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Washing his way to moolah !
This is the first in my series of odes to the spirit of entrepreneurship at the grass root level… At my place we had a “dhobi (washerman)” who would come over to our place everyday and wash the clothes….Since he had small operations and lived in a hut closeby- he washed the clothes of the…
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Reinventing the Wheels
There was a time when the best car models in India came with Maggi- Hot Wheels- thats what they were called and I remember myself trying to raise a great collection of Ferrari’s, and Lamborghini’s …. those were the days when there was just an Ambassador or Fiat to choose from- or if you were…
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The Changing Business of Cricket
Cricket has always been the only rich game in the country- with rights being sold for an unimaginable amount- BCCI has always been flushed with funds. But with the new 20-20 format (in its multiple avtars) coming in- the business of cricket will surely see a lot of changes. So lemme try amp; put on…
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The long tail of grocery retailing …
Grocery retailing is considered by most as the toughest nut to crack in any new market. More so in India where Reliance’s Fresh initiative ran into some serious trouble in the Hindi speaking belt. But apart from the political resistance I guess grocery retailing is here to stay- atleast in the metros amp; sub-metros. With…
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Selling @ Traffic Signals
Have you ever noticed the kids who are busy selling at Traffic Signals- from tissue paper to calculators, glossy magazines to Indian prints of best-sellers- they seem to have pedelled it all. The overall logistics here works something like this: Multiple traffic signals in an area are “managed” by a single “dealer” who issues the…
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Rural mobile telephony: Show me the money !
Remember the famous lines from “Jerry Maguire”-” Show me the money” With the next battles for telecom shifting to the countryside- I guess most of the telco honcho’s are rattling along the same lines…Coz exciting as it may seem, rural cellular telephony doesnt seem “profitable” enough in all its entirety- or maybe I am missing…
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Surjeet wants to go solo….
Surjeet Singh is your typical sardarji driving a taxi for yet another typical sardarji- Giani Singh. Gianiji has a fleet of around 40-45 cabs that are doing decent business (if fleet expansion rate is any indicator).This has been largely due to the fact that Giani enjoys access to a captive audience – he is the…
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Growth Boosters- Can i find em in Tea?
Ever since we moved office to this part of town – the whole of the team has become almost completely addicted to the corner tea-stall. The shop is your regular road-side tea kiosk managed by this ol man- who is the brewer, accountant, salesman and the delivery boy- all packed in one. It may come…
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Delhi-Gurgaon Toll Plaza: Is adding more Marshals the solution ?
There has been much hue cry about the mis-management of the newly openend Toll Plaza at the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. There have been reports of consistent traffic jams during peak hours where commuters have alleged that they were stranded for almost 2 hrs only at the plaza. While I symapthise with all those who have to…
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Business Case Study # 1: What should the Indian Farmer do?
Was on a road-trip when I came across a possible biz dilema that is faced by most mid-sized Indian farmers. – Our man-HariRam has been able to save enough to either buy some more land or a tractor – Hari like most other farmers is not sure about credit- either the rates are too high…
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Fairs at Pragati Maidan-Lets Learn to Serve Information !
Was at the Auto Expo yday it was truly amazing how Pragati Maidan has changed over the last 5-6 years. There are a lot of signages ,food-stalls, kiosks now it surely is a better experience. But what hasnt changed is the lack of information for the visitors once inside the PM. We managed to find…
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Reliance Power IPO media plan- abuse of negative tracer?
ADAG has leveraged its customer touchpoints to promote the Reliance Power IPO- including the massive reach of Reliance Communications.They have by default activated the jingle for Reliance Power for ALL of their subscribed customers. Now each caller to any Reliance number gets to hear “Power on to….” as the default call-back-tune ! Its a brilliant…
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TATA’s Nano- A Streetcar named Desire
Never before has there been more frenzy in the strongIndian Automobile industry/strong- and understandably so. Never before was there a car with a tag of $ 2500. TATA’s have done it ! And the pride that the nation feels is best captured by the fact that even my grandma knew about the Nano- though she…