Archive for the 'Business' Category

Like his brother, Vindi Banga quits after missing top job

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on March 19, 2010
in Business and People
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From The Times:

Vindi Banga and Ajay Banga

They are both Indian-born, both called Banga, they both climbed the ladder of western corporate capitalism and they have both been denied (so far) a foothold on the highest rung. Vindi Banga, a top executive director of Unilever, yesterday followed his younger brother in quitting a multinational after failing to land the chief executive’s job.

Ajay Banga left Citigroup for Mastercard last summer after being pipped to the top post by his compatriot Vikram Pandit.

Now Vindi has jumped ship at the consumer goods giant 15 months after the appointment of Paul Polman as chief executive. His departure will spark speculation about his next job and he suggested yesterday that there could be news in a couple of months.

He is tipped as a contender at Tata Group, the giant Indian conglomerate where the chairman, Ratan Tata, 72, is looking for a successor. But people close to Mr Banga suggested yesterday he is not pursuing this. More:

My heart is very much in India: Manvinder Singh ‘Vindi’ Banga

Mian Muhammad Mansha: First Pakistani on the Forbes billionaires list

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on March 15, 2010
in Business and Lists
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Mian Mohammad Mansha is the first Pakistani on the Forbes list of billionaires. He is at #937 (out of a total of 1,011 billionaires listed), the same rank as India’s Vijay Mallya.

Ten of the 25 richest Asians are from India. Mukesh Ambani of India’s Reliance Group, with an estimate net worth of US$29 billion, is the richest, followed closely by steel giant Lakshmi Mittal (at USD28.7 billion).

Globally, Ambani and Mittal are the fourth and fifth richest – right behind Carlos Slim (USD 53.5 billion), Bill Gates ($53 billion) and Warren Buffet ($47 billion).

About Pakistan’s Mian Mohammad Mansha, Forbes says:

Born during the tumultuous Partition winter of 1947, when his parents were among those Muslim families making the trek from India to Pakistan. His father and uncles jumped into textiles with Nishat Mills in 1951. Mian went to college in the U.K.; joined family business after graduation…His Nishat Group is now Pakistan’s largest exporter of cotton clothes (for brands like Gap) and nation’s largest private employer. More:

Click here for the full Forbes list

The science of shopping

Published
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on March 6, 2010
in Business, Innovation and Science
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A.K. Pradeep, founder of NeuroFocus

How does it feel to know that the seller knows your mind better than you know yourself? And this isn’t science fiction either. Hartosh Singh Bal in Open:

The founder of NeuroFocus, the world’s biggest neuromarketing firm, is AK Pradeep, a PhD in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Five years ago, having moved from designing satellites to management consultancy, he found himself sitting next to a neuroscientist on a flight back from Atlanta: “I had just had a meeting with someone senior at Coke. He had been telling me that despite spending $3 billion on marketing and another $3 billion on indirect marketing, he was not sure what precisely he got out of it. This was still on my mind when I asked the neuroscientist what he did. He told me he helps children with attention deficit disorders, adults with emotional problems, and he works with the aged suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer’s. It struck me that this was exactly what the man at Coke was looking for. How do you get people to pay attention? How do you engage them emotionally, and how do you ensure they remember what is being said to them? Can’t I apply what he was doing in the clinic to what was happening?”

The team of neuroscientists, market researchers and business experts that Pradeep got together has devised what is now the most widely used neuromarketing model. Among their clients are companies such as Google, PayPal, Microsoft and CBS. Google, for example, used NeuroFocus to test its InVideo Ads that were launched on YouTube(with good reason, given the results). More:

India tribes fight mining firm in real-life Avatar

Published
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on March 5, 2010
in Business
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From Reuters:

In India’s impoverished but mineral-rich state of Orissa, hundreds of indigenous tribespeople are battling to stop London-listed Vedanta Resources Plc from extracting bauxite from what they say is their sacred mountain.

“The fundamental story of Avatar — if you take away the multi-colored lemurs, the long-trunked horses and warring androids — is being played out today in Niyamgiri mountain in India’s Orissa state,” said Stephen Corry, director of the British charity, Survival International.

“Like the Na’vi of Avatar, the Dongria Kondh tribe are also at risk.”

Vedanta says its mine would not violate the rights of indigenous tribespeople, saying that all its projects are conducted within the law and using international best practices. More:

Jhunjhunwala’s real bull run

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on February 28, 2010
in Business, India and People
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It took 17 years for India’s most famous investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala to become a father, and it beat anything that all his thousands of crores could buy. Manju Sara Rajan in Open:

Most women accept discomfort as an essential part of the pregnancy ritual, but it takes altogether something else to survive what Rekha Jhunjhunwala went through. In 2003, 39-year-old Rekha, wife of India’s most famous investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, finally became pregnant for the first time. But by the final trimester in early 2004, her baby was in serious trouble: it was sliding down the birth canal far too fast. Too late to surgically keep the baby in, too early to bring it out, Rekha’s doctor gave her a single prescription: be confined to bed till delivery date. “I didn’t bathe for three months,” she says. “It was difficult to do anything, my legs were elevated all the time, and because I was always lying down, after some time I did everything on my side, even eating. But I was determined.” Nishtha was born on 30 June 2004. Her brothers, twins Aryaman and Aryavir, were born at 12.29 am and 12.30 am on 2 March 2009. It took the millionaire couple 22 years of marriage to complete their family.

The latest Forbes India rich list counts 49-year-old Jhunjhunwala as the 58th richest man in the country, with a fortune of $915 million (Rs 4,209 crore). “I have far less than people think, far more than I need. My wealth fluctuates by 5 per cent every week,” he says. But even an amateur guesstimate of listed and unlisted investments, private equity interests and cash holdings safely puts the former chartered accountant’s net worth at over a billion dollars. “Whatever is known publicly is underestimated,” says a source close to him. More:

India worries as China builds ports in South Asia

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on February 16, 2010
in Business, China, Economy, India and Sri Lanka
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Vikas Bajaj in the New York Times:

Hambantota, Sri Lanka: For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.

Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbors.

As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal. These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of the continent in trade and economic development.

But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat. More:

After Avatar, Anil Ambani in 3-D business

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on February 12, 2010
in Business, Entertainment, India and Movies
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Here's looking at you in 3-D

The Times, London, reports from Mumbai:

Bollywood’s wealthiest mogul is poised to enter the booming business of transforming 2-D films into 3-D — with classics such as Casablanca expected to be given the full stereoscopic treatment.

Anil Ambani, who dominates the Indian film market but is also a leading Hollywood financier, will soon unveil a giant outsourcing centre in Mumbai that will be dedicated to the process of “dimensionalisation”.

The £25 million facility is the result of a partnership between his post-production business, Reliance MediaWorks, and In-Three, a Los Angeles-based specialist in 2-D to 3-D conversion.

Inside the new unit, 1,000 Indian technicians will be guided by a handful of American experts. In-Three has already given industry insiders a taste of what may be in store, holding private screenings of 3-D snippets of classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, 12 Angry Men and Casablanca. More:

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani bids for Liverpool Football

Published
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on February 9, 2010
in Business and Sport
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From The Times:

Liverpool emerged as a takeover target for the seventh-richest man in the world last night as the pressure mounted on Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr to cut a deal to sell Anfield.

Mukesh Ambani, the wealthiest man in India, is one of two tycoons from the sub-continent competing to buy a stake in the Merseyside club.

The Sahara Group’s chairman, Subrata Roy, and Ambani’s Reliance Industries have each tendered similar bids to pay off Liverpool’s £237 million debt in return for a 51 per cent stake in the club.

Last night Christian Purslow, the Liverpool chief executive, denied any knowledge of either bid, but The Times understands that approaches began as early as November and that some preliminary talks have taken place.More:

Update: Liverpool have denied that there has been any contact with either of the two Indian businessmen linked with buying a 51% stake in the club.

The trader of shadow fortunes

Published
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on February 6, 2010
in Burma, Business and India
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Everyone knows about the illegal lottery business. Few know who runs it. In Tehelka, Shantanu Guha Ray uncovers Santiago Martin of Myanmar:

Every few nights, as a nation dreams, contract employees of Kolkata-based courier companies heave brown bags onto nondescript railway station platforms across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. These jute sacks hold no prosaic cargo, but literally millions of lottery tickets worth hundreds of crores, each ticket a sultry — and illicit — promise of riches. Troops of young boys swarm onto these sacks; dividing their contents among themselves, they cycle off into the approaching dawn. That day — and every day — lottery tickets worth Rs 40 crore will be sold across India. Lotteries are legal in just 12 states and five Union territories; in the other states, tickets are clandestinely sold at nondescript tea stalls, cigarette shops and newspaper vends. Illegal lottery tickets account for a whopping 60 per cent — Rs 7,200 crore — of the Rs 13,000 crore gambled every year on lottery tickets.

Presiding over this illegal empire of eternal hope and callous numbers is Santiago Martin, 42, a Myanmarese whose interest in paper lotteries are perhaps as old as he is. The day Martin was born, his Yangon-based parents won a super lottery, getting $1,000. “He proved lucky for his parents,” says T Arumayagam, who worked with Martin in Arunachal Pradesh where lotteries are legal, before he shifted to Coimbatore. More:

Reliance considers a bid for MGM

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on January 16, 2010
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From the Wall Street Journal:

After tying up with Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks last year, India’s Reliance ADA Group is eyeing a purchase of another Hollywood studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. But the Indian company isn’t willing to pay anything close to what MGM is seeking, a person familiar with the matter said.

MGM, which is struggling with $3.7 billion in debt stemming from its 2005 leveraged buyout, has extended first-round bids beyond this week as it tries to galvanize more interest in its assets, the person said.

People familiar with the talks said earlier this week that bids are in the $2 billion range, far below what MGM owes its lenders. Some could come in below $1.5 billion, they said. More

Savita Bhabhi: A (sex) symbol of free speech?

Published
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on January 14, 2010
in Business, India, Media, Technology and human rights
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S. Mitra Kalita in the Wall Street Journal:

A 2008 image of an online cartoon of Savita Bhabhi.

What does Savita Bhabhi—the sari-clad Internet porn star—have to do with Google’s threat to leave China?

For Indian companies, potentially a lot.

Savita, of course, is the voluptuous cartoon character who looks like a cross between reality television star Rakhi Sawant and Veronica Lodge of the Archie Comic book series. There’s nothing subtle about Savita—although she certainly tries.

“I’m going to take a shower! You should also change out of those wet clothes,” she greeted a neighbor in a November episode, for example. As expected, the two end up together in the shower. The illustrations are explicit, the dialogue laughably simple: “Oh that feels so…” or “Oh I’m going to…”

In June, the Indian government banned her. Sachin Pilot, minister of state in the ministry of communications and technology, says the decision was driven by a complaint received from a women’s group in Maharashtra. He did not know which one.  More:

Click here to read India’s tech minister’s take on Google, China

Previously at AW:

I am a filmmaker, not a businessman: Aamir Khan

Published
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on January 11, 2010
in Business, Entertainment, India and Movies
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From Economic Times:

On the success of his movie Three Idiots

You can never imagine that. Actually I was just hoping it would cross Ghajini, because Ghajini itself is so huge and to try and come close to it itself is a huge task. I was happy with the way the film had turned out. But I never imagined that it would be so big. The movie is still running and its gross revenues can go anywhere between one-and-a-half to two times more than Ghajini’s revenues.

On marketing the movie:

Film making is all about communication. You are telling a story to someone. So once you are ready with the story, you will have to tell people that you are making this story and would they like to hear this. That’s what marketing is at the end of the day So if I don’t tell anyone that I am about to tell a story how will people know? So certainly marketing is important. But the best that marketing can do is to get you a good opening on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Big stars or the goodwill of a director can only get you a good opening. Ultimately, what’s going to take your film forward is the film itself. More:

The man who wired Silicon Valley

Published
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on December 30, 2009
in Business
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An examination of the career of Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the Galleon Group, career reveals how, for two decades, he persuaded executives at some of America’s most prominent companies to risk their careers by passing corporate secrets. From The Wall Street Journal:

Raj Rajaratnam liked to tell people that his first name meant “king” in Hindi, and, coupled with his last name, that made him “king of kings.”

He told the story with the broad, toothy smile that had ingratiated him to a generation of Silicon Valley executives. The grin softened the edge of a boss who’d call you an “idiot” or prod you into some humiliating stunt: Would you take $5,000 to be shocked with a stun gun?

In a mansion on a manmade island in Biscayne Bay in February 2007, Mr. Rajaratnam seemed determined to live up to his regal description of his name. It was Super Bowl weekend, and America’s rich and powerful had descended on South Florida to watch the Indianapolis Colts play the Chicago Bears. Mostly they were there to do business. Mr. Rajaratnam’s business was running a hedge fund, Galleon Group, that had made him a billionaire. And that business was based on contacts. More:

One Pakistani institution places his faith in another

Published
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on December 22, 2009
in Business, Economy, Education, Leaders, Pakistan and Society
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Syed Babar Ali, 83, a veteran businessman who helped create the Lahore University of Management and Science, wants to restore merit to Pakistani society. Sabrina Tavernise in the New York Times:

Mr. Ali is an institution in Pakistan. He has started some of the country’s most successful companies. But perhaps his most important contribution has been his role in creating the Lahore University of Management and Science, or L.U.M.S., begun as a business school but now evolved into the approximate equivalent of Harvard University in Pakistan.

Pakistan’s biggest problem, he believes, is one of leadership. A corrosive system of privilege and patronage has eaten away at merit, degrading the fabric of society and making it more difficult for poor people to rise. The growing tendency to see government positions as chances to profit, together with the explosion in the country’s population, has led to a sharp decline in the services that Pakistan’s government offers its people.

“Nobody is bothered about the masses,” Mr. Ali said. More:

Bhutan’s boutique bourse

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on December 15, 2009
in Bhutan, Business and Economy
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Reuters:

Traders seeking a break from volatile global markets may want to head to Bhutan’s bourse, where stocks are traded on just four computers — when they have not crashed — only twice a week.

“I’ve got one order to sell 2,820 shares,” said 23-year-old Deki Peldon, the only broker for today’s short trading hours in Thimphu, the capital of the tiny Himalayan kingdom.

“It’s taken 2 to 3 weeks to find a buyer.”

Welcome to the Royal Bhutan stock exchange, where just four brokers work and which will trade about $3 million shares this year, about what many financiers may deal with in the blink of an eye. The average daily trade in New York is more than 1 billion.

In a Buddhist country where national wealth is measured by Gross National Happiness — an idea that spiritual and environmental health are just as important as material well-being — the exchange is crawling slowly along as the country and its $1.3 billion economy tentatively embraces globalization. More

Want good press? Pay good money

Published
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on December 13, 2009
in Business, Economy, India, Media and Politics
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Anuradha Raman in Outlook:

outlook_magazineIt is not just the print media that is guilty of publishing news for cash. Television news channels are equally guilty of selling editorial space. Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit says he was shocked when a news channel in Delhi approached him with a package to cover Rahul Gandhi’s visit to the East Delhi constituency during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

“Imagine my surprise and shock when the reporter actually negotiated the price of Rs 2.5 lakh for an hour of live coverage,” says Dikshit. “The channel even said they would arrange the crowds.” The MP said he was equally taken aback when a leading Hindi daily made an offer for positive coverage of his campaign. “Packages for print and TV for a three-day coverage varied between Rs 12 and Rs 20 lakh,” Dikshit elaborates. “You watch your opponent misusing the media and you’re forced to part with the money. I won’t take names but everyone is involved.”

In fact, campaign managers of the Congress say money had to be spent for the Delhi assembly elections last year when a TV channel insisted on projecting a lesser tally for the Congress in its opinion polls. “The tally improved after the channel was paid off,” reveals a campaign manager. “In fact, the last three days before the actual poll dates, money had to be spent on the channels to ensure good coverage.” More:

India electric car pioneer plans biggest plug-in plant

Published
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on December 4, 2009
in Business, India and Innovation
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Reva NXR electric car

Reva NXR electric car

An AFP report from New Delhi:

Chetan Maini, the engineer who pioneered India’s first electric car, had his eureka moment two decades ago when he drove a vehicle fuelled by solar power across the blazing Australian outback.

Now Maini, the man behind Reva Electric Car Co., is building in southern India what he says will be the world’s biggest factory making battery-powered city commuter cars.

“It’s the first attempt at mass production of a green car,” said Maini, who studied hybrid electric technology at California’s Stanford University and developed the no-clutch, no-gears Reva as head of a 75-member engineering team.

“With growing climate change awareness, I think we’re at the tipping point for electric cars,” Maini told AFP in an interview. More:

Ratan Tata successor could be an expat

Published
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on November 19, 2009
in Business and India
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Tata Group Chairman speaks to Paul Beckett of the Wall Street Journal:

ratan_d_tataWSJ: How are you conducting the search for your successor and when do you expect a decision to be made?

Mr. Tata:We are in the process of formalizing a successor to me. We have some outside consultants and a formal search process is on. There are no constraints. We are looking both within the organization and outside. The successor, I would hope, would have integrity and our value systems in the forefront and hopefully would carry on the path that we have tried to set for the company’s growth.

I would hope that there would not be a major disagreement in the way that we have operated. Otherwise, we will have some other disruption in what we do.In terms of who that successor might be, it could be he or she, it could be an internal or an external candidate. It would certainly be easier if that candidate were an Indian national. But now that 65% of our revenues come from overseas, it could also be an expatriate sitting in that position with justification now that we are a company that has global reach and global presence.

Click here to go to WSJ for full interview

At Air India, losses, rats and a brawl in the sky

Published
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on October 31, 2009
in Business, Economy and India
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From the New York Times:

air-indiaMumbai: In what has been a bad year for airlines everywhere, Air India has suffered from a series of particularly painful – and at times embarrassing – misfortunes.

The struggling government-owned carrier’s already uneven reputation has been further tarnished in recent months by rats on a plane, a strike by senior pilots and a midair fistfight between pilots and flight attendants. In September, a flight to Riyadh was grounded after a passenger saw sparks coming from an engine.

The embarrassing chain of events and the airline’s dire financial situation – it is expected to lose more than $1 billion in the current business year, and the government tentatively pledged about $1.1 billion in bailout money to it recently – has prompted many to ask: Why is the Indian government still running an airline? More:

India’s electric car to be made in US

Published
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on October 26, 2009
in Business, Economy, India and Innovation
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Bannon Automotive has secured an exclusive North American licensing deal with Reva Electric Car Co. of Bangalore, India, to assemble the NXR. Reva cars are now sold across Asia and Europe. Bannon will price an entry-level, two-seat version of the Reva at about $17,000. Equipped with a lead-acid battery, it will have a top speed of 55 mph and a maximum range of about 50 miles on a single charge.

Bannon Automotive has secured an exclusive North American licensing deal with Reva Electric Car Co. of Bangalore, India, to assemble the NXR. Reva cars are now sold across Asia and Europe. Bannon will price an entry-level, two-seat version of the Reva at about $17,000. Equipped with a lead-acid battery, it will have a top speed of 55 mph and a maximum range of about 50 miles on a single charge.

From the New York Times:

With the first big wave of modern electric cars due to arrive in the next few years, the battle to attract manufacturing plants is heating up.

Last week, Reva, an Indian maker of electric cars, announced that it planned to open an assembly plant in Upstate New York to build a three-door plug-in hatchback called the NXR, in partnership with a local company.

New York officials welcomed the decision as a recognition of the state’s emerging battery-technology cluster and manufacturing skill. More here, here and here.

Also read: The tiny leader of the pack

Lanka terror victims sue hedge-fund founder

Published
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on October 23, 2009
in Business, Crime and Sri Lanka
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From the Wall Street Journal:

Raj Rajaratnam

Raj Rajaratnam

A group of victims of terror attacks by Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers rebels filed suit against Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge-fund founder charged in an insider-trading case, accusing him of funding the Tigers’”crimes against humanity.”

The suit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey by 30 people who say they are survivors of attacks carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during decades of civil war against the Sri Lankan government.

The lawsuit alleges that from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Rajaratnam and a family foundation led by Mr. Rajaratnam’s father gave more than $5 million to a U.S. charity, called the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, that the U.S. government subsequently declared in 2007 to be a fund-raising front for the Tamil Tigers. More:

Previously in AW: Desi vs. Desi

Illegal insider trading: A reflection of character

From Knowledge@Wharton

Recent news of the illegal insider trading charges against Raj Rajaratnam of the hedge fund Galleon Group and five others, the biggest such case in decades, has spawned its own round of jokes on Wall Street. Who are the most sought-after professionals in finance these days? Answer: Electricians, who are experts at figuring out if cell phones, landlines or offices have been bugged by the FBI. And what is the most popular spot in New York City? Answer: The area under the Brooklyn Bridge, where in the 1980s Ivan Boesky, the last big financial executive to be convicted of illegal insider trading, was said to exchange non public material information about stocks the old fashioned way — directly in person. More:

Desi vs. Desi

Published
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on October 21, 2009
in Business
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S. Mitra Kalita on how the Galleon insider-trading scandal reflects how far a community has come. In the Wall Street Journal:

It seems like a courtroom drama made for Bollywood: The Sri Lankan hedge-fund kingpin being prosecuted by a fellow immigrant, the Indian-born U.S. attorney for Manhattan.

But the case against Raj Rajaratnam is very much an American story. Mr. Rajaratnam, the billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, and Preet Bharara — the Indian-born, Ivy League prosecutor – are both South Asian, a term that actually gained popularity (and possibility) overseas to refer to the collective people from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, among others. The relatively small immigrant group has formed a power elite in the U.S., from positions in corporate boardrooms to the governor’s mansion.

An estimated 2.5 million Indians live in the U.S., less than 1% of the total population. Yet their median income is a whopping 80% higher than the average American’s.

And in recent years, South Asians have found disproportionate success in technology and financial services, businesses at the core of the insider-trading allegations unveiled last week. More:

America’s high-tech sweatshops

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on October 5, 2009
in Business
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U.S. companies may be contributing unwittingly to the exploitation of workers imported from India and elsewhere by tech-services outfits. From BusinessWeek:

Vimal Patel was studying for a master’s in business administration in London when he saw an advertisement for work in the U.S. The ad offered a job in the tech industry, as well as sponsorship for the kind of work visa that allows foreign nationals to take professional-level jobs in the country. So Patel applied and paid his prospective employer, Cygate Software & Consulting, in Edison, N.J., thousands of dollars in up-front fees. But when Patel arrived, Cygate had no tech job for him. He ended up working at a gas station, and Cygate nevertheless took a chunk of his wages for years, according to documents in a criminal case against Cygate.

After a federal investigation into Cygate, Patel and five other natives of India recruited by the company pled guilty to visa violations in June. They were sentenced to 12 to 18 months of probation, assessed fines of $2,000 each, and now face deportation. But at Patel’s sentencing in the federal courthouse in Newark, N.J., his lawyer said the slim 36-year-old, with a mop of brown hair spilling over his forehead, was more victim than villain. Like many ambitious workers from abroad, he came to the country seeking his fortune, and he suffered for the effort. “It’s a sad day,” said Anthony Thomas, the public defender assigned to represent Patel. “He always dreamed of coming to the U.S.”

Cygate, which changed its name to Sterling System after the lawsuit, is one of thousands of low-profile companies that have come to play a central role in the U.S. tech industry in recent years. These companies, many with just 10 to 50 employees, recruit workers from abroad and, when possible, place them at U.S. corporations to provide tech support, software programming, and other services. While many outfits operate legally and provide high-quality talent, there is growing evidence that others violate U.S. laws and mistreat their recruits. More:

Shahnaz Husain: ‘If it bears my name, it catches on’

Published
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on October 1, 2009
in Business, Fashion and India
. 1 Comment

Shahnaz Husain has single-handedly built a business empire selling Ayurveda products. Elizabeth Flock in Forbes India:

shahnaz_husainYour family is involved in the company and your daughter is the president. Will she take over the company after you are gone?

I’ve had no thought of teaching or planning the takeover. Nelofar is with me all the time, it’s all she’s been doing since she was born. She studied in London with me, and she stays here to hold down the fort when I travel. She was always there – she doesn’t know anything else. She is a very clever child and she has better qualities than me. She is gentle, soft, balanced. She’s into expansion, always saying “Mummy open here, mummy open there”. She is the balancing force. And she developed the popular gold line herself.

What about your grandson, Sharik? He’s made some dynamic changes in the company. How do you feel about those changes?

He does the exports business, he just joined recently, in 2003. I don’t think he will change things. He will just combine my vision with his vision. He has new ideas all the time. He might do the foreign delegation when he gets the time. He doesn’t follow me, because just being near me is his training. We all three don’t move together. I’ve never said no to him, because his ideas are visionary. The company is running in a certain direction, and he won’t change that. But he is a tomorrow child. More:

Cartoon maker goes on the hunt for growth

Published
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on September 3, 2009
in Business and Innovation
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amar-chitra-katha

From Financial Times:

Samir Patil, a former McKinsey associate partner, returned from New York a few years ago to launch India’s first entirely child-focused media group.

Inspired by Walt Disney and Sesame Work Shop, in 2007 Mr Patil bought Amar Chitra Katha, a comics publisher in India, with the aim of broadcasting the cartoon characters on cable television, on the internet, on mobile phones and in cinemas.

“I moved back to India because I saw a massive hole in the domestic market for children’s media,” says Mr Patil, founder and chief executive of ACK Media.

“There are a lot of channels which need a lot of content, and at the moment very little of it is local . . . so there is a growing demand for Indian animation.”

Mr Patil is not alone in identifying the potential for growth in India’s animation industry, which has grown up largely as a low-cost, offshore production hub for multinationals. More:

How India’s sandalwood oil trade got hijacked

Published
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on August 30, 2009
in Business and India
. 0 Comments

Udit Misra in Forbes India:

sandalwoodBut mention “chandan” (as sandalwood is known in Hindi) to Krishna Narain Kapoor, whose family has been engaged in the art of making attar based on sandalwood oil for over a century, and he looks away with a grimace.

“Why do you ask? What good will come of it?” His bitterness is not without reason.
The 65-year-old Kapoor’s ancestor set up the first and biggest modern distilling and perfumery company in Kannauj, Manaulal Ramnarain, in 1880. Over time, the family broke into four separate firms. Kapoor’s firm, Indian Fragrances & Chemicals, produced around 800 kilos of sandalwood oil every month and employed 80 people at its peak.

But now the shutters are down. His is not the only distillery to shut shop. India’s total shipments have plummeted to a paltry 5 tonnes and processors are increasingly buying foreign varieties of sandalwood oil. As for Kannauj’s attar industry, it is all but gone.

So what went wrong? More:

Dial ‘M’ for ‘Mackerel’

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on August 26, 2009
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Can a new mobile phone service in rural India help promote economic empowerment? From Wall Street Journal:

It’s easy to see why the fishermen of the southern Indian state of Kerala captured the attention of a Harvard economist when they began using mobile phones a few years ago to track prices in the markets where they sold their catch of the day. Observing how these devices can be used to promote economic growth, Robert Jensen wrote in a 2007 paper titled, “The Visible Hand(set): Mobile Phones and Market Performance in South Indian Fisheries — The Micro and Mackerel Economics of Information,” that “before mobile phones, deciding which [market] would offer the best price was sheer guesswork.” With mobile phones, however, suddenly it became an information-based decision. What’s more, noted Jensen (who is currently at Brown University in Rhode Island), “it’s not a zero-sum trade-off.” The fishermen’s customers benefitted from lower prices and greater choice, and there was less waste since the fishermen could easily identify the villages that would have the greatest demand for their fish each day.

Now Jensen’s “visible handset” is reaching further into rural India. Following a nationwide launch this summer of Nokia Life Tools (NLT), India’s farmers can use their mobile phones to access tailored information to help them grow, harvest and sell their crops and manage their livestock. “There is no reason why farmers should not be as successful as fishermen,” says Ravi Bapna, associate professor of information systems at the Carlson School of Management in Minnesota and executive director of the Centre for Information Technology and the Networked Economy at Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB).

Consider Ravindra Shinde, a farmer in Magardhokada, a village in the Nagpur district of Maharashtra. When he recently harvested 125 quintal (a quintal is 100 kilograms) of soybeans and was about to take the crop to market, the price was $32 a quintal. But then he received a message on his handset that soybean production in the U.S. and Argentina had fallen, so he held back and later sold his crop for $48 a quintal. More:

Levi’s India to sell blue jeans on instalment plan

Published
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on August 22, 2009
in Business, Economy and India
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From Financial Times:

levisWant a new refrigerator, washing machine or oven? A new car or perhaps an iPhone?

India’s middle-classes have been lapping up such pricey goods for some time due to deals that allow them to pay in monthly instalments.

Now, Levi Strauss & Co has decided to offer the same deal to people wanting to buy a pair of its famous blue jeans.

“Levi’s is an extremely aspirational life-style brand in India,” said Shumone Chatterjee, managing director of Levi Strauss India.

“A large portion of our consumers would love to access Levi’s more frequently than they currently do.” More:

Brotherly shove

Published
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on August 14, 2009
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Joe Leahy in the Financial Times on the dispute between Asia’s richest siblings, the Ambani brothers:

Anil and Mukesh Ambani

Anil and Mukesh Ambani

Murli Deora, India’s oil minister, normally relaxes by playing bridge at the weekend with his wife and friends. But in recent weeks, a rather less genteel contest than that has been intruding on his free time.

Mr Deora was a close confidant of Dhirubhai Ambani, the rags-to-riches entrepreneur who built his Reliance polyester group into a corporate titan but died in 2002 without leaving a will. This sparked a succession war between his sons Anil and Mukesh, now Asia’s richest siblings.

Dropping into Mr Deora’s Mumbai home one weekend in June after his customary jog on the seafront, Anil Ambani complained to “uncle” about how he believed Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries was trying to corner the spoils of the KG Basin, a giant gas field discovered by the group off India’s east coast in 2000, says a person familiar with the matter.

Late last month, frustrated by suspicions that the minister was siding with his brother in the dispute, Anil Ambani went public. He used the podium of the annual meeting of one of his companies, Reliance Natural Resources, to lambast Mukesh’s Reliance Industries and the oil ministry.

The nationally televised onslaught – and the release of an earlier letter to Manmohan Singh, prime minister, that contained the same allegations – sent reverberations through the halls of power in New Delhi and has elevated the long-running Ambani succession war into an issue of national importance. More: