tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1628946962435163342024-03-24T12:39:42.061+05:30Through the looking glass of Technology MarketingPerspectives on the Indian market for technology products, by Sabarinath C NairSabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-15023031483656969042012-08-17T13:46:00.004+05:302012-08-17T13:56:13.256+05:30The next level of Entrepreneurship<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
At many of the start-up get-togethers, I keep hearing of other "entrepreneurs" talking about their ventures along the lines "We are making the xyz of India" where xyz is a popular/successful venture in the US/Europe, and their business model is to simply imitate the business locally.<br />
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The hottest among many "entrepreneurs" is e-commerce. Even for a person watching TV once in a bluemoon, I'm amazed at the new online retailing ads. Yebhi.com, yepme.com, jabong.com, the list is endless. The speed with which these dot coms are mushroming is scarily reminding me of the late 90s when there was a similar dot com hype followed by a bust. I am not sure if the founders an investors have applied their minds in finding out how they can be really profitable selling stuff at discounts <i>without passing on investor money to customers as discounts</i>. True, not having to spend on retail space will help to an extent, but the moment it becomes hugely popular, one needs to invest in large warehouses - the cost of operations will go high.<br />
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In my opinion imitating a business model tried elsewhere is just at the lower level of Entrepreneurship. What we need is the next level where we solve real problems, by using <a href="http://techblog.cacofonix.in/2012/07/innovation-local-or-western.html" target="_blank">solutions invented here</a>. I think every aspiring entrepreneur should read <a href="http://bestengagingcommunities.com/2012/08/14/solve-meaningful-problems-as-a-startup/" target="_blank">this article</a> by Mukund Mohan, where he hits the nails by saying:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My humble request to Indian entrepreneurs is ‘Please dont build any more “I’m bored” apps’.<br />
I am not trivializing the need for “fun” apps.<br />
All I am requesting is that the highest IQ folks should be working on the highest impact problem areas to aid most humankind.</blockquote>
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We need to look beyond the metropolitan cities and find ways to solve real issues that affect India.</div>
Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-19215716937654867572012-08-12T19:25:00.001+05:302012-08-12T19:25:52.716+05:30Google Plus as a content reader<div><p>I've been trying out for the last few days - using Google+ as a content reader tool. With its new magazine layout on android devices, and lots of great circles to choose from, it brings content to me from people who are otherwise not available on other aggregators like Google Currents or Zite or Pulse. </p>
<p>I wonder how many others may have tried this. And if Google is able to get good no-nonsense content to Google+, it may attract no-nonsense users. It may not be able to compete with Facebook in terms of quantity of users, but can carve a good niche market for itself.</p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-28628534053232958182012-08-09T11:41:00.002+05:302012-08-09T11:41:57.113+05:30Apple and the invention debate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Probably the best analogy I have heard - Apple is a great recipe company - they use ingredients already existing to make an awesome dish. The most objective and neutral view that I've come across. Good to see, instead of fanboyism from either side.<div>
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</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-27070159345282373152012-08-04T20:41:00.000+05:302012-08-04T20:41:29.462+05:30Will only cheap products succeed in Indian markets?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In most of our interactions involving marketing products for India, one hears the generalized view that "In India, unless the product is cheap it will not succeed".<br /><br />From my experience in marketing technology devices, the price of any tech device depends on the cost incurred by the customer due to the problem the device is trying to solve, and also the other alternatives available in the market. That the tech device is able to solve the problem is of utmost importance, and not the price.<br /><br />The best example is the Akash tablet. At 2500-3500 rupees you have a really clumsy device which does not solve anyone's problems. Instead, at 6500- 9000 rupees you have various tablets, including the micromax funbook, which address the customer's need to have a handy device with which to browse the internet. One would rather pay a little more and have something which works, rather than save a little and end up with something which is useless.<br /><div>
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Innovation need not be focused on making 'cheap' products, rather the innovation could be in a business model where a moderately priced product is made affordable in a pay per use or some other revenue model. My belief is that in the same way rural India warmed up to the sachet SKUs for urbane products like shampoos, Indian customers may pay premium on smaller affordable units that work.</div>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-516689561923681022012-07-31T13:23:00.000+05:302012-07-31T14:59:56.140+05:30Innovation: Local or Western?<div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In a recent debate, Peter Thiel, well known technology Venture Capitalist, made a comment that India and China need not innovate anything, rather they need to just look at what is successful in the West and copy that. A good write-up on why this approach is wrong is written by <a href="http://yourstory.in/2012/07/peter-thiel-pinched-indians/" target="_blank">YourStory</a><br />
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And today, Hindustan Times has <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/Ideas-man-professor-in-quest-for-India-s-rural-inventions/Article1-904116.aspx" target="_blank">written about Prof Anil Gupta</a>, who had moderated the panel discussion on innovations at <a href="http://techblog.cacofonix.in/2010/03/emtech-india-conference-2010.html" target="_blank">Emtech 2010</a> (in which I was a panelist) and his work on discovering and popularising Indian innovations. The list of some innovations that have made a huge impact on the ground, but are totally indigenous and popularized by Prof Gupta must be an eye opener for Peter Thiel. I think none of these could have been thought of in the West.<br />
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I believe that each region comes with it's own separate challenges. I have seen this happen before - the West looks at solving problems in an entirely different way from the way the East does. This is not to say that one of these methods are better, but only to say that each place has a different set of constraints, and for the best solution to the local problems to emerge, the solutions have to emerge from places where the local constraints are best known. For example, taking the case of <a href="http://vortexindia.co.in/" target="_blank">Vortex ATMs</a>, I think the greatest innovation is not the reduced cost of ATMs, but the fact that due to its lower power consumption, the back-up time is greatly multiplied. The optimized solution for power constraints emerged only because the solution emerged from India, which faces a lot of power problems.<br />
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Similarly, the solutions like the cycle powered washing machine could also only emerge from places where making regular washing machines are a problem - places facing a lot of power cuts.<br />
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Hats off to Prof Gupta for his tireless efforts in spreading these ideas and popularizing them. May the local inventors thrive.<br />
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</div></div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-9003489286228364602012-07-19T17:52:00.001+05:302012-07-19T17:52:28.968+05:30Android on x-86<div><p>I'm thrilled to make this post from Android Ice Cream Sandwich version ported to run on <a href="http://www.android-x86.org/documents/installhowto">x-86 platform</a>. Thus, I now have a really powerful "tablet" running Android. Having used Android version 2.x on phones and tablets regularly before, the 4.0 version looks and feels really cool.</p>
<p>Also interesting to note that there is an app called AIDE which can be used to develop and deploy Android apps directly from an Android device. In my opinion, this was the only stumbling block that prevented tablets from replacing PCs.</p>
<p>Kudos to the team that worked on this project. Amazing work. What's more, they also have a live cd equivalent which can be used to 'preview' it on your device before installing, and then install it on your hard disk on a multi-boot way. So your Windows & Linux installations can peacefully co-exist.</p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-91332342046658486412012-06-14T12:26:00.000+05:302012-06-14T12:26:29.876+05:30Article in CFO Connect - Skill Gap<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The magazine CFO connect in their June issue published an article by me on Skill Gap. You can read the online version <a href="http://www.cfo-connect.com/title_detail.asp?art_id=1078&cat_id=8" target="_blank">here</a>, or download the pdf version from <a href="http://www.cfo-connect.com/images/article/on-the-job-addressing-june12.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-28116851497381054552012-03-29T00:46:00.001+05:302012-03-29T00:46:17.642+05:30Why be scared of hardware?<div><p>Recently I had a software requirement which needed an app to read some values received through Bluebooth. I sent out the requirement to a few people I knew and also some freelance website, but all of them backed out on reading the words related to hardware.</p>
<p>Many of them either backed out completely or grossly over estimated by order of magnitudes the time required to get this done.</p>
<p>As someone who had not touched software development in the last four years I didn't want to do it, but I went through Android documentation to roughly estimate it to be less than three days of effort. Whatever was needed was already encapsulated and abstracted to comfortable levels that one just needed to assemble a few pieces together.</p>
<p>Finally someone known to me got it done in under two days time. I fail to understand why we are so scared of hardware that we don't do basic analysis of simple problems.</p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-39676006535765592272012-03-09T11:30:00.001+05:302012-03-09T11:34:43.375+05:30IPad's price war - how will Indian market respond?<div><p>The Tablet market across the world is set to become very interesting with iPad prices being slashed tremendously. Most Tablet buyers will now actively consider the Apple stable too before making a purchase. </p>
<p>It will be interesting to see whether Apple will now take more interest in the hitherto neglected Indian market, with iPad now becoming affordable to many Indians. </p>
<p>Unless Android device manufacturers now begin to take care of software upgrades post sales, they will be very badly hit. There is too much fragmentation in the operating system versions, and this will be the most important concern to address. </p>
<p>If prices of low end tablets will further come down to keep up with competition, the lower end consumer will also benefit. </p>
<p>Certainly a very interesting stage, will this be the tipping point? If so it will greatly benefit my <a href="http://skillveri.com">latest attempt at entrepreneurship</a></p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-61076518339633333002012-01-21T22:20:00.002+05:302012-01-21T22:20:43.109+05:30Quote: Why Smartphones & tablets are picking up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My friend, <a href="http://in.linkedin.com/pub/suraj-k/9/3a4/129" target="_blank">Suraj</a>, has this to say about the success of smart-phones/tablets:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is not the jazzy UI or touch abilities that drive the success of smart-phones and tablets. The real reason is that now more and more people are addicted to internet & social media, and for accessing that, regular PCs/Desktops are an overkill. Smart-phones and tablets are handy devices offering connectivity to all your on-line activities, and this is the reason behind their success.</blockquote>
Well said.<br />
<br /></div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-78711688071900723072011-10-09T11:50:00.001+05:302011-10-09T12:32:30.829+05:30More on the Indian tablet PC market<div><p>Continuing from my previous post on the <a href="http://technologymarketingindia.blogspot.com/2011/09/indian-tablet-market-looking-up.html">Indian Tablet Market</a>. Two major events occurred which are related to tablet PC industry- Kapil Sibal unveiled Datawind's 'Akash' tablet at sub 2500 rupees, and within a day Steve Jobs, the man who gave a fresh life to tablets, passed away.</p>
<p>Many professionals today mistake Steve as the innovator of tablets - that is not true. Just like iPod was not the first mp3 player, iPad arrived a few years after tablets were first released. All the earlier devices failed miserably, and full credit to Steve to have had the guts to venture into this area, as well as make it a roaring success.</p>
<p>I think even other good tablet makers like samsung owe it to Steve for having revived the market and indirectly enabling their sales too.</p>
<p>Meanwhile I have bought my first tablet- an android 2.3 based iBall Slide - a value for money device with decent features at 14k rupees. The one reason I chose this over slightly lower priced competitors like Reliance Tab, Beetel Magiq, Mercury mTab, etc was the presence of USB Host - the ability to connect USB keyboard, mouse, pendrives, etc - which were otherwise found only in the 30k device range. Hopefully this device will meet all the needs till the products become more mature. The only one irritant in using it is that some websites still work with only Internet Explorer - which is not possible with android or iOS devices, and that's the only area where netbooks score.</p>
<p>Apart from Samsung Galaxy Tab, I think another device worth checking out is Asus Eee Pad, which at 29k priced bundled with keyboard dock and android honeycomb OS is hi end at much lower price than iPad.</p>
<p>Going at this rate, I think over a period of next 3-5 years, computing will move over to tablets entirely.</p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-43183712275797049172011-09-22T17:27:00.001+05:302011-09-22T17:27:13.733+05:30Simplifying ATM user interfaces - blog at Vortex<div><p><a href="http://vortexindia.co.in/index.php/towards-simpler-atm-user-interfaces">Towards simpler ATM user interfaces | Vortex Engineering</a><br>
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</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-33300829289039430372011-09-20T17:48:00.001+05:302011-09-20T17:48:09.136+05:30Financial Inclusion – From Compulsion to Business [post at Vortex Corporate Blog]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My article in the Vortex Corporate Blog on how Financial Inclusion can scale up from being a compulsion to a profitable business - <a href="http://vortexindia.co.in/index.php/financial-inclusion-compulsion-business">http://vortexindia.co.in/index.php/financial-inclusion-compulsion-business</a><br />
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Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-35453543893796902662011-09-12T19:38:00.001+05:302011-09-12T19:38:12.627+05:30Social media is not radio<div><p>Many convential media folks who are used to the 'radio' mode of one way broadcast seem to miss out on the fact that to be successful in social media (especially twitter) one has to remember that this is a two way medium. Unless one engages the audience in two way conversations success will not be sustainable. </p>
<p>A simple metric to analyse this would be what percentage of your tweets are @replies, or the ratio followers to following. If these ratios are heavily skewed then one can be certain about long term unviability - if you don't listen and only talk you are doomed. There are some media folks who don't follow anyone at all! Need I say more? </p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-78504457181080735242011-09-08T07:34:00.002+05:302011-09-08T12:27:08.733+05:30Indian Tablet Market looking up<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Till recently there were only very limited options if one wanted a tablet computer in India - with the exception of OlivePad, the only other options were the highly expensive Apple iPad and the moderately expensive Samsung Galaxy Tab.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">August has been a month of many launches- all of them in the android space. I'm sure all technologists would've by now concluded that the mobile/tablet platforms are now entirely between android and iOS platforms. And looks like the Indian market is behaving differently from the world market - Apple is far from being the market leader here. Reliance 3G tab, Beetel Magiq, Mercury mTab are new options available at sub 13k prices, with the latter two being sub 10k. This certainly would hot up the tablet market like never before.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is also talk of amazon too coming out with a forked version of android based tablet akin to kindle- I'm yet to know the price. I'm also hearing of spice coming out with a tablet. None of these new tablets are available yet in stores for checking out. among the tech specs of OlivePad, mTab and Magiq, I liked mTab most, at par with GalaxyTab spec at a much lower price. I wish there was a chance to try out these devices for a real feel - the tech specs may not always live up to a good user experience. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">Will update the blog once I get to lay my hands on these devices at a store. Do drop in a comment if anyone of you are aware of stores having the newer devices.</div></div></div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-87904604633988380942011-08-02T02:52:00.001+05:302011-08-02T02:55:30.929+05:30Social Networks and the 'cool' factor<div><p>We are now a few weeks into being introduced to yet another social network - this time from my favourite tech company, Google (I'm totally lost without their search or mail servies, and depend quite a lot on google maps).</p>
<p>I have pretty much liked the interface, and do well appreciate the circles concept (simpler to organise compared to lists/group of friends in facebook). The only hitch seems to be that a lot of friends active on facebook are yet to be active on google plus, and also the difficulty of managing multiple social networks. Some people are so used to facebook that they find the interface of plus intimidating. Now, is that a case of people being used to working on windows finding it difficult to work on linux? Is plus a much more geeky network? I don't know the answer.</p>
<p>Looking back, we have had similar transitions in the past- the first social network I ever joined was Hi5 but I hardly used it. I was then using the now almost abandoned Rediff iLand for blogging which also had a networking side to it. Then came along orkut which was such a big hit. I got back in touch with a lot of long lost friends through orkut. The party didn't last very long, and very soon using orkut was considered 'uh-so-2006-ish' and facebookingh was in vogue. The same folks who just added you on orkut without bothering to scrap/message/call now also added you to facebook without really communicating. Maybe increased friend count boosted their ego.</p>
<p>For some reason Google+ has not yet found that coolness factor. I wish they do something about it before it goes the google wave way.</p>
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-76364905762091865472011-01-26T00:53:00.000+05:302011-01-26T00:53:30.672+05:30Social Media for Marketers – Looking Beyond the Hype [blog at PaulWriter]<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">My take on the hype surrounding Social Media for B2B marketing at Jessie Paul's B2B Marketing <a href="http://paulwriter.com/blogs/item/245-social-media-for-marketers-%E2%80%93-looking-beyond-the-hype">blog</a></div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-47130298283734848632010-04-15T21:42:00.002+05:302010-04-15T21:48:06.312+05:30Software Review - Snaptu<div style="text-align: justify;">I came across <a href="http://www.snaptu.com/">Snaptu</a> while desperately searching for a mobile program I could use on my Nokia phone to access <a href="http://www.twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Most programs I found were meant for the higher end phones, and the ones which could work on the entry level GPRS phones were very clumsy (jitter, tiny twitter) and gave you a feeling of browsing the internet using the old text based browser called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_(web_browser)">lynx</a>, whereas what I had in my mind was an equivalent of <a href="http://www.google.com/mobile/mail/">Gmail for Mobile</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though I was searching for a twitter specific tool, Snaptu turned out to be much more than just twitter. It is a one point solution for almost all your social networking needs - Twitter, Facebook, News & Blogs, Orkut, LinkedIn, Picassa, flickr, etc. What's more, once you have integrated your twitter/facebook accounts, any news item or blog you read can be directly posted to your twitter/fb accounts, with a built in URL shortener. In the news & blogs section you can add most of the news websites, enabling me to read news in a very mobile friendly format.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the twitter module, the features I found attractive are 'Reply to All', 'View Conversation', and the ability to access the links found in tweets in a mobile friendly presentation. In addition, all the things you do on twitter web can also be done here - follow/unfollow, add to list, etc.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other modules are configurable, similar to adding gadgets in Google Desktop or the Windows Vista sidebar. There is only one more feature I wish existed in Snaptu - a direct integration with blogger. Currently I am still to figure out an effective way to blog from mobile.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In short, I am thankful to snaptu for two things - for postponing my decision to purchase a higher end phone (can now patiently wait for the 3G auction mess to be sorted out), and for making my life less boring during most of my boring train journeys (which are increasingly getting alarmingly frequent)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pros:<br />
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Most Social Media already integrated, or links provided for<br />
Good & intuitive user interface<br />
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Cons:<br />
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No offline mode<br />
No integration with blogger or any direct option to blog<br />
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</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-38100607804095593592010-04-02T08:28:00.000+05:302010-04-02T08:28:43.689+05:30Delhi Metro - Best Implementation of ITDelhi Metro has one of the most practical implementation I have ever seen (I have a feeling that most IT projects are about hoodwinking the client, solving problems created by another IT solution). I am talking about the RFID based prepaid ticket cards. In most other metros I have seen, even if one has a prepaid card, one has to still go to a ticket vending machine or stand in a separate queue to purchase tickets for a particular journey.<br />
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The Delhi Metro card eliminates all that - just flash your card at the entry gate, and then flash it again at the exit gate of your destination - it gives you a 10% discount on the fare, as well as displays the balance available on the card. The beauty is that there is not minimum validity required while purchasing it, like, say, one month. Even if you are in Delhi for a day, you can get a card for Rs 100 (Rs 50 security deposit), use it, and then return it to get the <i>full</i> balance, including security deposit, even if you surrender it on the same day.Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-37803292959431081712010-03-14T23:22:00.000+05:302010-03-14T23:22:19.823+05:30Emtech India Conference 2010<div style="text-align: justify;">I was a speaker at <a href="http://emtechindia.in/">Emtech India Conference</a> 2010, speaking about "Cash boxes for Rural India" as part of the Social Innovations session. The panel discussion was chaired by Prof Anil K Gupta of IIM Ahmedabad. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Unfortunately I had to miss out on most of the discussions, needing to be back in Chennai very soon. Of the discussions that I could be part of, the talk by Dr Raskar (of MIT Labs) was very interesting, with the technologies that he demonstrated looking like straight out of a sci-fi movie. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There was also a young asst. professor from IIT-B - Shashikanth Suryanarayanan fro Dept of Mechanical Engineering, giving a talk about decoupling decision making and actuation. He has a case study about an advanced 'power steering' also capable of independently steering the front wheels (like / \ or \ /). This talk was interesting from two angles - the innovative technology part, and more importantly, the feel good factor about having bright young talents as profs at IITs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other technology innovator I was impressed with was Kranthi Kiran Vistakula (founder of Dhama Apparel Innovations), who has made a light weight (600 g) 'air conditioned jacket' which uses hydrogen bonding (I couldnt understand how), powered by small batteries. The nearest competitor product weighs a few kilograms.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was good to meet these innovators first hand. Suddenly it dawned on me that technology innovation in India is not merely about software alone and that these are capable of having a greater impact on Indian life than its software growth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The talk given by me at Emtech (on 8th March) as well as launch of India's largest solar powered ATM roll-out by my company Vortex has been covered in <a href="http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_the-nano-of-atms-for-rural-masses-comes-to-town_1358865">DNA</a> on its 14th March Bangalore edition.</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-27946018915511209832010-02-08T21:06:00.000+05:302010-02-08T21:06:23.347+05:30Company Idea - Premium Servicing for LaptopsThis post is the result of extreme frustration with the laptop service offered by most brands in India. The key aspect that all these 'great' companies fail to understand is that laptop owners have bought laptops because they need their data/software to move with them while they are on the move, so it is pointless to take away the laptop from them for a few <b>days</b> even for a minor repair.<br />
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Based on the above premise, I am putting forth a new company idea - a premium laptop service company, which will have tie ups with all major brands in India. Anyone requiring any level of repair for their laptops can come to this company, provide their laptop fault list and other details, and (here comes the most important bit) <b><i>take with them a fully working laptop with similar configuration and the same data/software</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"> as their faulty laptops. When their faulty laptops are returned after repair, the data newly acquired while working on the spare laptop will be synced back to their own laptops. Of course, all this comes at a premium in addition to the warranty cost. Other services offered will be laptop pickup/return at specified address.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">So much for the wishlist part. Now on to the operational part. To start with a customer base of 500 premium registered customers, this company would need at least 50 laptops. This 50 would need to have a decent split up with about 10 top end laptops, 30 medium level laptops, and 10 low end/netbook variety laptops. Capex would be about 40 Lakh rupees for the laptops alone. Additional capex would be incurred in office space, website, marketing etc. Opex would involve salaries payable to about 10 courier execs (for picking up/delivering laptops) and 5 technicians (who would do minor repairs and software/data transfers/backups). The same courier execs would in turn approach the branded laptop company's (2nd party) customer support in case of serious problems.</span></b><br />
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</span></b><br />
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">What are your thoughts on the available market for such a company, and its sustainability/growth? The target segment is senior company execs who wouldn't mind paying extra for laptop service as long as they remain connected to their data/software at all times.</span></b>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-15772375611545782602010-01-18T10:39:00.008+05:302010-01-20T17:40:22.203+05:30Evam's Five Point Someone and 3 Idiots<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This doesn't exactly fall under technology marketing, but I'm posting this here as there is some connection with marketing as a whole. Yesterday I </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://sabarinathc.blogspot.com/2010/01/evams-urban-turban.html">watched</a></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"> <a href="http://evam.co.in/">Evam's</a></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"> </span>play </span><i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Urban Turban</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> at Chennai Museum theatre with </span><span style="line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://asduirtayja.blogspot.com/">Suraj</a> </span>and </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;"><a href="http://rejithanair.blogspot.com/">Rejitha</a></span></span><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, where co-founder and artist Karthik Kumar mentioned that their most famous play Five Point Someone (adapted from Chetan Bhagat's book with the same title) will be on an all India tour, performing 60 times in a span of 75 days, and </span><i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">will be taking 3 idiots the movie head on</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. Majority of the audience will be seeing a play for the first time</span><i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">[emphasis mine].</span></span></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The bit that is most interesting is this - taking 3 idiots head on, because I feel that arrogant jargon apart, he is going to </span><i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">cash in on the interest generated by 3 idiots</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. The original book is now close to 5 years old, and the play is around 2-3 years old and has had a successful run in cities like Chennai and Bangalore. By a re-run of the 2-3 year old play in new cities, and banking on those youngsters who have read the book, there is a market for about 15-20 more shows, not 60. The nationwide tour with 60 performances is having a good chance of success because of the renewed interest generated by 3 idiots the movie. Considering the excellent run the movie is having at the box office, even if Evam is able to create curiosity in 2% of the movie audience, the play will run packed shows. As Karthik rightly mentioned, the target audience is mainly first time theatre goers and the not-so-serious theatre goers like me and Rejitha who watch like, say, 2 or 3 plays per year at the most. Notwithstanding the public stances taken by Evam, Chetan Bhagat and the producers of 3-idiots, all of them are benefiting from each other - I am sure many (including <a href="http://twitter.com/ShashiTharoor">Shashi Tharoor</a></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">) have been inspired to read the book after watching the movie. Public posturing is more aimed at creating controversies to create even more interest and getting increased media coverage.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Update: Suraj has a different take on the issue which can be read <a href="http://asduirtayja.blogspot.com/2010/01/evams-big-plans-and-my-conspiracy.html">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Update 2 [20 Jan 2010]: The new tour by Evam is not the same show that I have watched earlier. I'd watched the show by Madras Players directed by Nikhila Kesavan where Evam was the logistics partner. The new tour is an entirely new play, with a different script, director, cast, etc etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Update 3[20 Jan 2010]: Thought I'd share an almost 4 year old blog post from my earlier blog where I'd <a href="http://blogs.rediff.com/sabarinath/2006/02/21/nine-point-some-book/">reviewed</a> Five Point Someone the book (shameless self promotion). Disclaimer - old review when I was 4 years younger. I might have viewed the book differently if I were to have read the book now</span><br />
</div>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-2997839386855744102009-12-20T21:17:00.001+05:302010-01-11T23:46:03.949+05:30On winning Srijan 2009 Technology award for Vortex"If you are a technologist and if you wish to be taken seriously, you must wear jeans and t-shirts to such events", said a friend at the venue, pointing to the dress worn by a very young CTO of one of the companies competing for the same category award. And there I was, dressed formally to the teeth - tie, suit and all, and feeling nervous as this was the first time I was handling anything like this in an official sense. Every other contesting company had sent in their CXOs or Directors - would they take Vortex lightly for having sent in someone "junior"?<br />
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My conscience told me that the jury would not have any such prejudices, which I realized to be true once I started making my presentation. Twenty minutes for the presentation , ten minutes for Q & A, I was told. I took the extempore route, and blurred the lines between Q & A and the presentation.<br />
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Questions were mainly on scalability, growth potential, impact of other competing/complimentary ICT, etc. Based on Gramateller's lower initial investment requirements and lower running costs the jury could be convinced that our ATMs were the best bet to address the need of 1 million ATMs (1 ATM per 1000 people) - whereas the current penetration is less than 5% of the need at 45,000 ATMs.<br />
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The presentation I had prepared had patriotic overtures playing up the fully indigenous aspect of Gramateller, about we Indians believing in ourselves and having the guts to take on a market dominated by two huge MNCs - turned out to be interesting to make to a jury having 2 out of 3 members from outside India!<br />
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The 24 hour wait for the results was the toughest part. As the main event drew to a close, I felt increasingly like a schoolboy awaiting exam results. From the moment we knew we won, I was in a daze - walking up to the dias and receiving the award from Vijay Mahajan - all went by as a blur. "We are buying two of your ATMs, that's my award to you", quipped Vijay Mahajan.<br />
<br />
Then I spoke two lines - a poor semblence of an "acceptance speech" - my first one in my life, coming at the most unexpected time!<br />
<br />
(details of the award at <a href="http://vortexindia.co.in/blog/index.php/2009/12/vortex-wins-srijan-2009-technology-innovation-awards/">http://vortexindia.co.in/blog/index.php/2009/12/vortex-wins-srijan-2009-technology-innovation-awards/</a> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre;"><a href="http://websiteclient.com/clients/srijan2009/winners.php">http://websiteclient.com/clients/srijan2009/winners.php</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; white-space: normal;">)</span></span>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-51081860138392572302009-10-31T22:45:00.001+05:302009-10-31T23:04:57.301+05:30A full circleDuring my stint as a software engineer, I'd always believed that I'm a software engineer by accident. I'd never wanted to be in software and had always wanted to be in the hardware side of computers.<br />
<br />
More than 5 years ago when I started working, the software company I'd worked for was developing the whole software for a machine which was similar in functionality to an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Then I'd enquired with a senior there, if we Indians could build the software, then why not venture into the hardware as well. I was told that this was not possible, that we Indians could not get our hands dirty by taking risks in products, and that we'd rather earn our bread and butter through software services.<br />
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A few months ago when I joined Vortex, my work has come a full cycle. Vortex, an Indian company that grew out of IIT Madras, makes ATMs it designed from scratch. Inside the machines one can see a symphony of different branches of engineering - the mechanical Cash Dispenser Modules which dishes out notes from a stack, the electronics with all the sensors ensuring that no two notes are counted as one, the embedded software which makes it all meaningful for the ATM users to see and withdraw money.<br />
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An Indian company is making its bread and butter by making <i>products</i> designed indigenously for the Indian market. I have indeed come a full circle professionally.Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-162894696243516334.post-45947536411110434912009-03-25T21:59:00.001+05:302009-03-25T22:02:56.471+05:30Top Ten Ways for Website Promotion<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Success of any business model which relies heavily on online transactions, or that have a target audience in the age group 12-35, depends heavily on how popular its website is. Good examples in this case would be naukri.com and Sathyam Cinemas (Chennai). Both target the neo-rich and the IT employed youth, and their websites automatically come to people’s minds whenever a job search or online movie ticket booking comes to one’s mind. To put in other words, both these businesses would have failed miserably had their websites not become as popular as they are now.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Therefore, if you want to promote any business to today’s youth, the best and most efficient option available to you would be to create a website, and make it as popular as possible. At the same time, you need to ensure that your website is known for all the right reasons. There are many ways of doing it, goods ways and bad ways. In this article, we discuss the top ten </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">right</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> ways of promoting your website.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Search Engine Optimization</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: If you run a furniture shop in Chennai, you must show up in the first page if your prospective customers search Google or Yahoo with “furniture shops in Chennai”. Here again, there are many ways of doing it, about which you can read in </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">another article</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. To put it briefly, this depends a lot on where all links to your website appear and in what context, and how relevant are the keywords you use for your website compared to the content in your website. The advantage here is that apart from the initial investment, there is very little maintenance costs, and this would ensure a steady traffic to your website if done properly</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Pay-Per-Click Advertising</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: The easiest way of implementing this is to use </span></span><a href="http://adwords.google.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Google Ad-words</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. This ensures that your banner ads are shown in other websites based on the appearance of your keywords in those website’s content. The rates you pay would be a function of the keywords you would want to use your ads on, and the number of clicks you get from those ads. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Blogs:</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Write a general blog, with subtle references to your site in such a way that it doesn’t look like an advertisement by itself. Blogs have a higher chance of showing up in search engine results, and having a relevant blog helps you in Search Engine Optimization as well.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Forums</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Be a regular contributor to forums discussing matters related to your business, make valid points (unbiased), but put your website address as part of your signature.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Social Bookmarking</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Signup in social bookmarking sites, and add your own website address with the right keywords, and share your links with your network</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Social Networking</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Make most out of the opportunities given by social networking websites such as Facebook, Orkut, Myspace, etc. These websites not only help you to build a network but also a golden chance to promote your website. You can make widgets and applications for your website on these social networking avenues, as well as manage a group/community/fan club of your website through these.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Directories</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Submit your website for listing in online directories, under appropriate categories. This would also help indirectly in getting better results on search engines.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Press Releases</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: Making press releases about your latest product/service offerings would not just get you attention from conventional media, but through news websites they help in attracting a significant level of traffic.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Word of mouth</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: If you live up to your ads in terms of quality of service, mere word of mouth would get you more results than costly advertising. For this to be easier, keep your domain name simple and catchy.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Email Marketing / Email Newsletter</span></span></span></b><span style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">: This is one of the ways of keeping in touch with your prospects, though there is a risk of being considered as a spammer by the very same people. If done though opt-ins, these can generate a conversion rate of 3-5%.</span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>Sabarinath Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01897793762591464990noreply@blogger.com0