[LAKSHYA_IIM]

Originally Posted by crazyfootballer

Starting with the third point, I will definitely try out these new flavours. The reasons - may be i like the flavor or it could be just out of curiosity. Atleast once i'll try out if didn't like i will not buy that again. Eg - I bought cafechino just because i thought it would be good (coffee + cola) and this is the day before the ad came and i didn't like it so i never bought it again.

Yes, i do think they result in profitability because as these are not long term brands so here repo building is not the most important factor its just to make consumers more inquisitive abt and lure them to try out these new drinks. Sometimes these promotions are accompanied with some event going on. If it connects it certainly results in profits. Eg - Pepsi Blue which came at the time of World Cup. It certainly boosted pepsi sales.

Well, I am quite doubtful whether these promotions pull up the parent brand image or not!!! As I said since these are short term brands they really want to make impact for that much amount of time and not brand building is not te most imp factor. People relate black cola when they hear coke or pesi not their clear or cafechino flavour. But at the same time i would also like to add that if pepsi or coke comes with a series of good short term flavurs then it may pull up the parent brand image.

I know i have put my points very vaguely sorry for that. Criticis and suggestions are welcomed.

Edit - Strategy ke bare mein to likhna bhool hi gaya, kal likhoonga

hey crazy i guess we cant predict what u......... as these are not long term brands

suppose one of this brand clicked say for pepsi

So my take......

besides of profitabilty and sales boosting to get an attention of the customers to new thing and if it clicks then

[raka_21]

It has been a quite eventful month in the Bike circuit. With Yamaha planning a second bike plant in India and also announcing abt changing ita policy in India. Suzuki entered Indian Market with launch of Suzuki Zeus yesterday and also Suzuki Heat is in pipeline. In the first week of this month TVS also came up with VS Victor GLX 125. So quite a few developments and also many are due this year.


Disscussion Points:
1) Do you see any shift in the mindset of the Indian mass(or may be Bike companies) as a whole as quite a lot of 125 cc bikes are being launched. And also whats the future of Rs 70,000+ bikes..

2) If u had been CEO of a bike company what would have been ur strategy in the present times.

[latecomer1]

Originally Posted by raka_21

It has been a quite eventful month in the Bike circuit. With Yamaha planning a second bike plant in India and also announcing abt changing ita policy in India. Suzuki entered Indian Market with launch of Suzuki Zeus yesterday and also Suzuki Heat is in pipeline. In the first week of this month TVS also came up with VS Victor GLX 125. So quite a few developments and also many are due this year.

The more, the merrier for us prospective customers!! Dat news abt suzuki makes me go mmmmmm....

Originally Posted by raka_21

1) Do you see any shift in the mindset of the Indian mass(or may be Bike companies) as a whole as quite a lot of 125 cc bikes are being launched. And also whats the future of Rs 70,000+ bikes..

The indian mindset sure is changing. With more people ending up with enough disposible income, and not everyone feeling snoggy to buy his first car, now people with big bike dreams can and do shell out the moolah to buy these mean machines. No wonder bikes like Karizma, eliminator, endeavour and even Bullet have managed to create niche markets for themselves.

Originally Posted by raka_21

2) If u had been CEO of a bike company what would have been ur strategy in the present times.

Well... that would depend a lot on the kind of image i have as a bike co. If i am a multinational selling niche bikes, like yamaha, ducati, or BMW, i'd stick to my image and make niche bikes customised for the indian market ,price it competitively with the present niche market, and would initially bank upon small numbers to generate interest...
If, on the other hand, i was a newbie entrant, i would have a two prong strategy of having a few "bread earner" models like the bajaj CT-100 to generate volume sales and keep the revenue healthy. Besides that, i would work upon a mid-segment model like the pulsar and build my image around that.

[crazyfootballer]

Originally Posted by raka_21

It has been a quite eventful month in the Bike circuit. With Yamaha planning a second bike plant in India and also announcing abt changing ita policy in India. Suzuki entered Indian Market with launch of Suzuki Zeus yesterday and also Suzuki Heat is in pipeline. In the first week of this month TVS also came up with VS Victor GLX 125. So quite a few developments and also many are due this year.

Disscussion Points:
1) Do you see any shift in the mindset of the Indian mass(or may be Bike companies) as a whole as quite a lot of 125 cc bikes are being launched. And also whats the future of Rs 70,000+ bikes..

Definitely, there is a change in the mindsets of people. With more money now at people's disposal, they are willing to buy bikes, cars etc (thanks to the availability of loan atlow interest rates).

One trend which we all can see is that people need more variety in all the things whether it is food, clothes, bikes or cars etc. Hence, bike companies are launching more and more types of bikes. On one end they are launching 125 cc bikes (good mileage) for middle class people who do have the spending power but at the same time need to take care of their budget. These people prefer a bike with good mileage.(Petrol prices are also soaring) On the other hand market for Rs 70,000+ bikes is also growing. Same reason - more spending power and if you'll see these type of bikes are generally for the youth who are fashion conscious, this ia modeern generation who believes in moving with the times.

Bikes are more used in small towns and this is also one of the reasons for a plethora of 125 cc range bikes.

All in all bike industry is booming.

2) If u had been CEO of a bike company what would have been ur strategy in the present times.

It all depends on the type of bike company i own. As one person said in his post that for high end bikes he'll first create a niche then think of expanding - same here. At the same time i would target the lower end as well for the middle class people with a number of bikes in the 125 cc range so that people have different choices to chose from.

P.S - I am not a big bike fanatic so don't know the criteria on the basis of which people buy bikes. I guess bike lovers' suggestions will be more of a help.
@raka - bhai tu hi kuch gyan dede. finally kafi dino baad tu pg pe aa hi gaya and is thread ko revive kar diya

[gaurav200x]

Ok, my views on the topic:

Originally Posted by raka_21

Disscussion Points:
1) Do you see any shift in the mindset of the Indian mass(or may be Bike companies) as a whole as quite a lot of 125 cc bikes are being launched. And also whats the future of Rs 70,000+ bikes..

Well, one thing that can be seen is that the sales has been divided prominently between two sectors: Indian Youth and the older working class. The working class ins't too particular about style. They want a bike, with good power, mileage and efficiency, which would come to least maintainence. Hence the bike companies are coming to a compromise towards 125cc which not only offer decent mileage, but are great power-wise! The new bikes have sturdy design, yet groovy looks! Hence, they seem to be appealling to both.

I think that the bikes that are Rs. 70,000/- + would have to either reduce their prices or come out with new features, to ensure that they still have sizeable market size. However, they future isn't grim and their sales seems to be good.

Originally Posted by raka_21

2) If u had been CEO of a bike company what would have been ur strategy in the present times.

Being a CEO, i would first and foremost, analyse the market type... the kind of customers. If they are in the range of 18-25, the emphasis would be more on style and power and lesser on mileage and if the customers belong to the domain of 25-40, then the emphasis would be more on mileage and economy. I would ensure that the product matches well on all fronts, viz. power, mileage, fuel efficiency, zero maintainence... bcoz an all rounder bike would have the maximum sales.

Also the price should be very competitive... because the bikes lose a lot on that. For that, i can go for some measures. For instance, a very clever measure adopted by maruti would be elimination of inventory. Since, they do not have inventory, they have very efficient measures to eliminate any sort of delay between the production and dispatch. This way, the over all price can be reduced.

[sunnysays]

Originally Posted by raka_21

Disscussion Points:
1) Do you see any shift in the mindset of the Indian mass(or may be Bike companies) as a whole as quite a lot of 125 cc bikes are being launched. And also whats the future of Rs 70,000+ bikes..

100 cc bikes become 125 cc, 125 cc bikes become 150 cc. The Pulsar is
now going to get a new varient... Pulsar 250 cc. So the changes which are
happening and which will continue to happen are namely increase in powerful
bikes and constant refinement in existing models.
With the Indian economy growing at almost 8 % it is logical to assume that
more and more people will have a lot more disposable income. Gone are the
days when people just put their earning in banks and FD's. We are changing
from a saving household to a spend money today type of American household.
This means that the future of Rs.70,000 + bikes is a huge opportunity for Bike
companies to capitalize. A couple of years back people would go and buy a
40,000 bike... now a 60,000 bike is not termed costly.
Infarct what we will now look at in a few years time is the entry of 1,25,000 to
5,00,000 range bikes.

Harley Davidson is presently trying to ease the pollution
norms for powerful bikes which it terms as highway bikes. Currently in India
we dont differentiate between City bikes and Highway bikes. Eventually high
performance bikes like the Harley and top end Suzuki model will come.

Another interesting news i heard is that some companies likes bajaj and tvs are
trying to come up with variants of their existing models which would run on
CNG. This is not confirmed, but when auto rickshaws and cars can run on
CNG, i dont see any reason why the same cant be done with bikes.

[sunnysays]

[quote=kaalki]I read an article which can make up for an interesting case study..

The circulation of newspapers is decreasing in the western world, as more and more youngsters are reading stuff online coz its available for free and its much more updated. Due to less number of copies sold, newspapers want to charge more from the advertisors who arent happy with the circulation. Now what r the steps that the newspapers shud take in order to survive and perhaps grow again ??[/quote]

The newspaper issue is also interesting.

Now newspapers have to keep evolving everyday. Gone are the days of just news reporting. Why would i want to wait for the next day to know whats happening right now... when the same thing i can see live on TV which has sound and image as opposed to just
words in papers.
Remember a thing called Pager ? .... it was such a craze when it came... but its utility vanished when cell phones came. In the same way newspapers should have some Utility, without it they are history. Internet will kill the newspaper, that is a fact.

'News' paper will now change to 'Analysis of News' paper. Rather then 'What' happened they now need to find and report 'Why' it happened. the What part is covered immediately on TV and Internet.
For example, if i saw on TV today that Mittal steel takes over Arcelor, tomorrow i will want to read in a newspaper Why is happened, and what all things happened behind the scene along with expert opinions.

Another important reason for the decline is newsprint as oppose to increase in news websites is advertisement. A full page advertisement in The Times Of India would costs almost Rs.10,00,000 and how many target audience will it reach and will that help in sales is a big question. On the other hand on websites these days, advertisement is usually thru pay per click, which means if a user sees an advertisement and click on it (a potential customer) then only will the advertisement payment be made (and it will be very very low as compared to newsprint).

So what is the future of newspapers ?

1. changing for reporting to in depth analysis
2. exclusive news
3. costlier newspaper (revenue from advertisement will come down)
4. Embracing change and going online (they have no other option)

[sunnysays]

hmm... i wish more people would put up more case studies... kuch karo yaar.

[coolkunal]

Originally Posted by anandv

One more for weekend:

A Canadian company that owns a large real estate portfolio has asked you
what they should do about their portfolio of farmland. The farmland, which
is located in remote rural locations in Alberta, is worth about C$200 million
and was acquired from the Canadian government a few decades ago as an
exchange for services provided. The farmland is not a strategic asset and
the client is not sure why it has held it for so long or why it should own it at
all. In fact, it has chosen, for no particular strategic reason, to sell $10
million of farmland each year. What should they do to maximize the
potential return from this land?

This case seems to have got completely ignored in the deluge of posts.. anyways, this is my point of view:

the company is holding a huge expanse of land in a relatively worthless area. In case the company has got enough resources (financially), it should try to bring up the area. This could be done by lobbying with the government, creating job opportunities, constructing malls and residential areas and schools or something like that. If they company does not have adequate resources for that, then it should sell 10 million dollars worth of land and pump in that money for bringing up the area. That way, the prices of property in that area would rise and the company would have served two purposes:

1. Created better living conditions for people there.
2. made a profit due to increased property prices.

just my 2 cents.

[sahil.r9]

Originally Posted by coolkunal

This case seems to have got completely ignored in the deluge of posts.. anyways, this is my point of view:

the company is holding a huge expanse of land in a relatively worthless area. In case the company has got enough resources (financially), it should try to bring up the area. This could be done by lobbying with the government, creating job opportunities, constructing malls and residential areas and schools or something like that. If they company does not have adequate resources for that, then it should sell 10 million dollars worth of land and pump in that money for bringing up the area. That way, the prices of property in that area would rise and the company would have served two purposes:

1. Created better living conditions for people there.
2. made a profit due to increased property prices.

just my 2 cents.

Hi All PGites.
This is my first reply on the site although i have been studying the articles for a long time. This is a gr8 blog and i find it really interesting. Hats off to Creativity...

Well in this case study the situation of the company is really painful as its asset is worthless in terms of profitability. So wats needed here is an innovative idea.. a deep study of the surrounding area and then the use of the land accordingly can help. For ex. if the area is fertile it can be used for the agricultural purposes..so can be sold at higher costs to the agricultural industry. There have been cases in the past where a simple innovative idea has helped companies making wonders. One such eg. is wen vicks was launched. Its sales were really bad and thus they went to an advertising agency.. they suggested tht the mother in the previous ad should apply more quantity of vicks on the child's body and picturize how to do it as the customer has a tendency to follw wat he sees.. it really boosted the sales of Vicks.
Other suggestions to the company may be:

1) The company should make really good and comfortable farm houses with all the luxurious things and then sell it to the niche class which is lookin for a place to relax eg. film stars, sportstars etc.
2) The company may construct a trade park sort of a thing where in land will be sold to the sector which has to be away from the city to avoid pollutuin eg. heavy engg. factories, chemical industry and provide them good connectivity and lower elect. rates.. (SEZ can be one of the ideas.)

So thats it from my side...keep rocking !!!