SIMSREE Media Committee
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FROM THE EDITOR
SIMPOSIUM’12 MEDIA COMMITTEE
India has come a long way postindependence. It has gone through an image makeover from being the land of snake charmers to torchbearers of knowledge. This wasn't an overnight transition but the welldeserved outcome of dedication towards innovation. This is a cyclic and dynamic process which needs constant attention to the ever changing trends in the market.
EDITORS Ankita Taksande Akhila Nair Atahar Aland
DESIGN TEAM Jayesh Shelar
Futuristic India highlights the new trends that help face challenges with an innovative vision. For instance Cloud Computing has answered the infrastructure management woes of many a organization by introducing the concept of leasing out digital space. Also
Krutik Shah
GRAPHICS TEAM Karan Vora Sayali Kasar
every individual can be a major challenge. But healthcare has gained impetus in recent years thanks to the various innovative measures which aim at ensuring efficient facilities to every individual by capitalizing on large volumes and thereby not compromising on the profits. Depleting fuels has been a burning issue for almost a decade, and the obvious answer to it is green technology! but is it so simple?? Its implementation and study is still is in the nascent phase with many loop holes, which need to be addressed before green technology becomes the final solution. India is now utilizing its population and
IN SIDE
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AAdhaar, The Identity of Futuristic India
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India, The Next Manufacturing hub
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Right to Broadband
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Can Green Energy Replace Fossil fuels
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Digital Marketing, Emerging Trend
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Interview
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Future of Healthcare
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Future of ecommerce
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Cloud computing
The one area where technology is dominant and growing at an exponential rate is the Telecom sector, and to have a sustainable inclusive growth, increasing the penetration of broadband is the need of the hour. With the entire world going viral, Digital Marketing and Ecommerce has gained enough footing among the wired population and is slowly on the path of making e-space the one stop shop for all products. The Population of India has long since moved from being an issue to being the growthdriving factor. But maintaining a central database of the 1.3 billion population is still a herculean task, which is exactly what Aadhar, the central UID plans to address. Health care is imperative for the overall development of any nation. And in a country like India where 70% of the population resides in the villages, catering to each and
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slowly emerging as the next manufacturing hub, with companies like TATA, ITC and L&T leading the race to the top. Simposium’12 is a collusion of these selected articles, highlighting new trends which answer an existing problem in the most optimum way. Against the background of a thorough research, the writers have put in their analysis in a simple, yet articulate manner, helping the readers gain an insight on the 'Emerging Trends for Futuristic India'. Here we would like to thank Prof. Ashish Pawaskar for taking time out of his busy schedule and helping us select the best among all the entries received. Also SImposium would have been incomplete without the immense support and motivation of our Director Dr. M A Khan. Hope you guys enjoy reading the magazine as much as we enjoyed putting it together! 2
SIMSREE Media Committee
SIMPOSIUM’12 INTER COLLEGIATE
- Isha Rustagi and Krithika Ramchander, IIT Delhi As the global recession bug readies itself for another bout, India limps on her dwindling currency and declining credit rating, bracing herself for the smack down to come. To add to this is the uncertain political predicament we are stuck in. With the constant blame game being on for the better part of the current government’s tenure, the incumbent are getting more and more fidgety by the second. As a result, a slew of propositions are being brought into notice – the ‘AADHAAR’ scheme being one of them. Having been already issued to people in about 16 states by the executive authority UIDAI,
displays, even today, after nine years since its conceptualization, it has failed to garner complete public trust and confidence as there are numerous questions that still remain unanswered.
the AADHAAR numbers aim to act as multi-purpose identity proofs, stored in a robust and consolidated database. Information from this centralized database is extractable and is envisaged to lead to a seamless functioning of governmental and private welfare services when integrated with their respective record books. The vision behind Nandan Nilekani’s brain child- UID - is to bring each and every citizen of the country under the same umbrella and weed out the dissipative agents that come in the way of their welfare. If exercised to its full potential, this schema would definitely prove to be a fundamental cog in the running of the future India, as we picture it today.
for investigations and regular surveillance leading to the violation of human rights. Similar projects that have been proposed in the West have failed to kick –off because of privacy concerns that they raise. Each time a citizen uses his/ her Aadhaar number, it would be verified against the database which would in turn create an activity trail of that person which, if exposed, would qualify as privacy infiltration.
However, despite the promising prospects that this project
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One of the gravest concerns is that of ‘functionality creep’ where the intent stated is different from the genuine purpose that a project aims to serve. AADHAAR would provide the State with an exhaustive database containing the information of all the citizens of the country mapped with their biometric data. This can be used by the civil services and the police force
Apart from this, AADHAAR is based completely upon the biometric system and the supposed infallibility associated with it. However, there is no guarantee that there are no chances of errors in fingerprint matching which might result in an identity theft. Besides, laborers and poor people who are the primary target of AADHAAR, often have broken or eroded
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fingerprints because of extensive manual labour. Children below 12 years of age, senior citizens above 60, and people suffering from accidental damages in their fingers due to chemicals and burns might also face difficulties in getting themselves enrolled. Weak iris scans of people with cataracts have also posed problems often resulting in a refusal for registration. This has resulted in a failure to enroll around 15% of the people which roughly amounts to 180 million.
provide banking services.” Efforts are being made to forge strong links between AADHAAR and the government welfare programs to eliminate the current inefficiencies in the system that are manifested in the form of leakages, duplication of beneficiary identities and delays. Most of the welfare programs rely on physical identity documents for beneficiary identification and are manual in nature. In such a scenario, a large section of the society remains divested of these welfare
A major attribute that works in the favor of AADHAR is its ability to qualify as an irrefutable proof of identity that can help the poor in accessing services who otherwise are unable to obtain a ration card or open a bank account. This might prove to be beneficial for the other citizens as well who will be exempted from the burden of collecting dozens of documents for the proof of identification. However, as per the circular released by RBI, AADHAAR does not provide a residential proof and hence the banks might have to demand other valid documents to “satisfy themselves about the current address of the customer.”
benefits due to the unavailability of physical documents. There is also no control system in place to ensure that residents do not avail benefits from multiple programs simultaneously when they are not entitled to. The use of AADHAAR in beneficiary identification can serve dual purposes; it can be used to check whether the person is not an existing beneficiary and it would also be helpful in removing duplications at a national level. Further, to ensure that the people do not have to travel long distances for cash withdrawal, the appointment of ‘business correspondents” has been proposed who would serve as accredited agents providing doorstep banking services with hand held biometric systems. However, the dependence on fingerprint recognition and the complete goodwill of the BCs however creates new problems.
Another big advantage that is being promised by AADHAAR is that of financial inclusion. Most of the marginalized sections of India have remained deprived of financial access. In order to mitigate this issue, AADHAAR offers financial services in new innovative ways “through no-frills accounts, the liberalization of banking and ATM policies, and branchless banking with business correspondents (BCs), which enables local intermediaries such as self-help groups and kirana stores to FUTURISTIC INDIA
There are a number of human rights organizations and even a large section of politicos who do not feel strongly about the concept. Due to this prevailing disagreement, UIDAI has not yet been given the status of a statutory authority. With the 4
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government modeling its latest entitlement disbursal schemes around AADHAAR, it becomes imperative to ensure that not even a vestige of incertitude remains. Almost every discussion about the model and its implications boils down to the equivocal concerns of privacy infringement and its potency in terms of outreach. A plausible way out to deal with the activity trail created by AADHAAR integrated services is to provide the card holder a handle which enables him/ her to erase the cache so that his/ her activities do not come under the ambit of public purview. This would also be instrumental in shedding of the apprehensions one has relating to data sharing and functionality creep by eliminating the possibility of backside investigation. As far as the currently ineffective BC model is concerned, it can be rolled out as a supplement to the ordinary banking procedures to aid people with fingerprint
recognition problems. In addition, it would also serve as an alternative to people in case the BC is corrupt or unreliable. As the world finds itself in perilous times yet again, India too is grasping at straws to find a constant that would help her hold the fort. If the loopholes are plugged and the authorities are able to reach a consensus, AADHAAR could effect momentous changes in our democratic architecture per say. Being one of its kind, it would enable us to reach the highland while the rest struggle to float through the global economic crisis, if rolled out in the right way. The scheme would free the citizens of bureaucratic shackles – with the promise that, ‘their identity would suffice’. India’s future as painted by this model, definitely seems more colorful thus, with each of us more independent and confident than before.
Logo Funnn!! Can you see the letters B and R??! Yes you can! Just look at the at the pink part of the logo will show the number ’31. That is because it has 31 flavors!!!
The logo for Amazon shows a smiley. Along with that the arrows show moves from A to Z. This logo symbolizes that they sell things :) from A to Z.
Toblerone is a company that makes chocolates. It originated in a place called Bern, Switzerland. This place is called the city of bears. You can see the outline of a bear on the mountain. Try looking for a standing bear.
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SIMPOSIUM’12 INTER COLLEGIATE
- Niket Gajra and Parth Pandya, SIMSREE India is usually known as the third world economy. Third world economy has a few typical characteristics like it produces mainly primary products for the developed economy and also providing markets for their finished goods. In short a third world economy produces agricultural products and is far from being a player in the manufacturing sector. If we look at the contribution of different sectors to the GDP of India it shows that a major part comes from the service sector.
The above pie chart shows the distribution as on March 2012. The manufacturing sector contributes only 15% to the GDP which is far less than other developing economies. Manufacturing in China contributes 34%, in Malaysia 25% and in Thailand 40%. The growth in manufacturing sector has been slowing down during the last 10 quarters. The net profit margin has reduced from 8.1% in Q2FY11 to 5.4% in Q2FY12 which is the lowest in the last 12 quarters. However if we consider the statistics we come to know that India has the potential to become a leader in the manufacturing business. India has a workforce of 440 million between the ages of 15 to 34 years. The labour here is among the cheapest in the world it is only 25% of that in China and around 7% of that in the U.S. There have been steps taken in order to boost manufacturing sector growth in India. The SEZ Act 2005 is one such step
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which made provisions for the formation of 587 SEZs. However this has been a failure and only 154 SEZs have been operational until the last year. So a further step was taken and the New Manufacturing Policy or NMP was formed in November 2011 which aims at having a growth of 14% for the manufacturing sector. What will make India a future manufacturing hub : Infrastructure: Infrastructure will form a very important role in the development of manufacturing sector in India. Currently majority of the movement of materials from a manufacturing plant to the market takes place via trucks. However the movement in such a way is costlier than that through railways. Also the average load carrying capacity of the trucks is minimal compared to the trains where a bulk can be transported in a faster and a better way. Also there are manufacturing plants which are near a harbour or a water body in the country and in case of oil rigs the extraction is within the water body. So development in the railways network and the water transportation can be considered as a healthy investment which can attract FDI which becomes a very important part for the growth of Indian industries. Apart from these the development of DMIC or the Delhi Mumbai Industrial corridor aims at developing all the four transport routes between these two strategic cities to improve upon the infrastructure. Nine industrial zones have been identified and this project will surely bring about a huge investment from across the world. Power: Power is another area where India can improve upon a lot. The recent power grid failure in July 2012 affected almost the whole of north India and caused crores of rupees of losses. The National Power Grid Corporation strives for establishing a national power grid and if this is achieved then a major problem will be solved for the industrial sector. India must add about 76 GW of power generation capacity by 2017 in order to meet the increasing needs. Robust information system: With the movement of materials one more thing becomes very important like the tracking of the materials and the order status. Here the help of the latest technology like GPS, cloud computing and RFID can play a very important role. This would be an add-on to the efficiency of the manufacturing sector.
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Government Policies and Bills: The movement of materials takes place across many states in India. The problem here lies with the taxes being levied on the goods vary from region to region. The tax structure itself is very complicated in India. The unified and simplified tax structure like GST can make things much better and faster thus improving the whole scenario. The land acquisition bill and environmental clearances have also been a major hindrance in the development of SEZs in the country. The land leasing can be a very good option where the lease terms have been properly written down so no disputes arise. Though environmental clearances are also a top priority there has to be areas selected properly to develop the SEZs in the country where there would not be any kind of environmental issues.
Development of Rural areas because of manufacturing: Development of the manufacturing sector in India will improve the rural economy to a great extent. Though the labour force in India is huge there is a lack of skilled labour in India. So the initiatives like the National Skill Development Fund being allotted Rs. 1100 crores is a visionary step taken by the Government of India. Though this is just a baby step which will largely develop skilled labour for India, if there is a sustained investment in this area then skilled labour would no longer be a problem for India. Also there would be sourcing of raw materials from rural India which will help in improving the standard of living of the people. E.g. ITC’s incense stick business sources its raw materials from the ingredients processed by the women in rural India.
CHINA V/S INDIA: When we want India to be a manufacturing hub we will have to compare it with the current manufacturing hub “China”. China’s manufacturing sector contributes to 43 % of its GDP. This is very high as compared to India. China’s share in global manufacturing sector is 1.74 tn $ in 2010. *3+ But, from the PMI data in the graphs shown below we can see that the industrialists are wary about China’s manufacturing sector whereas in India’s case there is a positive response by the majority. Hence we can say that the growth rate of India’s manufacturing sector is better than China’s. NMP plans to improve manufacturing sector’s share in GDP to 25%. If this becomes true then there are very bright chances that India can match as well as beat China.
Also there is ray of hope currently with many big companies making India as their manufacturing hub. Japanese consumer electronics major Panasonic will start exports of home appliances from India as part of plans to make the country a manufacturing hub and the first shipment is likely by 2014-15. *4+ Skoda is also planning to make India as its manufacturing hub. Solar equipment major players such as First Solar are also planning to make India as its manufacturing hub.
China’s PMI as per Sep 29’12 report
India’s PMI as per Sep 29’12 report
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INTER COLLEGIATE
- Prabhakaran V and Rajeshkumar P, Pondicherry University One of the core challenges for our government is to create an unbiased society. But with 70 per cent of India’s population residing in villages, where poverty and illiteracy are common phenomena, the inclusive growth agenda of the government can only be successfully realized by addressing the growth and development issues in rural India. In an Information era, every citizen must have all the feasible options to access information and knowledge. A need has arisen to DEMOCRATISE INFORMATION among all the sections in the society.
Moreover, the growth through IT is derived mostly from metro and urban citizens who constitute just 1/3 rd of the entire population. The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau) in their recent report says the country's rural community has 38 million “claimed Internet” users, while 31 million out of them are active users. It is estimated that the number of claimed internet users are likely to increase to 45 million by December this year. The below figure show the different ways in which rural people access internet.
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All these points indicate that the government has to strengthen and build the existing and new information infrastructure in India, which would ensure development in different dimensions of the country. As the first step to bridge the gap between the urban and rural people, the Government of India has proposed a project under Public Information Infrastructure (PII) called National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN).
In the last two decades, India escalated to the second position among developing economies next to China. The reflection of this growth can be seen very high in IT, Communication and its related fields. According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), there are 14.31 million broadband users and 112 million internet users in India, ultimately becoming world third largest user base next to China and USA. The major sector which contributes to GDP is service (100b$ IT industry, according to NASSCOM results in 2012). These fields have created millions of jobs and also in progress of creating much more employment opportunities across the country. These industries have high degree of dependency on continuous internet connectivity. The importance of broadband as a contributor to national development and growth is being highlighted all over the world. According to a World Bank Report, a 10% increase in broadband penetration leads to a 1.38 per cent increase in per capita GDP in developing economies.
BHARAT BROADBAND NETWORK LIMITED To execute the NOFN project, the government has formed an SPV – named Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) under Department of Telecom (DoT) along with 3 PSUs – RailTel, BSNL and Power Grid Corporation holding one share each. The main objective of this project is to establish Optical Fibre cable (OFC) based high capacity broadband connectivity to all the 2,50,000 Panchayats in the country to benefit from convergence of voice, data, and video for improving training, education, service delivery and governance. Though 86% of broadband connections in India are through DSL, the government has chosen optical fibre cable because of its unlimited bandwidth and long range.
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Bharat Broadband will lay the cable from its existing point, usually at the block level, to the gram Panchayat level. This will involve laying about 5 lakh kilometers of optic fibre. Such an infrastructure will enable the service providers to expand services into rural areas. The government has allocated Rs.20000 crore from the USO Fund to execute this project. Apart from this, they have planned to build computer hardware, software, trained human resource and management and develop relevant applications, programs and standards for Panchayats.
PANCHAYATS — THE CRUX OF INDIAN GROWTH The Panchayats are considered to be nodal points for information gathering and service delivery of government administration. In the past, many successful schemes of the Central and State governments like MGNREGS reached the bottom of the pyramid only through Panchayats. They act like an administrative interface. Such an important platform must be modernized to the changing world. So the key, here, is to free the information and make it easily accessible to the people in order to improve transparency, productivity, accountability, collaboration, cooperation and efficiency. All the above characteristics can be realized panIndia through the implementation of NOFN project.
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E – Health:. Hospital beds per 1000 people are 0.10 in rural and 2.2 in urban, which is very low according to international standard. Inclusion of ICT will enable remote consultation, diagnosis and treatment through telemedicine, sharing of learning and training approaches among healthcare workers. E – Banking: Currently, a bank branch in India serves about 16000 people – a number very high compared to the developed countries. In such a critical scenario, e - banking is the best solution. E – Governance: Making all Government services accessible to the common man and ensuring efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs is one of the most important characteristics of good governance. Broadband penetration throughout the country will act as a booster to implement the services like birth certificate, school admissions, land records, court papers, tax submissions etc. at their doorstep. This will enrich G2C (Government to Citizens) interaction effectively. Business: India, being a potential and an emerging market, is targeted by every MNCs. In the coming years, the MNCs and many Indian companies will unleash their products and services in the untapped rural areas. And the chances of e – commerce industry to play a bigger role is brighter. Many new startups will evolve, especially in the online business. Many new jobs will be created.
BENEFITS IN ACCESSING BROADBAND On successful completion of the project, the citizens – regardless of location, lifestyle or income – will reap n number of benefits in accessing broadband. E – Agriculture : The art of agriculture will get a new dimension with the inclusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This is in turn will lead to rural development. The farmers will be equipped with what type of seeds to sow, in which season, the latest methodology and the market condition in the neighboring areas. A more organized agricultural sector will be the end result. E – Education: Education is the backbone for the growth of a country. In India, the standard of education is designed to merge the capabilities of the rural with the urban. But to compete globally, we need to raise the bar. This can be realized through e – education which will provide uniform teaching methodology. Schemes like free laptops, AAKASH tablets etc. will be an added advantage.
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All the above benefits will pave the way for higher GDP growth rate. One more essential benefit is easing urbanization i.e. rural people moving to urban cities for employment and standard of living will be highly reduced. Whatever the people desire, it will be at their doorstep in a short period of time. The vision of the Government of India to empower the rural citizens and to raise their standard of living in par with every citizen can be rightfully achieved through ICT tools and broadband penetration to every nook and corner of the country. This will ultimately make India as one of the global leaders pioneering the technological advancements. The time has come to recognize BROADBAND as a basic infrastructure in the same way as electricity, road and water. So broadband must be rightfully called as a fundamental human right.
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-Sarvesh Sharma, NITIE Can Green Energy replace fossil fuels?
Cost of conversion:
I wouldn't give you an answer straight away. Not because I'm being paid for making you read this article all the way, but its better to present some noteworthy facts before jumping to conclusions, better still to give the reader some relevant facts and keep the question open to his own deliberation.
The per unit cost of green energy is substantially higher than that of fossil fuels. The cost of conversion from fossil fuels to green energy that includes green or else hybrid vehicles to transport us; and solar, wind and hydel energy to power our homes and workplaces; is very high. For instance, while a standard Honda Civic costs around Rs 12 Lakh in India, the Hybrid model of the same vehicle costs Rs 10 lakh more. Similarly, electricity run vehicles cost whopping high. Even the return period is very long in both the cases. A solar panel also costs a person dearly and running an entire house on the panels would make the upfront costs gargantuan. So what? You might think, I can do this bit for my environment and purchase yourself some green solutions. Then you think your part is done. Think again.
Let’s first have a brief introduction of fossil fuels or hydrocarbons and man's historic and ever increasing dependence on them. The status quo is that almost 88% of our total energy needs are quenched by fossil-fuels and barring Nuclear energy, only 7% of the provisions come from green sources. The earliest and the most widely used is Petroleum which accounts for 41% of our total fossil-fuel
Availability:
energy supplies. Next in line is Coal, the warhorse of industrial revolution and still having significant share of 24%. Natural gas is the third main fossil fuel, currently providing for 22% of the supplies. As global population touches the 9 Billion mark, these figures are going to increase manifold. We are not only presented a challenge of replacing fossil fuels but also keep up pace with the growing energy needs of population. So can we really think of bidding adieu to fossil fuels in favour of Green energy? Lets analyze the situation from a couple of viewpoints: Cost of conversion; Availability; Quantity generated; Safety FUTURISTIC INDIA
You thought you paid an extra buck for a green technology and there will be no other headache? An electric car has a limited range of about a hundred kilometers on a singlecharge run capped by a low upper limit to the top-speed. Even that overlooked, what seems more debilitating is that unlike gasoline stations, we don’t have enough installed infrastructure to provide charging points after regular intervals of say few kilometers. Also the comparison between refueling a gasoline vehicle and recharging an electric car seems to point unfavorably. Coming back to your home, which you fit with brand new solar panels, but alas, its monsoons and the clouds overshadow your energy source. You switch on the lights, but they don’t glow. The batteries have run out. You realize to your frustration that the lakhs of rupees you spent on your panels can’t guarantee you continuous electricsupply. You remember there’s a switch to connect to the local power-company’s grid. But is that electricity generated from a green source or the same old thermal power plant? This brings us to our next viewpoint, Quantity generated.
“You might think, I can do this bit for my environment and purchase yourself some green solutions. Then you think your part is done. Think again!!” 10
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Quantity generated: Can we generate enough green energy so as to completely suppress the use of fossil fuels? Let’s revert to our facts again. There’s more than enough renewable energy sources to supply all of the world’s energy needs forever, however, the challenge remains to develop the capability to effectively and economically capture , store and use the energy when needed. The European Photovoltaic Industry Association is of the view that solar power could supply energy to upwards of one billion people by 2020 and 26 percent of global energy needs by 2040. Likewise, the share of hydroelectric, geothermal and wind energies is bound to increase. Safety: While travelling in your gasoline-powered car, have you ever realized that you are virtually sitting on a big bomb which can explode anytime? The answer is probably No, because modern vehicles are so well engineered that a gasoline vehicle catching fire is a rare event. But, will you be carefree enough when you travel in your flashy car powered by hydrogen fuelcells or a bunch of lead-acid batteries? Just raising a false alarm, you think? But similar events have taken place in China where a complete fleet of thousand plus taxis running on electricity had to be taken off service after some developed snags and one was reported having caught fire. With time, the capacity of the batteries also runs out and you never know, maybe the batteries completely give up on you while you are driving through the middle of a dense jungle or on a highway with vehicles whizzing by at high speeds. By this point, you might have come to lambast and accuse me of presenting the idea of switch-over to green energy in bad picture, but stated above are real issues that need to be addressed if we need to take green energy any place forward. The green power availability issues can be addressed by harnessing hydroelectricity which can be tapped at seashores as well as in the Himalayan and Deccan regions and can complement solar and wind energies while at the same time guarding against each-others’ periods of unavailability. When cars on internal combustion engines started out, even the gasoline filling stations were few and far apart, but as the technology caught up with people, the filling stations spawned quickly. The concept of Economies of Scale also suggests that once any product (read Solar Panels, electric cars, hybrids etc) start to be produced in large quantities by multiple manufacturers, their unit costs will naturally take a plunge. I’m pretty sure that the safety issues with green technology that have emerged in the past will be delved deeper by the engineers to plug the loopholes. The governments world over have to play a significant role in facilitating green technologies by subsidizing them and supporting R&D programs. A commendable fact is that the Indian government gives heavy FUTURISTIC INDIA
lamps and cookers. It is noteworthy to examine the claim made by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2011 report that nearly 80 percent of global energy demand could be met by renewable sources of energy by 2050. So can Green energy really replace fossil fuels? The answer actually lies with us all and what choices we make to perfect our future. To sum up, I would quote the words of The Union of Concerned Scientists: “No single solution can meet our society’s future energy needs. The solution instead will come from a family of diverse energy technologies that share a common thread — they do not deplete our natural resources or destroy our environment.”
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MARKETING
-Esha Gupta, TAPMI
The emergence of digital technology has led to a revolutionary change in marketing and by the end of this decade every facet of the marketing mix will be radically challenged. Technology, internet, mobile and social networks have changed the way brands interact with their customers. “Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using database-driven online distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and costeffective manner” _By Jared Reitzin, CEO of Mobile Storm Inc. Expanding Role of Behavioural Targeting Advertisers are willing to pay higher fees to use behavioural targeting techniques because of their ability to bring significant results. Marketers are able to track and monitor a broad spectrum of online consumer behaviours including:
The pages or sites users visit
The content they view
Search queries they enter
The ads they click on
The information they share on social Internet sites
The products they put in online shopping carts
The tracking data can also be merged with visitor demographic data—such as age, gender and ZIP code derived from site registration or Web surveys. Behavioural targeting is growing in its application, through technological advances in such areas as data mining, audience segmentation, and predictive analysis. Advertisers are working, often conjointly with agencies, market research firms, and trade associations, to further the growth of powerful precision marketing techniques. Food and beverage companies are relying on behavioural targeting companies to help them perfect their abilities to market to individuals. For example, Coca-Cola used online marketing specialist Tacoda (now owned by Time Warner) to target “specific
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behavioural segments” for the My Coke Rewards program. The result was a dramatic increase (250 percent) in the number of users who engaged in the desired “click through” behavior. Social Media Marketing The two leading social networks—MySpace and Facebook— have witnessed amazing growth during the past year. An entire infrastructure has emerged to facilitate what is now called “social media marketing.” Dozens of trade shows, workshops, and industry reports offer a multiplicity of ways for marketers to infiltrate these online communities. One approach is to create branded “wrappers “or that can “transform a social network’s landing page into a 360degree branding experience, complete with wallpaper, photos, video, music, and links. MySpace executives report that marketers who make use of the profiling data on its members have experienced success: 733% lift in brand awareness, 800% lift in recall, 152% increase in brand favourability and 179% increase in purchase intent. Media marketer Videoegg has been working with Burger King, McDonalds, Nestle, Hot Pockets, and Fanta on a variety of social media campaigns, promising “unique video advertising formats” and a highly sophisticated “targeting approach” that can “deliver higher engagement rates for brands and more relevant ad experiences for consumer.
Snapshot of My Coke Rewards Program Recommendations from friends in one’s social network are an increasingly important strategy for brand promotion, terms like “community branding” and “fanvertising,” are
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all part of the emerging lexicon of social media marketing practices. According to Zuckerberg, companies should insert themselves into what is called the “social graph,” it is the web of relationships and ongoing interactions among friends
Snapshot of Pepsi’s “Your Universe” and friends of friends that these websites encourage and facilitate. Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and. It’s no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. Pepsi’s “Youniverse” launched a “beta” for a social network targeting European fans of football. It allows users to compare their “Visual DNA” with famous stars of the game through a personality test where you have to answer the questions by choosing the appropriate images to get your psychographic description surrendering detailed personal information in the process New Techniques: Widgets The Social Networking revolution has witnessed a proliferation of “widgets”—small, downloadable applications that allow users to customize their personal pages while also serving as a means of delivering advertising and tracking user responses to those ads. Pizza Hut and Papa John’s have recently promoted their products via widgets. Also known as “Snaggable Ads,” it comes equipped with a “unique ID” which permits tracking and campaign analysis as Pizza Hut Widget the ad is shared virally across the Internet. Google’s widgets called Google Gadgets can collect a broad array of information on user interactions with gadgets, such as the viewing of videos, or whether a form or poll has triggered a response. Shown above is a snapshot of Pizza hut’s widgets.
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In-game Advertising In-game advertising continues to grow, along with the videogame industry which now competes with the film industry in terms of annual revenues. Products and services are woven into these virtual worlds. In-game advertising is now predicted to more than double by 2012, with $650 million to be spent by advertisers for game placement. The research firm eMarketer estimated that the overall videogame advertising market will be worth $1 billion within five years. The Interactive advertising Bureau also released a status report on game advertising highlighting research done for Microsoft by Subway and Dominos Nielsen, which advertised in video games showed that “brand familiarity increased by 64%, average purchase consideration increased by 41% and average ad recall increased by 41% due to in-game ad. Technique Evolution: Viral Video Online video sites, such as Google’s YouTube, have incorporated viral marketing as part of their services to advertisers. YouTube introduced its new “buzz targeting” product. Engineers of the company developed “an algorithm that determines which YouTube partner videos are quickly becoming popular on the site and about to go viral. The algorithm looks at several factors, such as acceleration of views, favourites, and ratings activity, and then allows advertisers to target their ads. Gangnam Style is a K-pop single by Korean musician PSY. The song was released on July 15, 2012 and has gone viral like no other video in past. It has got 299,599,841 views on you tube making it the site's most watched video in history. The image above speaks for itself.
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Not surprisingly, billions of marketing dollars spent on traditional channels is already starting to shift to digital marketing campaigns and this will continue to increase as
the Web matures. All in all, we seem to be moving in an era where Digital Marketing would become a major marketing tool.
What’s in a Name??? One of the most prominent search engines we know as Yahoo! was initially named "Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web". This was named after the founders Jerry Yang and David Filo. The term Yahoo! is an abbreviation for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle"!!! Pepsi originated in 1893 under the name of “Brad’s Drink”. It was named after the pharmacist Celeb Bradham. In 1898, Brad’s Drink was renamed "Pepsi-Cola". The name change was apparently due to digestive enzyme pepsin and kola nuts used in the formula!!
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With
Nikhil Khekde,
Director, - Sayali Kasar SIMSREE media committee got an opportunity to talk to Mr.Nikhil Khekde, the director of “abreakplease.com”, a site just about 6 month old, doing exceptionally well. The startup is for making weekend trips easier and more exciting for people who don’t get time for long trips, making the weekend great and recharging people for a busy week ahead!
Mediacom: In your own words, who are you and what’s your business about? Nikhil: I completed my engineering from Mumbai University. After that I worked with a few MNCs and also a startup, the experience of which helped me a lot in my own startup. I also worked for a government funded project on cloud computing. “Abreakplease” is a weekend discovery plus booking tool that provides you with a great experience of your weekend trips. I had the idea and started working on it in last December and here am I with my venture in March ’12.
Mediacom: What ignited the spark in you to start a new business venture? Nikhil: I love to travel. It’s my passion. I observed that there was no easy way to help out those who wanted a weekend getaway. If you search on Google, you get many links which confuse you but don’t provide you with an apt solution. So I just wanted to make things easier and solve this problem. I had a plan; I also had the technical skills required. I talked to my friends and many other people. They liked my idea. I worked on it and started the venture.
Mediacom: How do you find people to work in your organization that truly care about the organization the way you do? Nikhil: (Smiles.) Tough and a very important task indeed! Many of us, owning a startup, meet up and through
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contacts of each other try to find the kind of people we need. For a venture like this, I seek for people willing to work in a startup, who are ready to face problems as that has to happen in a new company, I try to find people who don’t have constraints about working hours, people ready to do an all round job as sometimes a person needs to work in admin, sometimes in marketing, accounts and so on. Most important of all, I pick people who love travelling!
Mediacom: What according to you are the skills required to become an entrepreneur? Nikhil: Idea! The idea and its proper understanding is essential. You should also have a proper strategy of its execution. Skills can be acquired; it’s not a problem at all! If not they can be outsourced. But what is important is the idea. In my case, I started alone, I had the technical skills, I designed the website. Now I have a different person to look after it.
Mediacom: What have been your failures, what did you learn from them? Nikhil: Failure is the part of the process. In the beginning, we aggressively launched many things without promoting them. Many changes were made but without letting people know about it. There was no much traffic which was very important for a B to C venture like ours. Then we immediately rectified our mistake as we realized that it’s not just about the product but people should come to know about it and also we should keep people engaged, data also should be built constantly, it’s an asset.
Mediacom: How many hours a day do you work? Nikhil: 8.30 To 10.30 pm. It’s the same for my employees also. It’s a startup and so there are a lot of things to do every day.
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Mediacom: How do you maintain your work life balance? Nikhil: (Laughs) I am unmarried! So that’s not a problem. My mom and dad support me. On Sundays I am with my family. The problem with a startup is that you get very less time for your family. This is the case initially, once you go ahead with it successfully, things become easier later on.
Mediacom: What is your further plan? Nikhil: People are very busy with their lives these days. They hardly get time for a weeklong trip. If they do, it’s at most once in a year. But people can choose to go for a holiday on weekends even twice a month. And we help people plan weekend get always. After 2-3 years, we plan to have our presence in all the major cities. Abreakplease should be the first name on the mind of people when it’s anything about weekend getaways!
Mediacom: Excluding yours, which company do you admire the most? Nikhil: Apple. Many small companies like Webengage. They helped us find people who funded for our startup. They are doing a very good job. I also like Zomato for the way they have solved people’s problem!
Nikhil: Testing.
Mediacom: What are your hobbies? Nikhil: I am very happy because I do what I like. Travelling is my passion and that’s the reason I enjoy my work. We actually go out or a holiday every weekend. Apart from that I play cricket, table tennis and carom.
Mediacom: Where do you see yourself 10-20 years from now? Nikhil: I don’t believe in making it so structured. I live in the moment and enjoy the present. Week is a big time for us!
Mediacom: How do you go about marketing your business? Nikhil: People generally do not click on the advertisements on net, we also do not believe in banner advertisements. We spend on the commonly used Google keywords like “weekend getaways” where our name appears on the top in search. We also advertise through Just Dial and Holiday IQ.
Mediacom: In one word, describe your life as an entrepreneur.
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Mediacom : What advice will you give to the college going students who want to become entrepreneurs? Nikhil : You should have a risk appetite. You should just have a great idea and its proper execution strategy along with a good team. Then you can go ahead. Funding is not a problem, if you have a brilliant idea. And never worry about the jobs. There are lots available in case you fail. Never worry about failure. Just remember, if you don’t, someone else will!
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INTRA-COLLEGIATE
FUTURE IN HEALTH CARE Dr. Ashish Mendhi, SIMSREE There is an over-riding demand for improved services, at least for the 2.6 Billion people who are living on less than $2/day. This group faces considerable barriers, including limited health insurance, low health literacy and residences in slums. Such barriers have to be carefully considered while designing any product or service for this group. Although the poor seek care in the private sector for up to 95% of cases of childhood diarrheal and respiratory illnesses across a wide range of countries, the private sector is not without its critics. Concerns include the under-provision of public goods in free markets, lack of access to care for the indigent, and the potential for providers to induce demand for unnecessary services to generate profits. But because public health services are not always up to the mark, that private players are the most important contributors to a robust health system. One particular area where private sector can contribute is as a source of innovation, whereby organizations help develop simple, high-quality and inexpensive services that reach those people who were left out previously from these necessities. INNOVATIVE MARKETING ACTIVITIES Tailoring services to the poor: The Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahitya Samiti (BMVSS) is the Indian organization that developed the Jaipur foot, an artificial lower limb prosthetic intended to meet the needs of amputees living in developing nations, where squatting, sitting cross-legged and walking barefoot is common but largely impossible with typical prosthetic limbs. The Jaipur foot costs $35 to produce, and is made by artisans using locally available materials, as compared to thousands of dollars for imported prostheses. In addition to providing a novel product, BMVSS clinics have adapted their services, allowing patients to check-in at any time of the day or night and providing free room and board if they have to spend the night. FUTURISTIC INDIA
Since fittings can be completed in one session, time away from work and transportation requirements, are kept to a minimum. Franchising: Franchising facilitates expansion and sustainable distribution of products & services of a specified quality in reproductive health. Greenstar social Marketing Pakistan along with Apollo Clinics India are the pioneers in this domain. Greenstar today, supplies 26% of all the contraceptives distributed in Pakistan by targeting non-users through a ‘total market approach’, which is using different price points for each segment of the population. It operates a franchise network of 7500 private independent healthcare providers, most located in low-income urban and semiurban sprawls. It keeps regular contact with franchisees to ensure quality. It also provides medical training, technical support, quality control and program evaluation to the franchisees. Social Marketing: Population Services International (PSI) in Africa and Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in Thailand have both used social marketing techniques in innovative ways. PDA uses humor to address taboo subjects such as contraception and HIV awareness and has achieved unprecedented success in garnering positive public attention with initiatives like ‘Condom Nights’ and Miss Anti-AIDS Beauty Pageants in red-light districts of Honk Kong. Their condom distribution network covers a third of Thailand and their family planning effort contributed to decrease population growth rate from 3.3% in 1970s to 0.6 in 2005. The Govt. of Thailand credits PDA for the 90% reduction in new HIV infections in Thailand. PSI, operates 3 social marketing programs aimed at urban African youth. They use magazines, television spots, call-inradio shows and radio drama to address taboo subjects like sexual behavior. They found 19
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that 90% had read the monthly magazine at least once & 70% had viewed the television spots with corresponding increased rates of contraceptive use and HIV testing. INNOVTIVE FINANCIAL STRATEGIES High Volume & Low Unit Costs: The Narayana Hrudalaya Heart Hospital, Bangalore is the largest provider of pediatric heart surgeries in the world. It has reduced the unit cost of a heart surgery through volume by performing 8 times more surgeries per day than the Indian average. The hospital rents machines for blood tests and pays only for reagents, which satisfies the suppliers given the high volumes. They have successfully reduced costs by digitizing X-ray reports and thus saving the costs of expensive films. This also shrinks the processing times and increases hospital productivity. NH uses high volume to improve the quality of care by allowing individual doctors to specialize in just one or two types of cardiac surgeries. The success rates are high: a mortality rate of 1.4 % within 30 days of a coronary bypass surgery v/s 1.9% in the USA. NH’s average cost of open heart surgery is about $ 2000/- USD as compared to $5500/- in an average private Indian hospital. Compare this to an average cost of the same surgery in the USA – a mind boggling $120,000/- USD!! The founder of NH has tied up with the Karnataka government to start an insurance plan that costs about Rs. 275/- per person per year and the govt. re-imburses the hospital Rs. 65,000/- for each surgery. The hospitsl makes up for the difference by charging more for the 30% of patients who opt for private rooms. Cross-subsidization: It is a method to exploit the greater willingness and ability to pay amongst the wealthier patients, to cross subsidize expensive services for lower income patients. Aravind Eye Care, the largest eye care provider in the world, attracts wealthy patients who pay at market rates and provides the same services to the poorer 70% of its patients at highly subsidized rate. Differential pricing is established by the kind of comfort the patient ops for and not quality of care. In addition to tiered payment systems, an informal system of cross-subsidy can be created by encouraging providers to provide subsidized services to the poor. Dentista Do Bem is a large network of private, for profit dentists in Brazil who have agreed to see a few patients everyday for free. This form of cross-subsidy has resulted in free treatment of upto 12,000 school children in 2010 alone, with each dentist treating only 3 -4 children for free every day. This network today reaches across all the states of Brazil and 6 Latin American countries.
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Generating Revenue: Thailand’s PDA developed 16 for-profit companies, that are affiliated with the organization. Each puts funds towards the NGO to facilitate the expansion and supplement operating costs. PDA’s innovative commercial venture include Cabbage and Condoms Restaurants, where condom themed food and drinks help bring money into the organization. This allows companies to generate revenue independently and spread information about safe-sex practices. INNOVATIVE OPERATING ACTIVITIES Optimizing Human Resources: One of the greatest challenges in healthcare today, is the shortage of trained medical workers in settings where diseases are common and the population abundant. One way organizations have expanded to newer geographies is by training and nurturing local talent and also encouraging laypeople to acquire skills traditionally exclusive to professionals. Aravind Eye care systems trains high school graduates from rural areas to become paramedical staff like patient flow managers, providers of simple diagnostic procedures and even optical technicians. Process & Product Engineering: In addition to providing readymade glasses, Aravind Eye Care isworking with d.o.b. Foundation to offer new adjustable lens to near sighted children. The innovative design comprises of two adjustable lenses that can be shifted to adjust the refractive strength of the glasses. This makes mass production easier, reduces costs and offers an alternative to traditional customized construction of eyeglasses. Aravind has also re-engineered its operating theatres to allow surgeons to work on two tables in alteration. While one surgery is in progress, a team of four nurses prepares the next patient. The result, Aravind can perform three times as many surgeries in the same time. Increasing Outreach: NH & Aravind provide health camps to reach patients in rural areas. Aravind has also set up internet kiosks in remote villages run by community members, who take pictures of patients’ eyes using a webcam and send them to the doctor in Aravind. The doctor can also interact with the patient. This reduces the time and expense incurred for a hospital visit. EMERGING INSIGHTS Complete Marketing, Finance & Operations Solutions: All the organizations discussed above managed to innovate across marketing, finance and operations and each had at least one unique innovation in each area. Each example has developed a novel and comprehensive approach, addressing the fact that poor people are often unaware of services, have limited funds and live in hard-to-reach areas.
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Cost Reducing Innovations: All the organizations discussed have designed services and products for poor consumers who were previously excluded from access. For the most part, they break the trade off between cost & quality by pursuing both low cost and high quality at the same time. Most organizations adapt to needs of their clients and reduce the frills while providing high quality care. Business Process Innovation: Core innovations in most of these organizations are in business processes rather than medical processes, demonstrating that it is possible to have large scale impact using innovative strategies. As we have seen, private health organizations that have emerged to serve the poor have assumed the role of social
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enterprises. They have developed many exemplary and innovative techniques to improve medical care for the poor. Such innovations, simple yet effective, will see the dawn of a golden era in the near future. In the next decade of so, it is not fantastic to imagine a global health conglomerate emerging from India which will guide and inspire others to work towards socially responsible causes without hurting the profits. Cheers to India..!!
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INTRA-COLLEGIATE
-Leena Kalani, SIMSREE As India inc. echoes the sentiments of new business models, ecommerce industry is set to expand at a monumental scale. India’s e-commerce industry is primed to become the next big revolution with the dramatic change in the shopping trends witnessed in the recent times. Being the 11th largest economy, India has already marked its presence on the e-Business Organization of key international markets. With 124.7 million online users currently, Indian Ecommerce market has turned out well with estimated revenues of around USD 10 billion. Flipkart, Snapdeal, Myntra etc. speak volumes about it. But the big question remains whether it‘s just a fad or is it the curtain raiser to the humongous growth awaiting in business circles. According to the Zenov report, India’s ecommerce industry is poised to become a $125- $260 billion industry. Currently, shoppers in metropolitan India are the key drivers of the ecommerce model. The ecommerce websites cater to its consumers by selling everything from books to apparel, from electronics to grocery items. For the growing consumer base, there are numerous options popping up to choose from the various ecommerce websites. But behind the backdrop, there are ongoing battles for customer acquisition and price wars evident from the competition intensive facet of this growing segment. Catering to Indian Consumers: Taking up a major gauntlet Fulfilling the specific requirements of the Indian consumers has predominantly remained a task in itself for any business model. In the ecommerce context, retailers must be aware that consumers demand the return process to be seamless and convenient. The cost involved in the service is high but the retailers consider it necessary for ensuring customer trust and confidence. While such at-home pickup for returns is typical in other emerging markets, the markets tend to shift from this labor-intensive, often inconvenient process to prepaid return labels as the ecommerce ecosystem develops in the future. Another service provided is the free door-to-door shipping which is commonplace in such markets. Online retailers have little choice but to offer the same convenience, services and low costs that their local counterparts are
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offering. Thus companies investing in such spaces are often skeptical of the future sustainability of such offering. It is always presumed that the e-businesses must offer a variety of payment options. In India, online payments present multiple hurdles. Like most emerging markets, cash on delivery, most commonly referred to as COD, is a popular option — with 23% of online shoppers in metropolitan India choosing to pay for online purchases with cash. COD becomes indispensable to target the first-time shoppers who try to conceal their information over the Internet and shoppers who don’t use widely accepted cards and banks. Myntra.com, for example, sees 60% of its transactions paid for with COD. While COD can be a great way to acquire new customers, return rates on these orders can be colossal. In India, venture capitalists report COD return rates of up to 25% in some categories. Indeed, COD return rates tend to be much higher than when consumer pays online. Even those companies that offer a variety of localized payment methods are struck in a predicament with infrastructure crunch. Payment gateways, for example, are notorious for being inconsistent, with failure rates as high as 35% in India. However, retailers can take a series of steps to ensure that they are offering the payment types that most appeal to consumers today. By doing so, these businesses position themselves to capitalize on growing online spending as infrastructure issues are addressed. Influencing Future growth of ecommerce in India: Venture Capitalist are bullish on Ecommerce growth in Indian Market In 2011, Venture capitalists invested a whopping USD 177 million in the Indian ecommerce market to stir the future growth. The investors believe that the Indian urban consumers have surpassed the initial stages of online shopping and now find it convenient to shop online for any product which isn’t readily available in the local market. Online Grocery Stores Grocery, traditionally in India is perceived to be procured from the local kirana stores. It is started to venture online and is doing reasonably good in its nascent stage as category that has .
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Certainly, the concept is poised to grow in future. MyGrahak.com, for example, expects to have a turnover of USD 179.1 million by 2015. Although the website currently has 22,000 registered users, the sign-up rates are increasing by 25% and the firm is consistently aiming at doubling its warehouse and logistics capacity. Social Media- Growth in nonmetropolitan India
E-businesses must be willing to work with different partners E-businesses will need to manage every step in business operations- from site design to fulfillment solutions to employee training. E-businesses trying to enter the Indian market must be aware of the need to work with a variety of partners and work through integrating multiple solutions. Mobile will be a part of ecommerce mix
Ecommerce retailers are investing heavily in infrastructure to support the nonmetropolitan cities and capture the market in such cities. Online retailer Mytra.com is raking in moolah as 50% of its sales are outside India’s 10 biggest cities. To cash in the new segment these retailers are trying building warehouses outside central locations, testing various shipping options to semi urban and rural consumers and providing options like COD. Recommendations: Ecommerce is in its nascent stage and developing fast. In order to offer the best to the customers and reflect their services, the players in this industry must be aware of the following considerations:
Ecommerce businesses can take advantage of this growing trend and start offering mobile website - ensuring that it is accessible on both feature phones and smartphones Multibrand retailers must be ready to launch as soon as FDI norms are lifted Like Croma (single brand), one of the largest electronics stores that moved online to sell its entire range of products, multibrand retailers who have an eye on the Indian market, can map out their potential offerings so that they can move quickly when FDI norms are relaxed.
Move beyond English to differentiate in the long run Ecommerce leaders should consider multilingual websites as a potential long term option for differentiating their offerings and appealing to consumers who would prefer a local language. As Hil Davis (co-founder of the online men’s retailer J. Hilburn), rightly says
“With more and more people seeking alternatives to bricks-and-mortar retail now is the time for development of new technologies to enhance the online experience.
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But will e-commerce really get that big? Only time will tell.
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Cloud
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Computing -Mandar Koli, SIMSREE In today’s world, computer hardware and software are part of everyday life. We use internet for various facilities like email, hosting websites or simply access vast quantities of information. This is done without having to build our own IT infrastructure like servers etc. Taking this very idea forward, Cloud Computing provides the computational services to multiple users which are dynamically scalable and available delivered on-demand over the internet as a pay per use model. It allows consumers and employees to engage or work with businesses via any connected device. It represents a new paradigm in technology and will have a tremendous impact on how IT services will be created, delivered and consumed. There are 3 Cloud Computing Service Levels namely SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) and PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service). SaaS type of cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. SaaS applications live omnipresent in the cloud, allowing their users access from desktops, laptops, or mobile devices. In IaaS a combination of computation and cloud storage is provided. IaaS customers are in full control over the virtual machines, storage, and everything else above in the stack. In PaaS type of cloud computing businesses build their own applications that run on the provider's infrastructure and are delivered to their users via the Internet from the provider's servers. Thus users of PaaS services have an even greater luxury of only needing to be concerned with creating their customer applications. All of the hardware and mid-level services such as web and database servers are taken care of by the platform. Cloud Computing has many advantages over traditional computing. Firstly, it reduces the spending on technology infrastructure thus help maintain an easy access to the information with minimal upfront spending. It helps achieve economies of scale by increasing volume output or productivity with fewer people. Storing information in the cloud gives you almost unlimited storage capacity. Also it allows Scalability via on-demand resources thus reducing redundancy in server usage. People worldwide can access the cloud, provided they have an Internet connection. So companies can well apply a Global Delivery Model thus staying within budget and ahead of completion cycle times. Since all the data is stored in the cloud, backing it up and restoring the same is relatively much easier than storing the same on a physical drive. Also, most cloud service providers FUTURISTIC INDIA
are usually competent enough to handle recovery of information. Hence, this makes the entire process of backup and recovery much simpler than other traditional methods of data storage. Lastly cloud computing gives the advantage of quick deployment and hence the entire system can be fully functional in a matter of a few minutes.
Google in May, 2011 launched commercial hardware i.e. Chromebooks based on Cloud technology. Chrome OS only ships on specific hardware from Google's manufacturing partners such as Acer and Samsung. Since Google Chrome OS is aimed at users who spend most of their computer time on the Web, the only application on the device is a browser incorporating a media player and a file manager. All the softwares and applications needed by the user could be directly accessed on the cloud. Google claimed an eightsecond bootup time and eight-hour operation on one battery charge, and said that the chromebooks would require no virus protection. This was possible due to the fact that only few applications were available on the Chromebooks and so booting time could be reduced drastically. Cloud computing is at an early stage; but several analysts had long predicted that the computation power will get commoditized. The governments can leverage this and can organize Cloud computing as a utility like power and energy. The Government can develop the necessary infrastructure and thus providing same growth opportunities and profits as enjoyed by the private players. Also the government can strictly enforce security and privacy to the users. For a developing country like India with robust IT infrastructure, Cloud Computing has a lot to offer. Indian IT players need to step back and evaluate what “Cloud” means to their business and how do they prepare for this change. They need to identify and develop strong partners to remain competitive. These partnerships could aid in expanding Cloud 24
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portfolio (Wipro HPC solutions on Microsoft Azure), becoming trusted implementation partners (Accenture and Infosys performing Salesforce.com integration), codeveloping new solutions (Airtel-VMware managed compute services) and improving service delivery capabilities (OrangeScape sourcing of IaaS from Amazon EC2). Cloud provides Indian firms a level-playing field to build edge over their global competitors. The key stakeholders should work together to leverage this opportunity to transform the Indian IT services industry into a dominant force thus gaining greater share of the global IT spending. Government on other hand should work on better policy development and
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Thus players could make smaller strategic bets with potential to exploit them as the “Cloud� evolves. Green Computing or Green IT as Cloud Computing is one of the leading IT topics today. The main role of green computing is to make the energy efficient use of computers with minimal or no impact on the environment. As for the businesses it means to find the methods of cutting the consumption of power and IT waste. Multitenancy allows many different or many different business units within the same organization to benefit from a common cloud-based infrastructure thus helping businesses contribute to energy-efficiency and sustainability goals. The pay-as-you-go nature of cloud-based infrastructure encourages users to only consume what they need which helps reducing e-waste footprint. Using Cloud Computing, there is no need for IT department structure as the employees can work remotely. This reduces travelling and moving from one place to another because they have fast access to the internet and the ability to use all the services at hand. Thus it reduces the consumption of fossil fuels and the harmful pollution that results from vehicle emissions as well.
promoting innovation so as to create a new ecosystem where Cloud-based start-ups entrepreneurs can connect and collaborate.
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Thus Cloud Computing is not just future of computation but will help restoring the balance with the environment and provide sustainable development in years to come.
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SIMSREE B Road, Churchgate Mumbai 400020, India Blog : http://simsreeblog.blogspot.in/
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