T.V. SundaramIyengar

T.V. SundaramIyengar was a man of principles and a true visionary. During the 1930's, when riding an automobile was still a distant dream for many Indians, he had the vision to start the first ever rural bus service in Madurai. Business was not only a passion for SundaramIyengar, but also a service to the common man. His innovative and visionary ideas, hard work and determination formed the base for 'T.V SundaramIyengar and Sons Group of Companies', one of India's largest industrial conglomerates. The group started by Iyengar extended its services to motor industry, motor services and finances in the following years. No wonder, today he is regarded as one of the most successful industrialists of his time. T.V SundaramIyengar was also a forward thinker and a stringent follower of Gandhian philosophies. Know all about his life, feats and deeds in the write-up below.

Early Life

T.V SundaramIyengar was born in 1877 in Thirukkurungudi in Thirunelveli district in present day Tamil Nadu (then a part of Madras Presidency). SundaramIyengar started his career as a lawyer after which he moved on to work for Indian railways and later in a bank.

Thought of the Day

There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.            

                             Henry Ford

Interview with JONATHAN NELSON

We don't see digital as a separate channel

Jonathan Nelson has been chief executive officer of Omnicom Digital, a unit of the $12.5 billion global marketing communications conglomerate Omnicon Group Inc., for the past three years.

Omnicom Digital leads strategic initiatives across all digital properties at Omnicom Group, which is expanding its footprint in India and in November took a majority stake in one of the largest domestic advertising firms--Anil Ambani-controlled Mudra Group.
Nelson has founded, or played a critical role in building, a number of organizations, including Accrue, a Web measurement and analytics company, and Organic, which developed the Apache server.
He was in India in late November to firm up Omnicom Group's plans for digital marketing in the country. In an in- terview, he spoke about the group's digital strategy in India and his perspective on mobile advertising and social media. Edited excerpts:

What's your digital strategy in India, especially after acquiring a stake in Mudra Group?
Omnicom has a three-stage strategy for building our digital offering across India. First is to drive digital into every corner of our business. We don't see digital as a separate communications channel. I believe that in the next four- five years, no one will be talking about “digital“ technology, just as no one talks about “the digital iPhone“ or the “digital notebook computer“ today.
Second, we make sure all our talent, across all of our agencies, is digital capable. We run many educational programmes, such as “Emerge“, held in New York a few weeks ago, or “Digital: Works“, held in India and Shanghai in October. We also have a distance learning programme aimed at educating people about emerging technologies. Third, digital technology rests on a platform that generates efficiencies and economies of scale. To create that platform, we rely on technology partners from inside and outside of the Omnicom universe.

HR Glossary

Performance planning

A total approach to managing people and performance. Involving setting performance aims and expectations for the organization, departments and individuals employees.

Personal grievance

A complaint brought by one party to an employment contract against another party. See Part 9 of the Employment Relations Act 2000.

Probationary Arrangements

Where the parties to an employment agreement agree as part of the agreement that an employee will serve a period of probation or trial after the commencement of the employment. See Section 66 Employment Relations Act 2000

Quality of Work life as HR strategy

Introduction

In modern scenario, Quality of work life (QWL), as a strategy of HRM is being recognized as the ultimate key development among all the work systems. This should be the basic strategy of any organization towards its wholesome growth. Today’s workforce consists of literate workers who except more than just money from their work. Apart from money and job security, there are some other requirements which are contributing smooth functioning of the organization. Over the years, Industrial revolution, IT revolution has urged an imperative need to look in to the QWL in a new perspective. Again the new global workplace demands prerequisites such as higher order thinking skills like experimental enquiry, problem solving and team work.

Quality of work life (QWL) was conceptualized in terms of need satisfaction stemming from an interaction of workers' needs (survival, social, ego, and self-actualization needs) and those organizational resources relevant for meeting them. It was hypothesized that need satisfaction (or QWL) is positively related to organizational identification, job satisfaction, job involvement, job effort, and job performance; and negatively related to personal alienation.

                                                                                                                   

Concept

Ø  Quality of work life is what exact quality an employee has on his living environment due to the condition which he set by being employed.

Ø  It can be the status that he gets it in the society or his increasingly spending capacity or the overall environment available for him in his work life.

Ø  It is totally a physically as well as psychological combination of satisfying tangible and intangible needs of a person by virtue of his profession.

Ø  The QWL approach considers people as an asset to the organization rather than as costs. It believes that people perform better when they are allowed to participate in managing their work and making decision.

Ø  Quality of work life (QWL) is viewed as an alternative to the control approach of managing people.

Ø  This is integral to any organization towards its wholesome growth. This is attempted on par with improved strategies of Customer Relation Management.

Ø  Over the years, since industrial revolution, much experimentation has gone into exploiting the potential of human capital in work areas either explicitly or implicitly.

Ø  Thanks to the revolution in advanced technology, the imperative need to look into the QWL in a new perspective is felt and deliberated upon. Major companies are tirelessly implementing this paradigm in Human Resources Development (some call it People's Excellence). Globalization has lowered national boundaries, creating a knowledge-based economy that spins and spans the world.

Ø  Through good Human Resource Management and practices this self-motivation chip can be instilled in the organizational behavior leading to excelling performance.

Internet Advertising: Gone Offline

Many online players are stepping out to aggressively advertise on traditional media to get more business

 

What is common to Flipkart, Olx, Quikr, Yehbhi and Communitymatrimony apart from the fact that they are online brands? Well, they all share ad space with the Pepsis, the Cokes and the Airtels of the world on television. And are equally visible on print too.

According to industry estimates, in the last two years, online companies have increased their ad spends on TV by a staggering 445 per cent. In 2009, online companies together spent Rs 58.4 crore on television. That figure leapt to Rs 201 crore in 2010. This year, in just ten months (January to October) ad spends by online brands have raced way past the previous year's figure to Rs 315 crore. At this rate they could end up close to Rs 400 crore for 2011-more than six times that were spent two years ago.

The story is no different when it comes to advertising in print media. It's estimated that online brands occupied print ad space worth close to Rs 266 crore between January and October. Radio is smaller, but spends still went up from Rs 4.5 crore in 2009 to Rs 7.7 crore in 2010. This year (January-October), that figure has almost quadrupled to Rs 30 crore. These figures, however, do not include spends by media houses-or their associate companies-which use their own media, be it print, television or radio.

An example of the above would be the Times Group properties like Magicbricks or Indiatimes. The advertising spends against some of their names are so stupendous that only a media-linked or owned brand would have spent that kind of money. Naaptol (that had a private equity deal with the Times Group some time ago), for instance, consumed print media space worth Rs 555 crore this year. Leaving them out might be unfair but including their advertising spends would certainly distort the real picture.

What is it that is pulling so many new age companies to use traditional media to showcase themselves?

Inspired move

It was Naukri.com that started it all. Way back in 2004, it came up with its first TVC that had a painful, irritating boss at the centre of things. Two years after this came the unforgettable Hari Sadu TVC. After a hiatus, Hari Sadu made a comeback in 2010 and took the stage by storm again. Bharatmatrimony was another online pioneer that went the TV commercials way to spread its message.

Success stories like these sparked off an offline advertising rush among digital brands. For long, digital brands were quite happy about using the online medium to generate leads and invite potential customers on to their respective websites. As the search for new customers and brand building intensified, they moved to the traditional advertising route.

Today, most online companies spent 20-30 per cent of their total advertising and marketing budgets online. The rest goes into traditional media. Ravi Vohra, vice president (marketing), Flipkart, one of the largest advertisers on TV among online brands, says, "Traditional media helps create a feeling of reliability and authenticity amongst consumers." Is this trend the proverbial flash in the pan? No, believe industry experts. They opine that this trend is here to stay and will continue to grow together with the digital business.

Small regional TV channels seek share of govt's advertising pie

The Association of Regional Television Broadcasters of India (ARTBI), an industry body of smaller regional news and general entertainment channels, has asked the gov- ernment to allocate 33% of its annual advertising expendi- ture to smaller, regional TV channels.

The industry body also wants changes in the empanel- ment rules of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP), which handles the activities for the govern- ment, so that smaller channels become eligible for govern- ment advertising.

ARTBI, formed six months ago, claims it has 90 members, including regional general en- tertainment and news chan- nels such as Sadhna News from Sadhna Media Pvt. Ltd, India News from Delhi-based Information Media Pvt. Ltd, Maurya TV Pvt. Ltd in Bihar and Jharkhand, besides Hary- ana's PTC Network Pvt. Ltd to name a few. “The association was formed to give a voice to region-specific and medium and small-sized channels", said Rakesh Sharma, the convenor of ARTBI.

The association representa- tives met minister for information and broadcasting Ambika Soni to discuss their concerns.
Two officials from the ministry confirmed the meeting although they declined to be identified as they are not au- thorized to speak to the media.

The small broadcasters' association has also proposed that DAVP should empanel small, region-specific chan- nels. Currently, DAVP rules prevent channels with an all India viewership share of below 0.02% to get empanelled.
The clause eliminates several channels from the ambit of government advertising.

Is It Time for a Trading Tax?

To its advocates, the idea is a no-brainer: Charge a tiny tax on each stock, bond or derivative trade to raise badly needed revenue, discourage dangerous short-term speculation and make Wall Street help clean up its own mess.

"It seems like an idea whose time has come," says Jack Bogle, founder and retired CEO of The Vanguard Group, the mutual fund firm, who argues that a transaction tax would help curb speculative trading. "Speculation has triumphed over investment, and the implications of that are very bad."

The concept has been around for decades. In 1972, Princeton economist James Tobin, a Nobel laureate, proposed a transaction tax to calm the currency markets. The idea has since been suggested for stock, bond and derivatives markets as well. "It's an old question in finance -- whether you want to throw some sand in the wheels of the financial markets," notes Wharton finance professor Itay Goldstein. "I can certainly see the benefit in having [a] tax, because in some cases I do think that speculation might be getting out of control."

Recently, the idea has gained momentum. In September, the European Union's executive body recommended a 0.1% tax on stock and bond trades, and a 0.01% tax on derivatives trades. In the United States, where members of Congress have introduced transaction tax bills several times, only to see them stall in committee, the issue is getting renewed attention.

What has changed? Following the financial crisis, many want to make Wall Street pay. And, of course, governments are eager to find new revenue. Also, the soaring growth of computerized "high-frequency trading" has triggered concerns that too much speculation is roiling the markets and hurting ordinary investors. The "flash crash" of May 2010 -- when stocks inexplicably plunged 700 points, then quickly rebounded -- raised concerns about the potentially damaging effects of high-frequency trading. A very small tax could curb the practice by wiping out the tiny profits produced on individual trades, millions of which are conducted daily.

"I think we're in an environment where people are looking for someone to blame," says Gus Sauter, managing director and chief investment officer at Vanguard, who opposes transaction taxes. "If it's not Goldman Sachs, it's high-frequency traders."

Limited Seating: Mixed Results on Efforts to Include More Women at the Corporate Board Table

Fortune Magazine's annual Most Powerful Women list arrived on newsstands last week. With it comes inevitable chatter from the business press about who is in and who is out, who moved up a few notches and who has been knocked down a few pegs. And yet, perhaps what is most striking about the list is not the jockeying among the boldface names. Rather, it is the fact that even amid a lingering financial crisis that has highlighted poor governance and the scarcity of senior women at big corporations, the total number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 is only 15, up from just two when the list debuted in 1998.

Indeed, at a time when women have gained more standing in politics and society, they have not made equal progress at the top of corporate America. Women comprise half of the workforce but hold only 16% of the board seats in Fortune 500 companies. More than 10% of those companies have no women serving on their boards.

In many countries, the numbers are even starker. Women hold approximately 12% of the seats on corporate boards in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. In China, women hold 8.5% of board seats; in India, that figure is 5.3%, and in Japan, only .9% of directors are women, according to data compiled by Catalyst, a nonprofit group seeking to expand opportunities for women in business.

Efforts to change this, however, have been under way for several years. Norway in 2003 passed a quota law requiring that by 2008, 40% of all board members at state-owned and publicly listed companies had to be women. Today, women represent 37.9% of corporate boards in Norway, according to the European Professional Women's Network. Other countries, including Spain and the Netherlands, have passed similar laws.

But while quotas accomplish one very big goal, they have unintended negative effects. For one, companies looking to appoint new board members end up choosing from a smaller talent pool. Because the pool is narrowed, the candidates are less experienced. Second, quotas could perversely perpetuate discrimination; companies might purposely appoint less competent women to the board as tokens, but not take their views seriously. Instead, rules that encourage companies to foster diversity on their boards -- rather than coerce them into all looking the same -- may be a better way to get more women in U.S. boardrooms, experts say.

"The problem with quotas is that they are a one-size-fits-all solution," notes Wharton finance professor Alex Edmans. "Shareholders have an incentive to appoint the best people to a board. It is true that, in some firms, there may be discrimination, but it is very difficult for regulators to know which firms these are. The best solution [to eliminate] discrimination is market forces. If a firm is not promoting the best people -- some of whom are invariably women -- it will lose business. It's just like a baseball team that refuses to hire ethnic minorities: It will be less effective on the field and lose its league position."

According to Wharton management professor Michael Useem, board composition mattered when it came to which banks, for example, had greater or lesser tolerance for taking on large quantities of subprime loans. "The question is, did we learn anything from the financial crisis in corporate governance? The answer, hopefully, is yes.... Boards are becoming more directly engaged in setting strategy. The more diverse the background, expertise and experience of the board members, the better they will be at issuing guidance."

That's a good argument not just for gender diversity, but also for bringing in board members of different races and nationalities, and from different industries, Useem notes. "You want somebody in the room who, on any given issue, is going to say, 'Hold on a second. Are you sure you want to do this?'" he says. "You want people from outside the U.S., you want people familiar with other countries and people who can think about how consumers, male or female, view the company."

Embracing mobile marketing

Over the next few years, a series of technologies such as near-field communications will reach maturity and converge on our mobile phones, transforming consumer behaviour in ways that marketers, technologists and futurist can't yet predict.

Over the next few years, a series of technologies such as near-perfect voice recognition and near-field communications will reach maturity and converge on our mobile phones, transforming consumer behaviour in ways that marketers, technologists and futurists can't yet predict.

The worldwide demand for smartphones and 'service delivered through software' will facilitate a bewildering array of applications (and apps) through which brands will communicate, market to, and service their customers. Marc Andreesen of Netscape fame calls it 'software eating the world'.

Smartphones will reach near ubiquity as device and data plan prices continue to fall. So, how does the modern marketer, who waits to jump on the mobile marketing bandwagon, navigate through this rapidly changing ecosystem in order to strive for what they've always wanted, acquire new customers, increase sales, and build brand loyalty?

Know your customer

The high functionality of smartphones and the bandwidth provided by 3G now means consumers can be reached via multiple channels (voice, SMS, MMS, email, social and location services) on the one mobile device 24x7. Our phones are truly an extension of ourselves, and the one device that ensures marketers are reaching one consumer, and not one household. And, that is precisely why the burning issue for the modern marketers is one of identity. Failure to resolve your databases of customer phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and social IDs to a unique identity is costly. The over-messaged consumer is a fatigued consumer with little patience for brands who don't really know who they are. The crucial first steps in this journey require you to cleanse and resolve your existing data, and make sure new contact information is validated as you collect it.

Consumer data quality has always been a key issue for the successful direct marketer. Likewise, the key to a successful mobile campaign, as it's always been for any direct channel, is to make sure it's targeted at the consumer's needs and desires. Relevancy is the best tool for high engagement. Marketers now have more data than ever on which to build relevant campaigns. Behavioural data from web browsing and transactional data from e-commerce promise great insight as to what consumers really want, rather than what they told you in a preference page or survey. When consumers opt-in for your mobile communications using their Facebook identity, imagine how relevant your messages can be, coupling their shared social data with behavioural and transactional histories.

Analytics is then crucial to avoid drowning in a sea of data. If you think cross-selling is a myth, consider that 30 per cent of Amazon sales come through recommendations at the point of sale. Aside from propensity modelling, building a preferred channel model based on consumer responsiveness is critical to understand what content the consumer responds to and when. SMS is an interruptive channel, so use it only when the consumer wants to be interrupted, like when product supply is low, or time is short.