Showing posts with label IIPM Think Tank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IIPM Think Tank. Show all posts

Friday, October 05, 2012

CLOUD COMPUTING: FLIP SIDE

Cloud Computing has been Hyped Ever since its Evolution by Amazon. But Inherent Contradictions in the Concept Threaten its Potential as the next big thing in The IT Services Space. 

Cost reduction was the sole purpose of cloud computing but India does not get a benefit over there either, as cloud as a service is at a nascent stage in India and the costs of implementation are very high compared to the dollar driven markets. In addition, while cloud computing requires all original software on which one could use the platform, the Indian market still continues to be hit badly by piracy, with 65% of the country using pirated versions; the Indian IT industry loses a whopping $2.03 billion due to piracy as per an IDC report on global piracy. Security on the cloud is again a major concern. In the eighth Annual Global Information Security Survey CSO, 12,847 technology executives around the world were surveyed and most of them were not confident about putting the data on the cloud. Almost 62% cited security concerns. Out of the 49% who have even entered the cloud, a major 39% have deeper concern about their data safety. In a report from Ernst & Young, 72% of respondents from India said they were not ready to take up cloud computing and admitted to deep concerns on security. Vishnu Prashanth P., Senior Manager, CSC quotes “Many of the business in India are slow in adopting cloud solutions because they are not sure about data management on the cloud.” Gartner itself interviewed 148 Indian companies recently and 42% had not deployed or were unsure and negative about deploying cloud computing through 2011.

Sunil Chavan, Director-Software Group & Solutions, APAC, Hitachi Data Systems tells B&E, “Considerations like managing cost, creating virtualized – cloud ready infrastructure for IT agility, adoption of low cost, cloud-based storage solution with a utility-based, “pay as you grow” model, driving revenue growth, improving customer loyalty and generating a higher ROI will be key areas to shift on the cloud”. Vendor lock-in is another big concern for CIOs that’s not allowing them to take the big plunge as cloud consumers. Once you sign up with a cloud service provider, the switching costs and portability issues become huge. So interoperability and standards become critical inhibitors. Even disaster management needs to evolve in the instance of any mishap from the service provider’s end. Gartner also points out that a user company needs to ascertain where its data is being hosted and whether the vendor is complying with the laws of that country. Also, customers need to ascertain the safety of their data if the vendor goes bankrupt or gets acquired.

All in all, while clouds provide significant cost and scalability advantages, deploying the technology is not without a fair share of contradictions and risks, especially with respect to the Indian market. As it stands today, the Indian IT- BPO market, which is estimated to be around $71.7 billion and which contributes 5.8% to India’s GDP, has already developed much of the required infrastructure to sustain for the next 10 years. These companies may attempt to achieve piecemeal objectives through cloud computing adoption, but they look largely unlikely to pursue it as an alternative to their existing framework. Cloud computing could only be helpful to SMBs who will be entering the booming Indian IT market, and there are numerous instances of those happening. Since they aren’t normally amenable to adopting proper diligence and being technology savvy, they may ignore (and in fact some of them are ignoring) the disadvantages in favour of enormous cost savings. In essence, while the hype is big, this is an idea half a decade too early into India!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 10, 2012

BANKS ON THE MOVE: LVB

Lakshmi Vilas Bank is planning to grow purely on secured lending. That kind of risk aversion is not only rare but is quite strange given the industry in which the bank operates. But does such a strategy really work? B&E runs through the bank’s top management to understand the answers. 

Seen in the background of the fact that the unsecured loans space (including credit card lending) is growing at a mind-boggling CAGR of 40% (between 2006 and 2009 as reported by RNCOS), what the Angel Broking analyst mentions seems to be pertinent.

Another usual suspect for any regional bank that forwards the ‘going national’ theory is a quick check of its number of branches. And LVB fails even the first identification parade. The bank has a small and concentrated network of just 274 branches (of those 171 are situated in Tamil Nadu alone). Given that India has above of 626 districts, LVB clearly has much to do about everything, and especially its branches. Nevertheless, the bank seems to be waking up and has already applied for 100 licenses with an aim to open up at least 60 new branches in various parts of North and West India.

Compare this plan to the fact that State Bank of India, which already is a huge bank present in most places, has planned to open above of 1000 branches in 2010-11; and you immediately start realising that perhaps LVB doesn’t realise the kind of competition they’re up against.

Moving on, logically, in such small banks where CASA deposits are low, the cost of deposits tends to be very high. LVB is no different. With CASA deposits forming only 19% of the total deposits, the bank is suffering from high deposit costs. And this is making the bank lose out to competitors in the home loan market as well. But now, in their attempts to increase the CASA base, the bank’s total deposits have grown by 23.28% in the last fiscal to Rs.90.75 billion from Rs.76.31 billion in FY’08.

Meanwhile, to strengthen the home loan segment of the bank’s portfolio, which currently forms only 3% (Rs.2 billion) of its gross advances at the end of June, 2010, LVB has firmed up plans to float a housing finance company. This will also help the bank to get rid of the drawback of non-lucrative interest rates due to high cost of funds. Apart from these, the bank has recently attempted to get into other revenue generation ventures like distribution of insurance products. For the same purpose, it has tied up with LIC and Bajaj Allianz for both life and non-life insurance products. As per the bank, these new initiatives are taking off well.

Moreover, to penetrate the masses, LVB is now working on drafting a town-wise strategy, particularly for the semi urban areas where it currently has 105 branches. Also, it is planning to raise fresh capital by diluting 40% of its equity to fuel the capital requirements for expansion and banking upon its IT expertise to gain momentum.

All said and done, when one brings push to shove, one can’t help but implore LVB to reconsider their plans to go national. With a strong regional base, and with limited capital – apart from their legacy risk aversion behaviour – a sensible Sun Tzu driven strategy could well be to decide not to expand nationally now; and live to see another day. RBI’s surveys prove that 40% of the country’s over 1.2 billion population still do not have access to banking, and a considerable lot live in southern pockets of the nation. And given the push of the UID scheme across India’s rural pockets, who knows LVB might actually end up staking its claim for the post of India’s largest (and most risk averse) regional bank.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face

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Saturday, September 08, 2012

Big just got Bigger!

“Power” to Big B as he turns a year older! Or is it younger? A neighbour’s-envy-owner’s-pride kind of a movie lineup apart, Amitabh Bachchan recently scorched the ramp for designers Karan Johar and Varun Bahl, and rekindled the original KBC frenzy on the small screen. All that for a 68-year old… are there any superlatives left in the book?


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
 
IIPM : The B-School with a Human Face
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Monday, September 03, 2012

“WE ARE ENGAGING INTO A LOT MORE EXCLUSIVE DEALS”

Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO, UTV Motion Pictures, talks exclusively to B&E on how the studio model has helped them to retain sustained growth

He heads the most profitable vertical and successful vertical of the UTV group. His association with Ronnie and the group traces back to the time when Ronnie had just started his cable TV venture and had come to Siddharth Roy Kapur’s house to talk about it. Siddharth ended up joining Ronnie then. The man at the helm of affairs for the motion pictures division feels that Ronnie has always tested new waters, which has made his time in UTV very exciting.

B&E: There has been a 14% increase in your revenue this year. How has an IP focus and the ‘Studio Model’ approach helped you in this regard?
SK: Studio model helps in the number of movies you put out and the quality of the movies. You are able to zone in on the quality content in order to keep the level of growth. Intellectual property is the most important thing that you are creating and it has got value beyond the short term. We’ve been able to leverage on that time and again. Our syndication team looks at exploiting each film on every platform in every market across the world and this happens on a continuous basis and not just in the year that the movie has released in the market.

B&E: UTV Motion Pictures has signed a series of non exclusive TV rights syndication deals of over `1 billion. How have you leveraged on that?
SK: We keep doing such deals and off late we have been doing exclusive deals a lot more than the non-exclusive ones because the competition in broadcasting space has become fierce these days. That is why the satellite prices have also gone up. Since we have a lot of movies to offer to the broadcasters, they are able to derisk the acquisition because if one movie doesn’t justify the acquisition price, the other one will more than justify it. Secondly, they are able to come to one studio and do a bulk purchase. And with us they are assured of certain quality as well.


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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Finally, you may forget about it!

After 32 years, the Centre reiterates its irrevocable right over enemies

This is as unfathomable and confounding as it gets, even by Indian standards of justice. Recently the Centre passed the long awaited (32 years long to be precise!) “enemy property bill”, which is expected to close all possible hue and cry over the issue. For the uninitiated, “enemy property” means the property left by those who left for Pakistan after partition. After the 1965 Indo-Pak war, both the countries promulgated the Enemy Property Act in 1968 and seized properties in the forms of lands, shares, bonds etc. as a matter of right. Pakistan seized assets worth `109 crore of Indians who left Pakistan and India seized assets worth `70.99 crore of those who migrated to Pakistan. Since then, Indian relatives of those who migrated have been claiming the land their relatives left behind.

The debate took an interesting turn when President Pratibha Patil passed an ordinance on July 2, 2010 against Amir Mohamed Khan, Raja of Mehmoodabad, preventing him from possessing properties worth `30,000 crore, which his parents had left when they migrated to Pakistan. After 32 years of courtroom drama, the SC gave him the right of possession. Pratibha Patil’s ordinance came all of sudden when his success led to agitation among several others to claim 20,000 other similar properties. The Centre had been quiet for fear of alienating the Muslim vote-bank but after the growing agitation, the Centre was forced to pass the bill to extend the President’s ordinance with a strict clause – once a property is labelled as “enemy property,” it cannot be claimed by relatives. Even the court cannot transfer ownership rights of such property.


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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

happiness for tomorrow

Innumerable marketers are selling ‘happiness for tomorrow’ but ‘love market’ offers memories of the past... 

I pass by my ex-lovers, I would definitely be courteous to stop by and talk. But, I don’t understand the relevance of giving out a day or going to the extent of making friends with people who have deliberately been made a thing of the past. I would rather focus on making the present relationship better,” says 28-year-old Jaikaran Oberoi, who has been through a series of flings as well as serious relationships.

The nature of love differs across cultures and as scholar William Jankowiak observed, “Romantic passion is a byproduct of an interplay between biology, self, and society”. In a study to learn about the differences in Love across Cultures (LAS), it was discovered that the ‘Chinese participants were more endorsing of yuan (fated and predestined love) and the Russians were less likely to require love as a basis for marriage. While the Japanese agreed less with certain romantic beliefs, the Americans were more endorsing of secure attachments.’

However, no culture except the Vietnamese seems to have made place for the lovers who due to various reasons cannot be with each other. Though, the openness in marital relationships to admire the ‘old flames’ is admirable here, assigning a full-fledged ‘love market’ to the cause only hints at the society’s rules and conditions to temper down love in the very first place!

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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Still “good friends”

Will she, won’t she act with Ranbir? The rumour mills were set abuzz when Deepika Padukone was not seen in a soft drink commercial that featured Ranbir Kapoor and was a brand endorsed together by the duo when they were a couple. But Deepika has been vehemently denying such rumours and maintains that she shares a good equation with Ranbir and that there is no need to “read between the lines”! Let’s wait and watch when they finally get around to bettering the magic they had created in Bachna Ae Haseeno!


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