IPL3

It's summer & it's IPL time… probably IPL is getting hotter than summer hotness in India, by the year. Several people have written about valuation of IPL as brand, money making machine, best timeslots for advertisement, way it's pulling even non-cricket lovers etc, - all these are true… I'm only going to talk about macro situation that helped IPL (as a business) & raise few questions.

I think few people may know, ICL by Subhash Chandra was the first to introduce the cricket league in India & ONLY reason he failed was because of "authority" from BCCI - warning any players joining ICL league to be dropped / not allowed into official India team to represent the country. This authority of BCCI, is the macro condition that helped IPL (as a business sense) to build a similar league… and snubbed ICL. Is BCCI a government body? NO, it's run as a trust with big money in coffers that attract the politicians & big names from heading the body. I have only seen one person from government questioning the way IPL is being held by BCCI… that's MS Gill, Sports Minister - stating the conflict of interest from internal BCCI folks, either owning / representing as IPL Franchisees & potentially manipulating the rules to their favor?

Don’t get the feeling that I hate IPL / being a sour grape… I'm happy India & BCCI has been innovative in creating such a great event… that directly & indirectly generated so many jobs, money flow apart from opportunity for the youngsters to play at such competitive levels. But, I'm only questioning… what has IPL given back to community of Cricket or Sports in general? Few ideas to suggest…

• Upgrade the stadium facilities to state of the art, so people can really enjoy watch matches from stadium & not just double the ticket rates every year
• Build new cricket stadiums in smaller towns - have we not seen lot of talent coming from smaller towns? With better infrastructure… we should see more talented players?
• Shouldn’t BCCI nurture & support other sports along? - instead of just selling all the AD Revenue to commercial - can they spare few minutes to encourage other sports or events?
• Can IPL associate with a noble cause? - AIDS Awareness, by sharing the implications of AIDS or sharing story of an affected person... before every match? I know it may not sound good to hear sad things... but we need such measures to curb growing AIDS in India

I have seen startup companies adopt philanthropy as part of company culture from start, that has helped them give something back to community as they grow & make space for themselves. For a business like IPL, in India… there are several such noble causes that IPL can associated with or the franchisee owners? If only, the authorities open their eyes.

IPL is great… I enjoy watching RCB matches, once in a while during weekends - have a great summer & enjoy!

Thanks
Bhaskara

Challenges in B2B product launch...

You think launching a new product or innovation in B2B space is easier? ready with a detailed industry gap analysis, found an opportunity & come up with a solution to fix the gap? It also sounds easier compare to B2C products, because there are less number of people to pitch your product, take to market, go live!

YET - B2B products are as harder to launch & be successful, I have tried to list a few... based on a recent research that we have done in B2B space:

• Current Process - are you changing the existing process, that business are using currently? for them to adopt your product - if yes, think again... might have an uphill task in convincing the potential customers
• Savings - is your pitch mainly on cost savings to the business? be sure that you have done a complete research & understand is the cost line item you are replacing is on the top 10 of the cost line items for the business
  
• Payment Cycle - assume you will be a paid product for the businesses, you should be aware of the payment cycle of the businesses in the industry - helps to know what is the money needed for WIP & be ready for such a cash flow
• Literacy of People - are the target users in business literate with the tools or technologies you are using or proposing? if no - then you might waste & break your head with people not willing to learn or use the tool
• Industry - last, but an important one... is the industry you are targeting shown a sign of adoption or willingness to look at new products, open for change, backed with legal (formal or informal) compliance to ethical practices

I still think B2B market has better chances of succeeding on innovation, profitability & target revenue realization... rather than living in virtual money or valuations of B2C market (at least for the tech companies)

-Bhaskara

Bing is favorite rest of world... other than US?

Is Bing catching up as "decision" sorry, the "search" engine of choice by people all over the world? Looks like yes as per this non-scientific poll by Time.

Interesting only US State that is in blue, for Bing is Iowa, all other states have a "leading" Google choice as favorite search engine.

Rest of the world's 81% liking for Bing, makes Bing the winner in this non-scientific post.

I Personally love Bing search - it gives me the results I need & in a structure format that makes me easier to navigate to the destination... not having to spend time wasting to look for my destination on the map (may we say the search results page on web is a map?)

The coolest thing that I like on Bing is the "new image" for every day... that keeps me informed about a remotest island that I never heard or some interesting facts of a place that I have lived in or visited.

I'm not a microsoft fan, but a supporter of innovation, new products, early adopter... I truly believe Google is suffocating as search engine & will be getting into catchup mode, if they don't change soon.

Wait... I thought people in US were early adopter's, but why are they stuck with Google, while rest of the world has embrace Bing?

-Bhaskara

AD theme in recession...

US and probably most countries in the world is going through a tremendous change during these recession times, what used to be unique product based positioning & marketing... is moving towards advertising on "price" - price based competition is the one of the first consideration for advertisements, below are some examples of TV Ads...

• Subway - $5.00 footlong sandwitches
• Hyundai - Offering $1.49 /gallon gas for the entire year
• KFC - $5.00 for chicken, side & drink
• GM is becoming "green" from the traditional blue.. to give a new message
  
• Chillis - $20.00 3 course menu for two people
• Walmart - continues to give the message of everyday low prices
  

and every street has at least one store in NY, has one of the following boards...

• going out of business
• everything is 80% off
• buy 1 get 1 free

How does the world of advertising change in these recession times?
First thing that happens in time of recession for advertising is cut in budgets & change of positioning & message for the product to something more valuable, less price, better over the competition etc,

How do you innovate in advertising your product?
It should be back to basics...

a. re-think the competition for the product, as because of new macro-economic conditions the marketplace might have changed, could be competing with a #6 company in the market

b. understand the new value of your product in the recession, new economic conditions might mean different to your consumers...

c. change your advertising strategy, start with a clean slate in the communicating the message to the consumers

the list can keep going to innovate, position and marketing of the product.

-Bhaskara

Innovation, G20, Entrepreneurship...

I'm back after a long silence, to share few web resources that I think would be a good read:

1. Interesting model for "Engaging Individuals in Idea Management" (new product development) - "The ORCHID Model" - Observer, Ringmaster, Creator, Helper, Inquisitor, Doer - http://www.imaginatik.com/site/pdfs/Imaginatik%20WP-0503-1%20The%20ORCHID%20Model.pdf - this white paper explains the individual styles of the people & how to build the teams for creating successful products.

2. Interesting blog resource from the CEO of Imaginatik, some of his posts are thought provoking - http://markturrell.wordpress.com/ - read the posts on "Enterprise Crowdsourcing", "Stepping Up" - he basically writes in the space of innovation

3. About current state of the Economy, ET Columnist MK Venu's - has written some great articles over the past few weeks, links to some of them are below:

a) G20 & Epidemic of over production - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/MK-Venu-G-20-and-Overproduction/articleshow/4368049.cms
b) Innovative Ideas required to spur economy - http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Opinion/MK-Venu-Innovation-must-to-spur-eco/articleshow/4273779.cms

4. Crash Course on Economy & current state by Chris Martenson - http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-1-three-beliefs

Hope you find these resources useful... do reply back with your thoughts to me.

Thanks
Bhaskara

Being Innovative...

While thinking on topic for this post, innovation was the first thing that came to me... here goes my thought process for possible steps to be an innovative company in building products or services!

Research...
Spending good amount of time with people or institutes that do research could be one channel to give food for the brain to get out of the mundane, regular things & look outside the daily life. Is this easy to get hold of people in research to partner with them? No - but sufficient study or preparation and then approaching them to help with their research is a good way to go. Pick the area of interest - it could be anywhere from psychology to high technology, identify the top researchers or organization, make your top 3 or 5 people from that list to approach... then write or meet them with your offer to help or extension.


Patents...
There are several patents that have scope for minor modifications or enhancements & register them as a new patent or build products around them, again the starting point is same - know your area of interest, start digging all the registered patents in this domain (now Google has patent search service - http://www.google.com/patents) - study, understand, talk to the vendors or manufacturers of the products around the patent (there could be some that are not commercialized also) .... then build an add-on or modification to this patent. Enhanced version of proposed patent, could be registered again as patent to ensure that you are not authorized for this enhancement & would not face any legal issues. Now you have a good patent backed product to build, that can hopefully give you competitive advantage for a while or an entry into the market.

Imitative...
Imitative products or services is the top route taken by new ventures to enter into the market, some idea - that has succeeded in west, may not work in east - but people do not even look at their market or research before jumping in. In my opinion the success percentage for new ventures is less than 25% in imitative products or services & this seems like a reasonable percentage to give a try... backed with good amount of market research study & analysis. Again in this path - first consider the option of tie-up with original company or group that you are imitating from, if you think there can be a win-win for both the parties.

Think BIG & don't settle for just another idea or product... if you build a company, it should make a difference to the employees, community & people involved!

-Bhaskara