IIPM - MEDIA

Monday, August 09, 2010

The curious case of gourmet food

While many international restaurant brands are already in India, a host of others are lining up to commence operations. But almost every CEO B&E met for this story lamented the over-policing by the government... We take a quantitative stock analysis! by Vareen Gadhoke Ray & Swati Sharma

Gaurav Jain
Director, RTC Restaurants

“Regulations Stifle us”

B&E: Fine dining experience is rapidly catching up, what according to you are the reasons?
GJ: The fine dining experience is becoming extremely popular in India, particularly in the larger cities. The main reasons being the increase in disposable incomes in urban India. Also people have started eating out a lot and are looking for newer/finer options. With an aspirational lifestyle today, Indians are well travelled and are getting exposed to new cuisines and culinary trends.

B&E: What is the core strategy behind fine dining restaurants?
GJ: The experience comprises of great contemporary venues, relaxing music, impeccable service & gourmet food. Restaurants offer these consumers a relaxing experience where they can unwind from their otherwise high pressured stressful lives.

B&E: How are organised players leveraging different SECs?
GJ: Different segments & concepts cater to different needs & markets. Eating out is directly related with affluence. While eating out may very well be a leisure activity amongst the lower SEC today, this is changing fast. People at all levels of society are looking at an experience; a good time; a change when they go out.

B&E: What factors are hampering growth of organised players?
GJ: Outdated regulations and laws governing the restaurant industry, unnecessary bureaucracy, no single window clearances, high taxes on liquor and lack of suitable real estate options.

Vareen Gadhoke Ray & Swati Sharma

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Saturday, August 07, 2010

Others fly aircraft; he sells them!

The largest-selling business jet in the world is sold by him. Still, Nigel Harwood-led InterGlobe General Aviation has had a modest two years in the past. B&E takes a running interview of Nigel to get the dope on flying by Steven Philip Warner

It was not a typical first day at office for Nigel Harwood, the newly-appointed CEO and President of InterGlobe General Aviation (IGGA) – InterGlobe Enterprise’s business aviation arm. This Preston-born expatriate confesses to B&E that he was given the “conference room” as his office and a staff list that had “no other name but his own”, when he took the hot seat in June 2007. His task was clear – use the experience gained at Airbus, Kingfisher and Rolls Royce to the hilt and set a benchmark for business aviation in a country, which had seen many high-rises in the civil aviation space turn to rubble; the stigma – Rs.70 billion lost in 2009, as per CAPA.

But Harwood was hopeful. He sat down with a mug of coffee and a blank sheet and jotted down a list of tasks in the order of priority. “The first point was to find a secretary,” Hardwood jests. It took him and his newly recruited team four months to score their first hunt – a brand new Hawker 900XP, worth $15 million.

Three years hence, what started as an outfit for selling Hawker Beechcraft aircrafts in India, has grown into a full aviation portfolio, with long term agreements with Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Dornier Seapne Company and most recently, Pacific Aerospace. Growth apparently stood a better chance in the industry Hawker aircraft operated in [John Siddharth, Aerospace Analyst at Frost & Sullivan tells B&E, while talking about IGGA’s business model, “Civil & Business Aviation cater to two different segments. However, from an Indian investor’s perspective, Business Aviation is definitely a better bet.”]

In a country, where being in the business of air travel can be difficult, IGGA has managed to miss the bullets. One reason clearly is that IGGA did not enter the industry as a charter operator, but concentrated solely on the business of aircraft sales and service. But that did not take away the issues that still riddled IGGA in their attempts to increase aircraft sales. Harwood says, “It often takes four to five meetings stretched over a good number of weeks at a time to sell one aircraft, you have to travel; you can’t stay away from that and be in the business of selling aircraft.” But the question is, does business aviation hold potential in the Indian airline industry, especially given the fact that there already are behemoths operating charter fleets on an as-is-where-is basis?

At present, there are approximately 230 business aircraft operating in India (a figure that Ascend Database reports is only 113; see chart for details) vis-a-vis 1000-plus in China. Some analysts B&E talked to believe in the huge Indian market of private jet buyers, the count of which is estimated at 100,000 individuals (“Business aviation has very strong growth prospects in India. We have the 4th largest number of business jets on order in the world, and as a percentage of the current fleet, the order book is the largest. Given the strength of economic growth, demand for private charter is expected to grow strongly,” says S.Binit, Regional Director, CAPA to B&E). And some analysts don’t, who tell B&E that such prospective demand stands very less chance to cut into profitability!

Friday, August 06, 2010

Ssssmooch!

Mallika Sherawat is back in Cannes, and this time she has brought a python with her! Hissss is her next film after all, and in order to promote the film Mallika posed and kissed the python before the shutterbugs! Love, Barack is another film she’s starring in and it promises some naughty action, at least as per its poster, which was unveiled at the Festival. Maybe she feels that if her 17 kisses in Khwahish brought her fame in India, a similar trick (with serpents or men) should work in Hollywood too?!

Thursday, August 05, 2010

ONE YEAR AFTER LTTE

One year after the Tigers were silenced, the victorious Mahinda Rajapakse is stronger than ever. But as the Tamil Diaspora nurtures the dream of a Tamil Eelam, N. Asokan finds that only a meaningful political solution can bring permanent peace

Tamils, internally displaced in the war, were placed in internment camps set up by the Sri Lankan government. The camps lacked basic facilities and a vindictive Lankan army made the inhabitants’ lives more miserable. There were reports of women being raped and youngsters tortured. Many died out of starvation. United Nations functionaries, international relief agency workers and foreign journalists were denied entry. And if allowed entry, it was always a guided tour.

After a few months, due to external pressure, many of the people were released from the camps. Still around 80,000 people are living in camps, reports claim.

“Bringing out people still living in the camp, finding rehabilitation measures for the three lakh Tamils affected by the war, treating the 10,000 surrendered LTTE cadres under international war rules, dismantling of army camps set up in Tamil areas and bringing about a credible political solution to the Tamil problem are the various tasks needed to be taken up immediately,” says Chennnai-based Father Jagat Gaspar Raj, a vociferous supporter of Sri Lankan Tamils’ aspirations.

In a symposium on Sri Lanka: What next? conducted by The Sunday Indian, at IIPM, Chennai, recently, Fr Gaspar called for a civil initiative for the rehabilation of Tamils in Lanka. He also advocated a credible autonomy structure that can give land, educational, law and order rights to Tamils in east and north east province. He warned, “Nothing was settled until settled right.”

Col Hariharan, former head of Military Intelligence during the IPKF operations, was of the opinion that India could intervene even today to find a good solution for the Tamils. “‘Srilanka has increased its troop strength to 200,000 which is 1/4th of Indian Army. It’s a strategic threat,” he said. He also stressed that Lankan Tamils should believe in themselves instead of depending on politicians inside and outside the country who have politicised their problem to a level where people’s voices are not heard. He noted that the 40-odd Tamil parliamentarians in Lanka may come up with a proposal for addressing the Tamil aspirations and may press it on with India’s help.

“Visa regulations for Tamils to come to India may be relaxed. Every year, 30,000 seats in private engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu go vacant. They may filled up with Tamil students from there who otherwise go to Singapore and Australia to study,” Col Hariharan suggested.

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
“We will change your outlook” - The Sunday Indian on B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED! A must read...
The Sunday Indian:-
B-SCHOOL RANKING SCAMSTERS EXPOSED!
For Exclusive Footage by Sunday Indian Click Here

Outlook Magazine's B School Ranking Scam Exposed
Business Standard Exposes the Outlook Magazine Money Editor
Don't trust the Indian Media!

IIPM enters into media education
IIPM makes record 10,000 placements in five years
TSI exposes b school ranking scamsters Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Premchand Palety of C fore. - For Complete Sting Operation Video Click Here
Pioneer Exposes the fraud called Mahesh Sharma and Mahesh Peri of Career 360 and Barbel Schwertfeger of mba-channel.com
IIPM: An intriguing story of growth and envy
Prof Arindam Chaudhuri of IIPM on MF HUSAIN‎

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The strange cases of Benjamin Buttons!

While drug makers around the world are lamenting the death of their patent rights on many blockbusters, there is a certain tribe smiling about it – the Indian generic tribe by Steven Philip Warner

A year back, when John Lechleiter took charge as the CEO of the $21.8 billion-a-year earning US pharma giant Eli Lilly, he decided to send his top executives a gift. It was a digital clock, which counted backwards, second by second. The clock was programmed to stop ticking precisely 48,384,000 seconds later. The deadline – October 23, 2011, the day when Eli Lilly’s top-selling (which raked-in $4.9 billion in 2009) schizophrenia pill Zyprexa would go off-patent, setting-off the alarm for generic drug companies to work double-time. This is however, not the only heartache in store for Lechleiter. Besides two more blockbusters losing their exclusivity rights by 2016 (its second-best selling Cymbalta expires 2013 and its third-best Alimta in 2016 – two drugs that make for another $4.8 billion-a-year), two of its most promising compounds failed the final clinical trials last year. Result: Lilly’s stock could not withstand the shock that the company had no new compound ready to hit the global market, while standing to lose close to $10 billion (of its $21.8 billion revenues FY2009) by 2016. It became the worst performer amongst the eleven S&P pharma stocks, and fell by 11% in just the year 2009. This is however just the beginning of the landslide for Eli Lilly, and much remains to be seen. As for the clock, it has started ticking backwards, and it’s the generic challengers that are waiting for the time, to make most of the misery of the once-proud patent holders, Lilly being just an instance.

When shareholders don’t like you, they let you go sans remorse. Much as this sounds a “generic” take on shareholder activism, it is true. Jean-Paul Garnier was voted out despite trying hard for seven-and-a-half years to revive the GlaxoSmithKline stock. Busy ensuring delivery of drugs at cost and selling 90% of its vaccines at not-for-profit prices in developing economies, it lost focus on new drug discovery. During his tenure, the GSK stock had fallen by 41%. He got the boot in May 2008. His successor Andrew Witty hasn’t made amends yet. Since February 2009, the company has enforced price cuts on its patented versions, in more than 50 countries, while winning just one patent (on a vaccine for H1N1 influenza). Witty is dreading the day when the second-highest selling drug in history, the $7.8 billion-a-year earning Advair, expires on April 1, 2011. Pfizer, the biggest pharma giant is no exception. CEO Henry McKinnell was booed-out in June 2006, following a stagnant stock price. His successor Jeff Kindler hasn’t been an exception. Under him, Pfizer’s stock has touched the sub-$18 level for the second time in over a decade and its bottomlines for 2009 have shown a drop of 57% as compared to pre-Kindler days. Worse, despite losing patents on 14 big drugs by 2014 (representing 70% of its annual revenue for 2009), its new launches have simply been shadows. Of the biggest setbacks will be the losses of Lipitor’s patent (the largest-selling drug ever) in 2011, and that of Viagra in 2012 and Celebrex in 2013 – add the losses from these two, and you would have Pfizer’s revenues being reduced by an alarming $13.74 billion (as per Evaluate Pharma, loss of revenues, post-patent expiry, is estimated at 85%). “Pfizer has a number of downward revenue revisions. You have to believe board members are scratching their heads,” says David S. Moskowitz, Analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group Inc. The company has 148 compounds in the early developmental stages, but hopes of producing another blockbuster drug remains a fantasy.