Biz Dewz

I searched for the web address of ICICI Lombard in Google recently. Google gave the company’s url as the first result. But there is a sponsor link above that organic search result and ICICI Lombard’s website is present in that sponsored links.

What do you think about this ad strategy? People who would have directly clicked the result of the first search may click one in the sponsored links as it is appearing above the main search result. But companies are forced to buy their own brand terms so as to prevent competitors from using it in the search marketing and take away their traffic.

Now, what would you do when you get such search results? Will you click the sponsored link that appears first and help Google earn more profits or just scroll down and click the organic search link?

First mover vs Fast Follower - Don Dodge, Director of Business Development for Microsoft’s Emerging Business Team, explains how the early innovators were eclipsed by fast followers.

Now that Bill Gates has retired, what do you think will happen to Microsoft? Google will buy Microsoft in the next 7 years, says Ian Lurie in his blog Conversation Marketing.

If religion was the Web, Hinduism would be Web 2.0, says Neelakantan. His comparison of religion with open source makes an interesting read.

Last month I was traveling from Tambaram to Velachery in a FastTrack call taxi. Even before we’ve crossed half of the distance, the driver called the control room using the on-board wireless system and informed that he had reached the destination. His trick to cut the waiting time for next trip worked and he got the call before we reached our home. Needless to say, he drives rashly so that he can drop us and pick up the next customer in time.

In my next trip to Chennai Egmore Railway station in the Fast Track call taxi, I again found another driver using the same tactics to reduce the waiting time. This time the FastTrack control room operator asked about the fare details of the trip to ensure that the driver had actually reached his destination. The call taxi driver well aware of this new rule gave an approximate amount at that time. His tactics also worked and he got the call for next trip before we reached the Egmore station. Again this pushed the driver into rash driving.

Call taxi management should get the customer feedback and have to take more severe measures to curb this practice of drivers to cut the waiting time and get more trips.

Do you remember the last time you watched a program in Doordarshan other than cricket? It’s a tough question to answer for me. It’s been years since I watched any program in DD.

For Doordarshan, being India’s national public broadcaster, it has the additional responsibility to provide education and information services in addition to its focus on entertainment. Even if they dedicate one or two hours exclusively for non-profit purposes, they can effectively use the rest of the airtime to attract more viewers through quality programs.

We’ve seen public sector banks like SBI raising itself from the old days and fight with the private banks by providing better service to the customers. Will Doordarshan pull itself up and fight with the private broadcasters like the Sun and Star Network to regain its lost viewers and be more profitable?

Will we see the return of Ramayan and Mahabharat days of broadcasting for Doordarshan?

I’ve been traveling in Pothigai Express from Sivakasi to Chennai, every month for more than 2 years. But I’ve never seen the train arrive on time at 8:53 PM as mentioned in the ticket. If it comes at least by 9 PM, we’ve to consider ourselves lucky. Even though I’m absolutely sure that the train will arrive at the station only after 10 minutes from the expected arrival time, I’ll always ensure to be in the station as per the timings mentioned in the ticket, fearing the unexpected punctuality from Indian Railways.

In its total journey of 12 hours, if the train is late by more than 10 minutes with in 2 hours every day then it definitely means that something is wrong in calculating the journey time by the railway officials. Why can’t they correct this mistake and change the train timings?

Will the Indian Railways stop wasting the valuable time of passengers and their friends/relatives who come to the station for send-off every day?

What’s Wipro marketing in TV these days? It is not about their core banking solutions product or networking solutions product or their corporate campaign. But the marketing is for Wipro Baby Soft Diapers.

Well, Wipro is now giving more attention to its FMCG business. It’s business unit Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting has a profitable presence in the branded retail market of toilet soaps, hair care soaps, baby care products and lighting products. Another software major Tata is well diversified and it has not left any business segment untouched.

However, Infosys even after 25 years of operation and more than US$ 4 billion in revenues still sticks to its core IT business except their BPO business.

India’s new age entrepreneurs are quickly diversifying into new business after seeing the initial signs of success in their first business. Real estate player Parsvnath Developers applies for pan-India telecom license, Telecom czar Sunil Mittal is now thinking more about Bharti-Walmart retail stores, Retail king Pantaloon’s Kishore Biyani moved to financial sector with Future Capital Holdings Ltd, Indiabulls Financial services is now one of the largest listed real estate companies in India. This list goes on.

Why Infosys is not willing to take the risk and move into new business with better opportunities for growth? Will the cash rich Indian IT giant ever diversify?

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What comes to your mind first when you think about Social Media? Blogs, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. OK enough. But have you ever thought about telephone as a Social Media Tool? John Jantsch in his blog, Duct Tape Marketing, says small business owners can use telephone to achieve a great deal of the promise of Social Media.

Professor TT Ram Mohan, explains why he believes soaring oil prices will not affect India’s growth prospects.

Another Professor Robert Reich suggests a solution to the cure for America’s chronic recession. So the crumbling infrastructure is not just India’s issue, it’s the issue with US too.

If Google suddenly made all of its services paid, will you pay for search? In the FutureLab blog, Ilya Vedrashko discusses what he’d do, if some of the free to use online services become a paid one. Quite interesting one to read and think about.

Indian Railways provides 30% concession in fares to male Senior citizens and for women senior citizens it is 50%. But if they have to use the over bridge and cross platforms, as most stations do not have escalators, they’ll end up spending most of that saved money in painkillers and ayurvedic oils. Will the Indian Railways spend more of its profit in providing better comfort to the passengers than in providing concessions?

Do you know what is the most important insurance in India? No, it is not Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Home Insurance or Retirement Insurance. It is the insurance when you failed to pay premium at the right time, you’ll end up paying more fine to the police than to the insurers.

It is the vehicle insurance I’m talking about. As per the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers, total vehicle sales in India last year was 9,648,094. Insurance of all the motor vehicles plying on the public road is mandatory under Indian Motor Vehicles Act. That automatically translates to 9 million new motor insurance policies every year.

1 insurance policy every 3 seconds. That’s the opportunity. But do the insurance majors really care to capture a major share of this motor insurance market? You can easily remember many of the great ads for health insurance, life insurance or retirement plans by major insurance providers. But have you ever seen an ad for a motor insurance?

I’ve seen Reliance Retail marketing ICICI Lombard’s two-wheeler insurance in its Reliance Fresh stores. Other than that I haven’t seen any major marketing initiative for this vehicle insurance segment.

I really have no idea why the insurance marketers mostly ignore this vehicle insurance market. Is it that kind of a low margin business? Are the insurance companies not interested in increasing their market share in this segment? Do you have any idea?

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