direction. Where does HP's consumer business stand in this? There are open fears about it being hived off as a separate business, much like HP's consumer lineup in PCs. We're extremely focused on the Imaging and Printing business, and the consumer business is a huge and relevant part of that. Something that is not that well understood is that we have huge leverage in IPG in enterprise and consumer, because the inkjet technology in publishing is directly scaled out from what we used in the OfficeJet Pro lineup of printers. IPG is fully committed to technology innovation that we can deploy and the fact that we can do it in enterprise is enabled by our consumer business. We need that scale of making millions of printers to be able to leverage that technology into the graphics and enterprise segments. For us, we have got to be in all these segments. Unlike HP's PC line-up, we are a vertically integrated company where we develop our own technology, so for us the scale comes from R&D, development and manufacturing.
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Three years back, the group launched amidst much fanfare a more colourful and vibrant Godrej logo. That was largely because the youth were fast becoming the largest consumer segment in India, but they had a feeling that the Godrej brand was better suited for their parent's generation. To correct this perception the group launched not just the new communication exercise but also started designing new products that would excite the younger set and help them identify better with the Godrej brand. Has that exercise worked?Internally, the group is leaving no stone unturned to show off its younger side. A young girl from the design cell at Godrej & Boyce designed a multi-purpose chair cum bed with a table lamp and sockets for a laptop or a music system as attachments and so on. The designer told the senior executives at Godrej who were inspecting her design that "young people like us live in tiny rooms and we need everything together. Our music players and laptops are close to the bed and are invariably shared with a partner." A veteran from the group was quick to respond. "The only regret is that you could have made the sofa a little broader as both of you won't fit in it at the same time."Mixing old-world knowledge with the new-age tastes to design new products that are sharply targeted at the young set is increasingly becoming the norm in the Godrej group. Ramesh Chembath, a senior executive, who's part of the marketing function at Godrej Appliances says that his business division does consumer research mostly among the 23-28 year-olds as this includes the age-group that's planning to set up a new home and also has couples who have been married for a couple of years.Even the television commercials that once featured young couples with children, now have young couples minus the children to send a message that it's an ‘even younger' audience being targeted with its products. And these products range from a refrigerator with an attached music system, that can play your favourite music during cooking, or a LCD television set preloaded with games to cater to an audience that's addicted to gaming and so on. Even old-age products like Godrej Powder Dyes have been relaunched in a gel form.Arijit Ray, president, Mudra-West, whose agency handles the communication of several Godrej brands says that the brand relaunch is effective from the point of view that "it has been undertaken in a caliberated form, so that it does not look like a sudden departure from the past". But another advertising executive says: "There's a century of heritage, but also a lot of baggage. The results of trying to look youthful will not be visible overnight."
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