Lets look at few ways in which countries build such a brand for themselves

Exclusivity of hosting
Many countries have taken initiative and worked hard to retain certain sports events year after year.
A good example are the 4 grand slams: Australian Open at Melbourne,Australia; The French Open at Paris, France; Wimbledon at Wimbledon, England and The US Open at New York, USA. Tennis stars guage their careers based on these just these 4 tournaments. Fans across the globe eagerly follow these 4 tennis tournaments.
Another example is the Tour de France – the most challenging of all cycle races and one that bestows incredible honour to the winner. Ofcourse there are a number of other cycling events, but the Tour de France is the prize that most cyclists vie for. So do the fans!

By taking an early initiative and branding these events in the psyche of the sporting afficionadoes, these countries/cities/towns (depends what kind of administrator is reading this) enjoy a tremendous brand recall in the minds of the public. This translates into yearly bursts of tourism revenue as well as marketing and advertising pull.

Exclusivity of participating nations
A great example here is The Ashes Test series between the England and Australian cricket teams. Ever wondered why there is so much media buzz before an Ashes series even if one of the teams has been on a damp form all through the season? Well…it just works that way. The sports fan loves a contest. And the sports authorities have ensured that the build up to the Ashes is as high as possible even if not exactly replicating the series excitement. All of this translates to more revenues, TV viewing time, and an added brand recall for England and Australia.

Bidding
Many sporting events like the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, the FIFA World Cup and the like, are hosted on a rotation basis at different countries. The entire bidding process from the draft of the bid, bid submission, bid logistics, infrastructural capabilities, to the marketing and campaigning involved in winning the bid – everything is tied into the brand image of the country or nation that intends to win the bid. This in turn is tied to the revenues, growth potential and opportunities that come by winning the rights to host a major sports tournament.

Name of the tournament
The Sultan Azlan Shah cup is a prestigious field hockey tournament held annually in Malaysia, played by the top ranked teams in the world. The tournament brings a stream of visibility, revenue and brand recall to Malaysia every year. It also helps Malaysia hold its own with the name of the tournament – named after a king of Malaysia, Sultan Azlan Shah. There is instant brand recall associated with the Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia, as also with Sir Frank Worrel for the trophy named after him for the series between West Indies and Australia. Sadly, our very own Indira Gandhi Memorial Cups and the like, dont really have the same impact (case in point: i dont even know which sport it is for!)

Political Impacts
Last week, the Nigerian president suspended the Nigerian football team after their disastrous performance in the ongoing World Cup. The suspension was revoked. The British premier David Cameron watched the England-Germany Round of 16 clash along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He went on record to comment that technology should be used to prevent teams from being denied goals the way England was. Former Australian PM, John Howard often commented on Australia’s cricketing exploits (‘chucker’ to a certain Murali!) and was even in running for the ICC Vice-President this year. Not to mention our very own Sharad Pawar requesting the PM to reduce his workload because of his commitments to cricket (wow!). Sports is often tied to a nation’s pride. Especially a sport in which the country has a history of excellence. No wonder the BCCI reacted so sharply when India exited so early in the 2007 World Cup, or the Brazil soccer federation when the Dutch sent them home. Nelson Mandela used the rugby world cup (aptly won by host nation South Africa) to unite people of different colors in his nation.
These are just some of the many examples…

Key takeaways
1. Every nation should actively promote a sport and persevere in making the national team a world beater in that sport
No,I am not talking about having a ‘national sport’. We dont have to complain that hockey has been neglected even though it has been the national sport of India. Its alright. We know we are world beaters in Cricket. When Indians meet up in the West, they talk cricket. When an Indian interacts with an American, there is a great probability that he would be asked about cricket. There is nothing wrong with that. Hockey was our sporting brand some decades ago. Cricket has become India’s sporting brand today. We should nourish this. And I dont mean to say that we should neglect other sports. We can leave that discussion for another day. The point here is to excel on the global stage in whatever sport we take up. Another great opportunity for us right now is Chess, what with Vishy being crowned as the latest World champ.

2. Every nation should strive to popularize a sport in which it excels.
This will help to create global tournaments involving countries across continents, and thus infuse a healthy shot of tourism revenue, marketing, advertizing and infrastructure dollars. And a concerted effort in this regard can lead to these tournaments becoming exclusive annual events in that country/city/town – thus making for a continuous stream of opportunities and revenue (even if annual).
Opportunity for India: The IPL. If we can make sure that other cricket T20 leagues do not overshadow the IPL, we continue to attract top players and stars, and spread the game to more regions in the world, the IPL can become the world’s hotbed for cricket. We wouldnt be surprised then if someone from say Honduras would learn his cricket in the IPL and inspire a national team in that country. Exaggerating?? Think about it…Didier Drogba’s exploits at Chelsea in the English Premier League have brought so much visibility for his little home country – Ivory Coast.

3. Use sports to spread harmony and peace:

There can be nothing better and more impacting than two countries fighting a sports battle in a sportive manner and spreading warmth and brotherhood amongst each other. I know we are tempted to think of India-Pakistan cricket matches, but we can leave that discussion for another day.

Sure would look forward to your comments

Shantan

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There were some incidences which could have been avoided. In my relative’s office, one of the officers was beaten up for ‘showing the courage’ to turn up for work. Really, such incidences can be avoided, infact should be avoided – they leave a mark in the minds of those affected.

In pure monetary terms, the cost of the Bandh is huge – quoting from this article on Rediff

According to Assocham, the strike eroded the national GDP “by a production loss of nearly a full day which in monetary terms can be roughly estimated at Rs 13,000 crore.”

The calculation is based on assumption that the GDP would stay around Rs 50 lakh crore with a growth rate of over 8 per cent in current fiscal, Assocham added.

I believe in a lot of cases, the ‘support’ to the bandh was a case of people avoiding going out in fear of possible damage in many cases. How useful will such agitations be in real terms, I have my doubts. Over the afternoon, ‘Bharat Bandh’ was a trending topic on twitter – everyone had strong views about the topic.

Quoting a few top tweets on twitter today:

Coming back to the point, it is true that inflation has raised its ugly head in India. Whatever it is, life has become tough with the steep hike in prices of almost all commodities. Those who called the bandh referred to the state of the nation as ‘agitated’. The members of the ruling party however dismissed this as a political game of oneupmanship played by the opposition. What do you think about this? Do post your views in the comments section or on our facebook page .

Finally, leaving you with this enduring image – Bandh-istan – made by the famous cartoonist and good friend Shreyas Navare for HT

Credits: Rediff , HT – links quoted in context.

PS: I haven’t been writing regularly for the past few months. Work had been hectic. But now I promise to write regularly , irrespective of external factors. Keep writing to us about issues you feel about strongly, at contribute AT strat DOT in and we can feature your article on our site. To those who wrote to me to start writing again, Thanks!

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Why I think movies can be a good exchange market?

• Solution to piracy! I think the exchange can actually help in reducing piracy by making common public a shareholder in the movie. People will be much more inclined in reporting piracy if their own financial interests are being harmed by piracy.

• Number of participants: The success or failure of a movie is not in the hands of few people (like sports). The box office success of a movie depends on thousands of moviegoers! Although critics can enhance / dampen the success of a movie but they can’t dictate it. All exchange traded products require the presence of large number of market participants to ensure markets are not manipulated.
• Natural Sellers: Movie producers, distributors, movie halls and investors are natural sellers on the exchange. They can hedge a part of their investment via the exchange.
• Movie Fans, Natural Buyers: Movie fans will like to buy the movies in anticipation of movie doing well. Ofcourse a lot of people will want to buy Twilight Eclipse Opening Box Office rights and it can be actively traded.
• Seed Money to upcoming producers: As far as I understand (and I may be wrong), new upcoming producers find it hard to raise funding and such an exchange can actually help them! The article on yahoo mentioned that big movie houses were against such  an exchange and this could actually be one reason for their disapproval.
• Invest in a single movie, not the production house: Investors currently have no way to express a view on the success of a single movie, and have to take view on a production house and hope that all their movies turn out well. By having single movie futures we can remove this.

What are your comments? What do you think about this idea? Please do let us know…

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BP has made a blunder. No doubt about that! So we shall not even discuss it here. Is only BP responsible? We shall also not discuss it here. Now that BP has agreed to pay $20 billion in payments to the US Government, the main question which people are asking is …. whether $20 billion are enough? Here are some arguments why they are probably not!

• Tourism Industry in the Gulf of Mexico: According to CNN, tourism is about 46% of the Gulf economy i.e. over $100 billion! Has the spill destroyed the tourism industry? Yes, No, Maybe? If ‘maybe’ then till what extent and how much will the loss be? The state governments are saying that the beaches are not closed but will this save the tourism industry? With photographs of wildlife soaked in crude all over the internet, will anyone realistically go to the gulf for tourism? State tourism departments are saying that they are getting cancellations as far as 3 months out. Cancellation rates are being said to be around 50%. If we do back of the envelope calculations and assume 6 months of tourism disruption and 50%  cancellations then it give us $25 billion of tourism revenue lost!
• Unemployment: In a state with 12% unemployement (according to CNN) the after effects of the spill will likely cause more layoffs. With a major overhaul of oil & gas industry and decline in tourism industry, unemployment will spike. This can have major impact on the society near the gulf and can cause various problems. Ofcourse Government will have to take care of the situation but the costs will be very high.
• Real Estate Decline: A natural follow-up of this has to be another shake-up in the real estate valuations around the gulf. Just when US is recovering from 2008 recession, this is not something that anyone will look forward to.
• Clean-Up Costs: Exxon Valdrez spill occurred in 1989 near Alaska and it was an oil tanker leak! According to Exxon they spent over $2 billion in clean up costs. Looking at the scale of current oil spill plus adjusting for inflation, this will amount to atleast $5-8 billion.
• Wildlife Loss: One of the biggest losses caused by this oil spill is loss of wildlife and natural environment. This loss is invaluable and just can’t be measured. The loss of fishes, birds, vegetation and ecological balance cannot be brought back by money! If we can just learn a lesson from this tragedy of not taking nature for granted then it would be a small step towards redemption.
• Oil & Gas Loss: The spill will probably cause stoppage of drilling in deep sea water! This is a good step for all of us in the long term, however in short term it probably means supply shortage and higher oil prices. Because of  negligence of one company, some poor soul will have to pay extra for travel!

Ofcourse too many issues and very little explanation. Hope you enjoyed the video though.

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IIMJobs.com is an interesting site. It attempts to cater to MBA graduates seeking jobs, which is ofcourse a very big segment! I checked the site first time around an year ago and it was like a blogspot blog with job postings. Now ofcourse the site has changed a lot and has a good listing and page layout. If they are able to source good openings and provide good job referrals then definitely they can fill the segment of job openings website.

India definitely needs a good job website. Ofcourse naukri.com and other sites have come up but are they really able to fill the gap? Are they able to fulfill the needs of job searchers? Are they able to provide executive search capabilities or are they just listings of jobs? I feel they are probably not able to do it, but I might be wrong. Any comments please do share.

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“What do you plan to do now ? How do you see your career shaping up – Would you want to join Mckinsey after 4 years – or do you have plans to go to Standford ? I don’t think you would settle for anything less than a harvard” If you have scored a rank in IIT JEE or any other premier entrance exam Medical, Law, Engineering- ( Just that Engineering Entrance has a touch of glamor to itself ) these questions are bound to come to you – from reporters who think students at IIT’s publish a patent every day.Then obviously there are friends_who_would_tag_you_as_god, the aunt who always called you Einstein, the Girl_You_Had_A_Crush on.

And now picture this – a spectacled guy who was locked in a room of a coaching institute for two years, probably 3 (if he wasn’t lucky the first time ), who was ignored by everybody including his family for 2 years -getting the world to attend him – including the girls who nagged him persistently for two years and the good friends who never thought that YOU of all people would make it to Stephens/IIT/NLU/NID  pampering you. And then comes the big advise – I think you should go for Computer Science. The placements were fantastic last year.”

Reality Check –

If you have completed your graduation or are doing a summer intern, the probability of you knowing what you would be doing next summer or a year later is the same as predicting fate of stock markets. Decisions like Which College and Which Branch, are more than often decided with help of  Family and Friends- who normally rely on “Market Trends” to decide which branch/course is better than the other. Decided by the placements and not the interest area, a majority of students end up opting for courses that have best placement history. And yes this condition holds without fail for all the student- be it  Law- Engineering- Commerce- Pure Sciences – Arts – Mass Media.

But to expect a 19 year old student to make an informed decision on the basis of his understanding of  available courses would be unfair. It takes a while to understand one’s areas of interest. However for good or bad the IT jobs have become the default interest area.

SO WHAT EXACTLY TRIGGERS OFF THIS CONFUSION ?

Until and unless one is an exception, the choice of the major subject usually proves to be a fairly important criteria during the placement and hence in deciding the career path.  The irony however is the fact that most of the students do not really choose their branch. end up choosing the nearest possible “best” branch.  Here is an excerpt from an inorganic chemistry lecture that I had attended

(This one in particular was targeted at students from the IIT’s but would fit in well for most of the UG students) -

A Degree is AWARDED to a selected lot of students, while it is GIVEN to a some of them but fortunately or unfortunately, to the rest of them the degree is “THRUSTED” upon.

A “liberal arts” institution can be defined as a “college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum.”  Read this for more .

From my understanding of the term “Liberal Arts”, a student studying them is expected to become well rounded in a number of subjects – from languages and literature, to science and mathematics and everything in between. One also gets to choose a Major (and/or a minor) as an area of focus. This of course is slightly broader than the definition that stems from the term “Classical Education” that included a narrower set of subjects. Liberal Arts colleges (if the seven sisters are a good model to go by) also tend to have smaller classes, and provide a greater set of activities to their students when compared to a larger university.

If we were to talk about a college that is exactly like the ones in the US, then no, it would be safe to assume there are no well known, purely liberal arts schools in India.

However, there are a number of colleges that offer similar courses to their students, although with differences. I’d say Delhi University’s top colleges – St. Stephens, Miranda House and others definitely keep up the tradition of providing BA or BS degrees in various Majors, while allowing students to study other core subjects from different fields. Other major cities like Kolkata and Mumbai have similar, well known colleges as well. All of these colleges are very, very selective  for their top programs – so much so that a large number of people who may get into top engineering or other professional programs may not even be on the list for say, a BA in Economics from them. (The dynamics of these admissions processes is a subject for an entirely new Quora post )

Another point to note here is that increasingly, the rush to join engineering, law or medicine undergraduate programs has really taken over the focus of a lot of high schoolers. Combined with the selectivity of these programs, the relative shortage of options, as well as the inability to foresee strong career options post a liberal arts degree – lots of people never even consider these as their primary

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To be honest whatever I write is probably already covered in the video, except that Binny and Sachin Bansal are from IIT Delhi 2005 batch, one year senior to me! Flipkart is an amazing site and its success makes me very proud. Firstly because the founders are my seniors, secondly because it proves that ebusinesses are possible in India, and thirdly because instead of an established player a startup has been able to crack the ecommerce market of books in India. All credit to Sachin and Binny for having the guts to take the risk, leave their jobs, start a website and take it to such a level. Kudos guys and all the best for the way ahead.

Update: Just a day after this post the following came up in VCCircle! “FlipKart raises upto $10mn from Tiger Global”

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Apple sold 6.1 million original iPhone units over five quarters. The company sold 3.8 million iPhone 3G units in the second quarter of fiscal 2009, ending March 2009, and 12.6 million 3G and 3GS combined, totaling 33.75 million iPhones sold to date (Q4 2009). Sales in Q4 2008 surpassed temporarily those of RIM’s BlackBerry sales of 5.2 million units, which made Apple briefly the third largest mobile phone manufacturer by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. Approximately 6.4 million iPhones are active in the U.S. alone.

Now some of you will already know this Apple has recently taken over Microsoft in terms of stock market capitalization! It is quite amazing that Apple which was an underdog to Microsoft till a few years ago has now a bigger market cap but when you look into google finance the factor comes into mind! Growth!!!

Apple will have to continue growing at a rapid pace. I guess they are counting on making new versions of iPhones every year for continuing sales and it can work, but for always? They also do make new innovations like iPad and new iPod versions which make new sales, but still is it real growth? Isn’t there something which can make the picture even better?

I feel one of the biggest growth for iPhone and in turn Apple can be their India strategy, not just for one time growth but for continuing growth. Checking on Airtel website it seems that iPhone 3G 16GB is available in India for Rs 36,100. Now there seems to be an arbitrage here as iPhone 3GS is available in the UK for GBP 375 which is equivalent to Rs  26,250, and now include some taxes but the number seems quite inflated.

Ofcourse India is probably not the biggest target market for Apple right now, but the important question is whether it should be? I feel India is a major growth market and can be a major sales prospect for not just current sales but also future sales.

1. Currently Nokia dominates the Indian mobile market and makes loads of money from it. Still Apple has the brand appeal and iPhone can tap the market of customers. iPhone will be able to command a bit amount of mobile phone sales in India and give Apple a stronghold
2. Since iPhone 3GS is not available in India and official Airtel models are very expensive, smuggled goods must be making way into the market. That is profit which should go to Apple which is being eaten away by others.
3. People get used to a phone and switching it is not easy. People are already used to Nokia in India but because of iPhone appeal they might change! Apple just needs to make it a little affordable. Once people switch to iPhone it will also be a recurring purchase as people will upgrade themselves to newer models
4. India is a computer market and once people see the power of iPhone they will also consider Apple’s other products! It could mean a bigger boost for mac sales in India
5. And ofcourse last but not the least, India is a growing market with an unbelievable hunger for quality products by the middle class. Apple just needs to tap it once!

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Waiting for the stylus..from Apple!

Woa! What’s a tablet pc without a stylus! That was the trigger for a wonderful lunch time conversation today.

Some of the pre-’ipad’ tablets definitely came with a stylus. A nice sleek piece of finger-ware that allow you to write on the tablet as if like a notepad. Ofcourse..the tablets themselves are a little conventional in their design. The screen of the pc needs to be rotated and then folded backwards. You can then place the tablet like a book or a notepad and take your notes via the stylus. I guess the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet comes with this design.

Apple’s latest piece of stunning gadgetry is in a utopia of its own. 1 million iPad units sold in just the first month!

Well..we were thinking…how about a stylus for the ipad?
The ipad already renders itself for some very wholesome experience with viewing photos, watching videos or reading books. Most of these operations are ‘finger’ controlled making use of Apple’s revolutionary touch-screen technology – now synonymous with almost all Apple devices post the iPhone.

However for actually writing something (by hand), or taking notes (in a classroom or meeting) or simply drawing a caricature, the ipad may seem a little less wieldy on its own. I am not sure coz i havent yet got my hands on one…but just think of it…can you really write that well with your fingers?

Ofcourse..there are already people who have gotten started. Check this video and more:

Third party companies and possibly developers are already designing different models of the stylus for the ipad. Infact there are already some for the iphone and ipod touch and are also being promoted/sold via Apple’s website.

But the real question is: Will Apple itself design and sell a stylus as part of the ipad accessories?? They are already providing a keyboard doc, a case to stack up the ipad as a photo-holder, wireless keyboard…….but not yet a stylus.

Unless Apple designs and sells a stylus as part of its set of iPad accessories…it will be hard to believe that the stylus is infact an integral part of the iPad product strategy. Because it may even impact the iPad design. Where would you stack the stylus after using it?? In your shirt pocket?? Na!

I hope to see the next versions of the iPad come with a neat little slot for stacking an (Apple made) stylus! And well..dont we want to lay our hands on another piece of marvellous design? Trust the stylus to be a neat little blade of white silver……aah well…lets leave the imagination for Apple! They usually dont disappoint.

The other thing running in my mind is the latest news about a federal lawsuit against Apple…all well the anti-trust guys!
Is Apple wrong in closing its domain to outside platforms such as those that support Flash and Adobeware?
Steve Jobs was at his marketing best when he outlined the reasons for the Apple universe having no place for Flash (Adobe) here

Post last month’s software release of iphone OS 4, there was also news about Apple deciding not to allow developers to use non-Apple tools in building apps for the App Store (iPhone/ipod touch/ipad and the like!)

Apple has its reasons for doing so.
While the official explanation has been technology constraints, clearly Apple is trying to play big-brother in ensuring that it can stay ahead of the pack in an exploding market for digital consumption.

The question is: Is Apple right or wrong?

I know that there will be many opinions on this..but my take is that: Apple is not wrong.
Here is my analogy.
Assume the government has 100 acres of land to be sold for retail businesses.
If a big retail chain like Walmart buys out the 100 acres of Government land available, there is nothing wrong with that. Walmart has earned the right to flex its muscles and its money power.

But to buy the 100 acres of land and use it as a parking lot or just simply not do anything, is clearly an attempt to prevent small retailers from growing or investing in the same.

Lets take one more example:
Big companies like Google, Microsoft want to stay at the top all the time.
Whenever there is a new player in the market who threatens their progress, these companies (Google especially, in the last few months) just buy them out.

There is an argument that by buying out these companies, Google is preventing the competition from taking it on.
But what is wrong if YouTube itself planned to sell out to Google to make the big bucks.

So the question kind of gets philosophical. If you have the firepower to take on the best, then beat them at their game. Else sell out to them, make your money and go! Thats what Sabeer Bhatia did with Hotmail.

So is it right for us to accuse Apple for doing wrong?
They have a star product line and they want to stay number one. If developers dont want to develop applications because of Apple’s new regulation on non-Apple tools, they are free to move out to another platform. Apple knows that their superior product and product strategy can afford to command this position. If developers are not happy about this, or if Adobe is upset about Jobs not allowing Flash….well, they should go out on their own and do something better than what Apple does.

Beat them at their own game! Its better than time and money spent on crying foul and setting up litigations and lawsuits! Netscape couldnt do that to Microsoft, but Google is (with their steady build of online versions of Microsoft’s core offerings)

For all those marketing and legal geniuses reading this – i know you guys have a different point of view which is perhaps right. I might be wrong in this…..but think about it! You really think Apple should be faulted for a product that nobody else can do well?? I dont think so

Shantan
PS: A note about Apple that i read somewhere that sounded really cool: Apple is a software company that builds mindblowing hardware!!

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With Maharashtra expected lead the development of the country, the basics have to be right. Today, Mumbai is facing water shortage that can get more serious if rains do not come early and in good volumes. Clearly, good water management has to be a priority , given the huge influx of crowds coming to Maharashtra from other parts of the country.

Another issue which has become serious at a country level of late is the Naxal issue. I had briefly touched upon the same here

Firstly, the issue of security – particularly in the naxal affected areas has to be resolved. While there cannot be any quickfire solution here, the problem needs to be resolved urgently and at a national level. Particularly symbolic was how after the recent statement by the Home minister, policemen were killed by Naxal attacks in Gachiroli district in Maharashtra. This issue needs to be solved at a national level.

Another key area perhaps that can alter the landscape is the telecom sector . If there is one sector that has huge potential in the coming months, its telecom – particularly with 3G coming up soon (by September). How the license providers open the floodgates to superior data and voice services is going to be very important for the state’s progress in the short to medium term. One area of concern is that while world is moving to 4G , India hasn’t even deployed 3G yet. For the cutting edge sectors to remain competitive, having good technology infrastructure is paramount and should be considered in the plan ahead.

There are lots of issues to cover as well, such as education, infrastructure, finance, IT etc. Encouraged by the responses to the last article on Dubai, I wrote an open ended article and am asking for your views about the way ahead for Maharashtra. You can write about a sector, an issue, or even something specific where you have something to share. If you wish, you can share your thoughts on our Facebook fan page as well.

Map courtesy: 1

Twitter @siddheshj

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